In message Thu, 12 Oct 1995 14:37:46 -0700,
Louis N Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Thu, 12 Oct 1995, Michael A. Lebowitz wrote:
>
>
>>
>> I don't have any problem with your description of "planning" or,
>> more accurately, commandism under Stalin. However, I do recall that in
>> Lewin's etrlier book, "Soviet Power and Russian Peasants", he argued
>> that the middle peasants (serednyak), who were far from rich, produced
>> 80% of the grain crop. Also, it has been argued (Nove?) that one of
>> the problems was that peasants were responding rationally to the
>> movement of relative prices-- ie., increased prices of flax, eggs,
>> bacon, etc relative to grain prices
>
> Louis:
> I had an extended debate with Jim Lawler, a professor at the University
> of Buffalo, on the NEP over on the Marxism list. He thought that the NEP
> should have been a permanent feature of Russian socialism. He echoed much
> of what Bukharin argued at the time, and what Stephen Cohen argues
> today. I identified with the positions of the Left Opposition at the
> time.
> I have discovered that enthusiasm for the NEP goes hand in hand with
> pro-Mondragon and market socialism notions among academic socialists. It
> flows from a deep disillusionment with the "Soviet experiment".
>
> Rather than trying to answer any of Mike's specific questions, I will
> simply present my NEP article (I apologize for the length).
....
All of the above was pretty irrelevant to the questions I was asking, but
Louis did provide an answer at the end of his NEP account, which was the
sources he was relying upon:
> Sources Cited:
>
> E.H. Carr, "Socialism in One Country"
> S. Cohen, "Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution"
> I. Deutscher, "The Prophet Outcast"
> E.A. Preobrazhensky, "The Crisis of Soviet Industrialization"
>
Given the amount of research done since, eg, Carr and Deutscher wrote, I
would judge that at this point these are just not the last word on these
questions. I cited Lewin's book because Louis seemed to regard him as an
acceptable authority, but I am sure that there is additional work out there
that could answer some of the questions I raised (which I reproduce below).
Eg., maybe Barkley knows if any of the old work by the Agricultural
Institute (where Chayanov and Kondratieff, among others, hung out until
getting hit in one of the earliest purges) has become available in the
x-ussr.
The questions I asked which Louis did not address included the following:
I know the argument that the kulaks brought on the
assault with their grain strike, but do you have any evidence to support
this and, if it happened, how significant (quantitatively) it was? When you
talk about rich peasants, what do you mean by that? Lewin's description
makes it appear that many of those called kulaks were hardly what could
reasonably be considered rich. (Indeed, in one of Bukharin's "get rich"
speeches, he argued that peasants were afraid to put a tin roof on their
homes for fear of being called kulaks.) Preobrazhensky, in advancing the
Left Opposition economic strategy, was of the view that the peasants could
pay, but do you know of any evidence to support that critical judgement?
cheers,
mike
---------------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Economics Department, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office: (604) 291-4669; Office fax: (604) 291-5944
Home: (604) 255-0382
Lasqueti Island (current location): (604) 333-8810
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
