Abstract
It has often been remarked by Western Marxists that ‘the classic writings of Marxism-Leninism’ provide only a sketchy explanation of the functioning of the state in capitalist society. As Ralph Miliband comments, the absence of systematic political theorisation on the part of Marx, Engels and their most prominent successors means in effect that a Marxist politics ‘has to be constructed or reconstructed from the mass of variegated and fragmented material which forms the corpus of Marxism’.1 Such a situation favours the flourishing of a variety of radically differing conceptions of politics, all of which might be described by their authors as Marxist. The fact that such a flourishing did not come about until fifty years after the October Revolution2 is to be explained largely by the peculiar conditions of intellectual life inside the USSR, and by extension inside the world Communist movement. Throughout a long period of increasing theoretical sterility, the official doctrine of ‘State Monopoly Capitalism’ was enforced to the exclusion of all other approaches. When the spell was finally broken, it was in reaction to this doctrine that Western theorists developed their own conceptions. Soviet authors were not, of course, and still are not in a position to abjure State Monopoly Capitalism, or even to offer explicit modifications of it.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
R. Miliband, Marxism and Politics (Oxford University Press, 1977) p. 2.
D. Fernbach, ‘Introduction’, in K. Marx, Surveys from Exile (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) pp. 9–18;
L. Colletti, ‘Introduction’, in K. Marx, Early Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975) pp. 45–6;
N. Poulantzas, ‘The Problem of the Capitalist State’, in R. Blackburn (ed.), Ideology in Social Science (London: Fontana—Collins, 1972) pp. 238–40;
L. Althusser, ‘The Crisis of Marxism’, Marxism Today, 1978, July, p. 219.
D. A. Gold, C. Y. H. Lo and E. O. Wright, ‘Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State’, Monthly Review, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 29–43;
D. A. Gold, C. Y. H. Lo and E. O. Wright, ‘Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of the Capitalist State’, Monthly Review, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 36–51.
B. Jessop, The Capitalist State (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1982) pp. 33–43;
M. Haynes, Bukharin’s Analysis of State Capitalism, paper delivered to the Conference of Socialist Economists, July 1979, pp. 6–9.
V. I. Lenin, ‘The State and Revolution’, in V. I. Lenin, Selected Works (London: Lawrence Wishart, 1969) p. 282.
N. Harding, Lenin’s Political Thought, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1981);
R. Hilferding, Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development (London: Routledge – Kegan Paul, 1981);
N. Bukharin, Imperialism and the World Economy (New York: M. Lawrence, 1929).
F. Claudin, The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975) p. 58;
N. Poulantzas, State: Power: Socialism (London: New Left Books, 1978) p. 61;
I. V. Stalin, Ekonomicheskie problemy sotsializma v SSSR (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1952) p. 43;
E. S. Varga, Osnovnye voprosy ekonomiki i politiki imperializma, 1st edn (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1953) p. 66.
P. N. Fedoseev et al. (eds), Osnovy nauchnogo kommunizma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1967) p. 143.
Cf. N. I. Azarov, V. I. Lenin o politike kak obshchestvennom yavlenii (Moscow: Vysshaya shkola, 1975) passim
R. B. Day, The ‘Crisis’ and the Crash’—Soviet Studies of the West (1917–1939) (London: New Left Books, 1981).
M. Ryndina and G. Chernikov (eds), The Political Economy of Capitalism (Moscow: Progress, 1974) p. 191;
M. Ryndina and G. Chernikov (eds), Programma Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza (Moscow: Politizdat, 1972) pp. 471–5;
N. Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1975) pp. 158–9;
E. Mandel, Late Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1975) pp. 516–7.
E. Altvater, ‘Some Problems of State Interventionism’, in J. Holloway and S. Picciotto (eds), State and Capital—A Marxist Debate (London: Edward Arnold, 1978) pp. 40–2.
B. Jessop, ‘Capitalism and Democracy: the Best Possible Political Shell’, in G. Littlejohn, B. Smart, J. Wakeford and N. Yuval-Davies (eds), Power and the State (London: Croom Helm, 1978) pp. 10–51.
Cf. K. Marko’s distinction between ‘popular ideology’, ‘cadre ideology’ and ‘academic ideology’ in his ‘Soviet Ideology and Sovietology’, Soviet Studies, vol. 19 (1968) p. 477.
F. Barghoorn, The Soviet Image of the United States. A Study in Distortion (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950) p. 28.
F. Griffiths, Images, Politics and Learning in Soviet Behavior towards the United States (Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1972) pp. 31–9;
E. S. Varga, Izmeneniya v ekonomike kapitalizma v itoge Vtoroi mirovoi voiny (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1946) p. 38;
E. Varga, Osnovnye voprosy ekonomiki i politiki imperializma, 2nd edn (Moscow: Politizdat, 1957) p. 73;
R. A. Nordahl, ‘Stalinist Ideology: the Case of the Stalinist Interpretation of Monopoly Capitalist Politics’, Soviet Studies, vol. 26 (1974) pp. 239–59;
F. Barghoorn, ‘The Varga Discussion and its Significance’, The American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 6 (1948) pp. 214–36;
R. M. Mills, ‘One Theory in Search of Reality: the Development of United States Studies in the Soviet Union’, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 87 (1972) pp. 63–79.
E. S. Varga, Ocherki po probleman politicheskoi ekonomii kapitalizma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1964) pp. 51, 55;
S. A. Dalin, Voenno-gosudarstvennyi monopolisticheskii kapitalizm (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1961) p. 328;
I. M. Lemin ‘Istochniki i dvizhushchie sily vneshnei politiki SShA’, in I. M. Lemin (ed.), Dvizhushchie silt’ vneshnei politiki SShA (Moscow: Nauka, 1965) pp. 21–2.
G. A. Arbatov, The War of Ideas in Contemporary International Relations (Moscow: Progress, 1973) pp. 238–9.
I. D. Levin and V. A. Tumanov (eds), Politicheskii mekhanism diktatury monopolii (Moscow: Nauka, 1974) p. 15.
Cf. F. M. Burlatsky, Lenin, gosudarstvo, politika (Moscow: Nauka, 1970) pp. 266–8;
V. E. Guliev, Sovremennoe imperialisticheskoe gosudarstvo. Voprosy teorii (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1973) p. 76.
V. A. Tumanov, Vozrastanie roli burzhuaznogo gosudarstva i burzhuaznaya ideologiya’, in V. A. Tumanov (ed.), Sovremennye burzhuaznye ucheniya o kapitalisticheskom gosudarstve (Moscow: Nauka, 1967) p. 54.
M. Schwartz, Soviet Perceptions of the United States (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, 1978) p. 40).
F. M. Burlatsky and A. A. Galkin, Sotsiologiya Politika. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1974) pp. 123–55;
I. I. Kuz’minov, O gosudarstvenno-monopolisticheskom kapitalizme (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1949);
V. I. Khlepikov et al. (eds), O gosudarstvenno-monopolisticheskom kapitalizme (Moscow: Vysshaya Partiinaya Shkola i AON pri TsK KPSS, 1963).
S.B. Chetverikov, Kto i kak delaet politiku SShA? (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1974) pp. 11–12;
N. N. Inozemtsev, Contemporary Capitalism: New Developments and Contradictions (Moscow: Progress, 1974) p. 82.
S. P. Peregudov and K. G. Kholodkovsky, ‘Uslozhnenie mekhanizma svyazi butzhuaznogo gosudarstva s gospodstvuyushchim klassom’, in S. P. Peregudov and K. G. Kholodkovsky (eds), Novye yavleniya v mekhanizme politicheskogo gospodstva monopolii, pt 1 (Moscow: IMEMO, 1975) pp. 6–10.
A. M. Rose, The Power Structure: Political Process in American Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967) p. 1, note.
G. W. Domhoff, The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1970) pp. 309–55;
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960);
T. R. Dye, Who’s Running America? The Carter Years (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1979);
I. Katznelson and M. Kesselman, The Politics of Power: A Critical Introduction to American Government (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975).
C. Offe, ‘Political Authority and Class Structures—Analysis of Late Capitalist Societies’, International Journal of Sociology vol. 1, no. 1 (1972) pp. 73–105;
F. Block, ‘The Ruling Class Does Not Rule’, in R. Quinney (ed.), Capitalist Society: Readings for a Critical Sociology (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1979) pp. 128–40.
J. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1973) p. 67.
A. Szymanski, The Capitalist State and the Politics of Class (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1978) p. 272.
T. Skocpol, ‘Political Response to Capitalist Crisis: Neo-Marxist Theories of the State and the Case of the New Deal’, Politics and Society, vol. 10, no. 2 (1980) pp. 155–203;
cf J. Westergaard and H. Resler, Class in a Capitalist Society: A Study of Contemporary Britain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976) p. 246.
R. Nordahl, The Soviet Model of Monopoly Capitalist Politics (Doctoral dissertation, Princeton University, 1972) p. 229;
V. Zorin, Monopolii i politika SShA (Moscow: Institut mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii, 1960);
G. G. Boichenko, Politicheskaya organisatsiya SShA. Obshchestvennye instituty i ikh vzaimodeistvie s gosudarstvom (Minsk: Belorusskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1970) p. 192.
L. H. Shoup, The Carter Presidency, and Beyond-Power and Politics in the 1980s (Palo Alto, Calif.: Ramparts Press, 1980) pp. 40–1;
N. A. Sakharov, Predprinimatel’skie assosiatsii v politicheskoi zhizni SShA (Moscow: Nauka, 1980);
L. H. Shoup and W. Minter, Imperial Brains Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977) p. 229.
G. W. Domhoff, ‘Who Made American Foreign Policy 1945–1963?’, in D. Horowitz (ed.), Corporations and the Cold War (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969) p. 35.
E. A. Zhurikhin, Filantropicheskie’ fondy v sisteme vlasti monopolii (Moscow: Nauka, 1978).
A. A. Kokoshin, SSM: za fasadom global’noi politiki (Moscow: Politizdat, 1981) p. 256.
I. L. Sheidina, SSM: fabriki mysli’ na sluzhbe strategic (Moscow: Nauka, 1973).
G. A. Trofimenko, SShA: politika, voina, ideologiya (Moscow: Mysl’, 1976).
V. S. Zorin, Dollary i politika Vashingtona (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1964).
V. S. Zorin, Nekoronovannye koroli Ameriki (Moscow: Politizdat, 1967).
N. Sivachev and E. Yazkov, History of the USA since World War I (Moscow: Progress, 1976) p. 281.
V. Borisyuk, ‘Usilenie politicheskoi aktivnosti amerikanskogo biznesa’, in Peregudov and Kholodkovsky (eds), Novye yavleniya v mekhanizme politicheskogo gospodstva monopolii pt 1, pp. 59–62.
E. M. Epstein, The Corporation in American Politics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1969);
R. J. Barber, The American Corporation: Its Power, Its Money, Its Politics (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1970).
N. G. Zyablyuk, SShA: lobbizm i politika (Moscow: Mysl’, 1976) p. 81.
L. W. Milbrath, The Washington Lobbyists (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963);
L. A. Dexter, How Organisations are Represented in Washington (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969);
A. Holtzman, Legislative Liaison: Executive Leadership in Congress (New York: Rand McNally, 1970);
K. Schriftgiesser, The Lobbyists: The Art and Business of Influencing Lawmakers (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1951).
S. B. Chetverikov, Kto i kak delaet politiku SShA? (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1974) pp. 17–18.
D. Cater, Power in Washington (New York: Vintage Books, 1964);
S. B. Marinin, SShA: politika i upravlenie (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1967).
Yu. A. Shvedkov (ed.), SShA: vneshnepoliticheskii mekhanizm (Moscow: Nauka, 1972).
D. E. Powell and P. Shoup, ‘The Emergence of Political Science in Communist Countries’, American Political Science Review, vol. 59 (1970) p. 580;
R. Theen, ‘Political Science in the USSR: “To be or not to be?”’, World Politics, vol. 23 (1971) pp. 684–703;
R. Theen, ‘Political Science in the USSR’, Problems of Communism, vol. 21 (1972) pp. 64–70.
F. M. Burlatsky, The Modern State and Politics (Moscow: Progress, 1978) p. 10.
Copyright information
© 1984 Neil Malcolm
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Malcolm, N. (1984). The Monopolies and the State. In: Soviet Political Scientists and American Politics. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17434-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17434-8_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-17436-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17434-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)