The `State Capitalist' and `Bureaucratic-Exploitative' Interpretations of the Soviet Social Formation: A Critique

Abstract

Marxist categories — especially those of "capital" and "class" — are employed in a critical examination of two propositions: that capitalist pro duction relations, in a "state-capitalist" form, exist currently in the USSR: and that a novel "bureaucratic-exploitative" mode of production has developed in that country. Both views are found to be inadequate in face of theoretical re quirements and a survey of the relevant empirical data which appear to be consis tent with a socialist determination of the Soviet social formation. The implica tions of the "state-capitalist" and "bureaucratic-exploitative" interpretations for their proponents' grasp of capitalist realities are discussed.