The inheritance of Russian Marxism

pp. 129-145

in: M. C. Howard, J. E. King, A history of Marxian economics I, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

From the outset of its theoretical development Germanic Marxism was joined by a second stream which originated further east, in Russia. However, Marx's legacy to Russian Marxists was by no means the same as that to the German socialists. Although the works to which they had access were essentially the same,¹ the contents were more ambiguous in the Russian context because of the underdevelopment of Russian capitalism and the character of tsarist absolutism. Furthermore, Marx expressed specific views on Russia which were often not well-founded and, moreover, had little relation to his overall theory of historical development. For these reasons it is desirable to outline the inheritance of Russian Marxism in some depth. In addition, since Russian Marxism proved far more sensitive to its domestic environment, greater attention needs to be given to the nature of the Tsarist empire.