Class Struggles in the USSR, Third Period: 1930 1941, The Dominated

by Charles Bettelheim, John N. Westwood (Translator)

French

Genres: History, Nonfiction

301 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Economist and historian, founder of the Center for the Study of Modes of Industrialization (CEMI : Centre pour l'Étude des Modes d'Industrialisation) at the Sorbonne), economic advisor to the governments of several developing countries during the period of decolonization. He was very influential in France's New Left, and considered one of "the most visible Marxists in the capitalist world" (Le Monde, April 4, 1972), in France as well as in Spain, Italy, Latin America, and India.

Reviews

[Julio Pino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Bettleheim did not live to complete his monumental CLASS STRUGGLES IN THE USSR opus, thus we are left with this third and last gift, a study of Stalinist industrialization and working-class regimentation in the Soviet Union from the fall of Trotsky and the Left Opposition to the eve of the German invasion. Trade unions had become transmission belts for instruction from the management, now called the Soviet government, social classes were officially abolished by the Constitution of 1936, industry was concentrated on gigantic or Pharaoic projects such as hydroelectric dams and "Steel Cities", and Communist Party life turned into an oxymoron. Perhaps there was no need for Bettleheim to produce further volumes. The course of the USSR until its demise in 1991 had already been decided.

[Leon Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great document about the class struggles in the estalinist regim.