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Class Struggles in the USSR, Second Period: 1923-1930
Class Struggles in the USSR: Second Period continues the examination of the Soviet experience through the lens of class conflict, political power, and the transformation of society.
Building on the revolutionary upheavals of 1917–1923, this period explores the consolidation of Soviet power and the changing relationships between the state, workers, peasants, and emerging bureaucratic and political elites. It examines the struggles surrounding economic policy, industrialization, agriculture, collectivization, and the growing centralization of political authority.
Building on the revolutionary upheavals of 1917–1923, this period explores the consolidation of Soviet power and the changing relationships between the state, workers, peasants, and emerging bureaucratic and political elites. It examines the struggles surrounding economic policy, industrialization, agriculture, collectivization, and the growing centralization of political authority.
640 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Charles Bettelheim
54 books23 followersEconomist 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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 6, 2025
By 1977 Charles Bettleheim was politically and literally a man without a socialist country. The one-time debate partner of Che Guevara and Ernest Mandel on how to build socialism in Cuba had backed the Gang of Four Maoist faction in China following Mao's death and lost. Perhaps that is why this second volume of his trilogy on the decrepitude of Soviet socialism is so sombre and pessimistic. Most observers of the Soviet scene see in these years of 1923-1930 the titanic battle between Stalin and Trotsky. Bettleheim goes after a different whale, how by the end of the Lenin era (1917-1923) the Bolshevik leadership had abandoned the political mobilization of the working class in favor of full-steam industrialization. The question of "socialism in one country" versus "world revolution" could not mask or overturn the political distance between the communists and the workers they claimed to lead. Soviet trade unions were now "conveyor belts" designed to increase productivity, not wage class struggle. A small elite presiding over the working class in a peasant majority country was bound to lose any hope in socialism, and the proletariat lose all hope in Marxism.
September 24, 2023
O fim da NEP, a passagem da aliança operário-camponesa para a componente economicista do "mais possível de industrialização. Os germens da burocratização do estado Soviético a partir da revolução "feita por cima" e por fim, as necessárias alterações superestruturais sobre o marxismo com impacto sério no futuro da URSS. A obra de Bettelheim é importante para compreendermos como a luta de classes, verdadeiro motor da história, não terminou com a socialização da propriedade e fim da propriedade privada.
August 29, 2026
Second Review:
Honestly super good theory, pretty weak on the evidence tho.
——
First Review:
It should go without saying that I have mixed feelings about this book.
Bettelheim’s interpretation offers a lot of novelty; his analysis of the state and rural sectors are well worth reading, even if they tend to operate at a pretty high level of abstraction/generalization; his analysis of the failure of the various oppositions is brief but novel, in that it comes from the perspective of the early-NEP Stalin, rather than the usual pro-opposition one; and his description of the evolution of the Party’s ideas are brief and deeply insufficient, but do highlight some crucial details (namely, the connection between evolutionism and the “technicist-economist” thesis that the forces of production determine all else - see my review on Plekhanov’s SPW Volume 1 ).
At the heart of this history is a pretty interesting analysis of the way in which the NEP ‘functioned’ – including variations throughout its lifespan – and the way in which it began to break down into something monstrous, as the result of political choices which favored urban industrialization at the expense of rural-urban trade and price stability. This is all very worth reading, although it generally operates as follows: Bettelheim describes the structural evolution of the Soviet economy (+), then points to a ‘contradiction’ (~), and then insists that the failure to revolutionize the relations of production made crisis inevitable (-).
This means that some of this basic thesis go unevidenced, or in sufficiently detailed/exampled, as he tends to move on and soon as he identifies a ‘structure’ he feels confident in. Still, I quite liked these structural sketches!
—-
Bettelheim ‘s history could be seen as supporting Bukharin’s stance: that rapid industrialization should not have taken place, and instead the Soviet State should have turned to supplying the poor to middle peasants with tools (as part of a class struggle against machine-leasing kulaks), and prioritized consumer-goods production, especially in the rural areas (also perhaps urban wages should have been limited), which was the original (Lenin’s) conception of the NEP.
He clearly thinks that on some level, but more seriously, he thinks that the only way this could have happened is if the relations of production were revolutionized in the urban sector, since the abandonment of the NEP was the product of the capitalist relations in the state-sector winning out over the (stalled) working-class-struggle, and the subsequent failure to carry out a ‘correct’ class struggle in the countryside – conversely, only through class struggle directed by the ‘correct line’ could the worker-peasant alliance be maintained.
Thus, Bettelheim’s conclusion is that the party failed to carry out the ideal political line/class struggle... because …
Now we’ve gotten to the point where Bettelheim’s account hits a brick wall: he provides absolutely virtually no indication of why this struggle did not occur, and what we might be able to learn from these failures *beyond the blindness of the Bolshevik Party leading to the incorrect political line being taken*. More than that, this entire book is tainted by an MLM ‘orthodox’ perspective that practically leaps out of the page and flashbangs you, which can be seen in his reference to/quoting of Lenin, Stalin, and to some extent Mao, all in the context of insisting that they (generally – the exception being Stalin late into his career) ‘had the correct line that everyone mysteriously forgot’.
Bettelheim analysis ultimately supports a kind of political-voluntarism: an insistence that through the ‘correct line’, class struggle could have and should have led the country on the path to socialism through the transformation of the relations of production (which is an unspecified concept).
This can also be seen especially from pages 293-322, where Bettelheim does not just argue that the revolutionizing of the relations of production would have had positive political effects (e.g. eliminating the power of elite groups who then went to do destroy the NEP): he insists with no evidence – that such ‘socialistiziation’ of the relations of production would have allowed industrial production to increase far more than did rapid industrialization. Not only would production have been ‘rationalized’ (ex: worn-out machines would be given to agricultural cooperatives instead of thrown out), but the “limits” on employment and production “imposed” by capital’s accumulation requirements would be ‘broken through’ allowing for ‘an unleashing’ of the country’s productive potential.
Well why does he think that!?
This is especially odd since he seems to agree with the decisions to re-/introduce capitalist relations during the Civil War to stabilize the economy… so then, do socialist relations of production work better, but only under a stabilized economy?
All that said, ironically, broadly speaking I agree with his conclusions: immediate production relations should have been revolutionized, the party should have been more democratic, and so on. lt just doesn’t feel like enough to just say that and move on - especially since non-socialists could theoretically at least read this book!
Honestly super good theory, pretty weak on the evidence tho.
——
First Review:
It should go without saying that I have mixed feelings about this book.
Bettelheim’s interpretation offers a lot of novelty; his analysis of the state and rural sectors are well worth reading, even if they tend to operate at a pretty high level of abstraction/generalization; his analysis of the failure of the various oppositions is brief but novel, in that it comes from the perspective of the early-NEP Stalin, rather than the usual pro-opposition one; and his description of the evolution of the Party’s ideas are brief and deeply insufficient, but do highlight some crucial details (namely, the connection between evolutionism and the “technicist-economist” thesis that the forces of production determine all else - see my review on Plekhanov’s SPW Volume 1 ).
At the heart of this history is a pretty interesting analysis of the way in which the NEP ‘functioned’ – including variations throughout its lifespan – and the way in which it began to break down into something monstrous, as the result of political choices which favored urban industrialization at the expense of rural-urban trade and price stability. This is all very worth reading, although it generally operates as follows: Bettelheim describes the structural evolution of the Soviet economy (+), then points to a ‘contradiction’ (~), and then insists that the failure to revolutionize the relations of production made crisis inevitable (-).
This means that some of this basic thesis go unevidenced, or in sufficiently detailed/exampled, as he tends to move on and soon as he identifies a ‘structure’ he feels confident in. Still, I quite liked these structural sketches!
—-
Bettelheim ‘s history could be seen as supporting Bukharin’s stance: that rapid industrialization should not have taken place, and instead the Soviet State should have turned to supplying the poor to middle peasants with tools (as part of a class struggle against machine-leasing kulaks), and prioritized consumer-goods production, especially in the rural areas (also perhaps urban wages should have been limited), which was the original (Lenin’s) conception of the NEP.
He clearly thinks that on some level, but more seriously, he thinks that the only way this could have happened is if the relations of production were revolutionized in the urban sector, since the abandonment of the NEP was the product of the capitalist relations in the state-sector winning out over the (stalled) working-class-struggle, and the subsequent failure to carry out a ‘correct’ class struggle in the countryside – conversely, only through class struggle directed by the ‘correct line’ could the worker-peasant alliance be maintained.
Thus, Bettelheim’s conclusion is that the party failed to carry out the ideal political line/class struggle... because …
Now we’ve gotten to the point where Bettelheim’s account hits a brick wall: he provides absolutely virtually no indication of why this struggle did not occur, and what we might be able to learn from these failures *beyond the blindness of the Bolshevik Party leading to the incorrect political line being taken*. More than that, this entire book is tainted by an MLM ‘orthodox’ perspective that practically leaps out of the page and flashbangs you, which can be seen in his reference to/quoting of Lenin, Stalin, and to some extent Mao, all in the context of insisting that they (generally – the exception being Stalin late into his career) ‘had the correct line that everyone mysteriously forgot’.
Bettelheim analysis ultimately supports a kind of political-voluntarism: an insistence that through the ‘correct line’, class struggle could have and should have led the country on the path to socialism through the transformation of the relations of production (which is an unspecified concept).
This can also be seen especially from pages 293-322, where Bettelheim does not just argue that the revolutionizing of the relations of production would have had positive political effects (e.g. eliminating the power of elite groups who then went to do destroy the NEP): he insists with no evidence – that such ‘socialistiziation’ of the relations of production would have allowed industrial production to increase far more than did rapid industrialization. Not only would production have been ‘rationalized’ (ex: worn-out machines would be given to agricultural cooperatives instead of thrown out), but the “limits” on employment and production “imposed” by capital’s accumulation requirements would be ‘broken through’ allowing for ‘an unleashing’ of the country’s productive potential.
Well why does he think that!?
This is especially odd since he seems to agree with the decisions to re-/introduce capitalist relations during the Civil War to stabilize the economy… so then, do socialist relations of production work better, but only under a stabilized economy?
All that said, ironically, broadly speaking I agree with his conclusions: immediate production relations should have been revolutionized, the party should have been more democratic, and so on. lt just doesn’t feel like enough to just say that and move on - especially since non-socialists could theoretically at least read this book!
August 19, 2026
This book is part of a four-volume series, and this is a review of all four.
Books 1 and 2 seem to be written by someone very sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. The devastating effects of the First World War, foreign military intervention, the Civil War, hostile encirclement, the country's backwardness, etc. are all treated as essential context for understanding the decisions of the Bolshevik leadership. Common criticisms, such as the suppression of free speech and the hasty trials and executions carried out by the Cheka, are discussed together with the historical circumstances in which they occurred ... or, as the author would put it, in terms of contradictions, classes, and their struggles.
Bettelheim really likes Lenin. He also thinks the NEP was the reasonable and sustainable path forward, and that if Lenin had lived long enough, the Bolsheviks would not have abandoned it—the policy they wrongly came to regard as merely temporary. At which point you start to wonder: why didn't the author pick Team Menshevik, or any of the other people who wanted capitalism to develop first? Why justify repressive measures against all the “bourgeois” opposition?
Anyway, aside from his view of the NEP, I agreed with a lot of what he was saying, but I was annoyed by how he was saying it.
It seemed—how else to put it?—too Marxist.
With the words “class,” “struggle,” and “contradiction” inserted at the beginning and end of every sentence, it reads like Mao had to reach a specific word count for a university assignment. Like someone performing or imitating Marxism.
Nothing unforgivable, really. Just irritating.
But then I started Volume 3... and apparently all the classes have gone on holiday.
Instead of those classes, Books 3 and 4 contain a lot of quotation marks. Just an “average” book about how the “worker” state wasn't really “democratic” and the “planned” “socialist” “economy” wasn't really intended to “improve” the lives of workers and peasants. All that “sophisticated analysis” from the first two books was apparently unnecessary. The Soviet Union can simply be explained as capitalism with Stalinist characteristics.
Now, people can change their minds. They can study something extensively, reach conclusions they sincerely believe are well-founded, and later change those conclusions after further research. They can even end up believing the exact opposite of what they once believed. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
In fact, I agree with many of the criticisms in Volumes 3 and 4 too. But I disagree with the framing and the conclusions they want the reader to draw.
For example, I can believe that the Soviet Union was the best thing that ever happened to this planet and still think there was an enormous amount wrong with it. I could criticize it for another hundred books.
You can tell me something terrible about a kolkhoz while genuinely wanting collective agriculture to succeed. You can also tell me the same thing to prove that the kolkhoz, everything around it, and the system that produced it were inherently worthless and should never have been attempted. The question is where you stand and what your criticism is for.
These books managed to irritate me both when defending the Soviet Union and when attacking it. They went from explaining Soviet history with far too many Marxist words to explaining it with far too few.
P.S. Maybe the first two books felt fake even when I agreed with them because a good NKVDshnik can smell a traitor before his future crimes :)
Books 1 and 2 seem to be written by someone very sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. The devastating effects of the First World War, foreign military intervention, the Civil War, hostile encirclement, the country's backwardness, etc. are all treated as essential context for understanding the decisions of the Bolshevik leadership. Common criticisms, such as the suppression of free speech and the hasty trials and executions carried out by the Cheka, are discussed together with the historical circumstances in which they occurred ... or, as the author would put it, in terms of contradictions, classes, and their struggles.
Bettelheim really likes Lenin. He also thinks the NEP was the reasonable and sustainable path forward, and that if Lenin had lived long enough, the Bolsheviks would not have abandoned it—the policy they wrongly came to regard as merely temporary. At which point you start to wonder: why didn't the author pick Team Menshevik, or any of the other people who wanted capitalism to develop first? Why justify repressive measures against all the “bourgeois” opposition?
Anyway, aside from his view of the NEP, I agreed with a lot of what he was saying, but I was annoyed by how he was saying it.
It seemed—how else to put it?—too Marxist.
With the words “class,” “struggle,” and “contradiction” inserted at the beginning and end of every sentence, it reads like Mao had to reach a specific word count for a university assignment. Like someone performing or imitating Marxism.
Nothing unforgivable, really. Just irritating.
But then I started Volume 3... and apparently all the classes have gone on holiday.
Instead of those classes, Books 3 and 4 contain a lot of quotation marks. Just an “average” book about how the “worker” state wasn't really “democratic” and the “planned” “socialist” “economy” wasn't really intended to “improve” the lives of workers and peasants. All that “sophisticated analysis” from the first two books was apparently unnecessary. The Soviet Union can simply be explained as capitalism with Stalinist characteristics.
Now, people can change their minds. They can study something extensively, reach conclusions they sincerely believe are well-founded, and later change those conclusions after further research. They can even end up believing the exact opposite of what they once believed. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
In fact, I agree with many of the criticisms in Volumes 3 and 4 too. But I disagree with the framing and the conclusions they want the reader to draw.
For example, I can believe that the Soviet Union was the best thing that ever happened to this planet and still think there was an enormous amount wrong with it. I could criticize it for another hundred books.
You can tell me something terrible about a kolkhoz while genuinely wanting collective agriculture to succeed. You can also tell me the same thing to prove that the kolkhoz, everything around it, and the system that produced it were inherently worthless and should never have been attempted. The question is where you stand and what your criticism is for.
These books managed to irritate me both when defending the Soviet Union and when attacking it. They went from explaining Soviet history with far too many Marxist words to explaining it with far too few.
P.S. Maybe the first two books felt fake even when I agreed with them because a good NKVDshnik can smell a traitor before his future crimes :)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews