Soviets Plus Electrification: Marxism and Development

Development is often seen as the over-arching need of the human condition. Marxism, like most other ideologies, has perforce had to face up to the issues of development. Indeed, development, in either its capitalist or socialist variants, is central to the marxist enterprise. This chapter surveys critically some of the main interactions between the discourses of marxism and development. Marx himself is shown to be ambiguous, with early fairly mechanical or unilinear views on progress matched by more nuanced writings on Russia, for example. Lenin begins a new trend in the marxist tradition which was to become, in many ways, an ideology of developmentalism in many Third World countries. A further section deals with the absolutely critical issue of socialism and underdevelopment, the fact that most socialist revolutions have not occurred in the states where the most advanced capitalism prevails. Finally, this chapter turns to more recent engagements of post-marxist currents, with the issue of development, now perceived much more critically, indeed rejected as an assumed human good.