Science conference ‘Two capitalisms in Russia’ was held in Moscow (17-18 May 2009) organized by the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements and backed by the Russian branch of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

During almost 20 years after the USSR collapse the issue of the new Russian capitalism’s nature was being actively discussed in both left and liberal spheres. Both movements willingly stressed ‘wildness’, ‘incompletion’, ‘backwardness’ of the bourgeois order in Russia and pointed at its bureaucratic and authoritarian traits. Strangely enough, but all these debates and evaluations called to mind century-old discussion when liberals, narodniks and Marxists used to talk over the development of capitalism in Russian empire.

The conference aimed at many-sided analysis of the nature, origin and prospects of the modern Russian socio-economic system in historical context as well as theoretical prognosis of the post-soviet Russian history.

The conference work was held in the frames of four plenary sessions: civic society and political processes; society and economy; social processes; state of the workers’ condition; trade-union and social movements; agriculture issue.

Among participants there were politologists, economists, historians, journalists, active workers of social movements, representatives of expert community from Moscow, Ryazan, Kirov, Saratov, Yekaterinburg, Penza, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk as well as from Germany, Canada and Ukraine.

The history of Russian capitalism consists of two periods: the first one finished in November 1917, the second began in August 1991. So, Soviet epoch is the interval between them as a period of completing country’s modernization and preparing for the restoration of the pre-revolution mean of production.

The character of modern Russian capitalism remains an important modern question. Without an answer to this question it would be impossible to see the direction of future development of the country as well as to see the contradiction settled by such development and possible changes.
What is the core of social structure novelty, which social forces are the agents of alternative methods of approach able to make steps toward socialism?

One of the tasks of this conference lied in defining of the next aspects: to what degree ‘the second capitalism’ is a restoration and continuation of the first one, to what degree is it a continuation of the Soviet society crisis. The majority of speakers (politologist Alexander Tarasov, economist Boris Rakitsky, historians V. Krasavin and David Mandel) stressed that new Russian capitalism demonstrates the features of continuity of the Soviet period and Soviet bureaucratic system as a product of its decomposition rather than that of the tsarist period.

“The gap of times” sets off any applied comparisons and the 4-th Russian ‘color revolution’ 1988-1991 (Boris Rakitsky) had an exceptionally destructive nature. Alexander Tarasov and Alexander Shubin both think that such resemblance features should be explained not by historical continuation but by the fact that post-soviet Russia have taken up mostly the same place in capitalist world structure and global labor division as St.Petersburg empire in its time. However, some speeches (e.g. report of the well-known sociologist O. Shkaratan) developed an idea of existing of some historical matrix; so, the country development is going just in its frames. In this sense, the soviet period not only separates old (pre-soviet) Russia from new one, but serves as a bridge between them preserving common authoritarian tradition.

As far as, according to the common opinion of participants, the analysis of Russian capitalism is impossible without understanding the modern global system, much attention was paid to the issues of relations between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ in bourgeois world structure.

Elmar Altvater’s (Professor of the Free University of Berlin) two-hour report became the core of this discussion. When analyzing the contradictions of modern world structure, Altvater has demonstrated that during 40 years of neoliberalism global economy collected many contradictions which nobody wanted either to solve or at least to recognize. All modern crises of fuel, food and finance are the effects of those contradictions rather than that of the ‘objective’ resources deficiency. The system reacted on crisis symptoms by speculative redistribution of finance resources that used to lead to the blowing of market ‘bubbles’ one after another. Boom on the real estate market appeared to be such ‘bubble’ as well as skyrocketing oil prices were provoked by striving to speed up circulation of devaluating finance resources rather than by fuel demand. Sooner or later the ‘bubble’ will burst leading to disastrous effects for Russian economy. So, the question is the next: ‘is Russian society ready for it? Are the lefts ready for it?’

Debates on the modern political system became an important part of this discussion (speeches of S. Shpagin, G. Rakitskaya, V. Martianov and A. Ryazanov were devoted to this issue) as well as the debates on prospects of social and workers’ movements. Despite the fact that working class in modern Russian Federation in number and educational level considerably exceeds industrial proletariat of tsarist Russia, it’s far behind its historical predecessor as to the level of political organization and consciousness. Despite differences in approaches, all participants of the section agreed with such a pessimistic conclusion (G. Rakitskaya, D. Mandel, K. Cleman, V. Kurochkin, S. Yachmenyov, A. Ryazanov and B. Kagarlitsky). However, as noticed Kagarlitsky and Kurochkin, class destiny to a great extent depends on efforts toward its socio-political self-organization that would grow together with the development of political and social problems in society.

Discussion on agricultural issue with the participation of A. Nikulin, M. Davydov, V. Avdonin, O. Konovalova and V. Krasavin was being held simultaneously with the discussion on ‘workers issue’ (in terms of 90-s). The most important debates were focused on an uncompleted alternative of the narodniks in the beginning of XX century as well as on the issue of applying those principles to the settling of modern problems. Although O. Konovalova insisted on the urgency of the narodniks’ approach, other participants rejected such point of view referring to the changes of technological basis and social ground of modern agriculture.

In summary report with the results of conference IGSO director Boris Kagarlitsky noticed that the discussion about capitalism used to turn into the debates on socialism. Moreover, conversations about weakness, ‘incompletion’ and potential instability of the bourgeois order in Russia (like in the beginning of the XX century) over again used to turn into the debates on possibility of socialist alternative. However, such alternative cannot just passively ripen within old order; the idea of soviet historians declaring that capitalism had ripened completely by itself within feudalism has proved to be incorrect as well.

The replacement of the old form of society by the new one as well as the appearance of new social relations, both come as a result of social struggle. If the lefts want to play in this struggle a progressive role (which they attribute to themselves) they should make quite high and ambitious aims of social transformation. Without these aims it is impossible not only to create a new form of society but also to reform the old one.