ABSTRACT
In the brief span of seventy years, the Soviet Union has experienced four distinct systems for organizing the production and distribution of goods and services. Although only one proved durable, the others have left their mark on institutions, attitudes, and policies. The first economic system, which Lenin labeled “state capitalism,” endured for less than a year. Its essential elements were state seizure and redistribution of agricultural land; nationalization of large-scale basic economic activities (the “commanding heights”); attempted cooperation with the remaining capitalists; workers’ “control” in factories; and prevalence of markets. The brief experience with this system taught the Bolsheviks what most of them wanted to believe anyway—that capitalists were not to be trusted and that workers’ “control” could subvert the desires of a socialist state.
