Stalin’s Pluralism: How Anti-Dogmatism Serves Tyranny

Till Düppe and Sarah Joly-Simard

A chapter in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Economists and Authoritarian Regimes in the 20th Century, 2020, vol. 38B, pp 37-54 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: When Stalin, in 1936, declared socialism achieved in the Soviet Union, he opened the door for the codification of the political economy of socialism beyond Marx’s political economy of capitalism. Indeed, at the same time as he executed the tyrannical policies he is known for, he led a series of private conversations with economists about a textbook on the political economy of socialism that spanned nearly 20 years. In these conversations, Stalin repeatedly argued for an open debate and against dogmatism. Most notably, he accepted the existence of the so-called law of value in socialism, which appears to subject the state to scientific authority. Reconstructing these conversations, we show that his claim to a pluralist scientific debate helped paper over his tyranny, first by diverting attention from the real issues, second by establishing his personal authority as an intellectual, and third by creating conflicts that would exclude his opponents.

Keywords: Political economy of socialism; pluralism; law of value; abstraction; economic intellectualism; Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rhetzz:s0743-41542020000038b003

DOI: 10.1108/S0743-41542020000038B003

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