Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR

Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (Russian: Экономические проблемы социализма в СССР, tr. Ekonomicheskiye problemy sotsializma v SSSR) is a work of political economy written by Joseph Stalin in 1951. It was one of the last works published before his death.^[1] In it, he made the claim that the Soviet Union had reached the lower stage of communism. The main impetus for the book came from the discussions around the preparations for a new textbook on political economy that would be standard throughout the communist movement. One of the main theoretical debates was on whether the law of value still operated within a socialist economy; some economists stated that Karl Marx in Das Kapital had only meant for it to apply to capitalist exchange. Stalin insisted that it still operated under a socialist economy. Nonetheless, he argued that it was a historical and not eternal law and that it would disappear in the second higher stage of communism. Under socialism, it was necessary for commodity exchange and trained "business executives to conduct production on rational lines and disciplines them". Stalin laid the book out as plan for the transition to full communism but insisted that objective economic laws would still have to be followed.^[2]

The main topics discussed are the following:

1. Character of Economic Laws Under Socialism
2. Commodity Production Under Socialism
3. The Law of Value Under Socialism
4. Abolition of the Antithesis Between Town and Country, and Between Mental and Physical Labour, and Elimination of Distinctions Between Them
5. Disintegration of the Single World Market and Deepening of the Crisis of the World Capitalist System
6. Inevitability of Wars Between Capitalist Countries
7. The Basic Economic Laws of Modern Capitalism and of Socialism

Stalin also insisted that wars between capitalist nations were still inevitable, a position that Eugene Varga had disputed.^[3][4]