What Are The Historical Roots Of Socialism?

An analysis of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath is of the utmost importance for economics because the Soviet Union served as a laboratory for theories about the functioning of a command economy. Some economists claimed that socialism simply could not work; the Soviet experience proved them wrong. Its advocates argued that communism would overtake capitalism; Soviet history also refutes this thesis.

Although czarist Russia grew rapidly from 1880 to 1914, it was considerably less developed than industrialized countries like the United States or Britain. World War 1 brought great hardship to Russia and allowed the communists to seize power. From 1917 to 1933, the Soviet Union experimented with different socialists models before settling on central planning. But dissatisfaction with the pace of industrialization led Stalin to undertake a radical new ventures around 1928 collectivization of agriculture, forced draft industrialization, and central planning of the economy.

Under the collectivization of Soviet agriculture between 1929 and 1935, 94 percent of Soviet peasants were forced to join collective farms. In the process, many wealthy peasants were deported, and conditions deteriorated so much that millions perished.