러시아ㆍ유라시아

Capitalism and socialism remain two fundamentally contested concepts in the social sciences. Few contexts provide a better illustration of this claim than the Russian one. Ever since the early Soviet era, analysts of Russia and Eurasia have vigorously, and sometimes vituperatively, debated the relevance of the concepts of capitalism and socialism to their field. Was the Soviet Union a living example of a socialist polity, as the Soviet leadership and many of its liberal and conservative opponents asserted (see, for example, Malia Citation1996)? Or had the revolution in the name of socialism degenerated into a ‘state capitalist’ system, as one left radical tradition claimed (Bettelheim & Chavance Citation1981; Trotsky Citation2004)? In a similar vein, the characterisation of post-Soviet Russia as capitalist, though less important to the legitimacy of the regime, has been fraught with political and conceptual ambiguities. After all, capitalism, classically associated with market relations, private property, and commodification, has shown itself to awkwardly fit the setting of post-Soviet Russia, given the pervasiveness of corruption, rent-seeking, and the precariousness of property claims (Shlapentokh & Woods Citation2007; Kordonsky Citation2016; Mart'yanov Citation2016). At the same time, critics of neoliberalism have pointed to Russia’s post-Soviet transformation as testament to the disastrous effects of the Washington consensus (Ganev Citation2015; Morris Citation2021).