The Decline of Capitalism

Abstract

"Evgeny Preobrazhensky’s book The Decline of Capitalism is one of the best works in Soviet economic theory. My own familiarity with the book resulted from my research for The "Crisis" and the "Crash": Soviet Studies of the West, 1917-1929 (1981). I discovered that Preobrazhensky's study grew out of his analysis of the Soviet domestic economy (see E. A. Preobrazhensky, The Crisis of Soviet Industrialization, ed. Donald A. Filtzer, 1979) and at the same time addressed a whole new set of theoretical problems in a specifically capitalist contact. While several works by Preobrazhensky remain unavailable in English, I chose to undertake a translation of The Decline of Capitalism as a work that would help English-language readers to appreciate the full extent of the man's theoretical creativity. The Decline of Capitalism is a technical work in the sense that it develops Marx's schemes of expanded reproduction by incorporating the uneven (or cyclical) growth and replacement of fixed capital. Preobrazhensky assumes, for this purpose, that his readers will be "literate" in Marxism. I have therefore attempted to provide an introduction that will both deal with the technical issues and also situate The Decline of Capitalism in the history of Marxist political economy. I would hope and expect that the introduction will be a useful supplement to Preobrazhensky's own text. The note references, both in the introduction and in the annotated text, are to English-language sources wherever possible."