Capitalism without Private Capital

Ashok Rudra IN some sense it is too late to review this book; ; some other sense it can never be too late. As a matter of fact it may even be considered too early. Bettelheim wants to cover the history of Soviet society from 1917 to 1953 in a number of volumes of which this is only the first. This covers the period 1917 to 1923. A second volume covering the period 1924 to 1927 has already appeared in French two years back and it might have also appeared in English by now. Obviously no definitive assessment of this projected monumental work can be thought of before the appearance of all the volumes. The first volume, however, possesses an extra especial interest in that it sets out explicitly the method of analysis the author proposes to use; further, one gets a good sample of the way the author makes use of that method for analysing the zig-zag course of events of that crucial period when Lenin was still at the helm of affairs.