Economic Crisis and Socialist Revolution: Henryk Grossman’s Law of accumulation, Its First Critics and His Responses
Henryk Grossman was the first person to systematically explore Marx’s explanation of capitalist crises in terms of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall and to place it in the context of the distinction between use and exchange value. His The law of accumulation and breakdown of the capitalist system remains an important reference point in the Marxist literature on economic crises. That literature has been plagued by distortions of Grossman’s position which derive from early hostile reviews of his book. These accused Grossman of a mechanical approach to the end of capitalism and of neglecting factors which boost profit rates. Grossman, in fact, contributed a complementary economic element to the recovery of Marxism undertaken by Lenin (particularly in the area of Marxist politics) and Lukacs (in philosophy). In both published and unpublished work, Grossman also dealt with and even anticipated criticisms of his methodology and treatment of countertendencies to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Far from being mechanical, his economic analysis can still assist the struggle for working class self-emancipation.
The Theory of the Collapse of Capitalism
The following article originally appeared in German in 1934 as an unsigned article in Ratekorrespondenz(No. 1, June 1934) and was published in Holland by the Groups of International Communists' . It was in fact written by Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960), then world renowned Professor of Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam . Pannekoek was a life-long Marxist (and in fact wrote a book applying the materialist conception of history to the history of astronomy') and at an earlier period had been a very active member of the Social Democratic and Left Communist movements in both Germany and his native Holland . As a scientist he was interested in dialectical materialism as a theory of science and his two writings known in the English-speaking world before the first world war were his 1902 introduction to Joseph Dietzgen's The Positive Outcome of Philosolhv and his very popular pamphlet Marxism and Darwinism (1909). His later criticism of Lenin's distortions of dialectical materialism, Lenin As Philosopher (1938), has recently been republished in English s . Pannekoek placed himself on the left wing of the Social Democratic movement, being an opponent not only of revisionism but also of the 'orthodox' centre represented by Kautsky . Even before the first world war he had come to see the futility of the traditional Social Democratic policy of merely trying to win an electoral majority on the basis of promises to reform capitalism, favouring instead conscious mass action by the working class as a whole. He was thus ready to support the appeals of the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution to split from the Social Democrats and form separate Communist Parties . He had been
Engine of Mischief: An Analytical Biography of Karl Radek
Young Lolek Sobelsohn The Birth of Radek: Nationalism and Socialism "A Rootless Cosmopolitan" From Berne to Brest-Litovsk Radek on the Right: Moscow to Rapallo Radek on the Right: Rapallo to Moscow Radek in Love: Larissa Reissner Radek as Trotskyist Radek as Stalinist "The Architect of Socialist Society" Revelation and Revenge Radek on Trial: Moscow Radek on Trial: Mexico City Aftermath and Assessment: Koestler's Vision Examined Bibliography Index