New Left Review I/221, January-February 1997

Fikret Adaman

On the Economic Theory of Socialism

The political revolutions of 1989–91 in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have created a new historical conjuncture in which the very future of the socialist project has been called into question. [1] For an early contribution, see R. Blackburn, ‘ Fin de Siècle: Socialism After the Crash’, nlr 185, January–February 1991, pp. 5–66. Socialists of all varieties have been affected by a profound loss of confidence and lowering of sights, including those who had long rejected even the term ‘actually existing socialism’ as an acceptable description of the Soviet and East European experience. The underlying reason for this loss of confidence is that the historical conjuncture coincides with a deep-seated crisis of socialist theory, above all of the theory of a socialist economy.

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