ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the mixed economic order that prevailed in the Soviet Union during the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP could have developed into capitalism because the reintroduction of market agriculture could have resulted in economic differentiation in the countryside, which would have threatened socialist objectives. According to Lenin, the prerequisites for achieving socialism were the progressive extension of collective forms of production in agriculture on a voluntary basis and the industrialization of the country. The industrialization debate centered on the speed of the industrialization process related to the sectoral distribution of investments and on the sources for financing the accumulation. State accumulation would be obtained at the expense of private rural producers, tradespeople, or urban workers. A growing fund of consumer goods would be created that would permit an increasing accumulation speed without causing inflation or shortages.
