ABSTRACT
The concept of "primitive accumulation" has a checkered history within the Marxist tradition. In the writings of Karl Marx, the concept was used to uncover the origin of the capitalist mode of production through historical analysis. It was presumed that primitive accumulation was unfolding in the "underdeveloped" world where the transition to the capitalist mode of production was tearing apart and uprooting communities, common properties, and non-market social institutions through blatant use of force and coercion by the state on behalf of emergent capitalists. Marx's concept of primitive accumulation is developed more comprehensively in the eighth and final part of volume one of Capital, titled "So-Called Primitive Accumulation" where he provides the reader with a mass of material pertaining to the historic rise of capitalism as the hegemonic socio-economic system in Western Europe. It is interesting that the concept of primitive accumulation resurfaced in the context of rapid industrialization in Soviet Russia.
