ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to "reconstruct" the theory of the Non-Capitalist Road (NCR) from a variety of complementary and occasionally contradictory East European sources. V. I. Lenin's notion of the "weak link" of capitalism, Leon Trotsky's "law of combined development," and Joseph Stalin's strategy of "socialism in one country" all represent attempts to come to terms with, and indeed to rationalize and prescribe, a revolutionary theory and strategy for undeveloped and underdeveloped areas in the world capitalist system. The theory of the Non-Capitalist Road, building upon but simultaneously transforming the ncr, has been formulated by Stalin's successors as a set of prescriptions evolving over time for socialist-orientated development in the "Third World." The Soviet experience of development was in itself a sufficient model of the non-capitalist road to development, and the Leninist theory of imperialism, revolution, and monopoly capitalism an adequate theoretical-ideological explanation for relations between the Soviet Union and the Third World.
