Isaak Rubin’s Research Project: A Reconstruction Eshet Annual Conference, may 26 – 28, 2016 Denis melnik National research university higher school of economics (Moscow) dmelnik@hse.ru

Main questions Did Rubin’s contribution go beyond a mere interpretation of Marx? Was his interpretation original? Was Rubin an economist?

Rubin’s scholarly activity as a single research project Condensed in time c. 1919 – 1930 Imprisonments and exile within the period: 1921; 1923 – 1926 Lines of activity (according to Takenaga): editor and translator (at the MEI) Marxian scholar historian of economic thought Overlapping nature of the works Overlap of scholarly and political activity (initiated in 1904)

Rubin’s formative years

Marxian studies in Russia The challenges to Marx’s theory transformation problem and value theory sociological foundations and political implications The problem of contradictions in Marx’s theory The strive to synthesis

‘Methodenstreit’ Methodological basis for understanding Marxism is provided by Hegelian philosophy and Hegelian logic in particular (Rubin) “Methodology of Das Kapital is the methodology of The Poverty of Philosophy” ; “Anti-Dühring is the result of Marx’s and Engels’ 40-years methodological work (Skvortsov- Stepanov)

The interpretations of value theory The notion of value Bogdanov and Skvortsov-Stepanov : value as a magnitude (a positivistic approach) Rubin : value as a social form Implications: ‘Expanded version’: “The task of Marxian political economy is to study the economy of modern society” (Skvortsov-Stepanov) ‘Restrictive version’ (Rubin)

The interpretation of the history of political economy The history according to Rubin Skvortsov-Stepanov (1925): “Classical Political Economy cannot be revived” ; “the return in Political Economy to Ricardo is an unconscious Trotskyism in the field of theory”

Rubin’s contribution Rigorous ‘Talmudic’ (Ryazanov) or ‘Scholastic’ interpretation One of the first Marxian scholars who commented not only on Capital (mainly restricted in Rubin’s case to the first volume, though) but on manuscripts and early writings Reconstruction of the history of classical approach (basing on Marx) Labour as ‘immanent measure’ (impact of Hegel) The notion of abstract labour; role of circulation, and of money: right track or distortion?

The scope of political economy Rubin : the capitalist society ; the ‘restrictive version’ Stepanov : the historical process ; the ‘broad version’

Political results of the debates by the 1930s Rubin’s approach condemned as ‘Menshevist idealism’ Bogdanov’s and Stepanov’s approach condemned as ‘mechanicism’ The existence of the ‘truly dialectical approach’ was postulated, but the theory of socialist economy was still missing