Dependent Development: A Socialist Variant

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes the political economy of the Soviet bloc in terms of concepts used to describe ‘classic dependence’ and ‘dependent development’ in the capitalist periphery. In particular, the rapid economic growth that occurred in Eastern Europe between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s can be termed ‘dependent development’ because the primary stimulus for it came from an external dominator (the Soviet Union) and because the process of economic growth and structural transformation made Eastern Europe more dependent economically upon the USSR and created ‘class linkages’ of common interest between the Soviet and East European elites. Dependent development of the Soviet bloc was also analogous to the Western case in that, despite initial successes, it ultimately created major economic, political, and social ‘contradictions’—which seemingly can only be resolved by a radical structural transformation. In addition to such similarities between ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ dependency, there are several important differences as well that evidently derive from the fact that dependency relationships are more ‘political’ in the Soviet bloc and more ‘economic’ in the capitalist world.