Yevgeni Alexeyevich Preobrazhensky
Евгений Алексеевич Преображенский
The theorist of primitive socialist accumulation
Victor Serge recalled: "He had driven himself so hard that during meetings it seemed he might at any moment drop off to sleep; but his brain was still fresh, and crammed with statistics."
A Bolshevik economic theorist and co-author, with Bukharin, of The ABC of Communism (1919), the foundational textbook of early communist parties worldwide, he served as a Central Committee Secretary during state-building. As an initiator of the Declaration of 46 (1923) and the Left Opposition's chief polemicist, he formalized the theory of 'primitive socialist accumulation' in The New Economics (1926), arguing that surplus must be transferred from the peasant sector to fund industrialization, framing the NEP debate. He returned to the Stalin line in 1929 but soon broke over collectivization violence, joined an underground opposition group, and was executed in 1937.
Career timeline
- 1917–1920Central party work and economic theory
- 1923–1927Left Opposition and the Declaration of 46
- 1928–1937Exile, rearrest and execution