Recent years have seen a comeback of capitalism and socialism as contested concepts in the scholarly and public debate. In light of the 30^th anniversary of the Soviet collapse and the 100^th anniversary of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the international and interdisciplinary workshop proposes to analyse the contestation of capitalism and socialism through the prism of Russian and Soviet history. The workshop departs from the premise that socialism and capitalism – at once categories of analysis and categories of practice – can only be employed if the associated meanings and practices are analyzed in their geographic and historical particularity. Our workshop attempts to historicize the concepts in meaning and content in an effort to understand their lasting significance for different fields of the social sciences. The discussion aims to look at the historical contexts and mechanisms that have structured the periodic conflicts between capitalism and socialism and their intellectual underpinnings in Russia’s Soviet and post-Soviet history.

Organizers: Katharina Bluhm (FU Berlin), Sebastian Hoppe (FU Berlin), Friedrich Asschenfeldt (Princeton University)