Two Stage Theory

The two-stage theory (or stagism) is the Marxist political theory which argues that underdeveloped countries, such as Tsarist Russia, must first pass through a stage of capitalism before moving to a socialist stage. The two-stage theory was applied to countries worldwide which had not passed through the capitalist stage.

The discussion on stagism focuses on the Russian Revolution. However, Maoist theories, such as New Democracy, tend to apply a two-stage theory to struggles elsewhere. In the Soviet Union the two-stage theory was opposed by the Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution.

In Marxist–Leninist theory under Stalin the theory of two stages gained a revival. More recently, the South African Communist Party and Socialist Alliance (Australia) have re-elaborated the two-stage theory, although the Socialist Alliance differentiates their position from the Stalinist one.

Although the two-stage theory is often attributed to Marx and Engels, critics such as David McLellan and others dispute that Marx and Engels envisaged the strict application of this theory outside of the actually existing Western development of capitalism.

There is no dispute that Marx and Engels argue that Western capitalism provides the technological advances necessary for socialism and the "grave diggers" of the capitalist class in the form of the working class. But critics of the two-stage theory, including most trends of Trotskyism, argue that Marx and Engels denied that they had laid down a formula to be applied to all countries in all circumstances. McLellan and others cite Marx's Reply to Mikhailovsky. Mikhailovsky, Marx says,

feels he absolutely must metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historico-philosophic theory of the general path every people is fated to tread, whatever the historical circumstances in which it finds itself ... but I beg his pardon. (He is both honouring and shaming me too much.)

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