China Review of Political Economy. 2024, 15(6): 186-224.
Isaak Illich Rubin(1886-1937) was born in Daugavspils, Latvia，on June 12,1886.In 1905，he became an active participant in the Russian revolutionary movement. He later joined the Mensheviks and was elected to their Central Committee in the autumn of 1920. He was imprisoned by the GPU in April 1923 in the round-up of Mensheviks. On his release he dropped his political work to concentrate on his academic studies and teaching.From 1926 to 1930，he was a research associate at the Marx- Engels Institute under Ryazanov, becoming one of the most influential interpreters of Marx's work. In the 1920s, he published several works, including Essays on Marx's Theory of Value，Physiocracy, A History of Economic Thought; Contemporary Economists in the West，Classics of Political Economy from the 17th to mid-19th Centuries,History of Class Struggles, and co-edited Fundamental Problems of Political Economy. His most influential work,Essays on Marx's Theory of Value, was published four times in 1923，1924，1928and 1929.The second edition in 1924 drew sharp criticism at the time，with critics arguing that it separates the form of value from the content of value. Rubin's works were rediscovered and translated into English and other languages only in the 1970s. His political economy ideas have attracted some attention in the West, and in recent years, they have also attracted increasing attention from domesticscholars. However,apart from Essays on Marx's Theory of Value published by the Central Compilation & Translation Press,there are few Chinese translations of Rubin's works in China. This is a lecture given by Isaak Illich Rubin at a meeting of the Economics Institute of the Marx-Engels Institute in May and June 1927. The lecture developed one of the main themes of Rubin's Essays on Marx's Theory of Value. This lecture was first published in Under the Banner of Marxism (Noд 3HaMeHeM Mapkch3ma)， No. 6，1927.Capital & Class translated the lecture into English in issue 2，1978，based on the German version. The main contents of this lecture are as follows:“abstract labor”and“value”are the central problems of all Marxist theories. We should investigate the question of the relationship between“labor”and“value”not only by “the analytical method"， but by “the dialectical method” as well. Marx's theory of value and money have five “basic concepts":the relations of production betweenthe commodity producers,abstract labor，value,exchange value and money. This system was only interrupted in two places, at the point where we have to move from“the relations of production”to “abstract labor”，and then again from“value”to“exchange value”. These “interruptions”disappear when we regard“abstract labor”as “labor which possesses a determined social form”，and“value”as“the unity of content and form".
