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The Second Communist
Manifesto (A.B. Razlatzki)
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 Introduction
for Western and World Readers
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Introduction
(1999)
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Foreword
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Part
I: Bourgeois and Proletarian
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Part
II: Proletariat - Boss
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Part
III: The Crisis of the Workers Movement
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Part
IV: Proletarian Dictatorship & Proletarian Democracy
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Part
V: Classes and the Struggle for Socialism
USA,
Socialism, Us...
State
Imperialism Should be Distinguished from Economic Imperialism
Notes in the Margins of History
Turbulence
in Social Development and the Stratification of the Superstructure
|
A. B. Razlatzky
Notes in the Margins of History
1
I must say at once that I am a Marxist. Right away, this makes me unacceptable
in some company, and somehow alien to people with pluralistic views. Somehow
we have gotten to the point that Marxism is separate unto itself, while
pluralism is pluralistic of its own accord. But, it must be said that for
Marxism, pluralism is acceptable without restriction; yet it has placed
itself on guard against our native pluralism. However, perhaps correctly
so. We have gotten too used to treating Marxism as something tacked on,
something obligatory. But that is not Marxism at all, it is not scientific,
it is unthinking. As a method of comprehending reality, infantry drill
rules have never been suitable.
I am a Marxist, but I have nothing whatever in common with those currently
masquerading under this label in our country; neither their conscientious
'Marxology,' nor their apologetics for the present, (over all our recent
yesterdays) nor their unforgettable imperative orders. But dialectical
materialism as a science, this is the Marxism that I would consider it
an honour to be a part of. This science is not reflected in the textbooks,
where confusion and talentless commentary coexists with material correctly
understood and conscientiously reiterated; but it exists immediately in
the legacy of the classics, where, if there are mistakes, they are Marxist
mistakes which history helps to point out and correct. And this science,
of which I have time and again become convinced, and for which I continuously
receive confirmation, works reliably not only for analysing both recent
and the very latest history, but also predicts that which is predictable
in our rapidly changing lives.
It must be said once more; Marxism is a science, like, for example,
physics. The diesel engine works according to the laws of physics, but,
for all that, it was invented by Diesel and not by physics, nor by Newton
nor Einstein. How many unsuccessful experiments were conducted by Diesel
or other less fortunate inventors? Surely, physics is innocent of these
failure. Science comprehends, but people do. There is not a single science
which fosters the illusion that it comprehends and surpasses everything.
Yet without knowledge of that which has already been mastered, you will
not go far.
Now in essence. Today is a time of mass rehabilitation, with the recovery
of so many vanished names, our literature has received a big restocking
from the past. The innocent victims of the thirties, forties and early
fifties ... Perhaps, one day, my own turn will come. But there is one victim
of the present for which I must earnestly plead. That victim is history.
The innocent victims... It is not rehabilitation, but our concern that
they need. For the living, concern; for the dead, remembrance. For why
would we be rehabilitating them if we had not prosecuted them, had not
sealed their fate. Or wasn't it us? Perhaps it was the state? But don't
we have a state now? Somehow it never entered the heads of the soviet administration
to rehabilitate the political convicts, convicted by the czarist courts.
And all this because we plunge into history with our emotions. We want
to act there, in the past. We want to divide everyone into friends and
enemies and to wave our sword. We want to impose our own order, to instill
our current conceptions.
It won't work. Time has no road back. Even for yesterday nothing can
be repaired, let alone for the decades. But perhaps I shouldn't try to
hold us back, if we can't wedge all our feelings back into the facts of
history, then at least in the description we can vent them. These are the
villains, those the heroes...
And this is where I become altogether unacceptable. I cannot relate
to history with emotion; perhaps it is Marxism that won't permit it, perhaps
it is common sense. I reason this way; if yesterday I was unsuccessful,
then today I must soberly reconsider all my actions and find the mistakes.
And if I should curse the stupidities of yesterday, with emotion of course,
then this emotion is not directed at yesterday, but at today and tomorrow,
in order that I may not repeat these mistakes. Emotions are needed in today's
world, they define action, but inserting them into the past is completely
useless.
It is worse than useless, it is harmful. When anger, even righteous
anger, clouds one's vision, everything is seen onesidedly and can never
be understood. And of course, history is given to us in its entirety, like
a good textbook. But this is a textbook for attentive eyes, for those who
have not been blinded. History neither races nor runs anywhere, and thus
bridles its passions and allows for a calm, all-sided treatment of it.
Clearly, history is not ours to improve. Today what we must do is to
build and construct so that we can move to tomorrow and not find ourselves
back at yesterday. Now perhaps this is not because yesterday was so very
terrible but simply so that we don't stagger around and then end up back
in the same boat. We have to pave the road still further.
This is why I issue my invitation; let us rehabilitate history.
And let us not so insistently reproach history (yet again, I dare say,
unacceptable). History is already such that you can not reeducate it. It
is neither like a man nor a cat and responds neither to feeling nor to
our actions.
It is possible to feel pathological hatred for a stone. Giving vent
to our passions, we can condemn it to destruction and grind it up into
a powder. We can not do this with history. History is unchangeable. If
we are exasperated by this, we can raise our voices as much as we like
and use our most expressive vocabulary, but the past remains unshakeable
and does not even feel our efforts.
History has one indisputable virtue; it was. This is worth a great deal.
It was; and this means that everything in it corresponds to the demands
of nature, the laws of social development. No, I am not saying that we
are dealing with the unique possible variation; but when we say "what if...,"
then we are painting a picture which is not proven and is unprovable, and
is thus, perhaps, also altogether impossible. For how could we have taken
everything into account, when many of the laws are unknown to us. History
was, thus itself proving that it was possible; and now you must take it,
examine it and study the mysterious boundary between the possible and the
impossible.
Yet further. They communicate in whispers, that in directing our arrows
at the past, we are, so they say, criticizing the present and moreover
a present which it is still impermissible to criticize out loud rather
than in a whisper. This is a lie. In saving our audacity for the past,
we pull further away from the emotional assessment of the present, we whitewash
the concrete, contemporary authors of our misfortunes, all of which damages
the activity of clarifying the organizational paths which characterized
this legacy. But enough! Let each answer for himself. Yes, such people
are firmly linked, and these links are to be found in history... Because
they are enmeshed today, it is today that the task of tearing them free
lies before us. But trying going back in history with a pair of scissors.
For that which today hinders us, is hindering us today and not in history.
Everything evil that we have was bequeathed to us by history. And history
takes nothing back. Only the future can take it back, that future which
we are making today and everyday. But do we know what is good and what
is evil? Where to cut and where to sew? Before, this was beyond us, so
how have we now, suddenly, learnt? Nothing other than history can teach
us this.
And this is why history is in need of rehabilitation. History does not
need this rehabilitation, it is we who need it; because through the bars
of our condemnation it is hard to investigate and understand.
2
The more calmly we look at history, the more all the "whys" come to the
fore. It is only under a massive self-deception that we can be satisfied
with answers like, "because of October, which forced us off the normal
path of development," or "because Stalin was a villain (and worse yet,
paranoid)." Such answers are popular today, but they only serve to hide
the problem, to fence it off behind a screen. For each such "because" has
its "why;" why did October happen, why did a villain become the head of
the state... And many other such "whys."
But, surveying the path ahead, we must find answers to two sets of questions.
Where and how are historical choices presented to us? By whose will and
how were such choices made? The laws of social development, whether they
are known to us or not, we can not freely change. But making a choice;
we have all been faced with this time and again, and the more clearly we
understand what will flow from our choice, the smaller the price that we
will be called upon to pay for science. We have, for seventy years of our
history, paid a high price and suffered great losses because we went down
unexplored and bumpy paths. And, if we cross out the entire past with a
single phrase, one categorical "because," it is not mere money that we
are throwing to the winds, we are scattering human lives. They were all
killed so that we could become wiser; they bring us knowledge in pebbles
and in boulders, shall we make them all into Sysyphus[1]?
Surely, if we cannot comprehend their experience, it will once again fall
to us to pay the price.
Incomprehensible material can not be comprehended. We are done with
"because" and will not refer to it again. Although we will think over the
principal ones. Of course, for these answers too, there will be the "whys;"
but here, if thought is aroused and urged on, we may uncover the roots.
In history! In history lie the answers; just study...
3
February gave Russia democracy which never saw the light of day. October
took it away. Lenin and the bolsheviks are guilty, in that they deflected
Russia from the natural course of development and directed it into a dead
end.
This is, roughly, how those people who locate the causes of our present
crisis in the year 1917, formulate their views.
The law of uneven historical development, the result of which is that
individual ethnic groups, nations and states make leaps in their development
and outstrip their neighbors, has long been well-known to historians. Yet
the operating mechanism of this law has still not been sufficiently studied.
It seems to me, that our own revolution reveals many of the hidden mainsprings
of this law, and, perhaps, can give us the key to its understanding.
In 1917, Russia was still an entirely feudal country; the autocracy
was immediately based on the class of landowners. But, at the same time,
there had been, in Russia, already for more than half a century, since
the reforms of 1861, the development of capitalist production, and this
meant the formation of two, sufficiently mature, classes, the proletariat
and the bourgeoisie. Due to the vastly more developed capitalist production
relations in other European countries, there, political mastery had long
since belonged to the bourgeoisie; it was only in Russia, yes, and also
in Germany, that the feudals had maintained their position. Under these
conditions, the contradiction of capitalist production was itself the mainspring,
squeezing both sides in a vice. And this was where Russia straightened
itself up and fired a shot.
This is the large scale, almost iconic, view. Our own history permits
us to see these activities in detail, to construct a critique in detail.
But first, some dry theory; I must reveal the basis upon which I am relying.
The Nature of Classes in Society
The productive forces of society are divided between great groups of people,
appearing as their property. The productive forces are composed of;
the land (as the sum of the conditions of production and as the sum of
the objects of labour),
the means of production,
labour power.
Depending on which of the productive forces they possess, people are regarded
as belong to this or that class.
Although the entire social product is created by labour power, it is
through the participation of their property in social production that the
classes obtain the possibility of receiving a share of the social product.
The capability of appropriating such products is uniform within a class,
and differs for differing classes.
Nothing external predecides the question of what the share should be.
This is why the classes struggle continuously amongst themselves to increase
their own share.
The fundamental weapon in this battle is the threat of withdrawing ones
own property from the production process, which, although it brings with
it losses for social production as a whole, at definite moments in time,
can be directed against one class, compelling it to make compromises in
the distribution of goods.
In the process of the continuous development of the productive forces
in social production, the role of individual aspects of the productive
forces varies, and, correspondingly, the opportunities for manouevre in
the class battle.
The ruling position, and together with it, the opportunity to appropriate
the lion's share of the products, belongs to that class whose ownership
is most highly organized at the given stage. The historical sequence is
as follows; labour power (slave ownership), land (feudalism), means of
production (capitalism). The future of humanity is tied to the growth of
organization of the working class (once again, labour power).
People without ownership of the productive forces (the intelligentsia,
the army etc.) have no opportunity for the immediate appropriation of the
social product. They are obliged to serve some class which can provide
them with their livelihood out of its share of the social product. As a
rule, it is precisely the ruling class that they serve (for it has the
surplus product at its disposal), which strengthens it and prolongs its
domination. As a whole such groups of people, lacking ownership of the
productive forces, can be considered as a special type of null class; always
bearing in mind, however, that they cannot directly participate in the
class battle, they can only support one or other of the contending classes.
Now, let us return to Russia in 1917. The February revolution took place
under the pressure of the powerful Petrograd strike movement. A revolution?
Revolutions don't happen inside governments, at the top only coup's
take place; revolutions take place amongst the masses. We can only call
such an overthrow a revolution when it expresses a fundamental break in
the economic relations in the whole of society.
What changed in society, in the economic system, after February? Nothing!
The relations between the landowner and the peasants were unchanged, as
were those between the entrepreneurs and the workers, and even between
the entrepreneurs and the landowners. Everything remained in place.
Democracy! The broadest freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom
of association and freedom for demonstration...
What does this signify? It signifies that the ruling class, the feudals,
had lost their bearings, they needed some suggestions, so they sent society
off on a wide-ranging scouting mission. Perhaps, out of this bubbling solution
a shining crystal would appear, which they might seize hold of as a guiding
star?
It did not appear.
But hope springs eternal. Although all other things did not remain equal.
For really, was it not such causes that brought us to the ideas of perestroika,
the ideas of democracy and glasnost after 1985? What was on the minds of
our contemporary propertied authorities? Yes, it was the same thing. Yes,
Gorbachev disturbed the tranquil life that we had led under Brezhnev. But
was there reconciliation to this? We could free ourselves from Gorbachev,
but then what about the economy? Clearly, a dead end. People grew nervous.
If you were to grab and then try to hold power, in the old way, like Brezhnev,
not resolving the economic problems, then surely the embittered masses
would, in the end, explode and sweep you away. No, better to allow Gorbachev,
allow the search, allow the disturbances, for anything else would be unthinkable.
Yes, his movement made many people sick, but only specific people, not
the system! The key thing was to hunker down, to sweat and strain, to hold
on in the bowels of the system. And then? Then Gorbachev might find the
economic solution that would give rise to a growth in well-being. Then
we would break through into the light and the system would have kept its
promise. And, once again, we could return to our tranquil lives.
What? Could such a variant really have appeared?
It did not appear.
Because the unique obstacle on the path to new relations was the obsolete
system and those who diligently defended it.
In just this way, in 1917, the feudal ruling class allowed both the
search and the pressure, and the entire composition of the Provisional
Government. They waited it out.
But what happened in society?
Society still needed to let the force ripen, which would be ready to
seize power from the hands of the decrepit class of landowners. Such a
force as could decisively restructure and reshape the property relations
that served in society.
In neighbouring countries, this had been the bourgeoisie. They were
young and few in number, but they led into battle not only their own workers,
but also the peasants, who were bursting out of the vice of the arbitrariness
of the landlords.
But in Russia, things were not this way, and neither were the people.
The Russian bourgeoisie based itself on guile and did not enter into decisive
conflict with the autocracy. They gave birth to and shaped a sufficiently
powerful working class. They gave birth to the working class and then aggravated
relations with it to the limit. And this particularity had far reaching
consequences.
February occurred not through the efforts of the bourgeoisie and the
peasants, but under the pressure of two hundred thousand striking workers
in Petrograd. Could the bourgeoisie have utilized this? And how would this
have been expressed?
For this it would have been necessary to break the peasants free of
the grip of the landowner, to realize a transformation of the feudal relations
in land into capitalist ones. And further, to declare their power with
the support of the workers.
The latter condition was unobtainable. Therefore, the bourgeoisie avoided
battle with the landowners, searching instead for agreement with them and
preferring to remain under the protection of their traditional power. And
this meant also refusing to to act as organizer of the peasant movement.
The bourgeoisie feared its workers, and not without reason.
Where did such a political line lead? It could lead only to the establishment
of a feudal dictatorship. The autocracy or Kornilov[2],
this was purely a question of form. Nothing could change as a result, everything
would just be dragged out for another few years.
And here is where the law of uneven development appeared in very concrete
form. Having missed, somewhere in the 19th century, its moment to vanquish
the autocracy, the Russian bourgeoisie made the socialist revolution inevitable.
Of course, the fact that it occurred precisely in 1917 was the result
of the efforts of Lenin. It was necessary to understand the situation,
and it fell to the bolsheviks to link up with the elements of peasant organization.
Without Lenin, there might not have been an October in 1917.
But if not on that occasion, then after a decade, on the next lap; the
socialist revolution was already inevitable. Until the next crisis, there
would have been no reason for the feudals to give up their privileges,
and this would only have assisted the development of the contradictions
between the workers and the entrepreneurs. And in that next crisis, the
bourgeoisie would still not have rushed into battle, but would have hidden
from its workers under the landlords wing. History did not allow Russia
to live through its purely capitalist stage, replacing it instead with
a landlord-capitalist, feudal-bourgeois stage. Perhaps it was simply the
vastness of Russia, its huge population, that did not permit linking it
all together without a superfluous, intermediate, hierarchical stage, I
don't know. Or, at the very least, it was the unpreparedness of the bourgeoisie
to undertake the gigantic state labour, at the time that history gave it
this chance. But this chance would never return.
4
What lessons can we learn from the Civil War. Civil? Yes, it was civil;
father against son, brother against brother. Those who condemned Pavlik
Morozov[3] were not so much interested
in the idea which he followed, as they were indignant that it was a highly
personal feeling. And this brings us to the point where I want to remark;
as a driving factor, personal relations are, above all, only an idea and
they prevail over others only in blood feud situations. But they are such
an involution of history, that they lie to the side of the main path and
the majority of the people never have to go through them. In the Civil
War, there were other ruling ideas. To readers who reject the civil war
on humanitarian grounds I say; yes, of course, the war might never have
been if one side had given up and gone over to the other side. But which
side would have had to give up, I won't say. Another argument appears;
"The peasants were forcibly drafted into the Red Army." Yes, true enough,
and into the White as well. But, in the end, when a man finds himself with
a rifle, it is an expression of his conviction, his agreement or disagreement.
And if one side or another was victorious, this signifies that either it
had the greater numbers or its partisans were more reliable in their cohesion
and determination.
Now as to the economic side of things. "War Communism," under which
everything was seized from the peasants, except the very minimum; this
was, in no way, communism, it was the resurrection of the earliest feudal
relations, from the period in which the feudalism still had an estate form.
But, in general, war is a feudal phenomenon, for war has no other basis;
and wars will exist until such time as society finally liberates itself
from all feudal hangovers. That is to say, "war communism" is not a dash
ahead, but a return to a simpler way of life, a retreat back a few thousand
years. And for an end to war, it is necessary to build an economic life,
corresponding to demands of the times. But how?
I want to warn those who, in a fashion incomprehensible to me, snatch
at the propositions of Boris Bazhanov[4],
about Lenin's phrase on the revision of "all our opinions about socialism;"
this is no refutation, and if there is a revelation hidden in it, it is
no revelation for us. Lenin wrote one small article, really only half an
article, published long before the NEP in 1919, entitled "Economics
and Politics in the Epoch of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."
This is what he said there, "Theoretically, there can be no doubt that,
between capitalism and communism, there lies a certain transition period.
This can not unite within it the characteristics and attributes of both
these social management structures."
I am not adducing this quotation by way of a theoretical argument, it
proves something different; namely, that Lenin had achieved theoretical
clarity on this question at that time, and even earlier. I think, that
in this opinion on socialism, there is nothing to be revised. "Not only
for Marxists, but for every educated person, familiar, in one way or another,
with the theory of development, the necessity of an entire historical period
which is distinguished by the characteristics of a transitional period,
must be self-evident." This citation is on the same page as the preceding
one.
But, in order to create the diesel engine, apart from a knowledge of
physics, both engineering skill and experiment are needed. Which brings
us to the mistakes in constructive solutions which we perceive as obstacles
today, which have rolled off the shoulders of the previous generation and
become our oppressive burden. It is now that we must revise all our opinions
about socialism.
So let's get busy.
Here is a reflection for those who understand the necessity of socialism.
As for that revelation, which Lenin's thought comprehended, life itself,
albeit with some delay, leads us by the hand and proves it to us in all
its obviousness. Then, to those who try to read into the phrase mentioned
above the complete bankruptcy of socialism, we can say, "away with this
nonsense, you are not cut out to be an ally of Lenin's. Moreover, I must
set our discussion aside; this is a different question and you prove nothing
about our history with it, this is a question of worldwide experience."
Thus, the NEP was a constructive attempt to answer the demands of the
transition period, and a successful attempt at the start; with the help
of the NEP, catastrophic impoverishment was averted. Yet it gave birth
to quite a few problems. In fact, we will get to discuss these a little
later.
Meanwhile, let us recall one more questions from Lenin's time, the national
question. Lenin wrote a great deal on the question of national self-determination,
everyone remembers this. But I want to recall that he was just as insistently
an opponent of national autonomy in the party. This has been partly forgotten.
Lenin was a dialectician and clearly saw the dialectic in the national
question. Yes, the proletariat of the "great" nation" must support the
right of every "little" nation to secession. But this does not mean that
the "little" proletariat must welcome such a secession. Rather the opposite.
Although, should it appear that the proletariat can take power only on
condition of secession, then it should take power and agree to the secession.
But again, it must be borne in mind in this context, that it will be necessary
to struggle against autarchy and separatism and eventually to defeat it.
What is important for us today? Dialectical thinking suggests, and it
follows from a Leninist understanding, that the state and the proletarian
party must occupy diametrically opposed positions on the national question.
The state cannot take into consideration national separatism; it is all-embracing
and necessarily reacts to the needs even of its most backward citizens.
But the party is obliged to support, to the extent that this is possible,
the international interests of the advanced fraction, defending on its
behalf the corresponding right, whether this fraction is in the majority
or the minority. For without such opposition, these questions could, in
no way, be resolved; and if something were clarified, it could only be
their complexity and intractability.
Further, we must not leave the Leninist period in the history of the
Soviet state without reading the "Last Letter and Articles," dictated
by Lenin in the final months of his productive life, the material which
has come to be known as Lenin's political, Last Will and Testament.
Bukharin, for example, in his 1929 speech, considered the sum of these
works to be a scheme for the future, interpreting them, it is true, in
his own key. Whereas others sought in them ideological direction, requiring
clarification and completion. But let us try to read them in another way,
as a preview of what could only be foreseen. More exactly; what problems
were agitating Lenin at that time? In fact were the principal ones not
questions?
This is the list we obtain;
The danger of splits in the party.
The composition of the cadre in the higher party leadership.
The necessity of having workers and peasants in the leadership who had
not lost their direct links with production and the productive milieu.
The correlation between scientific planning and administrative decisions.
The national question, in its ideological and practical aspects.
The liquidation of illiteracy in the countryside, and the general raising
of literacy and culture. The strengthening of party links between town
and country.
On cooperation and state capitalism. But his was already quite concrete,
more of an answer than a question. Yet the question clearly was this; what
is the socialist path to the organization of production and the distribution
of goods?
The readiness of Russia for socialism. And the ability to cope with tasks
as they arose.
The uselessness of a bureaucratic apparatus, which, in its fundamentals,
had been copied from the Russian autocracy.
The effectiveness of the means for reconstructing the administrative system.
These are the questions, and, word of honour, I have invented none of it.
These are not the questions of today transposed to the past. You can read
it all for yourself, it isn't a lot; Volume 45, pages 343-406[5].
It seems that we are through with illiteracy. But as for the rest? Why
was Lenin's advice no help?
Let us try to answer. But not right away.
5
Stalin. Further discussions on Stalin, and long discussions. Once again
for many people these are unacceptable and thus difficult to the point
of impossibility.
Impossibility! Here, I regret, the word is not an hyperbole. Many times
I have tried to explain in such discussions, what it means to "have a living
position," and what it means to "reason as a materialist." I did not succeed;
they understood only who had such a position and who reasoned materialistically.
There are questions which can be decided by a ballot; these are questions
which are, in the end, tied to our desires, interests and willingness to
take risks. But this is not all. There are also questions which voting
cannot decide. This is the case wherever objective laws of nature are in
force, where knowledge rather than opinion is concerned. In science and
technology, they will readily accept all this, but not in the social sciences.
For example, here is how they try to argue; Lenin was very successful
at inventing slogans. He would toss a slogan to the crowd, and the crowd
would organize itself and act in the way he wanted them to. And had their
been another man, no less talented in such matters, he might have thought
up a different slogan and the crowd would have gone in the other direction.
Then there is an entirely different sort of person. Quite simply, they
understand; Lenin did not invent slogans, he discovered them in the masses
themselves, in their interests. The masses would never have gone anywhere
for some other slogans that you might have thought up, even if they were
three times more talented. There is some margin for error of course, but
only within the limits of precision of each individual's understanding.
For the first group I can suggest nothing, other than the possibility
that, through reading my work, they may notice; such an opinion exists.
With the second group, discussions are much more serious. Although, both
for the first and second, the text remains the same.
So, Stalin.
In his "Letter to the Congress," Lenin remarks in passing on
the shortcomings and sometimes on the merits of six leaders. Relations
between Stalin and Trotsky he saw as the possible source of a split. Hence,
Lenin had already assumed that, although for the time being it was scarcely
noticeable, Stalin was supported by no less important a section of the
party than that that followed the more widely known Trotsky. Or, perhaps
it was not in Stalin and Trotsky themselves that the point lay, but in
the bolshevism of Stalin and the non-bolshevism of Trotsky?
The bolshevism of Stalin is nowhere called in to question in the letter.
But let us take a look at the shortcomings that Lenin saw in Stalin. Would
he be able to use the power of General Secretary with sufficient caution?
Stalin was too crude, and this shortcoming was intolerable in the post
of General Secretary. And obliquely; he demanded a General Secretary differing
from Stalin in having "only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more
loyal, more attentive to the comrades, less capricious etc." But all
this appears in the context of the possibility of a split; "this is
no trifle, or is a trifle that can assume a decisive significance."
There are no doubts about the bolshevism of Stalin here, nor, it is
true, apparently a confirmation either. Except for one thing, were it not
for the crudeness, Lenin would have found Stalin entirely suitable for
the post of General Secretary, the General Secretary of the Leninist bolshevik
party. But Trotsky was not suitable; it never entered Lenin's head to avoid
the split by entrusting "unlimited authority" to the hands of Trotsky.
Although he considered Stalin and Trotsky, to an equal extent, to be the
"two
most outstanding leaders of the present CC." Nor did Lenin consider
any of the other leaders that the party possessed at the time, whom he
listed and discussed in the letter, to be suitable.
Why?
Lenin was a materialist thinker. In putting before a meeting of the
CC any particular question, Lenin always knew that the decision would be
taken in accordance with historical necessity. The details apart, regarding
the form of activity, everything had to be decided according to the opinion
of the majority, for it would fall to them to act. When Lenin gave someone
a mission, he foresaw the results of activity in all possible variants.
And he foresaw the sum of the results of all activity, taking into consideration
the general picture.
Neither Trotsky, nor Zinoviev, Kamenev or Bukharin were materialist
thinkers. Concerning Pyatakov, it is true, I cannot confidently make such
a judgement as the result of lack of sufficient familiarity with his activities.
But this changes nothing. All of them successfully worked under the leadership
of Lenin. This was no accident. Lenin placed and directed them into the
specific conditions in which their specific capabilities acquired the highest
efficiency. And it was no accident that they loved Lenin; this was the
subconscious confirmation that the Leninist mission brought them more success
and satisfaction than their own self-direction would have.
Clearly, this quality of Lenin's; the continuous correlation of logic,
science and experience with the specific time and circumstances, with the
specific talents and possibilities of people, conferred on the the party
that particularity which is called bolshevism. Consider for example Julii
Martov, or equally Trotsky, both repeatedly discovered remarkable, theoretical
treasures; however the ability to correlate these with the actual course
of social development was possessed neither by the one nor by the other.
Of all of Lenin's circle, of all the highest echelons of the party leadership,
only one man was worthy of comparison to Lenin in this regard; Stalin.
Stalin was a materialist thinker.
Stalin could lead the party and the state through the difficulties and
surprises of this period of its establishment.
But Stalin could not replace Lenin.
I have not yet spoken about the fact that Stalin had less dynamic thinking
and a less profound understanding of historical processes. But, it was
not given, fully formed, to Stalin to take the place of Lenin in high party
relations; clearly these were not duties, not formal relations.
It seems to me that, at the start, Stalin very much avoided the limelight.
He waited; suppose, after the liberation from the tutelage of Lenin, that
someone with the gift of materialist thinking, had broken through. Clearly,
under good leadership, people capable of and incapable of such thinking
are practically indistinguishable... Had such a person appeared, Stalin
would have been their reliable support; people with materialist thinking
easily come to a mutual understanding.
Perhaps I am wrong and Stalin never had such a hope. He clearly had
the opportunity to evaluate many people in the debates over the Brest peace.
Whatever the case, whether a little sooner or a little later, it became
clear to Stalin that taking full and complete responsibility had fallen
to him.
This is usually considered to be the start of the period of Stalin's
battle for unlimited personal power. And from the foregoing point of view,
for full control over the situation and the development of events.
Was such complete control needed? And more to the point, the personal
control of one man? Was it not more important to build a system of collective
leadership, which would insure against personal arbitrariness, where all
questions would be decided in a collegial fashion?
We frequently compare the political system of the USSR with the political
systems of the capitalist countries. They have a rich experience, having
tried many variants, and not one effective variant is based on totalitarian
control.
Now this is what I want to call your attention to. The socialist state
with its state ownership of the means of production is, apart from everything
else, still an economic system. And it is a system on a gigantic scale.
The company, the enterprise serves as an analogy in the capitalist world.
A single company, and not the whole economy. Each company, whether headed
by an individual entrepreneur or by a general director, is authoritarian.
Whatever storms might occur at the highest levels of bourgeois politics,
the stability of the economy is secured by the stability of the separate
systems. The owners are unchanged. The owners are neither elected nor overthrown.
It is they who secure the unity of the plan and its implementation, the
(economic) policies and their realization.
Of course, the owners do change, companies are inherited and sold. But
this process is spread out, stochastically, over time. And that which one
inheritor might destroy, or the change of political direction which one
purchaser might bring about, these are trifles, small ripples in the sea
of economic life.
The people's socialist economy is quite another thing. This company
simply does not have the right to go bankrupt. Nor to make essential mistakes
in its choice of direction. And, as with any capitalist company, it cannot
allow lack of coordination in its economic mechanism or defects in its
administrative systems. On the other hand it is considerably more difficult
for it to defend these structures against political storms. Nor can it
expect help or protection from any quarter.
Such were the responsibilities that Stalin took upon himself. And, in
order to accomplish the essential tasks, he needed both a reliable series
of administrative systems and, more importantly, freedom from the thoughtless
zigzags of collegial voting.
I have still not passed judgement as to whether this was good or bad,
and I beg you, dear reader, not to rush to judgement either. Perhaps it
would have been better not to undertake the construction of a socialist
economy, perhaps the best thing would have been to let things slide, to
wait for a complete collapse and then to see what economic form would have
arisen spontaneously. Perhaps. But Stalin made his choice. And the actions
of Stalin, which each of us wants to assess and judge from the level of
his own contemporary outlook, is entirely contained in this choice.
We still have to discuss other actions of Stalin. But the first of these
actions, of an historically significant scale, was this one.
6
If, at the start of the 20's, there had been, in the party leadership,
more materialist thinkers, then, in the first place, Stalin might not have
been fated to become Lenin's successor, and, in the second place, it would
have been easier for the successor to build a new system of relations without
Lenin.
Stalin could not utilize the mechanism which served Lenin; without Lenin,
there was no such mechanism. Stalin could not even utilize those relations
which had formed around him during Lenin's illness, for these too depended
greatly on Lenin's authority. The system had to be built anew.
It was essential to install, in key posts, people for whom the authority
of Stalin was just as high as Lenin's was in his time, or even better,
unquestionable. The party leaders of the first wave could, in no way, see
in Stalin a leader; for them he appeared to be, in the best case, a coordinator.
Yes, this was a struggle for power. But not between this individual
and that one, (for no one, apart from Stalin, really aspired to it) but
for the construction, for the founding of a functioning system of administration.
And those who neither wanted nor were able to join in, those whose activities
complicated its construction, had to give up their places for others.
It would have been foolish to undertake the administration of the country
without undertaking the resolution of these problems. Now, Stalin's guile
is often spoken of, particularly in this period. But guile consists in
inventing new subterfuges each time an obstacle, which needs to be overcome,
arises on one's path. Guile was a small part of his nature, and occurred
in him only episodically. For Stalin it was sufficient to become conscious
of a task, for him, at each step, for the rest of his life, to work toward
its resolution, completely independent of whatever obstacles might come
into view.
Now we know what a system of all-embracing total control Stalin built.
And we know at what cost. We should take note of this as his second action.
Before Stalin lay many mistakes. I am not speaking about unavoidable
mistakes, for these are only small misfortunes, I am speaking about essential
mistakes. When gaining ground by the method of trial and error, every trial
includes within it coping with the errors.
It might seem, that having undertaken such a labour, this would oblige
me, were I not also willing to judge all Stalin's acts en masse,
to illuminate each of his mistakes, one after the other, engraving them,
as they say, "with needles in the corner of the eye."
In actual fact this is completely wrong. We can judge mistakes in two
ways; either from the perspective of our contemporary problems, bringing
to the assessment all the emotions to which our problems give birth, or
in an objectified fashion, that is, assuming in the subject, the personage,
the existence of definite aims, which we have established or guessed at,
and consider the errors he committed in movement toward these aims.
I can permit myself neither the one nor the other. In their place I
will set forth two further approaches. The first is hierarchical. Let us
suppose that our historical subject has a supreme aim. In the process of
its achievement, it will be broken up into a set of parallel and serial
stages, in the course of which these aims will be achieved. And so, in
the end, we can break the whole down into the tiniest separate actions.
If we sympathize with the supreme aim, then we can, in the light of new
historical knowledge, review every level of the pyramid and give our assessment
of the correctness of the breakdown at each level and also point out improved
variants. That is if we sympathize. But what if we do not sympathize...
Then we are sympathizing with some other historical subject, acting in
the given overview as a passive individual. Of course, we can set up a
hierarchy of aims and stages for a different, active, historical figure,
but our task must be something different; it is to indicate those points,
where the passive individual that interests us could have actively intervened,
and perhaps, at a single stroke, chopped down and transformed the entire
pyramid. From this perspective we clearly cannot be reproached for leaving
out the details; they are nothing for us. The second approach is pragmatic.
This is when we establish some correspondence between our personal aims
and those of the historical subject we are studying, then comparing his
path with that lying before us. The similarity in this case may be very
one-sided, and this is permissible, but what is important is that the analogy
should be drawn only to a corresponding extent.
Why have I spoken in such detail about these approaches, why have I
spent so much of the reader's time on them? It is because the whole point
lies here. Those who themselves dream of unbounded personal power, have
the absolute right to investigate the Stalinist epoch from this angle;
from this position they can judge the tasks and the mistakes, and since
they can observe the historical result, perhaps, understand and evaluate
them. I however, in so far as I see a completely different task before
me, am, for the moment, lacking the privilege of passing judgement. What
we bring to the point of comparison, we must take from the corresponding
aims, then it will be revealed what is within our jurisdiction and what
is not.
But then I have also not refrained from passing certain judgements.
So it should be bourne in mind, although I have necessarily studied our
entire history to make these assessments, it is not by history or by Stalin
that they will be characterized, but by me, myself, on questions from which
I may be unable to separate myself.
And now let us simply note objectively; many mistakes lay before Stalin.
But he did not have the right to make them.
7
Stalin and the NEP. Speaking about Lenin, we only just touched on the NEP,
as form discovered for the realization of a theoretical notion. The NEP
was then just a baby.
It needed six years for its infancy, and it cut its baby teeth. Two
of them, both on top.
Firstly, for the NEP-capitalists, Soviet power appeared as fetters,
even tighter than those of the autocracy on the bourgeoisie. And capital
began to broaden its field with its habitual methods, buying soviet bureaucrats
left and right.
Secondly, once again it took the form of a shortage of bread. The peasant
had bread, but he did not want to sell it. So as a consequence, he didn't
try to produce it.
For lovers of logic problems, here everything is clear. Corruption had
to be stopped short and the peasant provided with a better selection of
goods, he would then sell his bread. In general, it was not against the
NEP that it was necessary to fight but against its insufficiency. What
can you say in the face of a correct decision? But somehow, in principle,
it didn't suit everyone. It definitely did not suit Stalin.
Bukharin said, "Enrich yourselves!"
But what for?
For this question obviously arises here. Under capitalism, you can amass
millions upon millions with aim of acquiring General Motors and squeezing
Ford out of the automobile market. But under Soviet Power? The NEP was
devoid of real stimuli, only in its early stage did it stimulate enterprise,
later it became a limit, here it had reached the limit. To go further it
would be necessary to remove these limits, to give the Nepmen a parliament,
so that they could regulate themselves.
Before perestroika, the question had repeatedly, in many situations,
arisen, of borrowing what was best from the West and applying it for ourselves.
For example, when meat became scarce, they decided to raise the purchase
price, for, so they said, this would stimulate the development of production.
But, so that the wages of shepherds and herdsmen would not rise to unseemly
levels, they also limited the number of head for each worker. But with
this also the whole herd. The production of meat fell again and the prices
rose. This is known as the "the tale of the white steer."[6]
But, with a black one, it seems to me that things would have turned out
no better.
In the end, we will have to come up with an idea, and I am getting there.
But for this it is essential to be materialist thinkers. In 1928, Stalin
sought contact with Bukharin. If you like, Bukharin was the well-known
party figure whose recognition Stalin had, above all, hoped for. True his
hopes were in vain, they were not justified; and in 1929 Bukharin was still
living with the same beautiful but incomplete ideas as he had had before,
not noticing that life had already dealt them a death blow.
To put it succinctly, Stalin not only resolved to go it alone, but somehow
saw problems which he alone could resolve. He himself understood that it
was not between socialism and capitalism that he was choosing, that choice
was straightforward, and not just for him. But only from an understanding
of this choice would it have been possible to project the path forward,
and no one had such an understanding. This is why it became routine within
the system founded by Stalin, which simply believed in him, and which made
little or no impression on those remaining outside it, that no further
interpretation could be engaged in.
Thus the course was set for industrialization. This was one action.
And for collectivization; this was a second, independent action.
The necessity of industrialization was clear to everyone. But Trotsky
and his supporters hoped to increase the tempo by means of requisitioning
from the peasants. Bukharin declared that this would undermine cereal production,
the supply of raw materials for export and industry, and called for a search
for moderation. Stalin understood that neither the first nor the second
would resolve the problem of industrialization.
The only way out of these dead ends was a paradoxical solution, a revolutionary
idea. Stalin invented his own path, the path of mass collectivization.
Now we are becoming conscious of the cruelty of this process through fragmentary
recollections and through the horrifying face of rehabilitated statistics.
But we must also bear in mind that the directions, set forth in the ideas
of Trotsky and Bukharin, could not, in principle, have produced a similar
political-economic result. Perhaps the sum of the achievements of Stalin's
methods were not necessary? Perhaps. And perhaps, the same or even greater
results might have been obtained along a different path, in another direction?
This, I don't know, I have neither hit upon nor met with an intelligent
proposal; nor do I know how judge this, nor how much time would have be
required.
8
A small note on one, not so very historic, event; at the beginning of the
thirties, the 'partmaximum' was abolished.
What was the 'partmaximum'. Until its abolishment, the following
situation existed; the wages of a communist in a leading post were not
defined by the official pay scales, but were fixed by the corresponding
party organ, and were fixed with a limit of the average wages of workers.
The 'partmaximum' was the maximum wage, and not all leading communists
received it. The following situation was far from rare; the chief engineer
of a factory, a non-party specialist might receive 500 roubles, whereas
the director, a communist, got 150 and could get no more.
So this limitation was abolished. There is much here that I can understand.
Well, you took a guy from the factory, a nobody, but he became the director;
whereas a guy who had studied management, became a specialist, had perhaps
completed night school, had no personal prospects. And again, under such
conditions, how could you recruit leading communists? Send them all through
higher education? But this was constrained by the fact that if you remained
a worker, you could earn more than the average, but with a diploma this
was impossible. And why should you struggle? For the workers - yes. But
so that the non-party specialist could live like a bourgeois, so much better
than the party members...
There is much that I can understand, but it interests me greatly, what
would have happened if, instead of this simple abolition, a different order
had been established, if the leaders had been presented with the following
choice; "either leave the party and get the full rate for your work, without
limitation, or remain in the party and on 'partmaximum.'" And, in
order to avoid mutual resentment, "we are not excluding you, but assigning
you to administrative work." I would very much like to know what the consequences
would have been. But this is not my fate.
9
The year 1937. I write these numbers with horror, as though I were occupying
a place on the lawyers bench before a key session of the Stalin tribunals.
Attracting a thousand stares; does he really dare to pipe up with something
by way of justification?
Actually, one's attitude to the "great terror" has become a touchstone
for us, a sort of password. Do you condemn it? Decisively and irrevocably?
Then you are a supporter of perestroika! Do you have doubts? Then you are
a Stalinist... Ivan the Terrible and his 'oprichnina'[7]
have acquired, so it seems, the quality of a criterion. But Alexander the
Great has not. Why?
My position, of course, is different, it is located outside this framework.
But one fear has not desserted me. In both camps, among Stalinists and
anti-Stalinists, there are to be found people who have not readdressed
their emotions to the present day, and search in history, as we have laid
out, for points of support. To us, perhaps together, it falls to investigate
the details, which is why I would not want to be considered the enemy only
because, for me, explanations of the type "paranoia" or "unbridled intoxication
with personal omnipotence" explain nothing, or because assurances as to
the aboriginal justice of the chosen path do not calm me down.
And now, in essence. That, after the October revolution, the countries
ruling apparatus was, in large part, inherited from Czarism, is no secret.
Lenin wrote quite a lot about this. Moreover, there is an objective cause
here; society cannot, all at once, take on a different, unfamiliar form,
it must approach this step by step, in stages. So too the Stalinist system,
repeated the form of the feudal state, perhaps expressing this even more
clearly. This remark characterizes the specific conditions.
Now for the rest. Any human being, in leading any cause whatever, even
if he perfectly meets the needs of this cause, can not find himself, eternally,
in such a close correspondence with it. Particularly if the cause itself
develops and the external conditions change with remarkable speed.
If the cause is personal, then the man himself decides when to give
it up. But if it is a cause entrusted to him, then, understandably, it
is the interests of those who have entrusted it to him that rule.
With what qualifications did the leaders, after the revolution, arrive
at their posts? It can certainly be said that whatever they were, so too
they remained. These people were, as a rule, energetic and diligent, they
were gripped by the cause, but the cause itself did not remain on the spot,
it hurried forward.
We are, habitually, kind; specifically we sympathize with definite people.
Were this not the case, literature and art would, in general, not exist.
Yet, though this is true abstractly, we frequently appear terribly cruel,
but this is not noticed at all. For example, we dismiss a man 58 years
of age, and we grumble; will we be lucky enough to make it to a pension.
But the fact that, perhaps, only two more years were required for him to
make such a breakthrough in science or a branch of production, or the management
of the whole society, as the whole of society will not be able to catch
up to or patch over in an entire decade, this sphere of abstraction we
do not see.
Progress is a cold word, but to oppose it is not somehow soft and gentle,
but a degradation; and if there is some heat to be felt from this word,
then it is the heat of decay. Progress is the child of abstract kindness,
and Leonid Ilyich[8] avoided conflict,
never offending specific people. Newton and Watt, Diesel and Oppenheimer
are the bearers of abstract kindness. And in this realm the atomic bomb
is not evil, nor the hydrogen, nor the neutron either, these all broaden
our scientific horizons. The evil arises in another realm, the realm of
application, where Diesel can appear to be evil, fertilizer too, even medicine.
But we are people, we are living through a sickness when abstract goodness
manifests itself in specific evil, and cannot but manifest itself in this
way. Society continuously invents mitigating forms; a send-off with a pension,
honourable discharge, transfer to specially created, work-free duties,
all within the limits of decency, but clearly behind all of this there
is someone saying something quite crude and specific, that this post will
be taken away from that person.
The more society develops, the more need we have for abstract goodness.
While our consciousness lags behind, and it is time that we clarified this,
we cannot live without this goodness and its cruelty, and we must find
appropriate forms for them and reconcile ourselves to them.
So then, for the working class, and for all the soviet lands and for
the socialist economy, the opportune renewal of the composition of the
leadership was very important. Because those who had rebuilt the factories
from ruins, were not prepared to improve production, and those who were
perfecting it were not able to cope in a timely fashion. And leaving them
at their accustomed leadership posts meant spending the peoples money for
nothing, cheating the expectations of the whole country and indeed, beyond
our borders, of the world's proletariat, and in general to turn the forward
movement into empty stomping around on the spot.
And now let us put ourselves in the position of such an exhausted leader.
"I
built this factory out of twigs, (possible variations; I built it in
the empty steppe from nothing, filled in the swamp with wheelbarrows, hewed
the cliff with pickaxes) I didn't sleep at night, I was without a crust
of bread but I loaded, I dug, I pulled, I led, I shed my own blood; and
now, here you are. They have sent a boy with a diploma, the son of an intellectual
(actually, where else could you get educated people back then) who was
still running barefoot under the table during the civil war to replace
me. It's not necessary, I am still here."
Stress, of course. But for just one man this would still be nothing,
he would survive somehow, watching the others. It is much more terrible
when such stress hits an entire generation, but this is exactly how it
was.
Of itself, the feudal structure, my recollection of which in the early
sections was not, I hope, for nothing, imparted a feeling, at the very
least, that this was a lifetime conquest, if not eternal. And there you
have it. The people of this generation gathered, talked, rewrote, exchanged
ideas, went into details and came to a consciousness of there own rightness
and the unanimous understanding that Stalin led the struggle with the old
party comrades.
The reason that I have touched on psychological factors is that, in
the given case, it was they, rather than personal aspects, that stereotyped
the formation of a definite layer, and this was the layer of the leaders
who were authoritative and influential, both in the party and among the
people.
When the member of the electoral commission at the XVIIth party congress,
V.M. Verkovik, declared that 123 or 125 votes against the election of Stalin
to the Central Committee had been cast, this may well have been true; although
obviously, it can neither be corroborated nor refuted. But there were those
who voted against. There were. The year was 1934.
The necessity of renewing the leading cadre, of course, does not contain
within it the necessity of repression. Around the world such a process
of renewal goes on uninterruptedly, though in periods of sharp change the
state of affairs becomes greatly intensified, and that's it, it occurs
without tragedy. Without mass tragedy at least.
Twice Stalin built a mass company; and to some extent this is explicable
by the fact that start of the leadership career of all of them was tied
to one date, the date of the revolution. In 1927 the renewal of the cadre
proceeded under the banner of the struggle against Trotskyism. Ten years
later in 1937...
In these ten year cycles there lies some sort of law-like regularity.
Mao Tse-Tung too indicated such a periodicity for his cultural-revolutionary
shake-ups: 8-10 years.
In 1937, the top was for Stalin. But it is not hard see what would have
happened if the advantage had lain with this very leadership layer. It
would have come to power under the utterly Brezhnevite slogan, "We must
let people work calmly," and would have brought all forward movement
to a halt, in despair, in the face of a not very high barrier. True, the
ideas of perestroika would have arisen in one form or another for by then
the ultimate stagnation of those times would have been visible.
Once more, I want to underline, that in all the preceding considerations
there is not the slightest motivation to justify mass repression. They
are only concerned with the fact that in its economic development the country
had real difficulties, which demanded a resolution. Here were the real
demands, and they were not at all arbitrary, which served as the initial
impulse to launch the terror mechanism.
Here is what it is important for us to understand from history, for
before us lies resolving our future, and in it we may meet with such difficulties.
If we can, having been alienated by the arbitrariness of Stalinist ideas,
concern ourselves only with ensuring that a person such as Stalin does
not appear at the helm, then, who knows, perhaps we will be able to push
aside the problems that appear without finding ourselves with a new helmsman,
not quite Stalin, but acting like Stalin, and having no other path. And
if we can comprehend, how to change the conditions in such a way that we
do not meet with these difficulties or so that we are prepared to obtain
a more successful outcome from them, then the lesson of history will not
have been given to us in vain.
I have one more argument which permits an understanding of Stalin's
activity. It does not justify it, no, but it brings us nearer to understanding
that historical conformity to law, to which our society is subordinated.
I will, of course, set it forth, but not right away. First, we need one
more small section to initiate our theoretical renewal, for, without this
in support, our investigation would be difficult.
And there is one more question. Let us suppose that Stalin resolved
the question of renewal of the leadership in the interests of the economy,
the country and the ruling class. But wasn't Stalin himself growing old,
was change not demanded from him.
Perhaps it was necessary to change him. But how?
10
In Russia, in 1917, the Great October Socialist Revolution took place.
This phrase, which in the not so distant past was a banality for every
schoolchild, is today under attack from various directions. Did this revolution
bring socialism? Was socialism what we needed? Did the October Revolution
bring socialism from the very beginning? Unlike D'Artagnan, I don't have
the possibility of fencing with my opponents all at once, I am compelled
to change horses and continue along the path. For me this phrase has lost
none of its truth.
So what is socialism? Socialism is proletarianism, as the originator
of this term, Grigorii Isaev, put it; that is the epoch of the mastery
of the proletariat. This, in no way, is a departure from Marx, who saw
as the first step "the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling
class" and as the second, the economic power of "the state, i.e.
the proletariat organized as the ruling class."
I am a Marxist, but I have already given notice that this does not mean
that I am not ready for dialog with people whose thinking lies beyond the
limits of Marxism. Any original thought, if it has, in its crowning moment,
a definite idea, can be considered. And even if it is not original, this
is possible so long as the author does not turn away from such inventiveness.
But now, the question is not one of debate; if it is necessary, we can
debate later. At the moment, if you like, what is most important is something
else; I am a Marxist, and have undertaken this investigation from positions
which coincide with the views of those who created history in the period
under investigation.
I want to draw the attention both of those who are ready to debate,
and those who are reading these notes with sympathy and understanding,
to one, not very large, perhaps even insignificant, strengthening of the
Marxist position, which permeates almost every note. This is no accident.
This is the transfer of the argument from the realm of "belief or non-belief
in Marxism in general," or the "necessity of Marxism or lack thereof" to
a different realm; does the science of Marxism help us to investigate our
own history.
Thus, in October 1917, the Russian proletariat achieved victory. In
the October revolution and thereafter in the course of the Civil War, the
proletariat proved itself to be the ruling class. Now it was, precisely,
the proletariat that won the victory, and not the bolsheviks; the bolsheviks
only took upon themselves the organization of the proletariat and its cooperation
with the peasantry. In general, in great social upheavals it is not parties
that struggle and win, but classes; the parties are only noticeable in
the struggle thanks to the fact that they express the interests of one
class or another.
With a new ruling class, come new economic relation. In order to strengthen
them, in order to give them form, a new "state, i.e. the proletariat
organized as the ruling class" is also necessary.
Difficulties always arise here. The bourgeoisie, long since, found the
forms for its state. Great Britain conducted its search between the revolution
and the civil war in the seventeenth century. France went through this
between the occurrence of the two bourgeois revolutions and the trial of
the Paris Commune. The United States went through it in the Revolutionary
War and the Civil War of the North against the South.
With the entrance onto the historical stage of a new class new problems
arise. The socialist state must be the expression of the will of the proletariat.
But the expression of its desire is not valid once and for all, its will
puts forward ever newer demands which change together with the development
of the proletariat itself.
The ability of Lenin to comprehend the interests of the proletariat
is proven both in his pre-revolutionary activities and in his work as the
head of the state. Strictly speaking, it defined bolshevism and secured
the link between the party and the working class, including during the
Civil War.
But in Stalin too this continuous contact with the interests of the
working class is to be found. If in the first two discussions with Trotskyism
it was still possible to speak of the role of Lenin's authority, then the
discussion of 1924-25 proceeded without Lenin, however, support for Stalin's
line in it had also been predetermined. Just as in the struggles with the
succeeding oppositions
And now we must touch upon the completely unacceptable question, which,
I know, cannot help but cause pain, but it is essential that we clarify
it. The very possibility of Stalin's repression of well-known and popular
activists of the party directly proves the closeness of his ties to the
working class, the reliability of his support. Brezhnev, for example, even
if he had very much wanted to, could never have conducted any significant
repression against the leading layer; this layer would have swiftly swept
him away, for it was none other than this layer that he relied upon.
To those who are convinced that the power of Stalin was based on the
power of the repressive organs I offer the following objections.
In the first place, no such organs are social forces. It is only classes
that constitute these forces and all such organs function only while the
classes permit it.
In the second place, the repressive organs are not a mechanism, they
are people whose service brought them together into a certain system. And
if circumstances compel them to serve a smaller social force against a
larger, or even to actively participate in a confrontation between equal
forces, splits in them are inevitable. Let us say that Brezhnev had demanded
action against the leading layer from the KGB, then this organ would simply
have gone over to the side of the leading layer. And if Andropov had not
resolved this personally, he would have found someone from his inner circle
to take the lead in this transformation. I deliberately mentioned Brezhnev
here in order to illustrate the general situation. As regards the specific
factors, remember the role of the Semichastnii[9]
in 1964.
So then, at least in the thirties, the power of Stalin depended on his
solid support within the working class. Expressions of the type "on the
undeveloped working class," or "on the backward part of the working class,"
are unacceptable. If, in the working class of that time, there had been
more developed and more powerful forces, then people would have been found
who would have, on this basis, built politics more powerful than those
of Stalin.
Lenin represented the interests of the working class jointly with the
whole party leadership. Whereas Stalin represented these interests practically
alone. This was how the picture turned out, this was the process that took
place at the summit of leadership. So the fact that, for some time, Stalin
became particularly concerned for his own life, possibly, is explained
not by personal fear, but by a feeling of responsibility, a recognition
of the uniqueness of this position.
While the party had an opposition, Stalin's form of expression of the
interests of the working class were checked by debate with the opposition.
But once the opposition had been liquidated, Stalin had arrived at the
position of taking decisions without the slightest prior supervision.
Certainly from the perspective of the working class, this was a strange
sort of rulership. Decisions were taken in its interests, but not by it.
The development of a ruling class also consists in, having taken an incorrect
decision, appreciating for itself all the results of its miscalculation,
studying and avoiding them, and in the end, building a system in which
it keeps for itself all the key levers. The soviet working class found
itself to have completely lost all this. And clearly it was only by following
such a path that it created its bourgeois institutions. "Stalin thinks
for us!" This was the truth, but it was nothing to be proud of. The great
leader himself put a stop to mistakes, and corrected them when he could.
But the working class, liberated from the necessity of thought, remained
in the dark, socially unenlightened, and squandered even that which it
had gotten in the revolutionary struggle. These were conditions in which
the growth of working class consciousness was impossible.
11
I am now approaching a crucial point, at which we can finally reach completion.
Although there is still life left in our investigation of Stalin, and there
remain some events, consideration of which can enrich our knowledge and
understanding of history, still, we can draw some conclusions. The historical
material that we have already assimilated, allows us to do the most important
thing, to produce a confrontation between the positions. And not just that.
I will now express some not altogether persuasive ideas, so please pay
close attention. There is neither the time nor the need to prove them in
detail, for they concern me personally, my opinions, rather than the historical
investigation which we have undertaken together. We may discuss that which
interests you in my ideas on another occasion, if the reader and the writer
both want to.
I believe that the Marxist idea that the worldwide socialist revolution
would begin with the conquest of power by the proletariat in one or a few
of the most developed capitalist countries is insufficiently precise. The
point is not just that in practice things turned out differently, the point
is that they were unavoidably otherwise. I think that, had the proletarian
revolution not taken place in Russia, it would have happened in Germany.
And that afterwards, an absolutely typical bourgeois revolution would have
occurred in Russia. That is to say the priority in the breakthrough to
the future could have been granted by history to just exactly one of these
two countries.
Therefore the construction of socialism in one country, taken separately,
is not, for me, a problem, it requires no proof, it is rather an inevitability,
requiring only the correct paths for its realization.
From which, naturally, it follows that the course, which Lenin undertook
without serious doubt, the course of building socialism in Russia, I consider
correct. But...
But then there are the problems, posed in section four, which defeated
Lenin, defeated Stalin, and which continue to be unresolved up to the present
day, which tells us that, clearly, there was a foundational defect which
hindered their resolution.
Or, was this just the pushing aside of the working class from the management
of the state, about which we spoke in the preceding section. Surely this
hindered the development of the proletariat. Clearly, this also hindered
the resolution of these unresolved problems?...
"The proletariat, organized as the ruling class." To me this
thesis is obvious. The feudal state is the feudal class organized as the
ruling class. The bourgeois - the bourgeoisie. Is there anything secret
in this?
What organizes the feudals? Land and weapons.
What organizes the bourgeoisie? Capital and commodity exchange.
What organizes the proletariat? Production and ...
Organization! This is the point; if the initial impulse to organization
of the proletariat was given by joint participation in production, then
the further development of this process can only come from self-directed
proletarian organizations, penetrating the whole class from top to bottom
and side to side, arising and disintegrating, based entirely on the good
will and enthusiasm of the activists, their creation.
Organization lies in organizations! There is nothing secret here. Can
there be any doubt?
But, come on now, let us take a look. Amidst the pre-revolutionary Russian
proletariat there were; mutual societies, unions, national links and parties
- not just the bolsheviks but all the rest too. Here there was something
that could ripen, there was a means for the formation of opinion, here
there was a field for the search for truth.
And after the revolution? The communist party became the ruling party
and all the rest were banned. But the ruling party is absolutely not self-directing.
It is tied with the interests of the government and expresses its interests,
and these cannot coincide for long with the interests of the proletariat.
Unions? But they too were subordinated to the ruling party, as were all
the remaining and newly arising organizational forms.
But let us work through another variant in detail; suppose, having formed
the government of the 25th of October the party had thrown those taking
up the state posts off of its membership list, while the party itself remained
with the proletariat. What would have happened?
To separate, does not mean to become enemies. At the beginning, the
party would have, in the most active way, helped the foundation of the
new government, to the extent that the party defined its tasks. But the
more solidly power was established, the more this would have revealed stagnation.
And the more active the party attack became, the more urgently it would
have demanded change. And when the possibilities of the old system became
exhausted, the party could have pushed in a new wave of leaders. Once again
dismissing them from its membership roster.
This is a simplification. But is not a simplification in essence but
in exposition. The proper language does not yet exist for such an exposition,
this will have to be invented along the road. But in order for us to consider
this approach, let there be this simplification, look how many problems
this permits us to resolve. Take for example Lenin's problems.
And at once it we can see that a large number of the problems simply
drop away. The danger of splits? Cadre Composition? But for the class these
are not problems. A split in the government? A change of administration?
A split in the party? Let there be two, even four. And the correspondence
between scientific and administrative decisions. Having studied the problems
themselves, the parties will permit you not even one mistake. So too with
mistakes in national and cultural policy. As for the organization of production
and distribution, go ahead, try things out, but there will be neither successes
nor failures that go unappraised. The 'rabkrin'[10]
too will become the entire self-directed political system.
So, in the end, it is only when I understand that the basis of socialist
society can only be a self-directed political system, linked to the proletariat
in many ways, but independent of the government and more importantly not
subordinated to it, a system which continuously supports the organization
of the working class and is ready to interfere in the activities of the
state when things go wrong, it is only then that I am able to pass judgement
on Stalin.
This judgement is dialectical. And for those interested in the emotional
side, I will put it more plainly, ambivalent.
Socialism is impossible in the presence of a ruling party. And, however
much effort a person, whether Stalin or someone else, did not put into
the realization of this idea, that much is wasted effort. And all the victims
are in vain, and for them there can be no justification.
But clearly there is another side. Although it was substandard socialism,
it did endure for a few decades and illuminated the most important difficulties.
Had it not been so, humanity might have gone on bruising itself blindly
again and again, passing through a hundred Paris communes, each time paying
the price in blood because it was unwilling to pay the price in the attentive
study of history.
And this is what concerns us; it would be absolutely unforgivable were
we not to utilize the knowledge that we have already paid for, and instead
were to go on, not analysing the path we have travelled, and thus kept
paying and paying and paying these payments all over again.
1989
Notes
[1] Sysyphus was a mythological king who was condemned
for eternity to push a huge boulder up a hill all day, whereupon, at night,
it rolled back down.
[2] General L. G. Kornilov (1870-1918) led an insurrection
against the Provisional Government in August 1917. He later became a commander
in the White Army and was killed near Yekaterinodar.
[3] Pavlik (Paul Trofimovich) Morozov (1918-1932)
was a Pioneer and participated in the struggle against the kulaks during
the collectivization. He was born to a poor peasant family and exposed
the hostile actions of the kulaks who later, brutally murdered him. According
to legend, he informed the authorities that his own father was a kulak.
[4] Boris Bazhanov was a popular publicist for prerestroika
in its early days. Today hardly anyone remembers him.
[5] The reference is to the Collected Works in Russian.
This material is also reproduced in Lenin's Selected Works, Progress
Publishers, 1975, Volume III, pages 679-726.
[6] This Russian saying is used in situations where
someone, trying to make sense of events, but missing the key point, repeatedly
returns to their starting point. The reference to a steer of a different
color in the next sentence, is intended to indicate that the authorities
had not only missed the boat regarding meat production, but many other
things as well.
[7] The special administrative elite established in
Russia by Ivan IV.
[8] Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU
from 1964 to 1982.
[9] Semichastnii was the head of the KGB at the time
of Kruschev's removal. This removal took place at a plenum of the CC of
the CPSU, which, understandably was prepared in the strictest secrecy.
What was to take place at this plenum, or even that it was to be held at
all was known only to 3-4 people. It had to be unexpected, and thus kept
secret from Kruschev's supporters; Kruschev himself was on vacation at
the time. Two hundred members of the CC had to be collected from all over
the vast country. Because of the huge time differences between the time
zones of Kaliningrad and Vladivostok many members had to be literally dragged
from their beds, pulled out of baths at their dachas or grabbed off the
toilet by the KGB. They were so stunned that they hardly needed to be forcibly
bundled into the airplanes and carted off to Moscow. Clearly, such an almost
war-time operation could only have been carried out by the all-powerful
Commitee for State Security (KGB). Semichastnii carried it off brilliantly!
And, within a few months he was bundled of into retirement by Brezhnev.
This story clearly confirms the fact that the army, state security or
any other conspirators and putschists, although they can carry out a coup,
cannot bring it about themselves, but only on behalf of classes or other
important social forces, to whom, in the last analysis, they must turn
over power later.
[10] A soviet contractonym for Worker's and Peasant's
Inspectorate. This organ of state control existed in the USSR from 1920
through 1932. It is best known through Lenin's work "How we should reorganize
the Rabkrin." |
