The Errors of Stalin

"Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R."
By J.STALIN (Foreign Languages Publishing House)

HAILED at the Communist Party Conference in Russia last October as " a work of genius," this pamphlet is an attempt to square the theories of Marxism with the practice of contemporary Russia. The major part consists of remarks by J. Stalin on economic questions connected with a discussion that took place in November 1951, and there are also replies to some of his comrades who put forward theories with which he disagreed. Limited space precludes us from dealing here with more than a few of the many points that are made in this pamphlet which, despite the rather, wordy style of the author, really requires a pamphlet to give a full socialist answer.

Labour Power a Commodity

" Capitalist production is the highest form of com¬modity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private ownership of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production ..."

On page 18 Russia is a society where " the means of production are no longer private but socialist property " and the system of wage labour has " long ceased to exist"— but on page 77 it is necessary " that real wages of workers and employees should be at least doubled." Since there is an obvious contradiction here, let us try to resolve it by examining the two qualifying conditions under which commodity production is admitted to lead to capitalism.

First, private ownership of the means of production means that some people are owners and some non-owners. Whether this ownership takes the form of individual shares or state bonds (as in nationalised industries and in Russia) does not affect the fact that the means of production are class-owned, as distinct from being held in common. Second, can labour power be bought and exploited in the process of production in Russia?

Certainly it can. Where does the money come from needed to finance development schemes, armaments and other state expenditure if not from the surplus value produced by the workers? In Russia the workers may find it difficult (or even impossible) to name an individual who benefits from their labour— but so, for example, do Post Office workers in Britain. In both cases their labour power is a commodity, bought by others through the agency of the state, and paid for with wages which represent a fraction of the value produced.

To avoid reasoned discussion of the subject, Stalin attempts to disarm criticism by laughing it out of court. "Talk of labour power being a commodity, and of 'hiring' of workers sounds rather absurd now, under our system: as though the working class, which possesses means of production, hires itself and sells its labour power to itself."

What is absurd about this statement is the assumption that the working class possesses means of production. To talk of hiring workers is quite reasonable, provided you accept that labour power is bought, by the state, which allows access to what is produced to the privileged few and to the unprivileged many in similar proportions to those in other capitalist countries. The source of the absurdity is made even more obvious if we apply the statement to this country— "talk of hiring railway workers sounds rather absurd under nationalisation: as though the working class, which possesses means of production, hires itself." Of course the workers in Russia don't hire themselves — if they did they would surely not need to be told to double the wages that they are supposed to pay themselves.

World Markets

In trying to prove that the means of production in Russia cannot be regarded as commodities, Stalin remarks "in the sphere of foreign trade, but only in this sphere, our means of production really are commodities, and really are sold (in the direct meaning of the term)." They are indirectly sold when allocated by the state to its enterprises. But the same remarks could apply to any state-owned industry in any country, and merely go to show how similar is the economy in Russia to that in the rest of the capitalist world.

The Disintegration of the Single World Market and the Deepening of the Crisis of World Capitalism is the heading of one section of the pamphlet. Russia, China, and the European People's Democracies "formed a united and powerful socialist camp confronting the camp of capitalism ... so that now we have two parallel world markets." Soon these People's Democracies "will themselves feel the necessity of finding an outside market for their surplus products."

From the way in which this subject is dealt with, one might be led to imagine that the crisis of world capitalism is something from which the Russian camp stands apart. It is all very well for Stalin to talk of the inevitability of war between capitalist countries, but it cannot be denied that the "imperialism" that he so frequently attacks manifests itself as competition between rival producers for markets abroad. The entry of China and the other satellites into the arena can in no way be interpreted as a beneficial influence on world affairs — rather, it is an ominous indication that the struggle will be intensified and carried into new areas.

Relations of Production

Let us now examine one or two points contained in Stalin's replies to those he calls his erring comrades. It appears that Alexander Ilyich Notkin claimed that complete conformity of the relations of production with the character of the productive forces can be achieved only under Socialism and Communism. His critic is only interested in the present (which he calls Socialism). The productive forces, Stalin asserts," undeniably move in advance of the relations of production even under Socialism. Only after a certain lapse of time do the relations of production change in line with the character of the productive forces.'' He refers to "backward, inert forces that do not realize the necessity for changing the relations of production," and it is reasonable to suppose that he includes among these the collective farms, who "will not recognize any other economic relation with the town except the commodity relation."

But these economic problems of the present Russian system have nothing whatever to do with the question that they appear to be debating. This was dealt with by Marx in a famous passage in the preface to "The Critique of Political Economy": —

" At a certain stage of their development the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production .... From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation
the entire immense superstructure is more or less transformed."

Stalin would no doubt like to edit this to read " the superstructure is less rapidly transformed." Nevertheless. Marx's meaning is clear — the new social relations are in harmony with the new economic basis. The change from Capitalism to Socialism, is the revolutionising of the productive relations, and talk of a certain lapse of time before they change in line with the productive forces is completely irrelevant.

Form and Essence

According to Stalin, economic development proceeds not by way of upheavals, but by gradual changes. Commodities, money and banks "lose their old functions and acquire new ones, preserve their old form, which is utilized by the socialist system." He solemnly writes of approaching the matter from the standpoint of Marxist analysis, and concludes " that it is chiefly the form, the outward appearance, of the old categories of capitalism that have remained in our country, but that their essence has radically changed."

Against this must be set the fact that nowhere in the works of Marx and Engels will you find reference to old and new functions of capitalist categories. They were concerned with delving below the outward appearance of things, not in order to show that form changes while essence remains the same, but to find the underlying principles that determine the nature of Capitalism. To claim that Socialism can utilize the form of capitalist institutions like money is just meaningless double-talk — unless "Socialism" is taken to mean "State Capitalism." Even then it still has tc be shown how Communism (a system without commodities, money and banks) is helped along by the preservation of commodities, money and banks.

In the course of answering his comrade L. D. Yaroshenko, Stalin chides him for asserting "that there is no contradiction between the relations of production and the productive forces of society under Socialism." On the face of it, it is damaging to Stalin's "Marxist" theory to admit that there are such contradictions in Russia but, of course, he suitably qualifies his admission : "given a correct policy on the part of the directing bodies, these contradictions cannot grow into antagonisms." The directing bodies thus stand to be shot at when antagonisms arise (i.e.. things go wrong), and when these bodies have been replaced by new ones the antagonisms presumably disappear, leaving just the old contradictions — quite a neat verbal solution of the economic problems in the U.S.S.R.

What Stalin calls the other errors of Comrade Yaroshenko consist largely of differences of opinion about adapting quotations of Marx and Engels, and one cannot help wishing that the latter were still alive to disprove that their ideas bore any resemblance to those that Stalin and Co. now put forward. As socialists, we can only hope that the publication of this pamphlet will lead Communist Party members and sympathisers (and others) to compare the theories of Stalin with those of Marx and Engels, and to discover which are calculated to promote the cause of Socialism and which to retard it.

S.R.P., Socialist Standard February 1953

Against the Left (part 2)

II. BOLSHEVISM, STALINISM AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY

No army at war can dispense with an experienced General Staff if it does not want to be doomed to defeat. Is it not clear that the proletariat can still less dispense with such a General Staff if it does not want to allow itself to be devoured by its mortal enemies? But where is this General Staff? Only the revolutionary party of the proletariat can serve as this General Staff. The working class without a revolutionary party is like an army without a General Staff. The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat. (Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism).

Vladimir Lenin has much to answer for when one considers the political confusion of the British working class. It is fashionable for those who have read little or nothing of either Marx or Lenin to speak of "Marxism-Leninism" — a meaningless term because both bodies of thought were the results of different historical influences and conceptions of class struggle. Lenin's Bolshevism was the product of a semi-feudal society in which the working class was vastly outnumbered by peasants only recently emancipated from feudal serfdom. Marx had looked to the workers of industrialised capitalist countries to organise for Socialism. It is not the purpose of this article to fully explain the Socialist criticism of the Russian Revolu¬tion, but to examine the theory which Lenin advanced: Bolshevism. Our argument is not with misguided Russian workers and peasants in 1917, but with the modern successors of the Bolsheviks who continue to advocate a theory which has proved to obstruct rather than advance the cause of Socialism.

Why then was Lenin not a Marxist? Central to Lenin's theory was the belief that to persuade the Russian population of the need for Socialism would take five hundred years. Therefore, the programme of democratically gaining control of the State was rejected and replaced by a commitment to minority insurrection followed by dictatorship.

Let us consider the differences between Leninism and Marxism on the vital question of who makes the revolution, the working class, the overwhelming majority, or the vanguard. In What is to be done? Lenin asserts that

There could not have been social-democratic conscious¬ness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without . . . The working class, exclusively, by its own effort is able to develop only trade union consciousness . . .

Here is what Marx and Engels had to say about such arrogant vanguardism:

As for ourselves, in view of our past, there is only one road open to us. For almost forty years we have emphasised that class struggle is the immediate driving power of history, and in particular that the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is the great lever of the modern social revolution; we, therefore, cannot possibly co-operate with people who wish to expunge this class struggle from the movement. When the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle-cry: The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic persons from the middle class. (Letter to the German Socialist Workers' Party, 17th September, 1879).

From the start the Socialist Party of Great Britain recognised that the October insurrection would not lead to Socialism. As evidence of the conditions came cut of Russia, our critique was developed. In Britain we alone predicted the State capitalist outcome of the revolution, long before Stalinism was reluctantly exposed by certain sections of the Left.

The Bolsheviks revolution was unreservedly applauded among the Left in Britain. From Labourites like Ramsay MacDonald to Utopian reformists like Sylvia Pankhurst (editor of the Women's Dreadnought, later to become Workers' Dreadnought) to anti-parliamentarians like Hodgson and Bryan of the British Socialist Party, the Bolsheviks were looked upon with unqualified admiration. The smashing of the Constituent Assembly, the crushing of the Left Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the anarchy of so-called War Communism, the attacks on the Russian peasants ... all of these things went unrecorded (or else were justified) in the Left wing press.

In January 1919 the Bolsheviks invited sympathetic European and American parties to form a new, Third International. The Labour Party and the ILP declined the invitation, both hoping to revive the reformist Second International which had collapsed when its constituent parties had supported the war. The Socialist Labour Party, the British Socialist Party and two other small Left groups, the Workers' Socialist Federation and the South Wales Socialist Society, gave their support to the formation of a Bolshevik-styled Communist Party of Great Britain which was established in August 1920. The ILP leader, Ramsay MacDonald analysed the reasons for the support given to the new International:

The Third International is the product of two things — Russian conditions . . . and a dogmatic logic which spins policy from fancied necessity. The grand coup d'etat in Russia and its successful defiance of the whole of armed and financial Europe have properly roused the enthusiasm of democrats all over the world and have particularly affected those who have entered the Socialist movements since 1914. They find it impossible to pay tribute to the courage and strength of will of the Rus¬sian leaders and to demand that European reaction and spitefulness shall let them alone, without also supporting the Moscow International. (From an editorial in the Socialist Review).

Looking now at the present image of the openly reformist, pro-parliamentary, eurocommunist Communist Party of Great Britain one could easily forget the militancy and bolshevism upon which it was originally based. Despite the change, the Communist Party has always been committed to three principles: the belief that the Bolshevik method of revolution and the soviet based regime should be imitated in the West; the reform of capitalism; the need for leadership in order to fulfill the first two aims. Their first election manifesto, published in 1929, indicated adherence to the above principles:

. . . the Communist party is not a mere parliamentary party, but the leader of the workers in the class war in all its forms, whether it manifests itself in strikes, elections, demonstrations or other forms. Recognising that the working class can only conquer capitalism and become the ruling class by the creation of its own instruments of power (i.e. workers' councils composed of delegates from the factories and the mass organisation of the workers) and the impossibility of the working class capturing and utilising the capitalist state ... it participates in elections, in parliamentary action, in all forms of political activity as a means to the preparation of the working class for the act of imposing its will . . .

(Our emphasis)

This advocacy of the virtue of the Soviets came ironically at a time when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, under Stalin, was stripping the Soviets of any power they had possessed.

Secondly, on reforming capitalism, the 1929 manifesto advocated 'the seven hour working day', 'non-contributory old age pensions at 60 years of age at least equivalent to the wages when employed', '10 shillings per week for adult unemployed', 'a national minimum wage of £4 a week', 'abolition of tied cottages', 'the raising of the school leaving age to 16' and the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords'. This from the party which criticises the SPGB for getting nowhere in seventy years! Their justification for the sterile list of demands was that

The struggle for reforms in the present period leads to revolution.

Fifty years later the struggle for reforms — many of them the same futile demands — still leads to nothing but the continuation of the capitalist system. Thirdly, the 1929 manifesto proclaimed the CPGB's commitment to the leadership principle:

It has as its aim the leadership of the working class in the overthrow of capitalism.

Throughout the Stalinist atrocities orthodox Com¬munists continued to sing the praises of the Soviet system. When SPGB speakers stated that there was no Socialism in Russia our meetings were often broken up; when we criticised the purges as the instrument of a brutal dictatorship we were called Trotskyists or fascists. In the 1940s a branch of the SPGB invited the Communist Party to debate and received a reply saying that

The Communist Party has NO dealings with renegades, liars, murderers or assassins.

The SPGB, which associates itself with followers of Trotsky, the friend of Hess, has always followed a po¬licy which would mean disaster for the British work¬ing class. They have consistently poured vile slanders on Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party, told filthy lies about the Red Army, the Soviet people and its lea¬ders, gloated over the assassination of Kirov and other Soviet leaders, applauded the wrecking activities of Trotskyite saboteurs in the Soviet Union, and are in short agents of Fascism in Great Britain.

The CPGB refuses with disgust to deal with such renegades. We treat them as vipers, to be destroyed.

The SPGB analysed later revolutions such as the Chinese and the Cuban, which were based on the Bolshevik model and praised by sections of the Left, as steps towards State capitalism. The Chinese revolution and the ensuing sino-Soviet argument caused a split in the CPGB, with the so-called Marxist-Leninist Communist parties supporting Mao whilst the mainstream of the party remained loyal to Kremlin foreign policy.

In the first article of this series it was argued that the emergence of the Labour Party dealt a damaging blow to the political consciousness of the British working class. The birth and subsequent activity of the Communist Party has added to that confusion to an extent which is incalculable. The political fallacies which the Communist party has spread have buttressed the complacency of the ruling class and contributed to the continued political ignorance of the working class.

S.C., Socialist Standard September 1978