Soviets in America?

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“Don’t you think our NRA is laying the groundwork for your kind of soviets?”

Coming from Cooper, the question struck Troshin as strange. The ship was rolling hard, and Troshin was not at all in his best spirits. The almost imperceptible irony in Cooper’s voice annoyed him a little, and he replied with some irritation, “When you decide to go in for soviets, I advise you to work out your own standards for them; ours won’t suit you.”

They were both engineers, and there was a bond between them, if not of friendship then of amicable relations that went back to the time during the war when Troshin, a true-born Muscovite, worked in factories in Chicago as an emigrant. Cooper, of pure Yankee stock, was already in his fourth year of Soviet service. Now both were en route to America as members of a trade commission. Each respected the other’s knowledge, experience, arid talent, but each also saw the other’s faults. To Cooper, Troshin appeared to be a technological dreamer and a bit of a dilettante: to Troshin. Cooper seemed a hidebound empiricist. They argued often but never ventured into the sphere of politics, partly Out of tact, partly out of caution. During the first three days of their ocean voyage their conversations flowed along the customary channels. When they were not trading shipboard impressions, they discussed the orders they would soon be placing in America. Cooper for the hundred-and-first time accused Troshin of a barbaric passion for “gigantism,” while Troshin retorted in the same vein that the wings of the American technological mind had been neatly clipped by the crisis. Only on the fourth day, after he finished reading a book on the NRA that he had taken along for the trip, did Cooper ask the unexpected question about soviets in America. Perhaps the nearness of his native shores loosened his tongue.

“American soviets,” Troshin continued a little more amiably, “will differ from the Russian soviets as much as the United States of Roosevelt differs from the Russia of Nicholas II. Of course, that’s if you will grant me the assumption that soviets will someday spring up in America.”

“Suppose we make such a fantastic assumption. How do you envisage the rise of soviets among us? What would they look like? And how are we Yankees — me, for example — going to be comfortable on this Procrustean bed?”

“Soviet America can only come into being the way America became independent and democratic — through revolution. Quite a lot of crockery will get broken in the process; that’s the American temperament. I think, Cooper, that you yourself would participate in the fight very energetically, although I’m not quite sure on which side.”

“Is that unbelievably presumptuous remark supposed to mean that you think I have no principles?”

“Oh, why put it so harshly — you naturally consider yourself a staunch individualist. But the enormous energy you put into your work in Soviet industry — I won’t say anything about your talent — was that of a sportsman, not a specialist. (I won’t rub it in by calling you an enthusiast.) Who can tell what tricks your temperament and your empiricism will play when great events break? One thing is certain: you’ll be smashing dishes along with the rest.

“But the overhead costs of your revolution will be totally insignificant compared with ours, at least in percentages if not in absolute terms. You look surprised? After all, my friend, civil wars aren’t fought by the top 5 or 10 percent who control 90 percent of the national wealth; there aren’t enough of them, and besides, they love their comfort too much. The counterrevolution can only raise its army from the lower middle class. But your farmers and your small shopkeepers in the cities would support the revolution too if it could show them the way out of their problems. The present crisis has brought terrible devastation to all the intermediate layers. It has dealt a crushing blow to farming, which was already in trouble for a decade before. You can hardly expect serious political resistance to the revolution on the part of these classes who, unfortunately, have nothing to lose. Of course that’s assuming that the new regime would adopt a sensible and farsighted economic policy toward them.

“Once the soviet government was firmly in possession of the commanding heights of the economy — the banks, the basic branches of industry, transport — it would give the farmers and the small manufacturers and traders plenty of time to think things over and come to a decision. The rest would depend on the successes of the nationalized industry. And here, Cooper, I expect real miracles from you. ‘Technocracy’ can become a reality only under a soviet regime, when the barriers of private property are removed. The most daring proposals of the Hoover commission for standardization and rationalization will seem childish compared with the new possibilities. National industry would be organized on the model of the assembly-line system; that is, planning would be extended from the individual factory level to the economy as a whole.

“You could cut production costs in half or even to a fifth of what they are now. There would be a big and rapid increase in the purchasing power of the farmer’s dollar. That would be enough for a start. But the soviets would also create their own model agricultural enterprises on a gigantic scale, as schools of voluntary collectivization. Your farmers are excellent calculators, if not statisticians. In time they would see how the accounts balance out: whether to remain as an isolated link or to join the public chain.

“At the same time, the soviets would make plenty of room in their industrial plan for all the viable medium-sized and small businesses. The government, the local soviets, and the cooperatives would make sure they got a guaranteed quota of orders, the credit they needed, and raw materials. Gradually, and without any compulsion, they would be drawn into the orbit of the socialized economy.

“In the United States it will be possible to fully apply those educational methods for influencing the middle classes that proved to be beyond the reach of the soviets of our backward country with its semi-pauperized and illiterate peasant majority. I don’t have to explain the benefits that would flow from that: your development will be smoother, the overhead costs of social conflict would be reduced, and the tempo of cultural growth increased.”

“Aren’t you forgetting how religious we Anglo-Saxons are? That’s the most important bulwark of social conservatism.”

“Look, Cooper, you can’t talk about doing anything on the basis of mutually contradictory assumptions. If we are going to talk about what American soviets would be like, you have to start from the assumption that the pressure of the social crisis will prove to be more powerful than all the psychological brakes. This has been demonstrated more than once in history. Some of the brakes will be burned out quickly; others will be reshaped to fit new circumstances. Don’t forget that the Gospels themselves contain some pretty explosive maxims.”

“And what would you do, I’d like to know, with the big shots of our capitalist world?”

“I would trust to your inventiveness, Cooper. It may well be that you would give those who refuse to make their peace with the new system a picturesque island somewhere, with lifelong pension payments, and let them live there as they wished.”

“You’re awfully generous, Troshin!”

“It’s my weakness, Cooper.”

“But you don’t seem to take into account the possibility of military intervention. That could certainly lead to a big increase in the ‘overhead costs’ of a soviet revolution.

“Or do you imagine, maybe, my optimistic friend, that Japan, Great Britain, and the other capitalist countries would sit quietly by and accept a soviet overturn in America?”

“What else could they do, Cooper? The United States is the most powerful fortress of capitalism. Once you grant, at least in theory, such a deepening of the social crisis as would be needed for the establishment of soviets in the United States, then you have to grant that similar processes would be taking place in other countries as well. In all probability semi-feudal Japan would drop out of the ranks of world capitalism even before the establishment of soviets in America. The same prognosis has to be extended to Great Britain — but in any case the idea of sending His British Majesty’s fleet against a soviet America would be crazy. As for the idea of landing an expeditionary force on the southern half of the continent? It would be a hopeless undertaking and would never become more than a second-rate military escapade.

“Within a few months, or maybe even weeks, after you established a soviet regime — think about this, Cooper — the governments of Central and South America would be pulled into your federation like iron filings to a magnet. The same with Canada. The movements of the masses in these countries would be so irresistible they would accomplish this great unifying process in short order and with insignificant sacrifices. I’m ready to bet that the first anniversary of the inception of the first American soviet would find your hemisphere transformed into the Soviet United States of North, Central, and South America. Then you’d see the realization of the Monroe Doctrine, although not the way it was foreseen by its author. You’d have to move your capital to Panama.”

“Is that so? But you haven’t answered my question about Roosevelt. Is he laying the groundwork for soviets, or not?” “You’re more perceptive than to ask a question like that, Cooper. The NRA is aimed at overcoming difficulties. It’s supposed to strengthen the foundations of the capitalist system, not destroy them. Your Blue Eagle isn’t going to give birth to soviets. On the contrary, it will be the difficulties the bird is too weak to overcome which will do that. Even the most ‘leftist’ of the professors in your Brain Trust aren’t revolutionists; they’re only frightened conservatives. Your president abhors ‘systems’ and ‘generalities.’ But a soviet government is the greatest of all possible systems, a gigantic generality in action.”

“Pretty good. So far you’ve managed to happily transform the whole character of the New World from Alaska to Cape Horn; you’ve guaranteed our international security, and changed the location of our capital.

“Before I thank you for this labor of Hercules, I would like to know what will happen to me, engineer Cooper.

“I just happen to be accustomed to roast beef, a cigar, and my own car. When you get done with all this am I going to end up on famine rations, having to wear mismatched shoes that don’t fit, read monotonous stereotyped propaganda in the one newspaper mat will be left, elect hand-picked candidates in soviets chosen at the top, rubber-stamp decisions made without my participation, keep my real thoughts to myself, and sing praises every day to the Leader fate has sent me, from fear of being arrested and shipped off somewhere? If that’s what you have in mind, I’m telling you now you can have my ticket to paradise. I’ll take my chances on one of those islands in the Pacific you’ve been so kind as to set aside for the dying race of individualists.” “Don’t be in such a rush to take refuge on an island, Cooper. You’d die of boredom there. How could you end up on famine rations when you eat the way you do today despite the fact that your system has been compelled to artificially restrict the area under cultivation and the scope of production? For almost two decades now, we in Russia have had to build the basic branches of industry almost from scratch. In your America the problem is just the opposite. The powerful technological resources already exist, but they stand paralyzed by the crisis and clamor to be put to use.

“Our continuing successes in laying the foundations of a planned economy have been made at the expense of the day-to-day consumption of the masses. Your problem, on the contrary, is to plan the revival of an already existing economy, and this must take the rapid growth of consumption by the people as the point of departure from the very beginning. Nowhere else has the study of the internal market been carried so far as in the United States. This has been done by your banks, trusts, individual businessmen, merchants, traveling salesmen, and farmers. A soviet government would begin by doing away with trade secrets; it would combine and generalize the capitalist methods of calculation, transforming them into methods of overall economic accounting and planning.

“On the other hand, your sophisticated and critical consumers wouldn’t tolerate any sign of indifference toward their needs. A flexible system for serving the needs of the population would be guaranteed by a combination of democratically controlled cooperatives, a network of state stores, and private trade outlets. Don’t worry about your roast beef, Cooper. You’ll get it whenever you want.”

“After I get three different bureaucrats to approve my requisition?”

“No, you’ll use hard cash. The dollar, you see, will be the basic regulator of this soviet economy. It’s a big mistake to see the use of money as incompatible with a planned economy. ‘Managed money’ — if your radical professors will forgive me — is an academic fiction. Arbitrary changes of currency value inevitably lead to the disruption of internal coordination in all branches of the economy. This kind of dislocation, being molecular in character, deforms the most profound, the innermost processes in production and distribution.”

“But in the Soviet Union — !”

“Unfortunately with us a bitter necessity has been converted into an official virtue. The lack of a stable gold ruble is an important cause of the many troubles and weaknesses of our economy. Without a stable currency, how can you even think of really regulating wages, the prices of basic necessities, and quality control? An unstable ruble in a planned economy is like having different-sized molds for the same part in assembly-line production.

“Of course, after the socialist regime becomes experienced enough to keep the economy in balance through administrative technique alone, money will lose its meaning as an economic regulator. Then money will become simply coupons, like bus or theater tickets. As social wealth grows the need for these coupons will also disappear. You won’t have to control individual consumption when there is more than enough of everything for everybody. America will certainly reach that level before any other country does.

“But you can’t get to the stage of a moneyless economy without first assuring the dynamic equilibrium and harmonious growth of all social functions. That’s a big job and it can’t be done solely through administrative pressure and radio pep talks. In its initial stages — that is, for a certain number of years — the planned economy needs a stable currency even more than liberal capitalism did. Trying to regulate the economy by meddling with the currency is like trying to lift both feet off the ground at the same time — ”

“Troshin, are you making insinuations about our monetary policy?”

“I’m not making any insinuations. I’m only saying that soviet America Will have a big enough gold reserve to ensure a stable dollar. What a priceless asset, Cooper. You know that our economy pas been growing at 20 to 30 percent a year. But you also know\about the weak side of this unprecedented growth rate: The real economic growth does not correspond to the figures given for gains in production and technology. One reason for that disproportion is the subjective administrative manipulation of our monetary system. You’ll be spared that evil. The American soviet dollar will be running on all eight cylinders. Your growth rate will greatly surpass ours, not only in technical output but in real economic advances. What the result would be is obvious: living standards of your population, and therefore their cultural level too, would leap ahead at a very rapid rate.”

“Troshin, if you’re trying to entice me by the joyful prospect of owning three or four pairs of standardized prints, all either too big or too small, and a compulsory set of the complete works of William Z. Foster — ”

“Cooper, you can’t take your eyes off the unhappy plight of our mass consumer. Do you expect me to deny it? I’ve already told you the reasons for the scarcity and poor quality of our consumer goods: the inheritance of poverty from the old regime, the low cultural level of the peasantry, the need to create the means of production at the expense of current consumption, chronic monetary inflation, and last but not least, bureaucratism.”

“Monstrous bureaucratism, you mean, Troshin.”

“Yes, monstrous bureaucratism, Cooper. But you are not obliged to repeat it. Among us, the scarcity of basic necessities produces a struggle of each against all for an extra pound of bread or yard of cloth. The bureaucracy steps forward in the guise of peacemaker and all-powerful arbiter. But you are immeasurably wealthier and could assure the country all the necessities without much difficulty. The needs, tastes, and habits of your people would never permit a bureaucracy to gain uncontrolled power of decision over the national income. The task of organizing a socialized economy for the best satisfaction of human needs would stir your entire population to its depths, and give rise within it to the formation of new tendencies and parties, intensely struggling with one another — ”

“You’re a poor Bolshevik, Troshin. You talk about struggles between parties under the soviet regime. The nearness of capitalist shores is having a harmful effect on you. You’re degenerating before my very eyes. Which are you for — democracy or dictatorship?”

“I’m for soviet democracy, Cooper. Soviets are a very flexible form of government. That is one of their advantages. But precisely because of that, soviets can’t achieve miracles; they only reflect the pressure of the social milieu they exist in. The bureaucratization of our soviets, as a result of the political monopoly of a single party, which was moreover reduced to a bureaucratic apparatus, was itself the result of the exceptional difficulties of socialist pioneering in a poor and backward country. The bureaucratization of the regime further reacts disastrously on our economy, our literature, our art, our entire culture. As I see the American soviets, they will be full-blooded and vigorous. Dictatorship? Of course, defenders of the capitalist regime will find no place for themselves inside the soviets. I confess that I can’t imagine Henry Ford as the president of the Detroit soviet. But a wide-ranging struggle between various interests, programs, and groupings is not only possible but inevitable on the basis of a soviet regime. One-year, five-year, ten-year economic plans; national education systems; the construction of great transport lines; the transformation of the farms; the problem of sharing the highest technological and cultural achievements with South America; the problem of probing outer space; eugenics — all of these tasks will give rise to competing doctrines and schools of thought, electoral struggles in the soviets, and passionate debate in the newspapers and at public meetings.”

“This smacks of freedom of the press, Troshin. Watch out!”

“Cooper, do you really think that the monopolization of the press in the USSR by the top ranks of the bureaucracy is the norm for a workers’ state? No. Regardless of what historical conditions may have produced it, it is only a temporary deformity.”

“But even in the United States, if you put all the printing plants, all the paper mills, and all the means of distribution in the hands of the state, that would automatically place the whole press in the hands of the government. Do you suppose the government wouldn’t use it to promote the dogma of its own infallibility?”

“The nationalization of the mass media would be a purely negative measure. The only reason for it is to prevent private capital from deciding what can be printed: progressive or reactionary, ‘wet’ of ‘dry,’ puritanical or pornographic. Your soviets will have to find a new solution for the question of how to apportion the socialized printing facilities and what to use them for. One starting point could be proportional representation on the basis of votes received in the soviet elections. The right of each group of citizens to use the printing equipment would depend on their numerical strength. You could use the same principle for allocating the use of meeting halls, radio time, and so on. This way the management and editorial policy of publications would be decided by groups of people with similar ideas, not by individual bank accounts.

“You may object that under such a system every new ideological tendency or new philosophical or aesthetic school that doesn’t yet have a large following will be denied access to the press. There is some point to this argument. But it only implies that under any regime a new idea has to prove its right to existence. In any case, under a soviet regime this would be easier than it is now. A rich soviet America would be able to set aside vast funds for research, inventions, discoveries, and experiments in all spheres of human creativeness, both material and spiritual. You won’t neglect your bold architects and sculptors, your unconventional poets and audacious philosophers.

“In fact, I’ll admit, Cooper, that I think the Yankees of the coming epoch are going to have something new to say in those very areas where until recently they have been the pupils of Europe. The four years I spent in your country, mainly in the factories, weren’t wasted, if only because they helped me understand what a change your technology has produced in the fate of the human race. I have nothing but scorn for that phony superior tone used in certain circles in Europe when they talk about ‘Americanism,’ especially since the present crisis began. I’ll even go so far as to say that in a certain sense it was Americanism that marked the final dividing line between medievalism and the modern history of humanity.

“But your conquest of nature has been pursued so violently and passionately that you haven’t taken the time either to modernize your theoretical methods or to create your own art forms. You grew and became rich according to the laws of the simple syllogism. Your old puritanism has fermented in a giant vat of material successes, to produce a religion of practical rationalism. Because of this you have remained hostile to Hegel, Marx, and even Darwin. Are you surprised, Cooper? Yet, the burning of Darwin’s works by the Baptist preachers of Tennessee is only a crude reflection of the aversion of the majority of Americans for the doctrine of evolution. I don’t mean only religious prejudices, but also your general mental makeup. Yankee atheists are imbued with rationalism no less than Quakers. Your rationalism doesn’t even have in it the merciless consistency of the Cartesians or Jacobins. It is restricted and weakened by your empiricism and moralism. But this means that your philosophic method is just that much more antiquated and out of keeping with your technology and historical possibilities.

“Today you are really coming face to face for the first time with the kind of social contradictions that develop unobserved, behind people’s backs. You conquered nature by means of instruments your genius has created; but your own instruments have driven you to your knees. Contrary to all expectation, your unheard-of wealth has given birth to intolerable misfortunes. This is teaching you the truth that Aristotle’s syllogism doesn’t apply to the laws of social development. You have finally entered the school of the dialectic, and you can’t go back to the methodology of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Don’t be sorry about it, Cooper. There should be some fine fruit out of the grafting of the dialectic onto the sturdy trunk of practical American thought. I’m looking forward to seeing it. In the next decades you are bound to make great contributions in the sphere of generalized thought, poetry, and the arts. They will be on the level of your technology — which still has a long way to go to realize the potential it already contains.

“While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the race of the Teutoburg forest in all its pristine purity, or, rather, its filth, you Americans, after taking possession of your economy and your culture, will extend the application of genuine scientific methods to the sphere of the reproduction of human beings as well. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new human being, the first really worthy of the name.”

“Are you seriously betting on that, Troshin?”

“I’m betting on even more than that: I’ll bet you that in the third year of soviet rule you will no longer chew gum. Verily I say unto you, even Andrew Jackson can enter the kingdom of heaven, if his heart but desire it. And he can’t help desiring it.” “You’re very generous with our future, Troshin. But I hope you’re not arrogant enough to think you’ve convinced me. The poet in you has been ruined by the good engineer. You got rid of the danger of soviet bureaucratism much too easily — with words. But there’s the dinner bell Tomorrow I’ll tear you apart. Your famous dialectic will be plucked like a thicken.”