The Twelfth Anniversary of October

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The twelfth anniversary finds the Soviet republic in such a state that outstanding progress is combined with the gravest difficulties; and at the same time both the progress and the difficulties continue to mount. In this is found the chief characteristic of the situation and its principal enigma.

Industry has made and continues to make gains unprecedented under capitalism. Much less significant but nonetheless obvious has been the progress made in recent years in agriculture. At the same time we are observing a total paradox. A severe shortage of goods prevails on the market, and despite economic successes this shortage persists from year to year, becoming extremely acute in certain periods. There is a shortage of the most needed manufactured goods despite the rapid growth of industry. But especially critical and grossly intolerable is the shortage of agricultural products despite the fact that the country is predominantly peasant.

What do these contradictions mean? They have causes of two kinds.

The fundamental causes are rooted in the objective situation of an economically backward country that, owing to the historical dialectic, ended up being the first country to arrive at the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist construction. The secondary causes are rooted in the erroneous policy of the leadership that is yielding to petty-bourgeois influences and carrying out a policy calculated to meet only the needs of the immediate situation, and is incapable of understanding circumstances at the proper time or taking the maximum advantage of the economic and political resources of the dictatorship.

The Soviet state does not pay interest on old debts. It does not, or virtually does not, pay any dues to the nobility, bankers, factory owners, and so forth. These two conditions, especially the second, are themselves generating a large fund for the country’s industrialization.

Uniting industry and transport under one management, the workers’ state — a necessary condition for a planned economy — opened up inexhaustible possibilities for the expeditious application of energy and resources, i.e., for the acceleration of the country’s economic growth.

Such are the huge assets of the October Revolution. The liabilities — not of the revolution itself but of the conditions in which it was made — are the following: the low level of czarist Russia’s capitalist development; the fragmented and extremely backward character of the peasant economy; the retarded cultural level of the popular masses; and, finally, the isolation of the Soviet republic, surrounded by the infinitely richer and more powerful capitalist world.

The need to spend hundreds of millions of rubles annually on the army and navy is but the most immediate and obvious result of hostile capitalist encirclement.

Another is the monopoly of foreign trade, as imperative for the Soviet republic as the army and navy are. The abolition or even weakening of the monopoly of foreign trade (Stalin attempted this under Sokolnikov’s influence at the end of 1922) would spell not only Russia’s return to the capitalist track but its transformation into a semicolonial country. But it must not be forgotten that the monopoly of foreign trade means Russia’s automatic exclusion from the international division of labor on the basis of which Russia’s capitalist development came about. Given the overall economic expansion, the direct consequence of this was a marked contraction of foreign trade. The rapid expansion of the facilities for industrialization is prompted, therefore, to a considerable extent by the need for the Soviet republic to produce for itself all the things that bourgeois Russia received from abroad more advantageously. If there were socialist regimes in other countries, the monopoly of foreign trade, of course, would not be necessary, and the USSR would receive the products it lacks from the more advanced countries on terms incomparably more advantageous than those enjoyed by bourgeois Russia. In the present situation, the monopoly of foreign trade, absolutely indispensable for protecting the foundations of the socialist economy, makes gigantic investments in industry imperative for the country to simply survive. It is this state of affairs that has produced the chronic shortage of finished industrial goods during the time of a high rate of overall industrial growth.

The fragmented character of the peasant economy, inherited from the past, was further exacerbated by the October Revolution insofar as its first words were for a “democratic agrarian revolution." Fragmentation of the agricultural sector would present serious difficulties for the socialist reconstruction of agriculture in Russia even if the proletariat already held power in the more advanced countries. These difficulties are much greater with the country of the October Revolution totally left to its own devices. Meanwhile, the extremely slow pace of socialist reconstruction of the countryside is in turn causing a still further breakup of peasant holdings and, consequently, an increase in peasant consumption. This is one of the reasons for the shortage of agricultural products.

The high price of industrial goods is no less important. Through these high prices industry must pay for its transition from backward to more advanced technological forms and at the same time continue to procure new investments in the branches of industry that have become necessary as a consequence of the conditions created by the monopoly of foreign trade. In other words, the countryside is paying a high price for socialist industry.

The peasantry makes a rigid distinction between the democratic agrarian revolution completed by the Bolsheviks and the foundation the Bolsheviks laid for the socialist revolution. Transferring the landlord- and state-owned land into the hands of the peasantry — the democratic revolution — brought the peasantry around half a billion rubles by freeing it from payment of land rent. But due to the “scissors” of prices, the peasants are paying a much greater sum than this for the benefit of state-owned industry. Thus, for the peasantry, the balance sheet of the two revolutions, the democratic and the proletarian that were combined in October, all the same shows a deficit of hundreds of millions of rubles. This is an unquestionable and, moreover, very important fact for assessing not only the economic but the political situation in the country. We must be able to look this fact squarely in the face. It lies at the basis of the strained relations between the peasantry and the Soviet government.

The slow growth rate of the peasant economy, its further fragmentation, the “scissors” of agricultural and industrial prices — in a word, the economic difficulties of the countryside — create favorable conditions for the development of kulaks and for the kulaks to gain an influence in the countryside disproportionately greater than their numerical strength and the material resources at their command. The surplus of grain, held mainly by the village upper echelon, goes toward enslaving the rural poor and toward speculative sale to petty-bourgeois elements in the city and is thus cut off from the national market. Not only is there not enough grain to export but there is not enough to meet domestic needs. The extremely reduced volume of exports leads to the need to not only give up the importation of finished goods, but to drastically reduce the importation of machinery and industrial raw materials which in turn forces us to pay for every step of industrialization by stretching our economic resources to an extraordinary degree.

This is the fundamental explanation why, during the time of a general upsurge in the economy and an extremely rapid rate of industrialization, the Soviet republic is not emerging from the regime of “queues,” the strongest argument against the theory of socialism in one country.

But queues are also an argument against the official economic practice. Here we are shifting from the objective factors to the subjective, i.e., above all to the politics of the leadership. It is unquestionable that even the most correct and farsighted leadership could not lead the USSR to the construction of socialism within its national borders, shut off from the world economy by the monopoly of foreign trade. If the proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist countries were to be delayed for several decades, the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet republic would inevitably fall victim to the economic contradictions — either in their pure form or coupled with military intervention. Translated into the language of politics this means: the fate of the Soviet republic under the conditions described above is determined by both the internal economic leadership and the leadership of the revolutionary struggle of the international proletariat. In the final analysis it is the latter factor that is decisive.

Correct economic leadership in the USSR means that the resources and opportunities are utilized in such a way that socialist advancement is accompanied by genuine and perceptible improvement in the life of the working masses. The practical concern now is not at all to “outstrip” the entire world economy — a fantasy — but to consolidate the industrial foundations of the proletarian dictatorship and improve the situation of the workers, strengthening the dictatorship’s political precondition, i.e., the union of the proletariat with the non-exploiting peasantry.

A correct policy in the USSR must prolong as much as possible the existence of the dictatorship under the conditions of isolation it finds itself in. A correct policy for the Comintern must as much as possible bring nearer the victory of the proletariat in the advanced countries. At a certain point these two lines must be joined together. Only under this condition will the present contradictory Soviet regime have a chance — without Thermidor, counterrevolutions, and new revolutions — to develop into a socialist society on an expanding base that must ultimately encompass the entire globe.

Time, which is the crucial factor of politics in general, is decisive when it comes to the problem of the fate of the USSR. However, the present leadership, beginning in 1923, has done everything conceivable to let time slip away. The years 1923, 1924, and 1925 were spent in struggle against so-called superindustrialization — the name used to refer to the Opposition’s demand that the rate of industrial development be accelerated; against the principle of a planned economy; against economic foresight in general. The acceleration of the rate of industrialization came about empirically, with jerks and a crude break of pace that immensely increased overhead expenses for construction and added to the burden of the working masses. Six years ago the Opposition demanded that a five-year plan be worked out. At that time this demand was ridiculed in a manner totally in keeping with the mentality of a petty-bourgeois proprietor who fears great tasks and great perspectives. We called this Menshevism in economics. As late as April 1926, Stalin asserted for example that we needed the Dnieper hydroelectric station about as much as a poor peasant needs a phonograph, and at the same time completely denied that the rate of our economic development depended on world developments.

The five-year plan came five years late. The mistakes, the rebuilding, and the adjustments of recent years occurred outside an overall plan, and for this reason the leadership learned very little from them. It is impossible not to recall here that the first draft of the five-year plan prepared in 1927 was fully imbued with the spirit of pettiness, minimalism, and economic cowardice. This draft was subjected to merciless criticism in the platform of the Opposition. Only under the effect of our criticism, based as it was on the living needs of economic development, was the five-year plan revised from beginning to end over the course of one year. All the arguments against “superindustrialization" were suddenly discarded. The apparatus, having functioned for several years like economic Mensheviks, received an order to accept as heresy everything that had been considered Holy Scripture the day before and, on the other hand, to convert into official figures the heresy that had yesterday been called “Trotskyism.” The apparatus — both the Communists and the specialists — was absolutely unprepared for this assignment. It had been trained in exactly the opposite spirit. The first attempts at resistance or timid demands for explanations were summarily and severely punished. And how could it be otherwise? To permit explanations would mean to expose the fact that the leadership has become ideologically bankrupt, shedding all its theoretical prerequisites. This time the apparatus has silently submitted. The following formula is attributed to the person [Rykov] who delivered the report on the five-year plan: it is better to stand for (i.e., support) a higher rate of development than to sit (in prison) for a lower one.

If the new plan was worked out under the lash, it is not hard to imagine what kind of opposition it will encounter from within the apparatus upon its implementation, nine-tenths of the apparatus being more right-wing than the official right wing. Meanwhile, the left wing, from whose platform the basic ideas for the new five-year plan were taken, continues to be under a hail of repression and slander. The apparatus lives in anticipation of new changes and turns, not having even ventured to call for the help of the union of rural poor. The party is presented each time with an accomplished fact. The apparatus does not trust the party and is afraid of it. Under these conditions no one sees in the new five- year plan the expression of a thought-out or in any way secure leftward course. No one, that is, except a handful of capitulators.

The same thing must be said with respect to the policy of the Comintern. From the union with Chiang Kai-shek, the theory of “the bloc of four classes,” the call for a workers’ and peasants’ party, the amicable collaboration with the General Council — which beheaded the general strike — the Comintern in twenty-four hours switched to the slogan: no agreement with the reformists; fight social fascism for conquest of the streets. A new sharp zigzag was built on the theory of “the third period” as if especially timed for sowing illusions, encouraging adventurous undertakings and preparing for the next turn to come — to the right.

The twelfth anniversary of the October Revolution thus finds both the Soviet republic and the International amidst the greatest difficulties and contradictions which by reverse example show the correctness of the Marxist theory of the socialist revolution. With Lenin we entered the October Revolution profoundly convinced that the revolution in Russia could not have an independent and completed character. We believed that it was only the first link in the world revolution and that the fate of this link would be determined by the fate of the entire chain. And we continue to hold this position today. The progress made in socialist construction grows along with the contradictions, and the progress will inevitably be devoured by the contradictions if the Soviet republic is not supported in the future by successes of the international revolution.

The expulsion from the party and vicious persecution of the revolutionary wing inside the Soviet republic is a clear political expression of the contradictions of an isolated proletarian revolution in a backward country. However paradoxical it may be that the Bessedovskys — and they are innumerable — first. expel the Rakovskys and later at the appropriate opportunity cross over to the side of reaction, it is nevertheless to be expected.

Spinoza taught: “Neither weep nor laugh but understand.” One must understand in order to further fight for the October Revolution.

The thirteenth year will be a year of deepening contradictions. A party that has been deprived of strength and strangled can be caught off guard. At the first great difficulty, Bessedovskys of all calibers will raise their heads. The centrist apparatus will show that it is an apparatus and nothing more. The proletarian nucleus will need leadership. And only the Communist Left, tempered in struggle, will be able to provide it.

We greet the thirteenth year banished, exiled, and imprisoned; but we greet it without the least pessimism.

The principle of proletarian dictatorship has made an indelible mark in history. It has shown the tremendous power of a young revolutionary class led by a party that knows what it wants and is able to unite its will with the unfolding objective developments.

These twelve years have shown that the working class, even in a backward country, can not only manage without bankers, landowners, and capitalists but is capable of giving industry a more rapid development than it knew under the rule of the exploiters.

These twelve years have shown that centralized planned economy is immeasurably superior to capitalist anarchy, represented by powerful trusts who fight among themselves.

All the conquests, examples, and lessons are unshakable. They have entered into the consciousness and the practice of the world working class forever.

We regret nothing and repudiate nothing. We are living with the same ideas and attitudes that moved us in the days of October 1917. We can see beyond these temporary difficulties. No matter how much the river bends, it flows to the ocean.