First Published: in Kommunist. Ezenedel'nyi zurnal ekonomiki, politiki i obsenstvennosti. Organ Moskovskago Oblastnogo Byuro RKP (bol'sevikov) [The Communist. Weekly Magazine for Economics, Politics and Social Questions. Organ of the Moscow District Office of the RCP(B)], No. 3, May 16, 1918.
Source: Internationalist Communist Tendency
HTML Markup: Zdravko Saveski
In recent times Russian and European economic life has developed many new and complex forms that require a "work of analysis and synthesis" as well as proper classification in the first place. Naturally, here "practice" precedes "theory" and theoretical work can only be carried out after the accumulation of sufficient material. It is also understandable that the preliminary approaches suffer inevitably from serious errors. "Confusion of concepts" is the inevitable sin of human thought when it seeks new paths. Therefore these errors are expressed logically with a bias and a deviation which are owed to a specific social position. In this case, a "tendency" is formed which can be qualified according to its social content. Lenin's recent speeches, on the one hand, and the series of declarations, articles etc., all very symptomatic, emerge from the workers' milieu; on the other hand, they show the need for a critical analysis of some fundamental concepts of modern economics.
In the current discussions between the Right and the Left of our Party, the question of state capitalism has been put forward. On this subject, Comrade Lenin proposed a series of formulations: "to learn socialism from the organisers of the trusts" (first slogan); "state capitalism [under soviet power] would be a step forward" (second thesis); "state capitalism under Kerensky's democracy would have been a step towards socialism" - is Comrade Lenin's third thesis, which he put forward in opposition to the author of this article at one of the most recent meetings of the VtsIK.[1]
We now cite two excerpts from the journal Vestnik Metallista.[2] Here is what Comrade Ya. Boyarkov[3] writes in his article "The Problems of the Demobilisation of Industry":
"The young workers' unions, which do not have much experience of class struggle and are not used to organisational economic activity, must take all responsibility for the State regulation of the economy. Given their astonishing lack of intellectual and industrial forces, without cooperating with the entrepreneurs, the Russian proletariat is alone in imposing a system of control over economic forces, a control characteristic of developed capitalism (my emphasis - NB) in Western Europe."
And further:
"It is not socialism or the exclusively bourgeois order that we must set up in Russia. Against the backwards Russian bourgeoisie, we must set up a system of developed capitalism (my emphasis - NB), with State control over production."
Then the author declares that he is under "no illusion that socialism illuminates the East." Let us compare Comrade Lenin's declarations with the articles of Vestnik Metallista. Let us also remember Comrade Lenin's words on the ideology of the metalworkers' union, which is an example of proletarian ideology. We thus understand that this correlation is not accidental. Obviously, it is in the process of forming a "tendency" which is actually present in the working masses.
Let us now analyse the logical aspect of the above mentioned theses. We see that Comrade Lenin's "state capitalism" is the same as the "developed capitalism" of Vestnik. Therefore we must first analyse this concept.
What is state capitalism? From the perspective of the techniques of production, it means production controlled by the State, the liquidation of the anarchy of the free market in this domain, and "strict control" exercised by authorities. Production and distribution are organised. Not only are the general conditions of the production process knowingly made part of the general plan of organisation, but so too are the technical details thereof.
From a social and economic perspective, this characteristic is not sufficient, because we must moreover analyse the relations between persons in the production process. State capitalism ("developed capitalism") is one of the forms of capitalism, a certain form of the power of capital. Therefore, there is no change in the principles of the "economic structure". The principal relations of production of the capitalist system are those that exist between the capitalist who owns the means of production and the worker who sells his labour power to the capitalist. Under finance capitalism, these relations are maintained, but unlike under industrial capitalism, the individual property of each capitalist is replaced by the collective capitalist ownership of the means of production. State capitalism is the outcome of finance capitalism. Therefore, the principal relations (the domination of capital over the working class) remain entirely intact. But unlike finance capitalism, these multiple bourgeois organisations that concentrate production in their hands (private trusts, cartels, unions of "employers", etc.) give way to a single organisation of the bourgeoisie - the bourgeois, financial, capitalist and imperialist State.
If we are to characterise state capitalist society from the perspective of the relations of social forces, state capitalism is the highest power of the bourgeoisie. Here the domination of capital becomes extremely and monstrously powerful, it tears down all of its enemies, in the first place the proletariat which is enslaved by the plunderous State.
Finally, if we analyse the question from the perspective of relations between countries, state capitalism means the aggravation of capitalist competition, the economic preparation for future destructive wars ("the militarisation of the economy"), significant development of protectionism and the heightened danger of war.
Let us now analyse state capitalism in relation to socialism. The social patriots of all varieties have declared that state capitalism is a type of socialism. Once the famous German revisionist Edmund Fischer[4] believed he had found numerous types of socialism following the example of the Prussian or Bavarian kingdoms, which were introducing monopolies: the planning by the State of the monopoly of electricity - here we have electric socialism! The force of water being monopolised - here we had water socialism, etc. In view of the declaration of war and the militarisation of industry, the social patriots declared that it was necessary to support the existing government solely because the bourgeois State was in the process of degenerating into a classless "state socialism".
After all that, we can understand that this characteristic of state capitalism is a bloody joke for the working class. For state capitalism means the immense strengthening of the domination of capital and the military class as well as the merciless exploitation of the working class. It is not socialism but a slave economy. And in order to build socialism, we must first and foremost destroy the monstrous apparatus of violence and oppression.
This is why the extreme Left of the Zimmerwald International[5] proposed the slogan considered essential to the era: "Down with state capitalism!" (Gegen den Staatskapitalismus!). This is why this wing refused to support all the measures that were competing to strengthen state capitalism (like the customs Union of Austria-Hungary and Germany).
In this case, the progressive character - from a technical perspective - of this form does not and cannot serve as a tactical criticism. Without a shadow of a doubt, state capitalism is a step forward in terms of the centralisation and concentration of capital. These are the contradictions of capitalist development. This "step forward" simultaneously means a rise in militarism, in the danger of war, in the oppression of the working class, and in the growing threat of socialist revolution; thus, in short, the aggravation of the risk of colossal and barbaric elimination of the productive forces of society. This is why the current epoch imposes on the working class the task, not of supporting state capitalism, but of destroying it. Imperialism, militarism, state capitalism - this holy trinity of capitalist barbarism must blown apart by the proletariat.
And our Party understands this well. Let us recall the debate between the journal Novaya Zhizn[6] and our press. While Novaya Zhizn, represented by the Bazarovs,[7] the Azilovs,[8] etc., were in favour of state control, we proposed the slogan of workers' control from below. And it was not because we were opposed to a central plan and a general organisation from the bottom up. From our point of view, since the imperialist bourgeoisie possesses power, state control means the rise of state capitalism, inevitably accompanied by the enslavement of the working class. At the time, we did not at all share Lenin's current idea that "state capitalism under Kerensky's democracy would have been a step towards socialism". We understood that finance capital, which had "utilised" the leaders of the petty bourgeoisie very well, would have found itself another prop at a time when it was losing all support.
But that which was so clear then has now become obscure for a number of people. When Comrade Boyarkov writes, "It is neither socialism nor the exclusively bourgeois order that we (that is, we the working class) must build in Russia". And when he admits that this order must be "a developed capitalism", in this truly classic phrase is concentrated such an abyss of confusion, contradictions and the most unbridled opportunism that reveal themselves here and there in the fragments of the speeches and declarations of many of our comrades.
In fact, "developed capitalism" is represented as some kind of in-between society of transition from capitalism to socialism. And Comrade Boyarkov, a naïve soul, says that capitalism, especially developed capitalism, is not an exclusively bourgeois society. We permit ourselves to reassure Comrade Boyarkov here that state capitalism is bourgeois society par excellence and in its purest form, for in this type of capitalism the power of capitalist organisations is pushed to a limit never seen before. And it is this society that Vestnik Metallista proposes that the workers "build in Russia"! What can we say? What a great task for socialist workers! Until now the Marxists always scornfully turned their backs on the Populists who invited them to "draw the conclusion from it", that is, to open shops "peddling capitalism"[9] themselves. The Marxists thought that their task was not the "dissemination of capitalism", but the organisation of the gravediggers of capitalism. Now, it turns out that this old point of view is obsolete; we have arrived at a caricature of Populism; the fact that we are not "disseminating" it now but "building" it is of little consolation to us.
The reader must not think that the comrade metalworkers and Comrade Lenin are preparing themselves without further ado for the actual construction of the same relations built by the Lloyd Georges, the Helfferichs,[10] the Rathenaus[11] and other oligarchs in Europe and America. This would be truly catastrophic, if after the bloody war against the imperialist bourgeoisie and its agents, the triumphant proletariat built for itself a state capitalist society in Russia. In fact, having read the formulations proposed by Comrade Lenin and the "qualified workers" of Vestnik Metallista, one could easily note that comrades are using words without properly understanding their meaning. Thus Comrade Lenin speaks of "state capitalism under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat" and the author of Vestnik speaks naïvely of the construction of capitalism "without entrepreneurs" (!!). The two are equivalent. State capitalism under the dictatorship of the proletariat is an absurdity, a nonsense. For state capitalism presupposes the dictatorship of finance capital, which means the submission of production to the dictatorial state. "Non-capitalist capitalism" - it is the greatest confusion imaginable.
From this we see that the comrades confuse state capitalism with control over production by the proletarian (or proletarian and peasant) socialist State. State control can have two forms that contradict each other in their social meaning and significance: socialism and state capitalism, and their different meanings depend entirely on the class in power.
But there is no smoke without fire. And in reality, this is not just a confusion of words or terms. Unfortunately this discussion does not only concern ideas. The domination of every class and its power must be analysed not just as a static phenomenon, but in its dynamics, its development or its regression. It is from this perspective that we must analyse the current situation.
Class power consists fundamentally of two elements: its political power and its economic influence, and in the end, the decisive factor is its degree of influence over production. From this perspective, it can be understood that a workers' and peasants' dictatorship that did not lead to the expropriation of expropriators and the abolition of the power of capital in enterprise could not be but a passing phenomenon. Inevitably, it would give way to a bourgeois political regime and its historical meaning would be limited to the destruction of the vestiges of feudalism. It is thus that we posed the question, in the era of the previous Revolution of 1905-1907, when bourgeois democracy and not socialism was the order of the day. We considered the "dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" as a radical step in the history, sweeping away the last remnants of feudalism and objectively clearing the way for a rapid development of capitalist relations.
It is this question that remains to be answered today. There can be a certain mismatch between the political and economic regimes when the pressure of the "economy" contributes to "political" transformation. Concretely: suppose that the soviet power (the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the poor peasants), which organises state control in words, bequeaths in practice its management to "trust organisers". What happens? The real power of capital grows and closes in on the economy. And either the political shell transforms little by little until it becomes despicable, or it "explodes" at some point, because in the long run, "the power of management" of capital over the economy is incompatible with that of the proletariat over the political sphere.
A similar situation is in the process of being formed here. If the tendency towards gradual conciliation with capital prevails (fortunately this is not yet the case) in the economy, it would be the creation of a strong power led by the capitalists that would sooner or later overthrow a political superstructure that would be absolutely intolerable for it. Thus a complete state capitalism would be established and the political dictatorship of capital would hatch from the egg of the economic power of the leadership of "trust organisers". This real internal danger is precisely what we spoke about in our Theses. This danger to soviet power is revealed in the political line of Gukovsky, in the negotiations with Meshchersky (which in the end fortunately were fruitless), etc., and in the articles of Vestnik Metallista. This signifies an orientation towards foreign capital that wishes to establish state capitalism. Unfortunately, the comrades have forgotten that as state capitalism grows, the soul of the dictatorship of the proletariat leaves it.
Lack of clarity when we pose the essential question of state capitalism leads to a series of obscurities and errors in almost all questions relating to state control over production. Let us note here those concerning obligation to work and work discipline. According to the analysis above, these concepts can have two completely different and indeed opposite meanings.
Obligatory work service expresses solidarity with the socialist dictatorship. It could equally be the total enslavement of the working class by state capitalism. Work discipline represents fraternal discipline under the socialist dictatorship. However, it is the murder of the soul and misery under state capitalism. As long as the tendency towards state capitalism persists, the first meanings of these concepts will always be transformed into the second ones, which would inevitably detach the working class from the Party that leads the masses to state capitalism.
In discussions with the Left Communists, Comrade Lenin claims in particular that the former do not understand the critical character of the current phase of the revolution which confronts the proletariat with the necessity of everyday work. But we are completely agreed on the need for such work and in particular the consequences thereof. Our real disagreements are totally different, they concern the line dividing state capitalism and the socialist commune State. It would not be difficult to show that the current conception of abandoning collective decision making, based on misgivings in the strength of workers' organisations, fundamentally contradicts the great slogan once formulated by Comrade Lenin: "every cook can learn to administer the state".[12] Nor would it be difficult to show that the "trust organisers" (not the technical staff, but the capitalists as such) have nothing to do with the old slogans which raised the level of activity of the proletariat. But all of this is outside the scope of this article.
Let us return to our analysis of the "fundamental concepts of modern economics". It seems that that word so typical of our era - "nationalisation" - is in fact responsible for the confusion of ideas.
Nationalisation means statification. But there are two kinds of statification, since the social essence of the State depends on the class on which it rests. "Nationalisation" is a formal concept from a certain perspective, because it says nothing at all about the social content of statification. When American capital takes the railways back into the hands of the plundering State, this is nationalisation. When the Prussian State monopolises the production of electrical energy, this is nationalisation. But the transfer of the sugar industry into the hands of the workers' and peasants' State (from the hands of the entrepreneurs), this is also nationalisation. Clearly, in the first two cases, there is no "expropriation of the expropriators"; they simply transfer the exploitation machine from one hand to the other: from the hands of their trusts to those of their State. In the third case, the expropriation is obvious.
Clearly, under the socialist dictatorship, complete nationalisation means socialisation and the transfer of a branch of production into the hands of socialist power.
The word "socialisation" is distorted by certain SRs who use it with a specific nuance (equal plots of land, work quotas, etc.). This does not at all prevent us from so calling nationalisation under the regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The distinction must be made between socialisation and occupation of isolated enterprises by the workers of those enterprises. During the revolutionary ascent, such an occupation transforms inevitably into socialisation; if the revolution decays, either the phenomenon ceases (because the workers "are not capable of doing it"), or (improbably) other workers form "artels"[13] which are doomed to become (like most productive associations) a capitalist enterprise.
Socialisation of production is the antithesis of state capitalism. It is the step in the transition from socialism to communism where the dictatorship of the proletariat withers away and when classes dissolve into stateless communist society, which has become unified and harmonious. Our slogan, like that of the Communist Party, is not state capitalism. It is "towards the socialisation of production - towards socialism!"
Notes
[1] Session of the VTsIK [All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets] held on 29 April 1918. cf Lenin, Collected Works Volume 27, pp. 279-313 [see "Reply to the Debate on the Report on the Immediate Tasks", pp. 306-313]
[2] Vestnik Metallista, Issue 2, January 1918 - The Metalworkers' Messenger, organ of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Union of Metalworkers (editor's note).
[3] Ya. Boyarkov was the pseudonym of Abraham Z. Goltsman (1894-1933): leader of the metalworkers and a supporter of the Meshchersky project developing state capitalism. President of the metalworkers' union following Shlyapanikov being sent on a mission to Norway, he would be one of the rare syndicalist leaders to support Trotsky in a debate on the unions in 1920. In opposition for a while since he signed the "Declaration of the 46" in 1923, he was later responsible for civil aviation from 1932. He met his death in an aeroplane accident.
[4] Georg Edmund Fischer (1864-1925): German wood sculptor, journalist and Social Democrat, he was one of the founding members of the SPD in Frankfurt am Main in 1890. From 1892 to 1893, he was the editor of the journal Volksstimme, and from 1893 to 1898 the editor of Dresden's Sächsischen Arbeiterzeitung. Regular contributor to the Sozialistischen Monatshefte from 1914 to 1922, he would have been a delegate at all congresses of the SPD between 1895 and 1916.
[5] It was in the Swiss village of Zimmerwald that the 38 European internationalist militants met from 5 to 8 September 1915 to mark their opposition to the war and their rejection of the Sacred Union. Faced with a right wing satisfied with reaffirming its pacifist principles, the Zimmerwald Left called for the formation of a new international and a break from Social Democracy, whose bankruptcy was evident.
[6] Novaya Zhizn, "New Life", central organ of the Menshevik Internationalists published in Petrograd by Maxim Gorky. Opposed to the Bolsheviks seizing power, the journal was suppressed in July 1918.
[7] Vladimir Alexandrovich Bazarov (1874-1939): Russian economist and philosopher, he organised with Bogdanov, to whom he remained close, a circle of workers in his native city of Tula. Between 1907 and 1909 he translated Capital into Russian and joined the Mensheviks around 1911. Internationalist during the First World War, principal contributor to the journal Novaya Zhizn, very critical of the politics of Lenin, he would nevertheless later work on Gosplan at the time of the NEP and at the Marx-Engels Institute with Riazanov. Arrested in summer 1930, he was interrogated during the "Menshevik Trial" of 1931 and condemned to 18 months of exile.
[8] Boris Vasilievich Avilov (1874-1938): lawyer, member of the Bolshevik Party in 1904, remained so until April 1917 before joining the Menshevik Internationalists, where he was appointed to the Central Committee in August. He abandoned the politics of the party in 1918 and later worked at the Central Bureau of Statistics as well as at Gosplan.
[9] Reference to the old discussion between the Marxists and the Populists. The Marxists claimed that capitalism was a progressive phase for Russia (socialism being impossible to build without this phase); the Populists consequently invited them to compete in the construction of capitalism.
[10] Karl Theodor Helfferich (1872-1924): German economist, politician and banker, he was State Secretary of State of the Treasury from 1915 to 1916 and Secretary of State of the Interior from May 1916 to October 1917. In 1918 he was appointed German Ambassador to Russia, after the assassination of Count von Mirbach. He was also in charge of collecting funds and funnelling money from the Deutsche Bank to the extreme Right, notably the Anti-Bolshevik League in opposition to the November Revolution and the Spartacist League.
[11] Walther Rathenau (1867-1922): German industrialist and politician, he was the son of the founder of AEG and became a faithful political supporter of the imperialist policy of the Second Reich. He nevertheless grew accustomed to the Weimar Republic, in which he became one of the major figures of the Right. Denounced equally by the extreme Right and the extreme Left, he was the one who negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with the Russians, which earned him a particularly virulent attack in the Reichstag by Helfferich on 23 June 1922. The next day he was assassinated by the Organisation Consul, which had come out of the Freikorps following the failure of the Kapp Putsch.
[12] This idea can be found in the second part of the pamphlet "Can the Bolsheviks retain State power?", which came out in October 1917 in the journal Prosveshcheniye no. 1-2: "We are not utopians. We know that an unskilled labourer or a cook cannot immediately get on with the job of state administration. In this we agree with the Cadets, with Breshkovskaya, and with Tsereteli. We differ, however, from these citizens in that we demand an immediate break with the prejudiced view that only the rich, or officials chosen from rich families, are capable of administering the state, of performing the ordinary, everyday work of administration. We demand that training in the work of state administration be conducted by class-conscious workers and soldiers and that this training be begun at once, i.e., that a beginning be made at once in training all the working people, all the poor, for this work."
[13] Or "brotherhood of artisans". The artel was traditional form of labour organisation under Tsarism in Russia. Bukharin here is referring to all cooperatives and small associations of workers where property was collectively owned.