THE THEORY OF THE GROWTH OF CAPITALISM INTO SOCIALISM AND REALITY

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Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 THE THEORY OF THE GROWTH OF CAPITALISM INTO SOCIALISM AND REALITY by N. Senin [Reprinted from Kommunist (the theoretical organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Issue No. 15, published in Moscow on Z3 October 1959 The KOMMUNIST editorial office has received a letter from Comrade S. E. Karpukhin, Irkutsk, in which he asks whether the experience of building socialism in China, where the national bourgeoisie has been called upon to cooperate, does not confirm the theory of the peaceful growth of capitalism into socialism. In the following we publish a reply to this question. From the moment of the appearance of the famous "Manifesto of the Communist Party" which theoretically proved the inevitability of the doom of capitalism and the triumph of socialism, bourgeois ideologists and their agents in the workers movements have undertaken repeated attempts to refute the deductions and conclusion of the founders of scien- tific communism. However, these conclusions, which were drawn more than 100 years ago, were not only not refuted in theory but, on the contrary, received full corroboration in practice. The victory of the Great October Socialist Rev- olution in Russia, which made the first breach in the worldwide capitalist system and thus considerably weakened it, and the fact that many countries in Europe and Asia set out on the road to socialism, which fundamentally changed the correlation of forces in the world arena, all bears evidence to the insuperable strength and vitality of Marxist-Leninist ideas. The so-called theory of the peaceful growth of capitalism into socialism is one of the many attempts. to adulterate Marxist- Leninist revolutionary teachings, proceeding from reformist positions. This theory had been preached even before World War I by Marxist renegades in the Second International. Today this theory is fashionable among the reformists. In the Soviet Union the adherents and apostles of the theory of the peaceful growth of capitalism into socialism were the representatives of the rightist-opportunist group of Bukharin. Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 Our country was the first in the world to tackle the problem of building a classless communist society. The working people of the Soviet Union, led by the Communist Party, were called upon to overcome the opposition and resistance of many enemies, beginning with the imperialist states that encircled the USSR from all sides and ending with various anti- Leninist groups which attempted to push the Soviet people off the correct road. The rightist-opportunists began their attack on the Party after V.I. Lenin's death--that is, in a period when the Soviet workers class in alliance with the toiling peasants conducted a decisive struggle against the exploiters classes--and strived to defeat the cause of building socialism. At that time the theoretical foundation of rightist-opportunism was a platform elaborated by Bukharin, whose main tenet was the principle of abatement of class struggle in the transition period from capitalism to socialism. Bukharin preached that in this period all class contradictions will be overcome by the simple expedient of the growth of capitalism into socialism. The substance of his conceptions can be reduced to the contention that the workers class in the USSR, supported by the state power which they had conquered, can allegedly build socialism without encountering increasing opposition on the part of the exploiting class which had been defeated, and that in this period the class struggle cannot become more intense but, on the contrary, dies down, becomes blunt, and ultimately ceases altogether. As a result of this, the exploiting classes, without noticeable opposition, gradually "blend into, " "grow into, " or as Bukharin puts it, "squeeze themselves into" socialism. Thus, according to Bukharin, the class contradictions between bourgeoisie and the working class and all working people are liquidated in an evolutionary manner and a unified, uniform, and classless society is born. This was an artificial and abstract scheme for overcoming class divergencies in the transition period from capitalism to socialism which had nothing in common with Marxist-Leninist teachings. It completely ignored the correlation of class forces within the country and the fact of hostile capitalist encirclement. Bukharin never actually understood the contradictory character of development. In his analysis of the transition period there is no room for the basic laws of dialectics: the oneness and the struggle of contra- dictions, the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, and Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 the law of the negation of negation. The Bukharinist conception of the problem of the class struggle in the transition period from capitalism to socialism led to the blunting of the vigilance of the workers class and its Party and to their disarmament at a time when the exploiters intensi- fied their opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat and attempted to undermine and crush it. Marxism-Leninism proceeds from the fact that the classes can be liquidated only on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat within a process of lengthy and stubborn class struggle. Here is one of V.I. Lenin's numerous statements on this problem: "The elimination of classes is the final goal of a lengthy, difficult, and persistent class struggle, which, after the abolition of the capitalist regime and power, after the destruction of the bourgeois state and after the est- ablishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, does not disappear (as imagined by the Philistines of old socialism and old social-democracy) but only changes its form and, in some respects, becomes even more em- bittered. " (Lenin's work, Vol. 29, 350) Lenin explained that in the process of the struggle the working class must not only defend its power from the encroachment of the crushed classes but also reeducate itself through it--reeducate dozens of millions of peasants, small landowners, employees, and bourgeois intellectuals--in one word the whole mass of the people which has emerged from the depths of capitalism, and make them active workers of the socialist community. Revealing the multiformity of class struggle in the transition period from capitalism to socialism, Lenin wrote: "The dictatorship of the proletariat is a persistent struggle which is at the same time bloody and bloodless, forceful and peaceful, military and economic, pedagogic and administrative, and directed against the forces and tradi- tions of the old society. " (Lenin's works, Vol. 31, page 27) Lenin stressed the fact that the October Revolution which crushed the regime of large landowners and capitalists achieved only a part of the goal and not the most important one at that. The main, most complicated and most difficult part of the task of the working class--the organization of the building of socialism-- still lies ahead. Without a lengthy and deter- mined struggle and without the dictatorship of the proletariat this struggle cannot be brought to a successful conclusion. Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R0OO700nannh1-3 Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 Bukharin constructed his conception of the class struggle on the "theory of equilibrium" which he had borrowed from Bogdanov. This theory can be reduced to the contention that in a society which is in the state of "equilibrium" (that is in a period between two social revolutions) no struggle between opposing tendencies allegedly takes place. According to Bukharin, class struggle is an instrument and a transmission mechanism for "social transformation". He thought that class struggle merges only in cases when "one class is opposed by an- other class in action. " According to Bukharin, such a state in the rela- tions between two antagonistic classes emerges only in the period of a political upheaval as a result of which the power passes into the hands of the new class. Thus Bukharin confines the sphere of class struggle only to the period of political upheavals and coups d'etat which lead to the change of one social format ion to another or to speak, in his words, of the change of one state of "equilibrium" to another state of "equilibrium". Applying this conception to the transition from capitalism to socialism in our country would have meant that class struggle had actually ceased with the advent of the workers class to power, that is with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The only form of class struggle in the transition period from capital- ism to socialism recognized by Bukharin was the economic struggle and the free competition between the socialist and capitalist sectors which takes place in the open market. Contrary to Marxist-Leninist teachings, Bukharin represented the dictatorship of the proletariat as a period of "civic peace, "'internal pacification, " and a period of stable equilibrium in which the gradual growth into socialism of all classes that are antagonistic to the proletariat will take place. Bukharin demanded that the Soviet regime must not suppress the exploitive tendencies of the NEP-men and kulaks, that is must not inter- fere in the economic life of the bourgeoisie, and that it give full freedom of development to private trade. This was the main stake of the bourgeoisie, of the NEP-men and the kulaks. It was not by accident that Bukharin wrote the slogan "Enrich Yourselves" on the banner of his rightist and opportunist platform. Of course, this slogan is totally incompatible with the correct Marxist interpretation of class struggle and its laws. Marxism-Leninism proved that the liquidation of the exploitation of man by man and the universal development of the production forces by Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915Rnnn7nnnann11.3 Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 socialist society are prerequisites for the improvement of the well-being of all the people. Bukharin maintained, however, that the improvement of the working peoples welfare can be achieved by raising the standard of living of the proletarian population to the level of that of the bourgeoisie without, however, conducting a decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie and without harming its basic class economic interests. Here is a case where utopianism is intermingled with reformism. Ignoring the necessity of class approach to the analysis of social events is a characteristic trait in Bukharin's methodology. Lenin repeatedly pointed to this fact. Thus, in his remarks to Bukharin's book "The Economy of the Transition Period" Lenin wrote in 1920: "He completely forgot the social class relations and the deliberate replacement of classes with groups, and so forth. This opportunist methodology manifested itself particularly strongly in Bukharin in the period when our Party was faced with the important problem of the roads of the development of agriculture. Lenin said that in its policy toward peasantry the proletariat must "distinguish between a toiling peasant and a mercenary peasant, between a working peasant and a peasant who is a speculator. " (Lenin's works, Vol. 30, page 92) This approach was alien to Bukharin. Having failed to understand the duplicity of the nature of peasantry which is caused by the fact that it is a group of small producers, and having failed to make a difference be- tween the working peasant and the mercenary peasant, Bukharin did not see the possibility of developing capitalist tendencies in the peasants if they were left to uncontrolled development and if proletarian leadership was not implemented in respect to them. He insisted on a many-sided development of individual peasant economy and took a stand against the collectivization of agriculture. Synthesizing historic experience, Lenin stressed the fact that small enterprises (and after all peasant small farms are such) will create capitalism and bourgeoisie in a constant, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, un- controlled and mass manner. Thus Bukharin, by defending the NEP-men and kulaks, corroborated and defended exactly the opposite. He wrote: "It is completely unclear how a force can emerge from within the country which is supposed to completely stifle the further building of socialism. " Lenin urged the working class to unceasingly increase and sharpen revolutionary vigilance in order to defeat and crush the designs of the enemies of the Soviet regime in time and in their incipient stage. He warned that, Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 as long as the transition from capitalism to socialism is a whole epoch, it is clear that, until its conclusion, the crushed exploiters "will in- escapably harbor hopes for restoration and that this hope will turn into attempts at restoration. " (Lenin's works, Vol. 28, page 233) On the other hand Bukharin maintained the following: "The bourgeois strata of our society (the NEP-men) fully realize the complete hopelessness of all attempts to conduct an active and sharp political struggle against the new regime. These strata are forced to accept and resign themselves against their will to the existing order of things. This was written in a period when the dominant imperialist countries planned a new crusade against the Soviet Union, placing hope in all counterrevolutionary forces within the country, and when in the country itself there was a sharp class struggle, and when the question of "who-whomi' was being decided. Here we have two lines that are mutually exclusive: on the one hand Lenin's line and on the other hand Bukharin's line. Contrary to Bukharin's assertions that the bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union will peacefully grow into socialism, the Russian counter- revolution did not "resign itself against its will to the existing order of things," and did not lay down the arms but, on the contrary, conducted a persistent struggle against the Soviet regime. All fads bear evidence to this. For instance, after the 15th Party Congress which adopted a line of constantly increasing collectivization, a concerted attack of the kulaks against the Soviet state took place in 1928. Striving to choke the country by starvation, the kulaks refused to sell their excess grain to the state and began to implement terror against Party and Soviet workers who were the organizers of the kolkhoz movement. At the same time, in the Donbas-- the largest coal rayon in the country--there was a diversionary organization of bourgeois specialists in action (the so-called Shakhtinskaya organization) which envisaged the goal of causing a shortage of fuel in the country. The activities of a sabotage organization which called itself "Prompartiya" was an extension of the Shakhtinsiy plot. This organiza- tion strived to paralyze the economic activities in the country by imple- menting widespread diversionist activities. The unmasking of the counter- revolutionary activities of the Shakhtinskaya organization and the Prompartiya proved the d i r e c t connection of the enemies of the Soviet regime within the country with the imperialist countries who were preparing an armed intervention against the USSR. Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 Approved For Release 2005/04/21 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3 By force of their class interests, the exploiters not only did not grow into socialism but offered a sharp resistance to the building of socialism. Our workers' class achieved the victory of socialism through the struggle against capitalist elements, by crushing their resistance, and by uniting all working people. This victory marked the triumph of Marxism-Leninism. It is known that Bukha.ri-n, who came out with his group in defense of the kulaks, was defeated. By continuing to insist on his rightist, op., portunist and wrong opinions, and by developing them further, Bukharin ultimately slid into the mire of those who struggle for the restoration of capitalism and found himself in the camp of the enemies of the Soviet Union. Thus the theory of the peaceful growth of capitalism into socialism was fully refuted by fee itself and by the practice of building socialism in the Soviet Union. Its worthlessness was proved to the full. The exper- ience of building socialism in China also refutes this theory. The experience of building socialism in the USSR and the experience of socialist transformations in China and other Peop ~ bem cracL S prove that the developragnt of all countries that h ve set out on th.e -rod to socialism is subject to laws that are equally effective for all. Ta order- to build a socialist society in any country it is necessary for the workers class to seize cla.sa demi tm and dictatorship an the basis of a gong union between the working class and the toiling peasantry, Supported by i2 regime, the working class appropriates the basic levels of economy and tjien, step by step, wrests all capital from the bourgeoisie, centralizes all means of production in the hands of the state, and thus, by the very nature of these acts, basically changes the character of production relationa which prevailed up to th.e ti=s la air words, it implements an upheaval in the whole method cd j4bduction. In all cases, the advent of the working class to paWr and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat in me or,another form preceded the fundamental economic transformatloas? In all cases the birth of a new order took place in an embittered struggle against the old order and against the remains of the exploiting classes. It must be 'noted that the sharpness of this struggle arid its forms are not identical in the different countries. They are dete