THE THEORY OF THE GROWTH OF CAPITALISM INTO SOCIALISM AND REALITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R000700090011-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 16, 1997
• Sequence Number: 11
• Content Type: REPORT

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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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,
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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.
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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