Chapter 1: Debate between Stalin and Trotsky on economic policy
After the initial period of military communism—in essence a systematic regimentation of consumption – during the years of the civil war (1918-21), the Bolshevik Party was forced to introduce the NEP. The market was legalized. Lenin described it as a phase of retreat to state capitalism [1]. Mending economic relations with the peasantry was undoubtedly the most critical and urgent task of the NEP. As Lenin explained, there were millions of isolated peasants in the country who were unaccustomed to defining their economic relations with the outside world except through trade. Trade would help establish a connection between the peasants and the nationalized industries. Industry would supply the peasants with goods at such prices as would enable the state to forego forcible collection of the products of peasant labor.
The market began to do its work. As early as 1923, thanks to an initial stimulus from the rural areas, industry began to revive. At the same time, harvests also began increasing, although at a more modest tempo.
Beginning in 1923, the disagreements within the ruling party on the industrial and agricultural policies and on their interrelationship began to grow.
1. THE VIEWS OF THE LEFT OPPOSITION
i) The NEP and the Course Towards the Kulak
The differences began at the Twelfth Congress of the CPSU in spring 1923. Trotsky advanced the argument that the essential danger threatening the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry lay in the phenomenon called scissors – meaning, the divergence between the prices of agricultural and industrial products, which reflected the backwardness of industry. The peasants had enormously benefited by the expropriation of landlords, but now, in the prices of state products, were suffering losses of hundreds of millions of rubles. If the further lagging of industry, he warned, continues to open these scissors, then a break between city and countryside is inevitable; it would bring about a differentiation of peasantry and a general growth of capitalist forces. [2]
During the entire period 1923-28, there was an intense struggle between the ruling coalition and the Left Opposition (it was not known by this name then) over the issues of industrialization and planned leadership. The Opposition’s demand for a five-year plan was met with mockery. At a Party Conference in 1926, a representative of the Left Opposition stated: “To accelerate industrialization, in particular by way of increased taxation on the kulak, will produce a large mass of goods and lower market prices, and this will be to the advantage both of the worker and of the majority of the peasants...” [3]
In answer Stalin thundered against the “fantastic plans” of the Opposition. Industry must not “rush ahead, breaking away from agriculture and abandoning the tempo of accumulation in our country.” [4] The Opposition was ridiculed as “super-industrialisers”. The Fifteenth Party Congress, meeting in December 1927 for the final smashing of the “super-industrialisers”, gave warning of the “danger of a too great involvement of state capital in big construction.” [5]
As a result of the October Revolution, the number of independent farms rose during the subsequent decade from 16 to 25 million. With the implementation of the NEP, in proportion as the villages recovered, differentiation within the peasantry began to grow. The growth of kulaks in fact far outstripped the general growth of agriculture. The government turned a blind eye to changes in the countryside. Its policy under the slogan “face to the country” was actually a turning of its face to the kulak. Agricultural taxes fell upon the poor more heavily than upon the well to do. The kulaks also cornered a major portion of the state credits. Bukharin, the theoretician of the ruling faction in those days, tossed to the peasantry his famous slogan “Get rich!” It was an expression of the ideology of the ruling coalition, which rejected class criteria, operated with notions like “peasantry” in general, and believed that the kulak would gradually grow into socialism. In practice, it meant the enrichment of the minority at the expense of the majority.
As the rural petty bourgeoisie increased in strength, the government was forced to retreat before its demands: in 1925, the hiring of labour power and renting of land were legalised. The peasantry was becoming polarized between the small capitalist on one side and the hired hand on the other. At the same time, lacking industrial commodities, the state was crowded out of the rural market. Between the kulak and the petty home craftsman there appeared, as though from under the earth, the middleman. The state enterprises themselves, in search of raw material, were more and more compelled to deal with the private trader. The rising tide of capitalism was visible everywhere. Retarding industrialization, neglecting the general mass of peasants, this policy of banking on the well-to-do farmer revealed unequivocally, inside of two years 1924-26, its political consequences. The self-consciousness of the petty bourgeoisie increased, in both city and village; they captured many of the lower Soviets. [6]
The struggle in the Party over the “general line”, which had surfaced in 1923, became especially intense and passionate in 1926. At the Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU, a campaign was waged against the Left wing. Trotsky writes, “Our warnings about the kulak danger were presented under the absurd designation of “panic”; the positing of the fact that the differentiation of classes was taking place in the village was punished as anti-Soviet propaganda; the demand for the exercise of stronger pressure upon the kulak to the advantage of industry was labeled as a tendency to “plunder the peasants”.” [7]
In 1926 the Opposition formulated the discussion on the smychka, (the Russian word for alliance between working class and bulk of peasantry) which began as far back as the spring of 1923, in the following way : [8]
“QUESTION: Is it true that the policy of the Opposition threatens to disrupt the smychka between the proletariat and the peasantry?
“ANSWER: This accusation is false to the core. The smychka is threatened at this moment by the lag in industry, on the one hand, and by the growth of the kulak, on the other. The lack of industrial products is driving a wedge between country and city. In the political and economic domains, the kulak is beginning to dominate the middle and poor peasants, opposing them to the proletariat. This development is still in its very first stages. It is precisely this that threatens the smychka. The underestimation of the lag in industry and of the growth of the kulak disrupts the correct, Leninist leadership of the alliance between the two classes, this basis of the dictatorship under the conditions in our country.” (Questions and Answers.)
Bukharin, Rykov & Tomsky were setting the tone at that period. They demanded a broader scope for capitalist tendencies in the village through a raising of the price of grain, even at the cost of lowered tempo in industry. The Left Opposition answered: “To accelerate industrialization in particular by way of increased taxation on the kulak... will be to the advantage both of the worker and of the majority of peasants... Face to the village does not mean turn your back to industry, it means industry to the village. For the ‘face’ of the state, if it does not include industry, is of no use to the village.” [9]
In the same year (1926), the Left Opposition demanded, in its extended platform: “To the growth of individual farming in the country, we must oppose a swifter growth of the collective farms. It is necessary systematically year-by-year to set aside a considerable sum to aid the poor peasants organized in collectives. The whole work of the cooperatives ought to be imbued with the purpose of converting small production into a vast collectivised production.”
But this broad programme of collectivization was dismissed as being utopian for the coming years. During the preparations for the 15th Party Congress, whose task was to expel the Left Opposition, Molotov, the future president of the Soviet of People’s Commissars, said repeatedly, “We must not slip down into poor peasant illusions about the collectivization of the broad peasant masses.” It was the end of 1927. [10]
In the economic year 1927-28, the so-called restoration period in which industry worked chiefly with pre-revolutionary machinery, and agriculture with the old tools, was coming to an end. For any further advance independent industrial construction on a large scale was necessary. It was impossible to lead any further gropingly and without plan.
The first official draft of the five-year plan, prepared at last in 1927, was completely saturated with the spirit of stingy tinkering. The growth of industrial production was projected with a tempo declining yearly from 9 to 4 percent. The Opposition wrote: “To present on the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution such a piddling and completely pessimistic plan means in reality to work against socialism.” [11]
ii) The Sharp Turn: Rapid Industrialisation, Complete Collectivisation
In January 1928, in the very month when the representatives of the Left Opposition were either thrown into prison or banished to Siberia in punishment for their “panic” before the specter of the kulak, in that very month the strengthened kulaks, carrying with them the middle peasants, subjected the cities to a grain blockade. The working class stood face to face with the shadow of an advancing famine.
The Left Opposition had forewarned about this. In its thesis for the Fifteenth Congress, the Opposition had written:
“The decrease in the total amount of grains collected is, on the one hand, direct evidence of the profound disturbance existing in the relations between the city and the country and, on the other hand, it is a source of new difficulties which threaten us.”
Where is the root of these difficulties? The Opposition replied:
“In the course of recent years industry developed too slowly, lagging behind the development of national economy as a whole. ... Owing to this, the dependence of state economy on kulak and capitalist elements is growing in the domain of raw materials, in export, and in foodstuffs.” [12]
However, for foreseeing the problem, in the winter of 1927 the Bolshevik militants were sent into exile.
The government declared that the grain strike was caused by the naked hostility of the kulak to the socialist state. On February 15, 1928, an editorial appeared in the Pravda, which might have been taken for a restatement, and in part for an almost literal reproduction, of the Platform of the Opposition presented at the Fifteenth Congress.
This unexpected article, written under the direct pressure of the crisis in grain collections, announced:
“Among a whole number of causes which have determined the difficulties experienced in grain collections, it is necessary to single out the following. The village has expanded and enriched itself. Above all it is the kulak who has expanded and enriched himself. Three years of good crops have not passed without leaving their mark.” [13]
Trotsky comments: “Thus, the refusal of the village to give the city grain is due to the fact that the “village has enriched itself,” that is to say, that it has realized as best it could Bukharin’s slogan: “Enrich yourselves!” But why then does the enrichment of the village undermine the smychka instead of consolidating it? Because, the article replies,
“Above all it is the kulak who has expanded and enriched himself.” Thus the theory affirming that the middle peasant had expanded during these years at the expense of the kulak and the poor peasant, was abruptly rejected as so much useless rubbish.”
However, even the enrichment of the kulaks does not by itself explain the grain crisis. Pravda also formulated the second cause, which was at bottom the fundamental reason of the grain crisis:
“The increase in the income of the peasantry... in the presence of a relative backwardness in the supply of industrial products permits the peasants in general and the kulak in particular to hoard grain.”
This was the real picture. The fundamental cause was the lag in industry and the scarcity of industrial goods. Under these conditions, not only was no socialist alliance (smychka) established with the poor and middle peasants belonging to the cooperative, there was not even a capitalist alliance (smychka) with the kulak. The above two quotations from Pravda repeat “practically verbatim the expressions and ideas of my Questions and Answers (quoted in the preceding section), the penalty for typing which was expulsion from the party,” remarks Trotsky.
However, the Pravda article does not stop here. It goes on to admit that the kulak is the economic authority in the village, that “he has established a smychka with the city speculator who pays higher prices for grain,” that “he [the kulak] has the possibility of drawing the middle peasant behind him.” Trotsky comments: “This description, which characterizes with precision the relations existing in the village, has nothing in common with the official legends of recent years on the dominant and continually increasing economic role of the middle peasant; but for that it coincides entirely with our platform which was considered as anti-party document.” [14]
The Pravda editorial was a signal that the official line had changed. Following this cue from above, the press now began to write that the kulaks were gaining strength not just in the villages but in the Party too, and having come to occupy the position of local secretaries, were denying admission to poor peasants and hired hands!
To tackle the shortage of grain, it became necessary to seize immediately, by force, the grain reserves – not only of the kulak but of the middle peasant too. But even now, the Party was not willing to change policy. It was declared that these were “extraordinary measures” implying that very soon things would return to their old normal self. Stalin, in the second half of 1928, declared, “there are people who think that individual farms have exhausted their usefulness, that we should not support them...These people have nothing in common with the line of our Party.” [15]
However, the grain seizures deprived the well-off peasants of their motive to increase sowings; the hired hands and poor peasants found themselves without work; agriculture had arrived at a blind alley. It became necessary to change the general line.
The new orientation was arrived at just as empirically as the preceding. It was accompanied by a struggle within the ruling group. The dominant faction, led by Stalin, swung to the Left. Rykov, Bukharin and Tomsky, all members of the Politburo, found themselves condemned as Right-wingers. The official press, with its usual freedom from embarrassment, announced that the head of the government, Rykov, “had speculated on the economic difficulties of the Soviet power”; that the head of the Communist International, Bukharin, was “a conducting wire of bourgeois-liberal influences”; that Tomsky, president of the all-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, was nothing but a miserable trade-unionist. Whereas the whole preceding struggle against the Left Opposition had taken its weapons from the right groups, Bukharin was now able, without sinning against the truth, to accuse Stalin of using in his struggle with the Right a part of the condemned Left Opposition platform. [16]
Industrialization was put upon the order of the day. The minimalist five-year plan was replaced by a new one, whose fundamental elements were lifted from the platform of the shattered Left Opposition. The Left Opposition had analysed the hypothetical possibilities of socialist industrialization way back in 1923-25; their cautious projection, of a 15 to 18 percent growth rate, had been openly ridiculed by the ruling group, this was one of the principle issues in the struggle against “Trotskyism”.
After the initial successes, the slogan was advanced – achieve the five-year plan in four years. The Politburo lightly jumped to 30% yearly growth, much more than the hypothetical calculations of the “super-industrialisers”; every partial and temporary achievement was converted into a norm, without paying attention to the conditioning interrelation of the different branches of industry. The financial requirements of the plan were met by printing notes; the result was that the currency system, put on a sound footing at the beginning of the NEP, was shaken to its very roots. [17]
However, the chief danger, not just for the fulfillment of the Plan, but also for the regime itself, came from the side of the peasants.
While Stalin continued to vacillate on the question of individual farming, he along with Molotov now began to push for a swifter development of Soviet and collective farms. According to the new plan, drawn up under the spur of a food crisis, collective farms were at the end of five years to comprise about 20% of the farm holdings. But the bitter necessity of food did not permit a cessation of military expeditions into the countryside. Very soon, the program of promoting individual farms was left hanging in the air; the temporary “extraordinary measures” for the collection of grain developed unexpectedly into a program of “liquidation of kulaks as a class.” In November 1929, Stalin, abandoning his vacillations, announced the end of individual farming. The peasants, he declared, are entering the collective farms “in whole villages, counties, and even provinces.” Yakovlev, the People’s Commissar of Agriculture, received an order to “liquidate the kulaks as a class” and establish complete collectivization at the “earliest possible date”. In the year 1929, the proportion of collective farms rose from 1.7% to 3.9%, in 1930 to 23.6%, in 1931 to 52.7%, in 1932 to 61.5%.
After the October Revolution, the expropriation of the great estates and the extreme parcellation of land had made the union of these small parcels into big tracts a question of life and death for peasants, for agriculture, for society as a whole. However, the real possibilities of collectivisation are determined primarily by the existing productive resources – by the ability of industry to furnish large-scale agriculture with the requisite machinery. These material conditions were lacking. The collective farms were set up with equipment suitable for small farming. Not only that, since the government had blindly rushed ahead with collectivisation, it had made no political preparations for the new course. The peasant masses, even the local organs of power, did not know what was expected of them. The bureaucracy expropriated the peasant of nearly all his belongings. Not only horses and pigs, but also newly born chicken, were collectivized. As a result, there was an epidemic selling of cattle for a song, and slaughter of cattle for meat and hides.
The consequences of this were devastating: harvest of grain fell from 835 million tons in 1930 to 700 million tons in 1932; production of sugar fell by more than half; and a virtual hurricane hit the animal kingdom: number of horses fell 55% during the period 1929-34, number of cattle 40%, sheep 66%! The destruction of people – by hunger, cold, epidemics, repressive measures – is less accurately tabulated, but it also amounts to millions. [18]
The forced character of this new course arose from the necessity of finding some salvation from the consequences of the policy of 1923-28. But even so, collectivization could and should have assumed a more reasonable tempo, more deliberated forms; the tempo should have better corresponded to the material and moral resources of the country.
Trotsky writes that the drive to liquidate the kulaks as a class, followed by the purely military mobilization of the Party for the struggle against kulak sabotage, accompanied by a returned to food cards and hunger rations—once again revived throughout the country memories of the civil war. The agricultural crisis caused the supply of food and raw materials to the factories to worsen from season to season. The unbearable working conditions caused labour migration, careless work, breakdown of machines, generally low quality production. Average productivity of labour declined 11.7% in 1931; Molotov acknowledged in 1932 (which was printed in the whole Soviet press) that industrial production in 1932 rose only 8.5%, instead of the projected 36%. And yet, very soon after, the world was informed that the five-year plan had been fulfilled in four years three months! [19] Despite it being very obvious, the bureaucracy manipulates statistics and public opinion without the least embarrassment.
2. STALIN’s REPLY TO THE LEFT OPPOSITION
i) Period 1923-28: The Question of the Peasantry
On May 9, 1925, at a meeting of the Moscow Organisation of the RCP (B), Stalin summed up the Party’s policy in the countryside. He said that the situation in the countryside was that differentiation of the peasantry was going on, and in a number of districts, the middle peasants were siding with the kulaks against the poor peasants.
Despite the differentiation of the peasantry, the Party’s main task was not to foment class struggle there. The main task was to rally the middle peasants around the proletariat, link up with the main masses of the peasantry, and move forward with them along the road to socialism. [20]
On December 23, 1925, at the Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU (B), Stalin defended the decisions taken in April 1925 to permit renting and leasing of land and hiring of labor: he said the charge that these were concessions to the kulaks and not to the peasants was slander against the Party. These concessions fitted into the framework of the NEP. Lenin’s position on the NEP was that while he knew that the capitalists and kulaks would primarily take advantage of it, he did not say that the Party in changing its policy towards the NEP was making concessions to the profiteers and capitalist elements and not the peasantry; on the contrary, he said that under the given conditions, we were making concessions to the peasantry for the sake of maintaining and strengthening our bond with it. [21]
In January 1926, in his pamphlet Concerning Questions of Leninism, Stalin wrote that peasant economy is small commodity economy, it may develop in direction of capitalism or socialism. In Russia, under conditions where the proletariat holds all the key positions of the national economy, the peasant farms can proceed along the path to socialism. For this, as Lenin had pointed out, development of agriculture must proceed along a new path, along the path of drawing the majority of peasants into socialist construction through cooperatives, along the path of gradually introducing into agriculture the principles of collectivism, first in the sphere of marketing and later in the sphere of production of agricultural products. [22]
Stalin said the “New Opposition” does not believe in this new path of development of the peasantry because it does not believe in the victory of socialist construction in Russia. Hence it exaggerates the negative aspects of the NEP, treats it merely as a retreat, exaggerates the role of capitalist elements in our economy, is presenting inflated accounts of the differentiation in the countryside, is panic-stricken in the face of the kulak, is belittling the role of the middle peasant. [23]
The middle peasant is the central figure in our agriculture, Stalin declared, at the Fifteenth Conference of the Party. While the opposition is conducting hue and cry about the differentiation of peasantry, facts show that the middle peasant is increasing in numbers, while the extreme poles are considerably diminishing. Moreover, factors such as nationalization of land, mass organization of peasantry in cooperatives, etc., set definite limits and bounds to the differentiation itself. Even more important, the growth of small private capital in the countryside is more than counterbalanced by the development of our socialist industry. He quoted Lenin: “Every improvement in the position of large scale production... strengthens the position of the proletariat to such an extent that there are no grounds whatever for fearing the elemental forces of the petty-bourgeoisie, even if its numbers grow. It is not the growth of the petty-bourgeoisie and of small capital that is to be feared. What is to be feared is too long continuation of the state of extreme hunger, want and shortage of produce, which is resulting in completely sapping the strength of the proletariat and making it impossible for it to withstand the elemental forces of petty-bourgeois vacillation and despair. That is more terrible...” Hence, Stalin concluded, the opposition’s panic over differentiation and private capital in the countryside is superfluous. [24]
He criticised the Opposition’s view that cooperation is a variety of state capitalism. While it is true that Lenin held this view in 1921, when we had no socialist industry, two years later, in 1923, Lenin had changed his view because by then socialist industry had developed, and cooperatives had begun to link up with it. Lenin now began to regard cooperation in a different light, saying that: “cooperation under our conditions, very often entirely coincides with socialism.” [25]
Stalin denounced the Opposition’s practical proposals – that wholesale prices of manufactured goods be raised, that the peasantry be more heavily taxed, etc. – saying that these would disrupt economic cooperation between the proletariat and the peasantry. [26]
In a speech on October 23, 1927, Stalin stated that the Opposition had been demanding a policy of de-kulakisation, a policy of restoring Poor Peasants’ Committees, which was in essence a policy of reverting to civil war in the countryside. The Party had repulsed this attack of the Opposition, and had given certain concessions to the middle peasantry designed to accelerate the progress of peasant economy, establish a stable alliance with the middle peasants, and hasten the isolation of the kulaks. Through this the party had achieved peace in the countryside, one of the fundamental conditions for the building of socialism. This has created conditions that enable us to push forward the offensive against the capitalist elements in the countryside and to ensure further success in the building of socialism. [27]
ii) The Period 1923-28: The Question of Industry
On disagreements with the Opposition over industrialization, Stalin, speaking at the Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the ECCI on December 7, 1926, said:
“The Party, proceeding from the fact that industrialization is the principal means of socialist construction, and that the principal market for socialist industry is the home market of our country, considers that the development of industrialization must be based upon a steady improvement of the material conditions of the main mass of the peasantry (to say nothing of the workers), that a bond between industry and the peasant economy, between the proletariat and the peasantry, with the leadership of the proletariat in the bond, is, as Lenin expressed it, the “alpha and omega of Soviet power” and the success of our constructive work, and that therefore our policy in general, and our taxation and price policy in particular, must be so constructed as to answer to the interests of this bond.
The opposition, however, having no faith in the possibility of drawing the peasantry into the work of building socialism, and obviously believing that it is permissible to carry out industrialization to the detriment of the main mass of the peasantry, ... proposes such methods of industrialization (increased taxation of the peasantry, higher wholesale prices of manufactured goods, etc.) as are calculated only to disrupt the bond between industry and peasant economy, undermine the economic position of the poor and middle peasantry, and shatter the very foundations of industrialization.” [28]
In a speech on the Trotskyite Opposition at a Central Committee Plenum on October 23, 1927, Stalin stated that on the question of re-equipment of our industry, our policy has proved to be correct. The only path left to us for industrialization was on the basis of internal accumulations. While the Opposition has been croaking that internal accumulations are insufficient for the re-equipment of our industry, nevertheless, over the last two years, we have been able to make sufficient investments to make a further headway with the industrialization of our country. [29]
iii) The Sharp Turn in 1928-29: Liquidation of the Kulaks as a Class
Stalin, talking to students on May, 1928, stated that the grain crisis had been caused primarily because of the change in structure of agriculture brought about by the October Revolution: from large-scale landlord and large-scale kulak farming, which provided the largest amount of marketable grain, to small and middle peasant farming, which provided the smallest amount of marketable grain. This year (1928), by April 1, grain supplies available to meet the requirements of the country were 100 million poods more than last year; nevertheless, the country was experiencing difficulties on the grain front; the kulaks took advantage of these difficulties in order to disrupt Soviet economic policy. Analysing the reasons for the strength of the kulaks, he said: “the relative importance of kulaks in the countryside is a hundred times greater than that of the small capitalists in urban industry,” because “in the countryside we can oppose to large-scale kulak farming only the still weak collective farms and state farms, which provide but one-eighth of the amount of grain produced by the kulak farms.” [30]
While speaking on the Right Deviation in the CPSU (B) in April 1929, Stalin pointed out with respect to the grain procurement difficulties that: “As for the capitalist elements in the countryside, there is still less reason to regard as accidental the opposition of the kulaks to the Soviet price policy, which has been going on for over a year already. Many people are still unable to understand why it is that until 1927 the kulak gave his grain of his own accord, whereas since 1927 he has ceased to do so. But there is nothing surprising in it. Formerly the kulak was still relatively weak; he was unable to organize his farming properly; he lacked sufficient capital to improve his farm and so he was obliged to bring all, or nearly all, his surplus grain to the market. Now, however, after a number of good harvests, since he has been able to build up his farm, since he has succeeded in accumulating the necessary capital, he is in a position to manoeuvre on the market, he is able to set aside grain, this currency of currencies, as a reserve for himself, and prefers to bring to the market meat, oats, barley and other secondary crops. It would be ridiculous now to hope that the kulak can be made to part with his grain voluntarily.” He added, “It represents a regrouping of the forces of the class enemies of the proletariat...these circumstances cannot but lead to an intensification of the class struggle.” [31]
What, then, is the way out? Stalin declared (on May 28,1928): “the way out lies in the transition from individual peasant farming to collective, socially-conducted economy in agriculture.” [32]
At a Central Committee Plenum in April 1929, Stalin addressed the question whether the Party had been at least two years late in starting with this work of developing collective farms. He said this criticism was absolutely wrong. It is not that the Party had not foreseen the need for collective farms; the Party program adopted at the Eighth Congress in March 1919 had recognized its need quite clearly. However, the fact that the top leadership of the Party had foreseen the need for collective farms was not enough for carrying out a mass movement for collective farms. For this, it was necessary that “the Party’s top leadership should be supported in this matter by the mass of the party membership. As you know, ours is a Party of a million members. ...Was the mass of our party membership ready for the utmost development of collective farms and state farms, say, some two or three years ago? No, it was not ready.” He stated that the mass of the party membership realized its need “only with the first serious grain procurement difficulties. It required those difficulties for the mass of the party membership to become conscious of the full necessity of accelerating the adoption of...the collective farms and state farms...” This was one condition which did not exist two years ago, but which did exist now. A second condition was that a mass movement in favour of collective farms should arise within the peasantry. “Every body knows that two or three years ago, the peasantry was hostilely disposed to the state farms... Now the situation is different. Now we have whole strata of the peasantry who regard the state farms and collective farms as a source of assistance to peasant farming....” [33]
iv) The Sharp Turn in 1928-29: Five-Year Plan in Four Years
In his speech in April 1929 on the Right Deviation in the CPSU (B), Stalin speaks of the new industrial policy. He stated that industry must be rapidly developed; it is the key to reconstruction of agriculture on the basis of collectivism. We must develop industry to the utmost, we must accelerate the development of metallurgical, chemical & machine-building industries, tractor works, agricultural machinery works, etc. – only then can industry supply agriculture with the necessary agricultural machinery, tractors, fertilizers, etc. which are essential requirements for expanding the development of collective forms.
Failing this, it will be impossible to solve the grain problem; it will be impossible to save the economically weaker strata of the peasantry from poverty and ruin. [34]
In the same speech, Stalin mentions that the peasantry is paying to the state in addition to the usual taxes, also a certain super tax in the form of an over-payment for manufactured goods & in form of an underpayment received for agricultural produce. This super tax is a diversion of resources from agriculture to industry for the purpose of speeding up industrial development; though it is a temporary measure, it is necessary, as we must at all costs maintain a rapid growth of our industry. [35]
While talking of the achievements of the Party during the past year on the occasion of the Twelfth anniversary of the October Revolution (November 3, 1929), Stalin said the Party had successfully solved the problem of accumulation for construction of heavy industry during the past year. The problem of light industry had been solved many years ago; but the problem of heavy industry was more difficult and also more important as it demanded colossal investments. [36]
In a speech delivered at a Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry on February 4, 1931, Stalin said the pledge had been taken to fulfil the five-year plan in four years, and not only that, fulfil it in three years in all the basic, decisive branches of industry. It could be accomplished; we must develop a genuine Bolshevik tempo and put an end to our backwardness in the shortest possible time. [37]
3. OUR ANALYSIS OF THE DEBATE
i) On the Retreat of 1925
At the Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU, Stalin, defending the decisions to give further concessions to the peasantry, stated:
“Do those concessions fit into the framework of NEP or not? Undoubtedly they do.” [38]
The retreat to the NEP had been initiated in the spring of 1921. Its extent was established not only theoretically, but also by feeling out the ground in practice. In the autumn of 1921, it became necessary to deepen the retreat. On October 29, 1921, On October 29, 1921, that is, seven months after the transition to the N.E.P., Lenin stated at the Moscow District Conference:
“This transition to the New Economic Policy which was effected in the Spring, this retreat on our part ...has it proved adequate so that we can stop retreating, so that we can prepare to take the offensive? No, it has still proved inadequate.... And we are now obliged to admit it, if we do not want to hide our heads in ostrich fashion, if we don’t want to appear like fellows who do not see their own defeat, if we are not afraid of seeing the danger that confronts us. We must recognize that the retreat has proved to be inadequate, that it is necessary to execute a supplementary retreat, a further retreat in the course of which we will pass from state capitalism to the creation of purchases, of sales, and of monetary circulation regulated by the state. That is why we are in the situation of men who still continue to be forced to retreat in order finally to pass to the offensive at a further stage.”
And later, in the same speech:
“To conceal from oneself, from the working class, from the masses, that in the economic domain, in the Spring of 1921 and at present, too, in the Autumn-Winter of 1921-1922, we are still continuing to retreat, is to condemn ourselves to complete unconsciousness, is to be devoid of the courage to face the situation squarely. Under such conditions, work and struggle would be impossible.” [39]
Lenin is frank and honest in admitting to the retreat, in admitting to the necessity of deepening the retreat. In stark contrast, the new painful retreat in April 1925 was not called, as Lenin would have called it, a profound retreat and defeat; it was presented as a victorious step of the working class-peasantry alliance, as a mere link in the general mechanism of building socialism. In his pamphlet Concerning Questions of Leninism, Stalin replies to the Opposition’s criticism that the NEP was a retreat:
“But what is the meaning of the thesis that NEP is capitalism, that NEP is mainly a retreat? What does this thesis proceed from?
“It proceeds from the wrong assumption that what is now taking place in our country is simply the restoration of capitalism, simply a “return” to capitalism. This assumption alone can explain the doubts of the opposition regarding the socialist nature of our industry. This assumption alone can explain the panic of the opposition in face of the kulak... This assumption alone can serve to “substantiate” the “New Opposition’s” disbelief in the new path of development of the countryside, the path of drawing it into the work of socialist construction.
“As a matter of fact, what is taking place in our country now is not a one-sided process of restoration of capitalism, but a double process of development of capitalism and development of socialism—a contradictory process of struggle between the socialist and the capitalist elements, a process in which the socialist elements are overcoming the capitalist elements.” [40]
In a later speech on disagreements with the Trotskyite opposition, given on October 23, 1927, Stalin does not even admit that the concessions to the “peasantry” were a retreat. [41]
It is precisely against such an approach that Lenin had warned all his life. In the above quoted speech at the Moscow District Conference, he spoke thus:
“It is not the defeat which is so dangerous as the fear of admitting one’s defeat, the fear of drawing from it all the conclusions.... We must not be afraid of admitting defeats. We must learn from the experience of the defeats. If we adopt the opinion that by admitting defeats we induce despondency and a weakening of energy for the struggle, similar to a surrender of positions, me would have to say that such revolutionists are absolutely not worth a damn.... Our strength in the past was, as it will remain in the future, that we can take the heaviest defeats into account with perfect coolness, learning from their experience what must be modified in our activity. That is why it is necessary to speak candidly. This is vital and important not alone for the purpose of theoretical correctness, but also from the practical point of view. We cannot learn to solve the problems of today by new methods if yesterday’s experience has not made us open our eyes in order to see wherein the old methods were at fault.”
ii) On the Reasons for the Concessions to the Peasantry in 1925
In a speech at a Central Committee Plenum in October 1927, Stalin explained the “new facts” in the countryside which had led to the decisions to permit renting of land and hiring of labor in April 1925:
“The situation in the countryside was a serious one...there were bandit activities... there were even revolts, ...in such a situation the kulaks gained strength, the middle peasants rallied around the kulaks, and the poor peasants became disunited. The situation in the country was aggravated particularly by the fact that the productive forces in the countryside grew very slowly...” [42]
In this speech or in any speech throughout 1925-27, Stalin just does not attempt to answer the question: Why were the kulaks gaining strength? Why were the middle peasants rallying around the kulaks? Instead he straightaway proceeded to give the solution to these “new facts” in the countryside: The concessions to the peasantry were given to establish peace in the countryside, promote progress in agriculture and establish a stable alliance with the middle peasant. [43]
But these were precisely the objectives of the NEP! Explaining the reasons for the transition from War Communism to the NEP, Lenin said, in mid-1921: “The political situation in the spring of 1921 was such that immediate, very resolute and urgent measures had to be taken to improve the condition of the peasants and to increase their productive forces.” He continued, “...The most urgent thing at the present time is to take measures that will immediately increase the productive forces of peasant farming. Only in this way will it be possible to improve the condition of the workers, strengthen the alliance between the workers and peasants....” [44]
However, the problem in the countryside in early 1925 as described by Stalin—that the kulaks are gaining strength, and the middle peasantry was rallying around them – was different from the problem created by the policy of War Communism, which had led to the introduction of the NEP. This problem was a direct result of the NEP itself. Lenin himself had sounded the warning about this side-effect of the NEP, in a straightforward way as always, at the Tenth Congress of the RCP:
“We must not close our eyes to the fact that the switch from the appropriation of surpluses to the tax in kind will more kulaks under the new system.” [45]
And then again, in his pamphlet, Tax in Kind, he wrote:
“What is to be the effect of all this?
“It is the revival of the petty bourgeoisie and of capitalism on the basis of some freedom of trade (if only local). That much is certain and it is ridiculous to shut our eyes to it.” [46]
In 1921, Lenin had considered this side effect to be a necessary evil, it was one of the reasons why he called the NEP a retreat, to tackle the crisis created by the years of civil war and the policy of War Communism. So, it was not surprising that by 1925, after four years of the NEP, the kulaks had gained considerable strength, and the middle peasants had rallied around them. Obviously, then, the further deepening of the retreat of the NEP was only going to aggravate the crisis in the countryside. The Left Opposition’s criticism of the Party decision of April 1925 to give further concessions to the “peasantry” was absolutely correct. On top of it, it was not even being called a retreat!
Actually, in the spring of 1922, Lenin himself had decided to halt the retreat. He spoke of it for the first time on March 6, 1922, at a session of the fraction of the Metal Workers’ Congress:
“We can now say that this retreat, in the sense of concessions which we made to capitalists, is completed... And I hope, and I am certain, that the party congress will also state so officially in the name of the leading party of Russia.”
He immediately added an explanation:
“All talk of the cessation of the retreat must not be understood in the sense that we have already created the foundation of the new economy and that we can proceed tranquilly. No, the foundation has not yet been created.” [47]
The Eleventh Congress, on the basis of Lenin’s report, adopted the following resolution on this question:
“The Congress takes note that the sum total of the measures applied and decided upon during the course of the past year exhausts the necessary concessions made by the party to private capitalism and considers that in this sense the retreat is completed.” [48]
Trotsky writes: “This resolution, deeply pondered, and, as we have seen, carefully prepared, presupposed consequently that the new points of departure occupied by the party would furnish the possibility of inaugurating the socialist offensive, slowly, but without new movements of retreat.” [49]
Lenin summed up the results of the NEP in his Report to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (on November 13, 1922). Eighteen months have elapsed since we decided to adopt the NEP, he said, “And so, I ask now, after this unprecedented and unexpected disaster, what is the position today, after we have introduced the New Economic Policy, after we have granted the peasants freedom to trade? The answer is clear and obvious to everyone; in one year the peasants have not only got over the famine, but have paid so much tax in kind that we have already received hundreds of millions of poods of grain, and that almost without employing any measures of coercion. Peasant uprisings, which previously, before 1921, were, so to speak, a common occurrence in Russia, have almost completely ceased. The peasants are satisfied with their present position. We can confidently assert that.” [50]
Lenin clearly states that the NEP had been successful in its aims by mid-1922 – of advancing the productive forces in the countryside, and establishing a bond between the proletariat and the peasantry. The task was now to begin a new socialist offensive. However, in violation of the decision of the Eleventh Congress, the new ruling group that had consolidated its hold over the Bolshevik Party after Lenin ceased working did not take any such initiative, prolonged the retreat of the NEP, in the name of the “peasantry” in general actually turned its face to the kulak, and what is more worse, actually announced still more concessions for the kulaks in spring 1925. While those who criticized the Party policy were derided as exhibiting “panic” in the face of the kulak, were denounced as anti-Leninists, and expelled from the Party.
iii) On Cooperatives being Socialist Enterprises
In his pamphlet Concerning Questions of Leninism, Stalin criticizes the Opposition for considering cooperation to be a variety of state capitalism, as follows from Lenin’s pamphlet Tax in Kind. But that was in 1921, Stalin writes, when Lenin conceived of state capitalism as the possible basic form of conducting our economy. Since then, times have changed, socialist industry has developed, state capitalism never took hold to the degree expected, and hence in 1923, Lenin began regarding cooperation in a different light, he now considered cooperatives in conjunction with socialist industry as not differing from socialist enterprises: “cooperation, under our conditions, very often entirely coincides with socialism.” [51]
It is obvious from reading the article On Cooperation that Stalin is attributing meanings to Lenin’s words, which Lenin never intended. In fact, Lenin himself explains what he means by these words. Here is the full quote:
“This circumstance is not considered sufficiently when cooperatives are discussed. It is forgotten that owing to the special features of our political system, our cooperatives acquire an altogether exceptional significance. If we exclude concessions, which, incidentally, have not developed on any considerable scale, cooperation under our conditions nearly always coincides fully with socialism.
“Let me explain what I mean. Why were the plans of the old cooperators, from Robert Owen onwards, fantastic? Because they dreamed of peacefully remodeling contemporary society into socialism without taking account of such fundamental questions as the class struggle, the capture of political power by the working class, the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting class. That is why we are right in regarding as entirely fantastic this “cooperative” socialism, and as romantic, and even banal, the dream of transforming class enemies into class collaborators and class war into class peace (so-called class truce) by merely organizing the population in cooperative societies.
“Undoubtedly we were right from the point of view of the fundamental task of the present day, for socialism cannot be established without a class struggle for the political power and a state.
“But see how things have changed now that the political power is in the hands of the working class, now that the political power of the exploiters is overthrown and all the means of production (except those which the workers’ state voluntarily abandons on specified terms and for a certain time to the exploiters in the form of concessions) are owned by the working class.” [52]
Stalin’s interpretation is wrong. In this passage, Lenin is not comparing Russia of 1921 with that of 1923. Lenin is comparing the concept of cooperatives of Robert Owen and the other old cooperators – who regarded cooperation as a means of peacefully transforming class society into a socialist society, and which the Bolsheviks rightly regarded with ridicule – with the Bolshevik concept of cooperatives, for whom it was a socio-organisational form of transition from small private commodity economy to socialist economy after the working class has seized power, overthrown the rule of the exploiters. Stalin lifts just a few lines from the above passage of Lenin, completely discards Lenin’s explanation that he has explicitly given in the very same passage, and gives it his own interpretation.
That’s not all. In his pamphlet, to further buttress his point, Stalin once again tears out a few lines from the same article of Lenin and once again twists their meaning, once again deliberately ignoring the explanation given by Lenin immediately afterwards. Stalin this time quotes the following lines from On Cooperation: “...for us, the mere growth of cooperation (with the ‘slight’ exception mentioned above) is identical with the growth of socialism, and at the same time we must admit that a radical change has taken place in our whole outlook on socialism.” Stalin explains these lines to mean:
“Obviously, the pamphlet On Co-operation gives a new appraisal of the co-operatives, a thing which the “New Opposition” does not want to admit, and which it is carefully hushing up, in defiance of the facts, in defiance of the obvious truth, in defiance of Leninism.
“Co-operation taken in conjunction with state capitalism is one thing, and co-operation taken in conjunction with socialist industry is another.” [53]
Here is the relevant portion of Lenin’s article from which Stalin quotes these lines:
“But see how things have changed now that the political power is in the hands of the working class, now that the political power of the exploiters is overthrown and all the means of production (except those which the workers’ state voluntarily abandons on specified terms and for a certain time to the exploiters in the form of concessions) are owned by the working-class.
“Now we are entitled to say that for us the mere growth of cooperation (with the “slight” exception mentioned above) is identical with the growth of socialism, and at the same time we have to admit that there has been a radical modification in our whole outlook on socialism. The radical modification is this; formerly we placed, and had to place, the main emphasis on the political struggle, on revolution, on winning political power, etc. Now the emphasis is changing and shifting to peaceful, organizational, “cultural” work.” [54]
Lenin’s meaning is crystal clear. By “radical change”, Lenin is referring to the change in the tasks of the Bolsheviks before and after the October Revolution, and not to any change in his appraisal of cooperatives in 1921 and in 1923, as Stalin is implying. Lenin is saying that before the October Revolution the main task was to win political power; after October 1917, with the rule of the exploiters having been overthrown and political power in the hands of the proletariat, the tasks of the Bolsheviks have undergone a radical modification. In the countryside, in order to advance socialism, the main task now is to transform the small private commodity economy (characterized by millions of small individual peasant farms) into socialist economy by means that are the simplest, easiest and most acceptable to the peasant: as a first step, organize them into cooperatives.
Stalin is deliberately clinging to a few words from the article to establish his theoretical line, rather than interpreting these words in the context of the general idea being advanced by Lenin. Lenin in fact makes the purpose of the article very clear in the very first paragraph of his article. The main purpose is to draw the attention of the Bolshevik workers to the significance acquired by the cooperative movement since the time of the October Revolution. He says that the Party comrades have still not got over the ridicule with which they regarded the dreams of the old cooperators before the October Revolution. At that time, when the working class was engaged in political struggle to overthrow the rule of the exploiters, the Bolsheviks were correct in regarding those dreams as “ridiculously fantastic”. But now that the working class has won power, the cooperative movement has acquired a totally new significance, “much that was fantastic, even romantic, even banal in the dreams of the old cooperators is now becoming unvarnished reality,” and hence the Bolshevik practical workers must get over their old views and grasp the significance of the cooperative movement in these new circumstances. [55]
There is another reason why Lenin’s words cannot have the meaning Stalin is attributing to them: from the viewpoint of Marxist theory, it is wrong! Cooperatives, even in conjunction with socialist industry, cannot entirely coincide with socialism, they are not socialist enterprises. Lenin writes, in his pamphlet Tax in Kind: “The cooperatives are also a form of state capitalism, but a less simple one... The small commodity producers’ cooperatives (and it is these, and not the workers’ cooperatives, that we are discussing as the predominant and typical form in a small peasant country) inevitably give rise to petty-bourgeois, capitalist relations...It cannot be otherwise, since the small proprietors predominate, and exchange is necessary and possible.” As Lenin pointed out at in his conclusion at the end of the pamphlet, so long as you have exchange between agriculture and industry, it is going to engender capitalism; exchange is capitalism. [56]
In Russia, in 1921 or 1923 or even in 1925 for that matter, small commodity producers’ cooperatives were state capitalism, they had to given rise to capitalism, irrespective of whether these cooperatives were existing alongside large-scale socialist industry or not, because exchange continued to take place. This is very clear from Lenin’s writings; Stalin’s interpretation that Lenin considered cooperatives in conjunction with state capitalism as one thing, and cooperatives in conjunction with socialist industry as another, is absurd, to say the least.
We arrive at the same conclusion if we examine this issue from another angle: the significance of the cooperative movement in the transformation of the Russian economy from a predominantly small peasant economy to a socialist economy after the Russian revolution. At the Third Congress of the Communist International, and also in his pamphlet Tax in Kind, Lenin said that the internal situation in Russia was that the small peasantry constituted the overwhelming mass of the population; the main task now confronting the proletariat in Russia was “properly to determine and carry out the measures that are necessary to lead the peasantry, establish a firm alliance with them and achieve the transition, in a series of gradual stages, to large scale, socialized, mechanized agriculture.” [57] Lenin saw cooperatives as one of the intermediary stages of this transition: “cooperative trade...facilitates the association and organization of millions of people, and eventually of the entire population, and this in its turn is an enormous gain from the standpoint of its subsequent transition from state capitalism to socialism...The cooperative policy, if successful, will result in raising the small economy and in facilitating its transition, within an indefinite period, to large-scale production on the basis of voluntary association.” [58]
Lenin categorically stated that only after Russia has advanced from small-scale production to large-scale state capitalism, only after the intermediary station called “national accounting and control of production and distribution” has been crossed, that Russia can advance to socialism. [59]
From this too it is evident that Stalin is wrong in asserting that that cooperatives in conjunction with socialist industry cannot be treated as state capitalism and are socialist enterprises.
Stalin’s position on this issue is consistent with his line of prolonging the retreat of the NEP, in fact deepening the retreat, thereby promoting the growth of kulaks in the period 1923-28. The Left Opposition, in contrast, opposed the concessions to the kulaks given in April 1925, and demanded that the Party advance from organizing the peasants into cooperatives to the next step of gradually introducing into agriculture the principles of collectivism.
iv) The Swing to the Left
The quotations from Stalin’s writings and speeches of 1928-29 given above fully confirm Trotsky’s statement that following the grain crisis of early 1928, Stalin swung to the Left. Having banished the Left Opposition to remote corners of Russia, Stalin now often borrowed from the “anti-Leninist” Platform of the Opposition.
In Industry
Till the end of 1927, Stalin had confidently asserted that the progress of development of both light & heavy industry was satisfactory. “...(T)he output of metal industry this year has almost doubled compared with that of last year. That is apart from the colossal growth of our light industry,” he said at a meeting of the Moscow Party Organization, on May 9, 1925; “... It shows that as regards the organization of industry, which is the chief basis of socialism, we have already entered the broad high road of development. As regards the metal industry, the mainspring of all industry, the period of stagnation has passed, and our metal industry now has every opportunity of going ahead and flourishing.” [60] He dismissed the Opposition’s charges that internal accumulations were inadequate; and asserted at a Central Committee Plenum on October 23, 1927 that the Opposition has been proved wrong, that over the past two years we have been able to made sufficient investments for the re-equipment of our industry. [61] Throughout 1925-27, there is not a hint of the need to accelerate the development of heavy industry in Stalin’s writings or speeches.
The opposition of the kulaks and the necessity of repeated military expeditions to the countryside to procure grain throughout 1928 forced Stalin into an about turn. "Panicking in the face of the kulak”, he now pushed for collectivization as well as for rapid development of heavy industry. The Party now adopted the very policy that the condemned “super-industrialisers” had demanded throughout 1923-28: that it was necessary to accelerate the development of heavy industry, for this it was necessary to raise taxes on the kulaks. Till just a year ago, Stalin had castigated this demand, saying that it would mean industry would be rushing ahead of agriculture, that industrialisation cannot be carried out to the detriment of the peasantry—it would break the bond between the working class & the peasantry. Now, to justify the Left turn, Stalin came up with a new definition of the bond between industry and agriculture; he now justified higher taxes on the peasantry, saying diversion of resources from agriculture to industry to speed up the development of industry was to the benefit of the peasantry, it would strengthen the bond between the working class and the peasantry. [62] This was precisely the argument of the Left Opposition, for which it was persecuted.
Summing up the Results of the First Five-year Plan on January 3, 1933, Stalin proclaimed: “the restoration and development of heavy industry, particularly in such a poor & backward country as ours was at the beginning of the five-year plan period, is an extremely difficult task...The Party declared frankly that this would call for serious sacrifices... In carrying out the five-year plan and organizing victory in the sphere of industrial development the Party pursued the policy of accelerating the development of industry to the utmost. The Party, as it were, spurred the country on and hastened its progress.” [63] The “fundamental elements” of this plan were borrowed in Toto from the platform of the shattered Left Opposition. [64] Stalin very conveniently had a short memory. He had forgotten that just a few years ago, he had denounced this very same “fantastic plan of super-industrialisation” as Trotskyism.
In Agriculture
Till before the grain crisis of early 1928, Stalin had made no mention of any program to introduce the principles of collectivisation in agriculture! Throughout 1923-27, he in fact argued that the mass organization of the peasantry in cooperatives taken in conjunction with socialist industry is virtually identical with socialism.
Further, till end-1927, Stalin had made no mention of any disruption in the countryside being caused by kulaks. On the contrary, he repeatedly affirmed that the socialist elements were overcoming the capitalist elements. In a speech on October 23, 1927, he denounced the Opposition for demanding what he described as “in essence, the policy of de-kulakisation... a policy of reverting to civil war in the countryside”; he said the Party had followed a policy that had successfully established peace in the countryside, this was one of the fundamental conditions for the building of socialism.
But soon after, the kulaks asserted their strength, and organized a grain strike. Stalin now executed a swing to the Left.
At a plenary meeting of the Central Committee, in April 1929, Stalin said: “What did the grain procurement difficulties reveal? They revealed that the kulak was not asleep, that the kulak was growing, that he was busy undermining the policy of the Soviet government, while our Party, Soviet and cooperative organizations – at all events, some of them – either failed to see the enemy, or adapted themselves to him instead of fighting him.” [65]
On October 19, 1928, Stalin spoke of the conditions that gave rise to the possibility of restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. He pointed out that till so long as we do not “build up a powerful industry, organize the vast masses of the peasantry into co-operatives, place agriculture on a new technical basis, unite the individual peasant farms into large collective farms, ... until that is accomplished – and it cannot be accomplished all at once – we shall remain a small-peasant country, where small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously and on a mass scale, and where the danger of the restoration of capitalism remains.” [66] A few months later, on April 29, 1929, while speaking of Bukharin’s mistakes, he said: “socialism is growing faster than the capitalist elements; as a result, the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining,” and for this very reason “the capitalist elements realize that they are in mortal danger and are increasing their resistance.” Further, despite the relative decline of the capitalist elements as compared with the growth of socialism, “there is still taking place an absolute growth of the capitalist elements”, which “enables them to accumulate forces to resist the growth of socialism.” And so, he concluded: “It is on this basis that, at the present stage of development and under the present conditions of the relation of forces, the intensification of the class struggle and the increase in the resistance of the capitalist elements of town and country are taking place.” [67]
But these were precisely the arguments of the Left Opposition throughout 1925-27, that: the Party line in agriculture was wrong, that small-peasant production engenders capitalism, hence the differentiation of the peasantry was increasing, and the kulaks were gaining strength.
Stalin had then rubbished this criticism. In a report delivered at the Fifteenth Conference of the CPSU (B) on November 1, 1926, Stalin had said:
“A few words on differentiation of the peasantry. Everyone knows the outcry and panic raised by the opposition about a growth of differentiation. Everyone knows that no one raised a greater panic over the growth of small private capital in the countryside than the opposition. But what is really happening? What is happening is this:
“In the first place, the facts show that in our country differentiation among the peasantry is proceeding in very peculiar forms—not through the “melting away” of the middle peasant, but, on the contrary, through an increase in his numbers, while the extreme poles are considerably diminishing. Moreover, such factors as the nationalisation of the land, the mass organisation of the peasantry in co-operatives, our taxation policy, etc., cannot but set definite limits and bounds to the differentiation itself.
“In the second place—and this is the chief thing—the growth of small private capital in the countryside is counter-balanced, and more than counter-balanced, by so decisive a factor as the development of our industry, which strengthens the position of the proletariat and of the socialist forms of economy, and which constitutes the principal antidote to private capital in every shape and form.” [68]
Now, after sending the Left Opposition into exile, Stalin was free to repeat word for word parts of the platform of the condemned Left Opposition. Just a few months earlier, he had denounced the Opposition for voicing demands that in effect would cause “civil war in the countryside”, whereas “one of the fundamental conditions for the building of socialism” was “peace in the countryside”. By itself, an astonishing criticism! Now, in early 1928, the Soviet government adopted “a number of measures aimed at putting a stop to the anti-Soviet action of the kulaks” [69]! Stalin, of course, without any embarrassment, continued to criticize the Left Opposition, that “it overestimates the strength of our enemies, the strength of capitalism” [70]! A year later, he gave the order to liquidate the kulaks as a class, which actually led to a civil war in the countryside, in which millions died, and the agricultural economy suffered a catastrophic collapse.
Stalin denies that the Party was two years late in starting the work of uniting the individual peasant farms into collective farms. The logic he gives to justify the timing of the Party decision is simply absurd. His argument implies that the Party must not take steps to curb the growth of the enemy class, the Party must wait for the enemy to become strong enough to disrupt its economic policy, only then should the Party launch the struggle against the enemy! Of what use is the Party and the Party leadership, by definition the most far-sighted representative of the working class, if it is not to act on the basis of its far-sightedness? Not only is Stalin’s logic ridiculous, he is also brazenly lying. The Party leadership had not foreseen the need for collectivization. Those in the Party who had foreseen this, had demanded it – the Left Opposition – were denounced as anti-Leninists, expelled from the Party, condemned into exile.
References
[1] V. I. Lenin, Tax in Kind, Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, pp. 538-539
[2] Leon Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1970, pp. 248-249.
[3] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1972, pp. 29-30
[4] Ibid., p. 30
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., pp. 25-27
[7] Leon Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, op. cit., p. 270
[8] Ibid.
[9] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, op. cit., p. 30
[10] Ibid., pp. 28-29
[11] Ibid., pp. 30-32
[12] Leon Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, op. cit., p. 272
[13] Ibid., p. 274
[14] Ibid., pp. 274-275
[15] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, op. cit., pp. 33,36
[16] Ibid., p. 34
[17] Ibid., pp. 31,35
[18] Ibid., pp. 36-40
[19] Ibid., pp. 41-42
[20] J. V. Stalin, The Results of the Work of the Fourteenth Conference of the RCP (B), On The Opposition, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975, p. 220
[21] J. V. Stalin, The Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU (B), On The Opposition, ibid., pp. 233-234
[22] J. V. Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, On The Opposition, ibid., pp. 333-334
[23] Ibid., pp. 337-338
[24] J. V. Stalin, The Social-Democratic Deviation in our Party, On The Opposition, ibid., pp. 435-437
[25] J. V. Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, On The Opposition, ibid., p. 341
[26] Ibid., p. 435
[27] J. V. Stalin, The Trotskyite Opposition Before and Now, On The Opposition, ibid., pp.888-889
[28] J. V. Stalin, The Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I., On The Opposition, ibid., pp. 558-559
[29] J. V. Stalin, The Trotskyite Opposition Before and Now, op. cit., p. 890
[30] J. V. Stalin, On the Grain Front, Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976, pp. 280, 285
[31] J. V. Stalin, The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B), Problems of Leninism, ibid., pp. 339-340
[32] J. V. Stalin, On the Grain Front, op. cit., p. 285
[33] J. V. Stalin, The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B), op. cit., pp. 387-390
[34] Ibid., pp. 380-385
[35] Ibid., p. 373
[36] J. V. Stalin, A Year of Great Change, Problems of Leninism, ibid., p. 432
[37] J. V. Stalin, The Tasks of Economic Executives, Problems of Leninism, ibid., pp. 519-520, 529-530
[38] J. V. Stalin, The Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU (B), op. cit., p. 234
[39] V. I. Lenin, Seventh Moscow Gubernia Conference of the RCP (B), Collected Works, Second English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Vol. 33, pp. 81-108
[40] J. V. Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, op. cit., pp. 339-340
[41] J. V. Stalin, The Trotskyite Opposition Before and Now, op. cit., pp. 888-889
[42] Ibid., p. 888
[43] Ibid., pp. 888-889
[44] V. I. Lenin, Tax in Kind, op. cit., p. 536
[45] V. I. Lenin, Tenth Congress of the RCP (B), Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p.516
[46] V. I. Lenin, Tax in Kind, op. cit., p. 538
[47] V. I. Lenin, The International and Domestic Situation of the Soviet Republic, Collected Works, Second English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Vol. 33, pp. 212-216
[48] Quoted in Leon Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, op. cit., p. 267
[49] Leon Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, ibid., p. 267-268
[50] V. I. Lenin, Fourth Congress of the Communist International, Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 665
[51] Cited in J. V. Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, op. cit., p. 341
[52] V. I. Lenin, On Cooperation, Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, pp. 702-703
[53] J. V. Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, op. cit., pp. 342-343
[54]V. I. Lenin, On Cooperation, op. cit., p. 703
[55] Ibid., p. 698
[56] V. I. Lenin, Tax in Kind, op. cit., pp. 541,555
[57] V. I. Lenin, Third Congress of the Communist International, Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 561
[58] V. I. Lenin, Tax in Kind, op. cit., pp. 542
[59] Ibid., p. 531
[60] J. V. Stalin, The Results of the Work of the Fourteenth Conference of the RCP (B), op. cit., p. 226
[61] J. V. Stalin, The Trotskyite Opposition Before and Now, op. cit., p. 890
[62] J. V. Stalin, The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B), op. cit., pp. 373-374, 379-381
[63] J. V. Stalin, The Results of the First Five-Year Plan, Problems of Leninism, op. cit., pp. 592, 599
[64] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, op. cit., p. 35
[65] J. V. Stalin, The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B), op. cit., p. 337
[66] J. V. Stalin, The Right Danger in the CPSU (B), Problems of Leninism, ibid., pp. 316-317
[67] J. V. Stalin, The Right Deviation in the CPSU (B), op. cit., pp. 359-360
[68] J. V. Stalin, The Social-Democratic Deviation in our Party, op. cit., pp. 435-436
[69] J. V. Stalin, On the Grain Front, op. cit., p. 280
[70] J. V. Stalin, The Right Danger in the CPSU (B), op. cit., p. 318