Not Yet Decided2 by History
IN THE INDUSTRIES state ownership of the means of production prevails almost universally. In agriculture it prevails absolutely only in the Soviet farms, which comprise no more than 10 per cent of the tilled land. In the collective farms, co-operative or group ownership is combined in various proportions with state and private ownership. The land, although legally belonging to the state, has been transferred to the collectives for “perpetual” use, which differs little from group ownership. The tractors and elaborate machinery5 belong to the state; the smaller equipment belongs to the collectives. Each collective farmer moreover carries on individual agriculture. Finally, more than 10 per cent of the peasants remain individual farmers.
According to the census6 of 1934, 28.1 per cent of the population were workers and employees of state enterprises and institutions. Industrial and building-trades workers, not including their families, amounted in 1935 to 7.5 millions. The collective farms and co-operative crafts comprised, at the time of the census, 45.9 per cent of the population. Students, soldiers of the Red Army, pensioners7, and other elements directly dependent upon the state, made up 3.4 per cent. Altogether, 74 per cent of the population belonged to the “socialist8 sector9”, and 95.8 per cent of the basic capital of the country fell to the share of this 74 per cent. Individual peasants and craftsmen10 still comprised, in 1934, 22.5 per cent, but they had possession of only a little more than 4 per cent of the national capital!
Since 1934 there has been no census; the next one will be in 1937. Undoubtedly11, however, during the last two years the private enterprise sector has shrunk still more in favor of the “socialist.” Individual peasants and craftsmen, according to the calculations of official economists12, now constitute about 10 per cent of the population – that is, about 17 million people. Their economic importance has fallen very much lower than their numbers. The Secretary of the Central Committee, Andreyev, announced in April 1936: “The relative weight of socialist production in our country in 1936 ought to reach 98.5 per cent. That is to say, something like an insignificant13 1.5 per cent still belongs to the non-socialist sector.” These optimistic figures seem at first glance an unanswerable proof of the “final and irrevocable” victory of socialism. But woe14 to him who cannot see social reality behind arithmetic!
The figures themselves are arrived at with some stretching: it is sufficient to point out that the private allotments alongside the collective farms are entered under the “socialist” sector. However, that is not the crux15 of the question. The enormous and wholly indubitable statistical16 superiority of the state and collective forms of economy, important though it is for the future, does not remove another and no less important question: that of the strength of bourgeois17 tendencies within the “socialist” sector itself, and this not only in agriculture but in industry. The material level already attained18 is high enough to awaken19 increased demands in all, but wholly insufficient20 to satisfy them. Therefore, the very dynamic of economic progress involves an awakening21 of petty bourgeois appetites, not only among the peasants and representatives of “intellectual” labor4, but also among the upper circles of the proletariat. A bare antithesis22 between individual proprietors24 and collective farmers, between private craftsmen and state industries, does not give the slightest idea of the explosive power of these appetites, which imbue25 the whole economy of the country, and express themselves, generally speaking, in the desire of each and every one to give as little as possible to society and receive as much as possible from it.
No less energy and ingenuity26 is being spent in solving money-grubbers’ and consumers’ problems than upon socialist construction in the proper sense of the word. Hence derives27, in part, the extremely low productivity of social labor. While the state finds itself in continual struggle with the molecular28 action of these centrifugal forces, the ruling group itself forms the chief reservoir of legal and illegal personal accumulations. Masked as they are with new juridical norms, the petty bourgeois tendencies cannot, of course, be easily determined29 statistically30. But their actual predominance in economic life is proven primarily by the “socialist” bureaucracy itself, that flagrant contradictio in adjecto, that monstrous31 and continually growing social distortion, which in turn becomes the source of malignant32 growths in society.
The new constitution – wholly founded, as we shall see, upon an identification of the bureaucracy with the state, and the state with the people – says: “ . . . the state property – that is, the possessions of the whole people.” This identification is the fundamental sophism33 of the official doctrine34. It is perfectly35 true that Marxists, beginning with Marx himself, have employed in relation to the workers’ state the terms state, national and socialist property as simple synonyms36. On a large historic scale, such a mode of speech involves no special inconveniences. But it becomes the source of crude mistakes, and of downright deceit, when applied37 to the first and still unassured stages of the development of a new society, and one moreover isolated38 and economically lagging behind the capitalist countries.
In order to become social, private property must as inevitably39 pass through the state stage as the caterpillar40 in order to become a butterfly must pass through the pupal stage. But the pupa is not a butterfly. Myriads41 of pupae perish without ever becoming butterflies. State property becomes the property of “the whole people” only to the degree that social privilege and differentiation42 disappear, and therewith the necessity of the state. In other words: state property is converted into socialist property in proportion as it ceases to be state property. And the contrary is true: the higher the Soviet state rises above the people, and the more fiercely it opposes itself as the guardian43 of property to the people as its squanderer44, the more obviously does it testify against the socialist character of this state property.
“We are still far from the complete abolition45 of classes,” confesses the official press, referring to the still existing differentiation of city and country, intellectual and physical labor. This purely46 academic acknowledgment has the advantage that it permits a concealment48 of the income of the bureaucracy under the honorable title of “intellectual” labor. The “friends” – to whom Plato is much dearer than the truth – also confine themselves to an academic admission of survivals of the old inequality. In reality, these much put-upon “survivals” are completely inadequate49 to explain the Soviet reality. If the differences between city and country have been mitigated50 in certain respects, in others they have been considerably51 deepened, thanks to the extraordinarily52 swift growth of cities and city culture – that is, of comforts for an urban minority. The social distance between physical and intellectual labor, notwithstanding the filling out of the scientific cadres by newcomers from below, has increased, not decreased, during recent years. The thousand-year-old caste barriers defining the life of every man on all sides – the polished urbanite53 and the uncouth54 muzhik, the wizard of science and the day laborer55 – have not just been preserved from the past in a more or less softened56 form, but have to a considerable degree been born anew, and are assuming a more and more defiant57 character.
The notorious slogan: “The cadres decide everything”, characterizes the nature of Soviet society far more frankly58 than Stalin himself would wish. The cadres are in their very essence the organs of domination and command. A cult3 of “cadres” means above all a cult of bureaucracy, of officialdom, an aristocracy of technique. In the matter of playing up and developing cadres, as in other matters, the soviet regime still finds itself compelled to solve problems which the advanced bourgeoisie solved long ago in its own countries. But since the soviet cadres come forward under a socialist banner, they demand an almost divine veneration59 and a continually rising salary. The development of “socialist” cadres is thus accompanied by a rebirth of bourgeois inequality.
From the point of view of property in the means of production, the differences between a marshal and a servant girl, the head of a trust and a day laborer, the son of a people’s commissar and a homeless child, seem not to exist at all. Nevertheless, the former occupy lordly apartments, enjoy several summer homes in various parts of the country, have the best automobiles61 at their disposal, and have long ago forgotten how to shine their own shoes. The latter live in wooden barracks often without partitions, lead a half-hungry existence, and do not shine their own shoes only because they go barefoot. To the bureaucrat62 this difference does not seem worthy63 of attention. To the day laborer, however, it seems, not without reason, very essential.
Superficial “theoreticians” can comfort themselves, of course, that the distribution of wealth is a factor secondary to its production. The dialectic of interaction, however, retains here all its force. The destiny of the state-appropriated means of production will be decided in the long run according as these differences in personal existence evolve in one direction or the other. If a ship is declared collective property, but the passengers continue to be divided into first, second and third class, it is clear that, for the third-class passengers, differences in the conditions of life will have infinitely64 more importance than that juridical change in proprietorship65. The first-class passengers, on the other hand, will propound66, together with their coffee and cigars, the thought that collective ownership is everything and a comfortable cabin nothing at all. Antagonisms67 growing out of this may well explode the unstable68 collective.
The Soviet press relates with satisfaction how a little boy in the Moscow zoo, receiving to his question, “Whose is that elephant?” the answer: “The state’s”, made the immediate69 inference: “That means it’s a little bit mine too.” However, if the elephant were actually divided, the precious tusks70 would fall to the chosen, a few would regale71 themselves with elephantine hams, and the majority would get along with hooves and guts72. The boys who are done out of their share hardly identify the state property with their own. The homeless consider “theirs” only that which they steal from the state. The little “socialist” in the zoological garden was probably the son of some eminent73 official accustomed to draw inferences from the formula: “L’etat – c’est moi.”
If we translate socialist relations, for illustration, into the language of the market, we may represent the citizen as a stockholder in a company which owns the wealth of the country. If the property belonged to all the people, that would presume an equal distribution of “shares”, and consequently a right to the same dividend74 for all “shareholders75.” The citizens participate in the national enterprise, however, not only as “shareholders”, but also as producers. On the lower stage of communism, which we have agreed to call socialism, payments for labor are still made according to bourgeois norms – that is, in dependence77 upon skill, intensity78, etc. The theoretical income of each citizen is thus composed of two parts, a + b – that is, dividend + wages. The higher the technique and the more complete the organization of industry, the greater is the place occupied by a as against b, and the less is the influence of individual differences of labor upon standard of living. From the fact that wage differences in the Soviet union are not less, but greater than in capitalist countries, it must be inferred that the shares of the Soviet citizen are not equally distributed, and that in his income the dividend as well as the wage payment is unequal. Whereas the unskilled laborer receives only b, the minimum payment which under similar conditions he would receive in a capitalist enterprise, the Stakhanovist or bureaucrat receives 2a + b, or 3a + b, etc., while b also in its turn may become 2b, 3b, etc. The differences in income are determined, in other words, not only by differences of individual productiveness, but also by a masked appropriation79 of the products of the labor of others. The privileged minority of shareholders is living at the expense of the deprived majority.
If you assume that the Soviet unskilled worker receives more than he would under a similar level of technique and culture in a capitalist enterprise – that is to say, that he is still a small shareholder76 – it is necessary to consider his wages as equal to a + b. The wages of the higher categories would be expressed with the formula: 3a + 2b, 10a + 15b, etc. This means that the unskilled worker has one share, the Stakhanovist three, the specialist ten. Moreover, their wages in the proper sense are related as 1:2:15. Hymns80 to the sacred socialist property sound under these conditions a good deal more convincing to the manager or the Stakhanovist, than to the rank-and-file worker or collective peasant. The rank-and-file workers, however, are the overwhelming majority of society. It was they, and not the new aristocracy, that socialism had in mind.
“The worker in our country is not a wage slave and is not the seller of a commodity called labor power. He is a free workman.” (Pravda) For the present period this unctuous81 formula is unpermissible bragging82. The transfer of the factories to the state changed the situation of the worker only juridically. In reality, he is compelled to live in want and work a definite number of hours for a definite wage. Those hopes which the worker formerly83 had placed in the party and the trade unions, he transferred after the revolution to the state created by him. But the useful functioning of this implement84 turned out to be limited by the level of technique and culture. In order to raise this level, the new state resorted to the old methods of pressure upon the muscles and nerves of the worker. There grew up a corps85 of slave drivers. The management of industry became superbureaucratic. The workers lost all influence whatever upon the management of the factory. With piecework payment, hard conditions of material existence, lack of free movement, with terrible police repression87 penetrating88 the life of every factory, it is hard indeed for the worker to feel himself a “free workman.’’ In the bureaucracy he sees the manager, in the state, the employer. Free labor is incompatible89 with the existence of a bureaucratic86 state.
With the necessary changes, what has been said above relates also to the country. According to the official theory, collective farm property is a special form of socialist property. Pravda writes that the collective farms “are in essence already of the same type as the state enterprises and are consequently socialistic,” but immediately adds that the guarantee of the socialist development of agriculture lies in the circumstance that “the Bolshevik Party administers the collective farms.” Pravda refers us, that is, from economics to politics. This means in essence that socialist relations are not as yet embodied90 in the real relations among men, but dwell in the benevolent91 heart of the authorities. The workers will do very well if they keep a watchful92 eye on that heart. In reality the collective farms stand halfway93 between individual and state economy, and the petty bourgeois tendencies within them are admirably helped along by the swiftly growing private allotments or personal economies conducted by their members.
Notwithstanding the fact that individual tilled land amounts to only four million hectares, as against one hundred and eight million collective hectares – that is, less than 4 per cent – thanks to the intensive and especially the truck-garden cultivation94 of this land, it furnishes the peasant family with the most important objects of consumption. The main body of horned cattle, sheep and pigs is the property of the collective farmers, and not of the collectives. The peasants often convert their subsidiary farms into the essential ones, letting the unprofitable collectives take second place. On the other hand, those collectives which pay highly for the working day are rising to a higher social level and creating a category of well-to-do farmers. The centrifugal tendencies are not yet dying, but on the contrary are growing stronger. In any case, the collectives have succeeded so far in transforming only the juridical forms of economic relations in the country – in particular the methods of distributing income but they have left almost without change the old hut and vegetable garden, the barnyard chores, the whole rhythm of heavy muzhik labor. To a considerable degree they have left also the old attitude to the state. The state no longer, to be sure, serves the landlords or the bourgeoisie, but it takes away too much from the villages for the benefit of the cities, and it retains too many greedy bureaucrats95.
For the census to be taken on January 6, 1937, the following list of social categories has been drawn96 up: worker; clerical worker; collective farmer; individual farmer; individual craftsman97; member of the liberal professions; minister of religion; other non-laboring elements. According to the official commentary, this census list fails to include any other social characteristics only because there are no classes in the Soviet union. In reality the list is constructed with the direct intention of concealing98 the privileged upper strata99, and the more deprived lower depths. The real divisions of Soviet society, which should and might easily be revealed with the help of an honest census, are as follows: heads of the bureaucracy, specialists, etc., living in bourgeois conditions; medium and lower strata, on the level of the petty bourgeoisie; worker and collective farm aristocracy – approximately on the same level; medium working mass; medium, stratum100 of collective farmers; individual peasants and craftsmen; lower worker and peasant strata passing over into the lumpenproletariat; homeless children, prostitutes, etc.
When the new constitution announces that in the Soviet union “abolition of the exploitation of man by man” has been attained, it is not telling the truth. The new social differentiation has created conditions for the revival101 of the exploitation of man in its most barbarous form – that of buying him into slavery for personal service. In the lists for the new census personal servants are not mentioned at all. They are, evidently, to be dissolved in the general group of “workers.” There are, however, plenty of questions about this: Does the socialist citizen have servants, and just how many (maid, cook, nurse, governess, chauffeur)? Does he have an automobile60 at his personal disposal? How many rooms does he occupy? etc. Not a word in these lists about the scale of earnings102! If the rule were revived that exploitation of the labor of others deprives one of political rights, it would turn out, somewhat unexpectedly, that the cream of the ruling group are outside the bounds of the Soviet constitution. Fortunately, they have established a complete equality of rights . . . for servant and master! Two opposite tendencies are growing up out of the depth of the Soviet regime. To the extent that, in contrast to a decaying capitalism103, it develops the productive forces, it is preparing the economic basis of socialism. To the extent that, for the benefit of an upper stratum, it carries to more and more extreme expression bourgeois norms of distribution, it is preparing a capitalist restoration. This contrast between forms of property and norms of distribution cannot grow indefinitely. Either the bourgeois norm must in one form or another spread to the means of production, or the norms of distribution must be brought into correspondence with the socialist property system.
The bureaucracy dreads104 the exposure of this alternative. Everywhere and all the time in the press, in speeches, in statistics, in the novels of its litterateurs, in the verses of its poets, and, finally, in the text of the new constitution – it painstakingly105 conceals106 the real relations both in town and country with abstractions from the socialist dictionary. That is why the official ideology107 is all so lifeless, talentless and false.
1. State Capitalism
We often seek salvation108 from unfamiliar109 phenomena110 in familiar terms. An attempt has been made to conceal47 the enigma111 of the Soviet regime by calling it “state capitalism.” This term has the advantage that nobody knows exactly what it means. The term “state capitalism” originally arose to designate all the phenomena which arise when a bourgeois state takes direct charge of the means of transport or of industrial enterprises. The very necessity of such measures is one of the signs that the productive forces have outgrown112 capitalism and are bringing it to a partial self-negation in practice. But the outworn system, along with its elements of self-negation, continues to exist as a capitalist system.
Theoretically, to be sure, it is possible to conceive a situation in which the bourgeoisie as a whole constitutes itself a stock company which, by means of its state, administers the whole national economy. The economic laws of such a regime would present no mysteries. A single capitalist, as is well known, receives in the form of profit, not that part of the surplus value which is directly created by the workers of his own enterprise, but a share of the combined surplus value created throughout the country proportionate to the amount of his own capital. Under an integral “state capitalism”, this law of the equal rate of profit would be realized, not by devious113 routes – that is, competition among different capitals – but immediately and directly through state bookkeeping. Such a regime never existed, however, and, because of profound contradictions among the proprietors themselves, never will exist – the more so since, in its quality of universal repository of capitalist property, the state would be too tempting114 an object for social revolution.
During the war, and especially during the experiments in fascist115 economy, the term “state capitalism” has oftenest been understood to mean a system of state interference and regulation. The French employ a much more suitable term for this etatism. There are undoubtedly points of contact between state capitalism and “state-ism”, but taken as systems they are opposite rather than identical. State capitalism means the substitution of state property for private property, and for that very reason remains116 partial in character. State-ism, no matter where in Italy, Mussolini, in Germany, Hitler, in America, Roosevelt, or in France, Leon Blum – means state intervention117 on the basis of private property, and with the goal of preserving it. Whatever be the programs of the government, stateism inevitably leads to a transfer of the damages of the decaying system from strong shoulders to weak. It “rescues” the small proprietor23 from complete ruin only to the extent that his existence is necessary for the preservation118 of big property. The planned measures of stateism are dictated119 not by the demands of a development of the productive forces, but by a concern for the preservation of private property at the expense of the productive forces, which are in revolt against it. State-ism means applying brakes to the development of technique, supporting unviable enterprises, perpetuating120 parasitic121 social strata. In a word, state-ism is completely reactionary122 in character.
The words of Mussolini: “Three-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state” (May 26, 1934), are not to be taken literally123. The fascist state is not an owner of enterprises, but only an intermediary between their owners. These two things are not identical. Popolo d’Italia says on this subject: “The corporative state directs and integrates the economy, but does not run it (‘dirige e porta alla unita l’economia, ma non fa l’economia, non gestisce’), which, with a monopoly of production, would be nothing but collectivism.” (June 11, 1936) Toward the peasants and small proprietors in general, the fascist bureaucracy takes the attitude of a threatening lord and master. Toward the capitalist magnates, that of a first plenipotentiury. “The corporative state,” correctly writes the Italian Marxist, Feroci, “is nothing but the sales clerk of monopoly capital . . . Mussolini takes upon the state the whole risk of the enterprises, leaving to the industrialists124 the profits of exploitation.” And Hitler in this respect follows in the steps of Mussolini. The limits of the planning principle, as well as its real content, are determined by the class dependence of the fascist state. It is not a question of increasing the power of man over nature in the interests of society, but of exploiting society in the interests of the few. “If I desired,” boasts Mussolini, “to establish in Italy – which really has not happened – state capitalism or state socialism, I should possess today all the necessary and adequate objective conditions.” All except one: the expropriation of the class of capitalists. In order to realize this condition, fascism would have to go over to the other side of the barricades125 – “which really has not happened” to quote the hasty assurance of Mussolini, and, of course, will not happen. To expropriate the capitalists would require other forces, other cadres and other leaders.
The first concentration of the means of production in the hands of the state to occur in history was achieved by the proletariat with the method of social revolution, and not by capitalists with the method of state trustification. Our brief analysis is sufficient to show how absurd are the attempts to identify capitalist state-ism with the Soviet system. The former is reactionary, the latter progressive.
2. Is the Bureaucracy a Ruling Class?
Classes are characterized by their position in the social system of economy, and primarily by their relation to the means of production. In civilized126 societies, property relations are validated127 by laws. The nationalization of the land, the means of industrial production, transport and exchange, together with the monopoly of foreign trade, constitute the basis of the Soviet social structure. Through these relations, established by the proletarian revolution, the nature of the Soviet union as a proletarian state is for us basically defined.
In its intermediary and regulating function, its concern to maintain social ranks, and its exploitation of the state apparatus128 for personal goals, the Soviet bureaucracy is similar to every other bureaucracy, especially the fascist. But it is also in a vast way different. In no other regime has a bureaucracy ever achieved such a degree of independence from the dominating class. In bourgeois society, the bureaucracy represents the interests of a possessing and educated class, which has at its disposal innumerable means of everyday control over its administration of affairs. The Soviet bureaucracy has risen above a class which is hardly emerging from destitution129 and darkness, and has no tradition of dominion130 or command. Whereas the fascists131, when they find themselves in power, are united with the big bourgeoisie by bonds of common interest, friendship, marriage, etc., the Soviet bureaucracy takes on bourgeois customs without having beside it a national bourgeoisie. In this sense we cannot deny that it is something more than a bureaucracy. It is in the full sense of the word the sole privileged and commanding stratum in the Soviet society.
Another difference is no less important. The Soviet bureaucracy has expropriated the proletariat politically in order by methods of its own to defend the social conquests. But the very fact of its appropriation of political power in a country where the principal means of production are in the hands of the state, creates a new and hitherto unknown relation between the bureaucracy and the riches of the nation. The means of production belong to the state. But the state, so to speak, “belongs” to the bureaucracy. If these as yet wholly new relations should solidify132, become the norm and be legalized, whether with or without resistance from the workers, they would, in the long run, lead to a complete liquidation133 of the social conquests of the proletarian revolution. But to speak of that now is at least premature134. The proletariat has not yet said its last word. The bureaucracy has not yet created social supports for its dominion in the form of special types of property. It is compelled to defend state property as the source of its power and its income. In this aspect of its activity it still remains a weapon of proletarian dictatorship.
The attempt to represent the Soviet bureaucracy as a class of “state capitalists” will obviously not withstand criticism. The bureaucracy has neither stocks nor bonds. It is recruited, supplemented and renewed in the manner of an administrative135 hierarchy136, independently of any special property relations of its own. The individual bureaucrat cannot transmit to his heirs his rights in the exploitation of the state apparatus. The bureaucracy enjoys its privileges under the form of an abuse of power It conceals its income; it pretends that as a special social group it does not even exist. Its appropriation of a vast share of the national income has the character of social parasitism137. All this makes the position of the commanding Soviet stratum in the highest degree contradictory138, equivocal and undignified, notwithstanding the completeness of its power and the smoke screen of flattery that conceals it.
Bourgeois society has in the course of its history displaced many political regimes and bureaucratic castes, without changing its social foundations. It has preserved itself against the restoration of feudal139 and guild140 relations by the superiority of its productive methods. The state power has been able either to co-operate with capitalist development, or put brakes on it. But in general the productive forces, upon a basis of private property and competition, have been working out their own destiny. In contrast to this, the property relations which issued from the socialist revolution are indivisibly bound up with the new state as their repository. The predominance of socialist over petty bourgeois tendencies is guaranteed, not by the automatism of the economy – we are still far from that – but by political measures taken by the dictatorship. The character of the economy as a whole thus depends upon the character of the state power.
A collapse141 of the Soviet regime would lead inevitably to the collapse of the planned economy, and thus to the abolition of state property. The bond of compulsion between the trusts and the factories within them would fall away. The more successful enterprises would succeed in coming out on the road of independence. They might convert or they might find some themselves into stock companies, other transitional form of property – one, for example, in which the workers should participate in the profits. The collective farms would disintegrate142 at the same time, and far more easily. The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship, if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.
But if a socialist government is still absolutely necessary for the preservation and development of the planned economy, the question is all the more important, upon whom the present Soviet government relies, and in what measure the socialist character of its policy is guaranteed. At the 11th Party Congress in March 1922, Lenin, in practically bidding farewell to the party, addressed these words to the commanding group: “History knows transformations143 of all sorts. To rely upon conviction, devotion and other excellent spiritual qualities – that is not to be taken seriously in politics.” Being determines consciousness. During the last fifteen years, the government has changed its social composition even more deeply than its ideas. Since of all the strata of Soviet society the bureaucracy has best solved its own social problem, and is fully144 content with the existing situation, it has ceased to offer any subjective145 guarantee whatever of the socialist direction of its policy. It continues to preserve state property only to the extent that it fears the proletariat. This saving fear is nourished and supported by the illegal party of Bolshevik-Leninists, which is the most conscious expression of the socialist tendencies opposing that bourgeois reaction with which the Thermidorian bureaucracy is completely saturated146. As a conscious political force the bureaucracy has betrayed the revolution. But a victorious147 revolution is fortunately not only a program and a banner, not only political institutions, but also a system of social relations. To betray it is not enough. You have to overthrow148 it. The October revolution has been betrayed by the ruling stratum, but not yet overthrown149. It has a great power of resistance, coinciding with the established property relations, with the living force of the proletariat, the consciousness of its best elements, the impasse150 of world capitalism, and the inevitability151 of world revolution.
3. The Question of the Character of the Soviet union Not Yet Decided by History
In order better to understand the character of the present Soviet union, let us make two different hypotheses about its future. Let us assume first that the Soviet bureaucracy is overthrown by a revolutionary party having all the attributes of the old Bolshevism, enriched moreover by the world experience of the recent period. Such a party would begin with the restoration of democracy in the trade unions and the Soviets152. It would be able to, and would have to, restore freedom of Soviet parties. Together with the masses, and at their head, it would carry out a ruthless purgation of the state apparatus. It would abolish ranks and decorations, all kinds of privileges, and would limit inequality in the payment of labor to the life necessities of the economy and the state apparatus. It would give the youth free opportunity to think independently, learn, criticize and grow. It would introduce profound changes in the distribution of the national income in correspondence with the interests and will of the worker and peasant masses. But so far as concerns property relations, the new power would not have to resort to revolutionary measures. It would retain and further develop the experiment of planned economy. After the political revolution – that is, the deposing153 of the bureaucracy – the proletariat would have to introduce in the economy a series of very important reforms, but not another social revolution.
If – to adopt a second hypothesis – a bourgeois party were to overthrow the ruling Soviet caste, it would find no small number of ready servants among the present bureaucrats, administrators154, technicians, directors, party secretaries and privileged upper circles in general. A purgation of the state apparatus would, of course, be necessary in this case too. But a bourgeois restoration would probably have to clean out fewer people than a revolutionary party. The chief task of the new power would be to restore private property in the means of production. First of all, it would be necessary to create conditions for the development of strong farmers from the weak collective farms, and for converting the strong collectives into producers’ cooperatives of the bourgeois type into agricultural stock companies. In the sphere of industry, denationalization would begin with the light industries and those producing food. The planning principle would be converted for the transitional period into a series of compromises between state power and individual “corporations” – potential proprietors, that is, among the Soviet captains of industry, the émigré former proprietors and foreign capitalists. Notwithstanding that the Soviet bureaucracy has gone far toward preparing a bourgeois restoration, the new regime would have to introduce in the matter of forms of property and methods of industry not a reform, but a social revolution.
Let us assume to take a third variant155 – that neither a revolutionary nor a counterrevolutionary party seizes power. The bureaucracy continues at the head of the state. Even under these conditions social relations will not jell. We cannot count upon the bureaucracy’s peacefully and voluntarily renouncing156 itself in behalf of socialist equality. If at the present time, notwithstanding the too obvious inconveniences of such an operation, it has considered it possible to introduce ranks and decorations, it must inevitably in future stages seek supports for itself in property relations. One may argue that the big bureaucrat cares little what are the prevailing157 forms of property, provided only they guarantee him the necessary income. This argument ignores not only the instability of the bureaucrat’s own rights, but also the question of his descendants. The new cult of the family has not fallen out of the clouds. Privileges have only half their worth, if they cannot be transmitted to one’s children. But the right of testament158 is inseparable from the right of property. It is not enough to be the director of a trust; it is necessary to be a stockholder. The victory of the bureaucracy in this decisive sphere would mean its conversion159 into a new possessing class. On the other hand, the victory of the proletariat over the bureaucracy would insure a revival of the socialist revolution. The third variant consequently brings us back to the two first, with which, in the interests of clarity and simplicity160, we set out.
To define the Soviet regime as transitional, or intermediate, means to abandon such finished social categories as capitalism (and therewith “state capitalism”) and also socialism. But besides being completely inadequate in itself, such a definition is capable of producing the mistaken idea that from the present Soviet regime only a transition to socialism is possible. In reality a backslide to capitalism is wholly possible. A more complete definition will of necessity be complicated and ponderous161.
The Soviet union is a contradictory society halfway between capitalism and socialism, in which: (a) the productive forces are still far from adequate to give the state property a socialist character; (b) the tendency toward primitive162 accumulation created by want breaks out through innumerable pores of the planned economy; (c) norms of distribution preserving a bourgeois character lie at the basis of a new differentiation of society; (d) the economic growth, while slowly bettering the situation of the toilers, promotes a swift formation of privileged strata; (e) exploiting the social antagonisms, a bureaucracy has converted itself into an uncontrolled caste alien to socialism; (f) the social revolution, betrayed by the ruling party, still exists in property relations and in the consciousness of the toiling163 masses; (g) a further development of the accumulating contradictions can as well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on the road to capitalism the counterrevolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; (i) on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the bureaucracy. In the last analysis, the question will be decided by a struggle of living social forces, both on the national and the world arena164.
Doctrinaires will doubtless not be satisfied with this hypothetical definition. They would like categorical formulae: yes – yes, and no – no. Sociological problems would certainly be simpler, if social phenomena had always a finished character. There is nothing more dangerous, however, than to throw out of reality, for the sake of logical completeness, elements which today violate your scheme and tomorrow may wholly overturn it. In our analysis, we have above all avoided doing violence to dynamic social formations which have had no precedent165 and have no analogies. The scientific task, as well as the political, is not to give a finished definition to an unfinished process, but to follow all its stages, separate its progressive from its reactionary tendencies, expose their mutual166 relations, foresee possible variants167 of development, and find in this foresight168 a basis for action.
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1
Soviet
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| adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃 | |
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2
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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3
cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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5
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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census
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| n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查 | |
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pensioners
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| n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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craftsmen
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| n. 技工 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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14
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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crux
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| adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点 | |
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16
statistical
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| adj.统计的，统计学的 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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18
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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19
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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20
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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21
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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22
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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25
imbue
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| v.灌输(某种强烈的情感或意见)，感染 | |
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26
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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molecular
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| adj.分子的；克分子的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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30
statistically
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| ad.根据统计数据来看，从统计学的观点来看 | |
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31
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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32
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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33
sophism
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| n.诡辩 | |
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34
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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synonyms
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| 同义词( synonym的名词复数 ) | |
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37
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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40
caterpillar
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| n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫 | |
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41
myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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42
differentiation
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| n.区别，区分 | |
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43
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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44
squanderer
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| n.浪费者，放荡者 | |
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45
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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46
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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47
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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48
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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49
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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50
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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52
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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53
urbanite
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| n.都市人 | |
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54
uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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55
laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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56
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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57
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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58
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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59
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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60
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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61
automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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62
bureaucrat
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| n. 官僚作风的人，官僚，官僚政治论者 | |
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63
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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65
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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66
propound
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| v.提出 | |
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antagonisms
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| 对抗，敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
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68
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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70
tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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71
regale
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| v.取悦，款待 | |
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72
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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73
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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dividend
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| n.红利，股息；回报，效益 | |
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shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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shareholder
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| n.股东，股票持有人 | |
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77
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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80
hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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81
unctuous
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| adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的 | |
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bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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83
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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84
implement
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| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
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85
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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86
bureaucratic
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| adj.官僚的，繁文缛节的 | |
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87
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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88
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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93
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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94
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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bureaucrats
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| n.官僚( bureaucrat的名词复数 )；官僚主义；官僚主义者；官僚语言 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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craftsman
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| n.技工，精于一门工艺的匠人 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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102
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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capitalism
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| n.资本主义 | |
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dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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painstakingly
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| adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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conceals
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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ideology
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| n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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112
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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113
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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115
fascist
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| adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子 | |
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116
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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117
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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118
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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120
perpetuating
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| perpetuate的现在进行式 | |
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121
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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124
industrialists
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| n.工业家，实业家( industrialist的名词复数 ) | |
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125
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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126
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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127
validated
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| v.证实( validate的过去式和过去分词 )；确证；使生效；使有法律效力 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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destitution
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| n.穷困，缺乏，贫穷 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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131
fascists
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| n.法西斯主义的支持者( fascist的名词复数 ) | |
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132
solidify
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| v.(使)凝固，(使)固化，(使)团结 | |
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133
liquidation
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| n.清算，停止营业 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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136
hierarchy
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| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
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parasitism
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| n.寄生状态，寄生病；寄生性 | |
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contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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140
guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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disintegrate
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| v.瓦解，解体，（使）碎裂，（使）粉碎 | |
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transformations
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| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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impasse
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| n.僵局；死路 | |
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inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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soviets
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| 苏维埃（Soviet的复数形式） | |
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153
deposing
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| v.罢免( depose的现在分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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administrators
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| n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师 | |
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variant
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| adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体 | |
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renouncing
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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variants
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| n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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