V. Shapinov
Introduction
We present here the translation from the original Russian of an excellent
article by Shapinov. This article was published in
2004 in one of the organs of the Russian Communist Workers Party (RCWP). The article is a polemic against the
national-chauvinistic positions of the Communist Party of the Russian
Federation (CPRF) which consistently stands for the
capitalist path of development in Russia. The CPRF,
as many others in modern Russia, dwells on the successes of the Soviet past,
such as industrialization, collectivization, the victory over fascist Germany
and capitalizes on the nostalgic sentiments prevalent among vast layers of
Russian toiling masses with regards to the might of the Soviet state. While the
CPRF tantalizes many in Russia with their superficial
support to the victory of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, they
identify themselves with the theories of the so-called market socialism and, as
such, they stand against socialization of the means of production or of private
property in the conditions of today’s Russia. As a result, the CPRF stands against socialist transformation altogether,
notwithstanding their positive appraisal of the Soviet past. In all fairness,
the CPRF’s position is inherently self-consistent, as
the theory of market socialism has proven time and again to be antisocialist
and reformist to its core. It is here where the value of the article lies, in
that the author eloquently links up the theories of market socialism with
capitalist restoration and reformism. In successfully establishing that link
the author takes it further to expose Trotsky’s views with regards to socialist
construction in general and in the Soviet Union in particular. The author does
not only correctly characterize Trotsky’s economic views in the historical
context but also successfully demonstrates that Trotskyism, despite its
“leftist” phraseology, is a form of revisionism that the CPRF
strongly overlaps with. To the extent that Trotskyism is a form of right- wing
revisionism and opportunism in the Soviet historical context, the CPRF is rendered its natural heir.
Shapinov points to the fact that Trotsky’s
economic views are derivative and superficial, as they emanate from other
revisionist thinkers. Indeed, Trotsky is a talented publicist but he can hardly
be regarded as a theorist of political economy. He certainly does not deserve
to be compared with Bogdanov, Bukharin, Preobrazhenski
and others in terms of the depth of their economic thought. Shapinov
gives a rundown of Trotsky’s views on socialist construction in the Soviet
Union with emphasis on an analysis of his article the “Soviet Economy in
Danger”. Published in 1932, when the success of the first five-year plan and
large-scale collectivization became apparent, Trotsky reverts to the postulates
of the Bukharin-Rykov right-wing opposition: slowing
down of industrialization, preservation of capitalist elements in the economy,
especially in the countryside, expansion of commodity-money relations,
diminishing the role of the socialist plan and the opening up to foreign goods
and investment. These tenets come straight from the playbook of right-wing
revisionist traditions, which are chiefly responsible for the restoration of
capitalism in the Soviet Union. Trotsky’s right-wing recipes for the Soviet
Economy are underpinned by the postulates of the theory of equilibrium. The
theory of equilibrium is a bourgeois conception that is expanded on by Bogdanov
in Russia and was taken up as a methodology by Bukharin in his works in
political economy. The theory of equilibrium in practice tries to demonstrate
that the law of value and commodity-money relations are forms of exchange that
operate in socialism, hence, Trotsky’s assertion that “the plan is checked and,
to a considerable degree, realized through the market.” In Trotsky’s views the
market is indispensible in socialism to curb disproportions and to restore the
state of equilibrium that is natural to any economic process. These views were
not invented by Trotsky.
Shapinov logically concludes that Trotsky’s views
on socialist construction have been misrepresented as a left alternative to
Stalin’s. Much to the contrary, the author elegantly dissects Trotsky’s
superficiality by exposing its lack of originality and how it overlaps with
right-wing, pro-capitalist opportunism.
Indeed, Trotsky’s views on socialist construction revolve around his
conviction that socialism cannot be built in an isolated country or group of
countries, where he takes quotes from Marx and Engels out of context. This
postulate is in open contradiction with Lenin’s vision and his development of
Marxist political economy in the era of imperialism. It is because of the
uneven development of capitalism that socialism will break out in a small
number of countries. Lenin, while never underestimating the relevance of the
struggle of the proletariat internationally, was explicit with regards to the
possibility of building socialism in an isolated country:
“Uneven economic and political development is an
absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first
in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the
capitalists and organising their own socialist
production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the
rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed
classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the
capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting
classes and their states.” (V. I. Lenin, "On the Slogan
for a United States of Europe," Lenin Collected Works, Progress
Publishers, [1974], Moscow, Volume 21, page 343.)
On the surface the slogan of the permanent revolution, as formulated by
Trotsky may appeal to some as revolutionary. Lenin demonstrated that this
slogan is not only incompatible with Marxism, but it is in practice
counter-revolutionary. Lenin gives an unequivocal assessment as to the
practical implications of advocating for the permanent revolution in the
concrete historical context of the Russian Revolution:
“I know that there are, of course, wiseacres with
a high opinion of themselves and even calling themselves socialists, who assert
that power should not have been taken until the revolution broke out in all
countries. They do not realize that in saying this they are deserting the
revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the working
classes carry out a revolution on an international scale means that everyone
will remain suspended in mid-air. This is senseless.” (V I
Lenin, "Report on Foreign Policy Delivered at a Joint Meeting of the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet," 14 May
1918, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 372-3.)
Bourgeois and Trotskyite analysts, as correctly pointed out by Shapinov, converge to portray Trotsky as a left-wing
advocate. Examination of his works and political activity reveals a very different
picture, that of a political movement that advocates going too far when the
conditions are not given for radical transformation, thus jeopardizing the
alliance between the peasantry and the working class, and to slow down when the
socialist transformation is making strides. Trotskyism may have sounded
ultra-revolutionary in the 1920s, when the conditions
for large-scale socialization were not yet given, but drastically changes tone
when the material conditions emerge and socialist construction is on the
offensive in the 1930s.
It is then that Trotsky takes up the narrative of the right-wing opposition
with regards to the interrelation between plan and the market and how to deal
with capitalist elements in the economy. The alleged ultra-leftist becomes a mainstream
right-winger. This speaks to the true essence and political motivations
underpinning Trotskyite phraseology: consistently and fundamentally
counter-revolutionary.
Shapinov’s brilliant appraisal of Trotsky’s
economic views should not go without criticism. Shapinov
adheres to the view that the Soviet Union remained socialist till the end of
its existence as a State, where Perestroika is viewed as a
counter-revolutionary movement chiefly responsible for the latter. At the time
when the article was published Shapinov still
considered China as a socialist state. While upholding the victory of the
socialist construction in the Soviet Union, Shapinov
overlooks the fundamental economic transformations of the 1950s
that end the essence of the Soviet economy that emerged as a result. This
contradictory attitude is inherent to left-wing Brezhnevites
in Russia and elsewhere. That being said and with that in mind, Shapinov’s article is a valuable critique of Trotsky’s
economic views.
Bikram Mohan
***
V. Shapinov
Trotsky, in contrast to other Marxists of his time, wrote very little about
economic questions. He did not participate in the polemics undertaken by
Plekhanov and specially Lenin with representatives of the economic school of
the Narodniks by the end of the XIX century and the
beginning of the XX century. He did not participate in the polemics revolving
around the interpretation by Rosa Luxemburg of Marx’s theory of capitalist
accumulation. Trotsky skipped the discussions about imperialism that European
Marxists, from Hilferding to Lenin and Bukharin
engaged in. One can argue that Trotsky never acquainted himself seriously with
Marxist political economy and had a nebulous understanding of it. However, some
of the economic ideas of Trotsky are worth our attention.
Trotsky’s works after the revolution, where he deals with economic
questions, allows us to interject that Trotsky was under the influence of petty
bourgeois theories of “market socialism”, which today underpin the documents of
all opportunist parties including the CPRF (the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation, our note). “Market Socialists” (in
other words, socialists on paper, but capitalists in practice) from the CPRF often label their leftist, Marxist, anti-market
opponents as “Trotskyites”. Below it will be shown that it is not
Marxism-Leninism, but the economic programme of
opportunism that has commonalities with Trotskyism.
On those lines, the most interesting article by Trotsky is “The Soviet
Economy in Danger” published in 1932 in the journal “Bulletin of the
opposition” that was published by him and his close collaborators outside the
USSR.
In this article Trotsky presents his vision for the development of the
Soviet economy after the completion of the first five-year plan.
By 1932 the USSR had fulfilled the first five-year plan, the basis for
socialist industrialization was laid; giant factories, power stations, mines
were constructed that were pivotal for the Soviet Republic to achieve economic
independence from the external capitalist market and to transition to an
economy void of commodities, a socialist economy and the realization of the
principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work”.
In the countryside collectivization had been successfully implemented, where
petty individual peasant households were consolidated into large-scale
collective socialist kolkhoz. The exploitation of the poor peasantry, which
constituted 70% of rural population by affluent peasants, rural capitalists –
the kulaks, which constituted approximately 10% of the rural population, was
liquidated. Collectivization made possible the liquidation of hunger, which was
prevalent in Tsarist Russia and subsequently in the USSR due to the inability
of petty production to confront the adversities of nature, droughts, and more
prominently, due to the chaotic market forces with its periodical crises. The
last instance of hunger was registered in the USSR in 1933. Subsequently, when
the kolkhoz system consolidated, the countryside in the USSR was able to
eliminate hunger for the first time in centuries. Let’s note that during the
same period Europe and the USA were engulfed in massive hunger created by the
crisis of capitalism and the Great Depression.1
In general, the Soviet economy developed along the lines of liquidating
the isolation of independent productive units connected to each other through
the market. The chaos engendered by market forces was overcome by regulation
and a centralized plan. The capitalist mode of production was being replaced by
the communist mode of production through strife and not without difficulties.
How did Trotsky look at the process of transition from capitalism to
socialism? What recipes did he have to offer? Many followers of Trotsky, from
mildly liberal university professors to members of leftist sects, tirelessly
argue that had the USSR adopted Trotsky’s course instead of Stalin’s, the
country would have achieved lot more and would have not collapsed towards the
end of the 1980s. Is this so?
According to Marxism, the socialist economy incorporates within itself
elements of the communist mode of production in conjunction with remnants of
the capitalist mode of production. Socialist society replaces the old
capitalist, market relations with new, communist, planned relations. The
highest stage of development of the communist society – full communism –
completely overcomes market relations based on division of labor and the
dictate of supply and demand. a
Trotsky, in the “best” traditions of opportunism, is sceptical
about the possibility of constructing full communism:
The same type of argument was used by the counter-revolution during the times
of “Perestroika”. They argued that it is not possible as a principle to
organize an economy on the basis of a single plan, as it is not possible to
calculate how much product, who will get and when,
etc. During Gorbachov’s period of counterrevolution
the thinking was that the plan needed to be complemented by the market and
during Yeltsin’s period, that the plan needed to be
disposed of and be wholly replaced by the market.
<> Trotsky, of course, does not go that far in his conclusions;
however if one follows the logic of his economic thinking, we arrive at the
same result, “Perestroika,” followed by the liquidation of socialism.
Following the theoretical tenets of “market socialism”, Trotsky gives
concrete recipes for the development of the Soviet economy. He proposes the
following solutions: a) it is necessary to decentralize the management of
production, more freedom to companies and workers collectives, b) more market,
less plan, c) it is necessary to decrease the rates of growth in the USSR, d) open
the borders to foreign goods. We will go through each of these tenets both from
the point of view of Marxist theory and from the standpoint of the political
and economic implications of this approach.
Decentralization: Decentralization
of management of the socialist economy, granting more independence to companies
and collectives – such is Trotsky’s point of view. This discussion is projected
along the lines of centralism versus democracy. Such a discussion is resolved,
of course, depending on concrete conditions, resources and the situation.
However, since we are talking about economic questions, such logic is not
applicable. The struggle here is not between “democracy” and “centralism”, but
rather between the capitalist mode of production, which is comprised of a
network of independent producers of commodities connected to each other through
the market, and socialism, an economic system based on the social character of
property and the planned character of the relations between enterprises, viewed
as links of a united economic chain.
Lenin in his works subsequent to the Revolution clearly pointed this out:
“...without comprehensive state
accounting and control of the production and distribution of goods, the power
of the working people, the freedom of the working people, cannot be
maintained, and that a return to the yoke of capitalism is inevitable.”4 Compare this thought of
Lenin to Trotsky’s that in order to calculate and control production one
requires “a universal mind, of the kind that projected itself into the
scientific fancy of Laplace.”
“Socialism is inconceivable without
large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern
science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation,
which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified
standard in production and distribution.”5 – that is Lenin’s standpoint.
Therefore we can see that Marxist-Leninist positions and the position of
Trotsky with regards to centralization of management in the socialist economy
contradict each other. On the other hand, the position of Trotsky is consistent
with the theory of opportunism from the CPRF, who on
paper claim to be enemies of Trotskyism.
More market, less plan! In the article
“The Soviet Economy in Danger” Trotsky demonstrate his complete lack of
understanding of the relationship between plan and the market in the
transitional period. “The plan is checked and, to a considerable degree,
realized through the market. The regulation of the market itself must depend
upon the tendencies that are brought out through its mechanisms. The system of
the transitional economy is unthinkable without the control of the ruble.”6
According to Trotsky, planned relations in socialism are reduced to
regulating the market! Today every capitalist state regulates the market. The
chaotic forces of the market have reached magnificent proportions and threaten
capitalist production as a whole. Without state regulation modern capitalism
can’t exist altogether. Only the most extreme revisionists dare to portray
these measures of the capitalist state as socialist.
Plan and market are two completely different systems of relations between
people in production. Plan and market coexist for a certain period of time –
during the period of transition and socialism. But the plan is not “checked”
(or validated, our note) through the market, let alone being implemented
through it. Planned socialist organization of production and the chaos of the
market are in constant and antagonistic struggle. The victory of the plan over
the market is the victory of communism, while the victory of the market over
the plan is the victory of capitalism. Trotsky did not understand this.
“Economic accounting is unthinkable without the market”7 – writes Trotsky. This
statement is refuted by world economic history. Market relations lead to
periodical disruptive crises of overproduction and protracted depressions.
One of the signs of capitalist crises is when demand does not cope with
the volume of production. Commodities do not find buyers. Prices collapse.
Production comes to a halt. Bankruptcy in production and trade become
prevalent. Employment gets greatly reduced and unemployment grows rapidly.
With the growth of unemployment and the drop in wages demand plunges
further, which in turn aggravates production. A crisis is followed by a
depression during which production appears to stagnate while the commodities
that cannot be sold in the market are slowly obliterated, where they are simply
destroyed or sold at lower prices.
The emergence of an economic crisis is related to the fact that in
capitalism production grows rapidly whereas the purchasing power of the
majority of the population grows much more slowly if at all. This contradiction
is inherent to capitalist production, where labourers
play a dual role – on the one hand they are the source of profit and from this
standpoint the less they are paid, the better, but, on the other hand, they are
the consumers of commodities. Because the goal of capitalist production is
profit the consuming function of labourers is
suppressed and constrained, which in turn clashes with the above-mentioned
tendency to attain profit by way of relentlessly growing production. For some
time these contradictions accumulate after which capitalism becomes
uncoordinated and it finally becomes engulfed by a crisis, which is a temporary
and violent solution to the above-mentioned contradiction.
Socialism does not know such crises. All that is produced will be
consumed because production is not based on the extraction of profit but on the
satisfaction of the needs of society.
From here one does not conclude that “economic accounting is unthinkable
without the market”, but on the contrary, in the conditions of market relations
economic accounting is essentially impossible because it is impossible to
predict the behaviour of hundreds of thousands of
isolated producers. Conversely, under the conditions of planned economics one
can perform exact economic accounting.
Reduce the rate of economic growth! Trotsky was a proponent of reducing the rate of industrialization and
collectivization as a solution to the economic problems that the USSR faced
during the transition from the pseudo-market, NEP
economics to socialist planning.
The “transformation of the five-year plan into a four-year plan was an
act of the most light-minded adventurism” he writes. “It is necessary to put
off the second five-year plan. Away with shrill enthusiasm! Away
with speculation!”
It is evident that such type of slogans could have only been supported by
capitalist elements remaining at the time.
Stalin in contrast to Trotsky defined the task in a completely opposite
manner: “We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must
make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under,”
he stated in February 1931. Exactly ten years later fascist Germany invaded the
USSR. It was thanks to the accelerated rate of economic growth that the USSR
was able to create the material basis for the victory over fascism.
But Trotsky goes further. He does not only propose to slow down the
growth but to reverse it:
While the party was finally able to go on the offensive against capital
by advancing socialism broadly after years of retreat during the NEP, Trotsky calls for retreat. This is in contrast to
bourgeois and Trotskyite historiography, where Trotsky is viewed as a “left”
alternative to Stalin. If one dwells not on the “left phraseology”, with which
talented journalist Trotsky spiced up his political ideas, but on the ideas
themselves, then it becomes clear that we are dealing with a carefully
disguised variation of opportunism and revisionism.
Moreover, Trotsky even advocated for the partial restoration of
capitalism in the countryside: “The policy of mechanically “liquidating the
kulak” is now in effect discarded. A cross should be placed over it officially.
And simultaneously it is necessary to establish the policy of severely
restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak.”9Instead of liquidating the
agrarian kulak-capitalist he advocates restricting their “tendency” to exploit.
This is tantamount to defending private property and agrarian capitalism,
similar to today’s “solid owner” mongering by the national- patriots of the CPRF.
Let’s open the borders to foreign goods! The position of Trotsky with regards to the role in the USSR of the
foreign market stems from his conception about the impossibility of building
socialism in one country or a group of countries. These views were developed
during the course of inner-party discussions of 1923-1924 that were documented
as the “resolution of the four”, as it was signed by four leading members of
the “left opposition”: V.V. Osinskii, Y.L. Pyatakov, E.A. Preobrazhenskii, I.N. Smirnov. This resolution
advocated for a “massive intervention of goods” from the West. This proposal
was rejected during these discussions, as it endangered the very existence of
Soviet industry and threatened to turn the USSR into a market for Western
capitalist monopolies.
But Trotsky did not give up this position and almost ten year later he reverberated it in his article published in the “Bulletin of
the opposition”: “Imported goods to the value of one chervonets
can bring domestic production out of its moribund state to the value of
hundreds and thousands of chervontsi. The general
growth of the economy, on the one hand, and the sprouting up of new demands and
new disproportions, on the other, invariably increase the need to link up with
the world economy. The programme of “independence,”
that is, of the self-sufficient character of the Soviet economy, discloses more
and more its reactionary and utopian character. Autarky is the ideal of Hitler,
not of Marx and Lenin.”10
It goes without saying that Hitler’s “ideal” was not autarky, much to the
contrary, but to expand as much as possible the market for German monopolies as
much as seizing sources of raw materials and cheap labour
for the benefit of the German industry.
The experience of the USSR speaks to the contrary, in that the creation
of socialist industry did not increase “the need to link up with the world
economy”, but decreased it. Industrialization and collectivization enabled the
USSR to become independent of foreign markets and, therefore, created the
conditions for independent socialist development. The victory over German
fascism would have not been possible without the “autarkic” Soviet economy.
Opening to foreign goods and capital is very dangerous for the socialist
economy. This is the path followed by revisionist China after Mao, where
workers toil in appalling conditions to produce goods for imperialist
countries. China became a source of cheap labour
force for imperialist capital. The expansion of the “link with the world
economy” brings capitalism back to China, first in the economy and later
politically. To allow Chinese capitalists to join the Communist Party is a
symptom that should not be overlooked.
Integrating into the world capitalist economy as a source of cheap labour force and raw materials is the path that Trotsky and
the left opposition essentially advocated in the 1920s-30s.
Numerous attempts to portray Trotsky as a “prophet” who predicted the
causes responsible for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and who
proposed the recipes to avoid it don’t hold water. As soon as we move away from
journalistic games with revolutionary phraseology to the study of concrete
recipes that Trotsky proposed to communists in the USSR one realizes that Trotskyism
is far from a “left alternative” to Stalin nor a
panacea against capitalist restoration, but rather a carefully disguised form
of opportunism and revisionism. The economic ideas of Trotsky strongly overlap
with the pro-market “revelations” of the right-wing ideologists of the CPRF, where the difference between them is that Trotsky
supported his ideas with references to Marx and Lenin that were taken out of
context and the leaders of the CPRF use
ultra-patriotic phraseology.
Source: published in “Soviet Union”, 1 (11) 2004.
http://www.proriv.ru/pdfs/Sov_Souz_11.pdf
Translated
from the Russian by Bikram Mohan. Endnotes:
1 See for example J. Steinbeck in the "Grapes of Wrath".
2 L.D. Trotsky, “The Soviet Economy in Danger”.
3 V.I. Lenin, “The Democratism
and Socialist Nature of Soviet Power” [Collected Works, Vol. 42, pp. 100-101].
4 V.I. Lenin, “The Immediate Tasks of the
Soviet Government” [Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 253-254].
5 V.I. Lenin, “Left-Wing Childishness and the
Petty Bourgeois Mentality” [Collected Works, Vol. 27, p.
339].
6 L.D. Trotsky, “The Soviet Economy in Danger”.
7 L.D. Trotsky, Ibid.
8 L.D. Trotsky, Ibid.
9 L.D. Trotsky, Ibid.
10 L.D. Trotsky, Ibid.
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