1

I cannot agree with Comrade Bukharin's amendment in any way. The program characterizes imperialism and the beginning era of social revolution. That the era of social revolution has begun is absolutely firmly established. What does Comrade Bukharin want? – To characterize socialist society in developed form, that is, communism. Here he is imprecise. We are certainly in favor of the state right now, and to say – to give a characterization of socialism in developed form where there will be no state – you cannot invent anything but this, that then the principle will be realized – from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. But that is still far off, and to say this means to say nothing, except to say that the ground is weak beneath our feet. We will arrive at this eventually, if we arrive at socialism. What we have said, we have more than enough work to do on that. If we accomplished this, it would be a gigantic historical achievement. We cannot give a characterization of socialism; what socialism will be like when it reaches its finished forms – we do not know this, we cannot say this. To say that the era of social revolution has begun, that we have done such and such and want to do such and such – this we know, we will say it, and this will show the European workers that we, so to speak, are not in the slightest overstating our strength: here is what we have begun to do, what we are preparing to do. But that we now know what finished socialism will look like – we do not know this. Theoretically, on theoretical matters, in articles, in speeches, in lectures we will develop the idea that the struggle against the anarchists is being conducted by Kautsky incorrectly, but we cannot put this in the program, because there are not yet materials for characterizing socialism. The bricks have not yet been created from which socialism will be built. Beyond this we can say nothing more, and we must be as careful and precise as possible. In this will consist, and only in this, the persuasive power of our program. And if we make the slightest claims to what we cannot deliver – this will weaken the force of our program. They will suspect that our program is merely fantasy. The program is a characterization of what we have begun to do, and the next steps that we want to take. We are not in a position to give a characterization of socialism, and this task was formulated incorrectly.

2

Since the formulation was not in written form, misunderstanding is of course possible. But Comrade Bukharin did not convince me. The name of our party expresses clearly enough that we are moving toward complete communism, that we put forward such abstract propositions that each of us will work according to abilities and receive according to needs, without any military control and coercion. It is too early to speak of this now. When will the state begin to wither away? We will have time before then to gather more than two congresses in order to say: look, how our state is withering away. But until then it is too early. To proclaim in advance the withering away of the state would be a violation of historical perspective.