Date: 1920-05-31
Source: ru:LS/v40; DeepSeek-v4-pro MT

REMARKS ON N. I. BUKHARIN'S BOOK
"ECONOMICS OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD" 1
Part I
what is this???
"in general"? a la
Spencer??2
well, thank god: at least
not "transformations",
and not in general, but
something into something
specific!!
?? "more important" than
class!
GENERAL1 THEORY OF THE
TRANSFORMATION PROCESS
Moscow, 1920.
PREFACE
[5]
The task of the present work is the
overthrow
of the usual,
vulgar,
quasi-
Marxist conceptions both of the character of that
Zusammenbruch* , which was predicted by the
great creators of scientific communism, and of the
character of the process of transformation of
capitalist society into communist society...
[5—6]
...[The proletariat] builds the foundation of the future
society. And, moreover, builds it as a class
subject, as an organized force... A terrible
* — collapse.
g
price is paid by humanity for the
|vices of the ca-
pitalist system. And only such a class,
ugh!!
as the proletariat,
class -
Prometheus,
can
bear on its shoulders the inescapable torments of the
transition period...
only "cognitive
It is superfluous to elaborate on the fact that the gui-
value"?? and not the
ding thread for the author was Marx's method, a
^
„
method, the cognitive value of which has only
objective world re-
---------------------------- ------------
„
~
г
now become apparent in all its gigantic scope.
flecting.^ "bashful"
r
г
... agnosticism!
Chapter I
THE STRUCTURE OF WORLD CAPITALISM
Two inaccuracies:
1)
definition
a step
back compared to En
gels; 2) commodity pro
duction is also an "or
ganized" economy.
S
[7]
Theoretical political economy is the science
of social economy based on the production of
commodities, i.e., the science of an unorganized
social economy... Marx... in his
doctrine of commodity fetishism provided a
brilliant
ugh! sociological introduction to theoretical econo
my... Indeed, as soon as we take an
organized social economy, all the basic "problems" of
political economy disappear...
incorrect. Even in pure
communism, at least
the relation of
Iv + m to IIc? and ac
cumulation?
not only!
S
precisely not for this
reason
г
not in everything
[8]
...Thus, the end of capitalist-
commodity society will also be the end of
political economy.
So, political economy studies com
modity economy...
It is completely irrelevant for
pure theory how large the volume is, what the
spatial characteristic of a given social
economy is. Precisely for this reason Marx so
mocked the term "national economy", which
patriotic German professors were so fond of. Likewise, comparatively
secondary for abstract theory is
the question of who acts as the subject of
an individual economy...
Modern capitalism is world
capitalism. This means that capitalist production
relations dominate
throughout
the
world and bind all parts of our planet with a strong
economic bond. In our time, social
economy is concretely expressed in the world
economy...
not only
did not "eliminate"
[10]
...the structure of modern capitalism is such
that | the subjects |
of the economy
are
collective-capitalist organizations —
"state-capitalist trusts".
Finance capital
play with
defini
tions *
by force?
("more important")
eliminated
the anarchy
of production within the large capitalist
countries...
[11]
...In particular, the social division of
labor was and is understood as the division
/
of labor between individual enterprises...
[12—13]
...we will distinguish three types of com
petitive struggle
1) By horizontal competition we will
understand competition between homogeneous
enterprises. Here, the anarchy expressed
in competitive struggle is not based on any social
division.
2) By vertical competition we will
understand the struggle between heterogeneous enter
prises, the separate existence of which expresses
the fact of the social division of labor.
3) Finally, by combined (complex)
competition we will understand the struggle waged
by combined enterprises, i.e.,
capitalist units uniting
various branches of production, i.e., transfor
ming the social division of labor into a technical
division...
[14]
...Capitalist "national economy"
has been transformed from an irrational system into a ratio
nal organization, from a subjectless economy
into an economic subject. This transformation
is given by the growth of finance capitalism and the fusion
of the economic and political organization
of the bourgeoisie. At the same time, neither
the anarchy of capitalist production in general,
nor the competition of capitalist
commodity producers has been eliminated in the least...
[15]
...Vertical and complex competition
are accompanied by methods of direct \forceful\
pressure. Therefore, the system of world financial
capital inevitably entails armed
s
г
* V. I. Lenin's remark refers simultaneously to the terms
"vertical" and "combined (complex)" competition.
13
Not "therefore" and not
"here". Colonies exis
ted before imperialism
and even before indus
trial capitalism.
Play with analogies.
Sometimes the crea
tion of "independent"
states signifies the
strengthening of impe
rialism.
why and what for
this "here"??!?
struggle among imperialist competitors. Here
lies the basic root of imperialism...
[16]
As a result of the war, we see the same pheno
mena as a result of the crisis: alongside the destruction
of productive forces, the annihilation of small
and medium world
groupings
(the demise
of independent
states)
and
the emergence
of even more gigantic combinations, growing at
the expense of the perishing groups.
[17]
...The modern world economy is not
only a commodity economy, but also a capitalist
commodity economy. And the contradictions between
the various parts of this economy lie in
two main planes: in the plane of the anarchic
relationship
between
enterprises
and
in the plane of the |anarchic|
structure of society
|1 as 11
a class society...
Chapter II
ECONOMICS, STATE POWER
AND WAR
[19]
Every class society is a mechanism
producing a surplus product, which goes
at the disposal of one part of this society.
This
surplus
product
can take
the form of value (e.g., capitalist eco
nomy) or remain simply a product (slave-
holding economy). In both
cases, however, we have a process of exploitation. Let us
now pose the most general question: how is
this process of exploitation possible? How is the
existence of such a system possible, which conceals within itself
a colossal internal contradiction?..
The answer is clear. If such a system exists,
then there must exist something that is an
additional factor, cementing the split society,
suppressing (in a "crudely" physical and
"subtly" ideological sense) the resistance
of the oppressed
classes.
In a word, for the preservation
of this system, an organization is necessary, managing
not only things, but mainly —
Not a good
"however"...
people. Such an organization is the state.
However, | one should not think
that the state
very good!
"The constitutive
feature of social
phenomena"------
not good!
is something standing above society and above
classes. No supra-class elements exist in
society... From this it is clear that the state
organization can only be and
exclusively
the organization of the ruling
class, or, as Engels already wrote, "the state
is the organization of the possessing classes for defense
against the classes possessing no property" (1)...
[21]
...The state organization is the
broadest organization of the class, where
all its strength is concentrated, where the instruments
of mechanical pressure and repression are concentrated (2\ where the
ruling
class
is organized
precisely
as
a class, and not as a particle or small group
of the class...
[22]
For Marx, all social phenomena are histo
rical, and it is precisely in their historical determinateness
that Marx seeks their constitutive fea
ture... It is not "essential" in the state that
it is a centralized apparatus, but that this
centralized apparatus embodies a de
finite relation between classes, namely
the relation of domination,
power,
enslavement and
oppression,
an apparatus
that will disappear
along
with the disappearance of classes and the last form
of class
domination — the dictatorship of the prole
tariat (3).
Loria3 is not at all
from that opera.
should have specified: even
unintelligent bourgeois
(Delbrück5) under
stand this better
than the Kautskys,
Otto Bauers and Co.
<»> F. Engels: "Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staates". 3. Aufl. 1889. S. 138. "La politique n’est qu’une méthode de persistance, un instrument de conservation et d’extension de la propriété".
(Achilla Loria: "Les bases economiques de la constitution sociale". 2 éd. Paris. 1903, p. 302)*.
<2> Cf. Hans Delbrück: "Regierung und Volkswille",
S. 133**. "Where, in the final analysis, does real
power lie? It lies in weapons. The decisive question for the internal
character of the state is therefore always the question
of who owns the army"...
<3> this point of view has been completely
distorted by social democracy. The author of the present work, already at the beginning of the
war, vigorously advanced it in a series of newspaper and journal
articles: in the Dutch "De Tribune" (article "De
Nieuwe Lijfeigenschap", 25 november 1916 et seq.), in
the organ of the Norwegian left "Klassenkampen", in the Bremen
journal "Arbeiterpolitik"; finally, in the journal "Jugend-
* F. Engels: "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State". 3rd ed., 1889, p. 138 4. "Politics is only a method of perpetuation, a means for the preservation and expansion of property" (Achille Loria; "The Economic Bases of the Social Constitution", 2nd ed. Paris. 1903, p. 362).
** Cf. Hans Delbrück: "Government and the Will of the People", p. 133.
13*
ugh!
ugh! This is just the same
as if a chemist
on p. 24 of a chemistry
course said about the "na-
tural-historical
point of view". And what
is against it? Psycho
logical? zu ein-
fach und ungenau**
[24]
But if war is a function of the state,
is state power in actu * and if,
on the other hand, the state itself, as an apparatus,
is a means of strengthening and expanding certain
production relations, then it is clear
that war also performs this
"work" in the first place... To answer the question about the "essence"
of war, one must pose this question just as histo
rically as the question about the state. Then we
will also have a similar answer, namely that war,
from a sociological point of view, is a means
of reproducing those production relations,
on the basis of which it arises...
not one
[25]
...Each production type has a
corresponding type of state,
and
each
type of state corresponds to a completely de
finite type of war.
and sometimes a "means"
(an inconvenient word)
of disintegration of this
system.
Let us give several examples. Suppose we have
a slave-holding economy. Then the state
is nothing other than the state of slave
holders, and the war of this state is nothing other
than a means of expanding the slave-holding
system, expanding the reproduction of slave-
holding production relations. The so-
called colonial wars of Spain, Hol-
internationale" (Switzerland), as well as in polemical
articles in the New York newspaper "Novy Mir"...
An excellent elucidation of the question with a selection of corresponding
quotations
from Marx — Engels the reader will find in
Comrade Lenin's booklet: "The State and Revolution".
Like the Social Democrats, bourgeois professors also failed to understand the communist
teaching of Marx. Thus,
Ad. Wagner, e.g., writes ("Staat in nationalökonomischer Hinsicht". Handw. d. Staats\..), that the socialist
"state" has all the features of a state "in
the highest degree" (in höchster Potenz), for the class
character of the modern state is only a product
of "abuses" (just like with Böhm-Bawerk, according to whom
usury is an "abuse", while profit
will remain even in the socialist state, where it
will grow on trees). Jellinek ("Allgemeine
Staatslehre")*** likewise "understands" Marx, just like
Wagner®. Only he falls into sacred horror at
the "Machttheorie"**** and declares that "its practical
consequences consist not in the consolidation, but in the destruction of the state"

of the state" (175) and that this theory "paves the way
!! for permanent revolution"...
* _
**
in reality.
— too simple and inaccurate.
*** — Jellinek ("The General Theory of the State").
****_ "theory of force".
land, France, etc. were wars of commercial-
capitalist states... When industrial
capital and its state organizations
began the struggle for sales markets, wars became
the subordination of the "backward" world to the domination of industrial
capital...
oof ! oh ! help!!
[26]
Socialist
war
is
class
war, which must be distinguished from simply civil
totale Konfusion her- war. The latter is not war in the proper
vorgerufen durch zu sense of the word, for it is not
grosse Liebe des Ver- a war of two state organizations...
fassers Begriffsspiel zu
iiben und dasselbe fur
«Soziologie» zu erkla-
ren... *
C h a p t e r III
THE COLLAPSE OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
[27]
The collision of various parts of the world
capitalist
^system; |,
which
expressed the conflict between the growth of the productive
forces of this system and its anarchic production
structure, was... a conflict of state-
capitalist trusts. The objective
need,
which history
has placed
on the order of the day, is the need for the organization
of the world economy, that is, the transformation of a
subjectless
world
economic
| system|
into an economic subject, into a planfully
acting organization, into a "teleological unity",
into an organized
(System
[28]
...within the narrow limits
of individual state-
capitalist trusts, the first
stage of the war was a stage of internal reorganization
of capitalist production relations
towards planfulness and organizedness
of partial ||systems|| fighting among
themselves...
[33]
The types of organizational connection in their concrete
formulation here [in the imperialist state. — Ed.] are various; they differ
in their functional
character:
here
before
* — complete confusion, arising from the author's excessive love
of exercising himself in playing with concepts,
passing this off
as
"sociology"*
us there is also planful organization, when
new
stable production-
technical units are created (an example of this can
be forced trusts, centralizing
a number of former production associations, state
monopolies, etc.); here there is
also simple "regulation" (for example, forced
Absatz-und Einnahme-Pflicht *; finally,
here there is also an even lower element of the organizing
process — norm-setting (1):
an example
of the latter can be price taxation...
[33— 34]
...The penetration of banking capital
into industry led to the consolidation of enterprises
(the creation of "fusions", combined
trusts, etc.). Consequently, in these cases the organizing
processes go from the sphere of circulation
into the sphere of production: this happens because the
process of circulation is a component part
of the general "process as a whole", the process of reproduction, which
has a "compulsory regularity"
for all its parts and phases (2)...
[39]
...We have here [during the war. —
Ed.] not expanded reproduction and not even
simple reproduction; we have here ever-
growing underproduction. Such a process can
be designated as expanded negative
reproduction. This is war, viewed
oof !
from an economic point of view. The really occurring
help!
process is, thus, expanded
negative reproduction...
X Marx spoke
more simply (without frills
with "terms" and "systems" and sociologies) and spoke more
correctly about s o c i a l i z a t i o n . The author gives
valuable n e w facts,
but
worsens,
verballhornt
Marx's theory
with "sociological"
scholasticism.
where?
The terms are taken in the meaning in which they
NB7 I ( are used by Comrade A. Bogdanov. See his article on the tendencies of proletarian culture in "Proletarian Culture", and also "Universal Organizational Science".
(2> Comrade A. Bogdanov prefers to see in the entire
organizational process during the war only
"cards", i.e., only a process of norm-setting, which
arose on the basis of the regression of productive forces. In
reality, the process of norm-setting is immeasurably deeper
in its significance.
The regression of productive forces
does not at all exclude here the progress of the organizational
forms of capitalism x. This also happened in "normal times",
namely during crises, when a temporary regression
of productive forces was accompanied by accelerated
centralization of production and the emergence of capitalist organizations. Such a — mutatis mutandis**— mistake was also made by Engels when he spoke about syndicates and trusts. This mistake should not be repeated now.
* — obligation of delivery and acquisition.
** —  with the corresponding change.
classes
represent
first of all "groups of
persons" (inaccurately said), differing
in their position
in
the social system of production
and differing in such a way
that one group can appropriate
the labor of another
group.
ф archinaccurate.
Antagonism and contradictions
are not at all the same thing. The first
will disappear, the second will remain
under socialism.
Oof!
[42J
...classes represent, | {first of
all, | groups of persons, united by common conditions and a common role in the production
process,
with all the consequences arising from this
for the process of distribution...
~
[43— 44]
Capitalism is an antagonistic,
contradictory # system. But class
antagonism, splitting society into two basic
classes, is consistently carried out everywhere.
Consequently, the structure of capitalism is
monistic antagonism or antagonistic
monism.
help! comrade jn natura...
We
took
society as
a system of elements
[46]
...The concrete state of affairs in the economy
of Europe in 1918—1920 clearly shows that this
X ein bischen zu
period of disintegration has arrived and that there are no ||any|| x
viel * qui prouve
trop ** ...
symptoms of the revival of the old system of production
relations.
||On the contrary! ф):.
All
phrase) it didn't work out
"on the contrary".
this is correct
concrete data indicate that the elements
of decomposition and revolutionary rupture of ties
are progressing with each month. Theoretically,
this is quite understandable. Indeed.
Capitalist society, split into classes,
can exist only when the
psychology of civil peace is, so to speak,
universally valid; in other words,
only then and as long as the working class in its
entirety, this most important productive force of capitalist
society, tacitly "agrees"
to perform the capitalist function.
Once this premise has disappeared, the continued
existence of capitalist society
becomes impossible.
[47]
...The "conquest of state power by the
proletariat" is the destruction of the bourgeois and the organization of a new state system, whereby
the elements of the disintegrated old are partly destroyed,
partly taken in new combinations,
in a new type of connection...
* — a little too much.
** Here V. I. Lenin has in mind the following proverb: "Qui
prouve trop, il ne prouve rien" — "He who proves too much, proves nothing."
very good and
it would be even
better if instead of
"type of connection"
to say
m o r e s i m p l y .
Oof!
The process of transformation of
production relations is far from being so clear. Here, those notions
that were predominant in the field of the theory of political
revolutions proved to be unusually tenacious. Typical in this respect
can be R.
Hilferding's reasoning
that the seizure of six banks (the "head") by the
proletariat transfers the entire
industry to the latter's disposal, because under financial-
capitalist production relations
banks are the organizational nodes of the
production-technical system — of the "entire
apparatus". It has been empirically proven that nothing of the sort
happens, for in reality the seizure of banks
only undermines the commanding
power of capital.
Why? The question is resolved simply. Because
banks "managed" industry on the
basis of specific, credit-monetary relations.
The type of connection here was the type of credit connection,
which precisely collapses upon the seizure of banks
by the proletariat...
[48— 49]
The disintegration of the human technical hierarchy, which sets in at a certain stage
of the process of negative expanded reproduction,
in its turn puts pressure on the state of the productive
forces. Productive forces
exist in fusion with production
relations, in a definite system of labor social
organization.
Consequently,
the disintegration
of the "apparatus"
must inevitably be accompanied
by a further decline of the productive forces.
Thus, the process of negative expanded
reproduction is extraordinarily accelerated.
From the above analysis it follows that
on the^basis^of^bursting (old, capitalist)
relations, no "revival
of industry", which the
utopians of capitalism dream of, is possible. The only way out
consists in the fact that the lower links of the system, the basic
productive force of capitalist
society, the working class, will occupy the dominant
position in the organization of social labor.
In other words, only the construction of communism
is the prerequisite for social
revival (1).
very good!
‘ Prof. Grinevetsky in his book examines the
question, as befits an apologist of capitalism, whose mental
gaze does not extend beyond the "worldview"
of a syndicate man, exclusively from the point of view
of capitalist relations of production, as
an eternal and universal category of human existence.
To the future historian of ideologies, that truly
chicken blindness which distinguished
bourgeois scholars in the period of the greatest social
upheavals will seem downright comical.
This depends on how much
the proletariat succeeds "on the basis
of bursting relations"
(what language! what "sociology"! what organizational
science!) in bringing it about
that they burst completely.
...But
now we
can assert
that the restoration of the old
capitalist system is impossible...
C h a p t e r IV
GENERAL PREREQUISITES
OF COMMUNIST CONSTRUCTION
[52]
...it is necessary to seek elements of the new
society in the production relations of the old.
In other words, the question must be posed
in this way: what kind of production relations
of capitalist society in general
can form the
basis
of the new
production
structure?..
[53]
In the well-known 7 § 24 of Chapter I of Volume I of "Capital"
("the historical tendency of capitalist
accumulation") Marx advances two basic mo-
Well, thank God! 1) ments: the centralization of the means
of production
and
Finally, human 2) the socialization of labor, which blossomed together
language, instead of "organizational"
with the capitalist mode of production and
gibberish!
within it...
All's well that ends well.
oof ! again!
[56]
From this social-organizational point
or perhaps "social" not organizational of view, the "maturity" of capitalist
point of view. society is completely clear...
Here there can be two,
and
only two, cases: either the socialization of labor
~
allows the technical introduction of a planful organization in some concrete social formulation, or the process of socialization
of labor is so weak, labor is so
fragmented, "split"
("zersplittert",
as
J Marx
expressed it), that the rationalization of the social-labor process is generally technically impossible...
. if capitalism is "ripe" for state
capitalism, then it is ripe for the era of communist
construction (1\
not social^
The immeasurable social baseness of social-compromising theories consists precisely in the fact that they
"agree" to state capitalism, protesting
against socialism, which they are ready to thrice
acknowledge in words, outside of practice.
??
why
in the 1st??
X "Dialectical"
process.
Precisely! And
not scholasticism a la
Bogdanov *.
The author
places
it
a l o n g s i d e
(and in 2nd place) the Begriffsscholastik ** of Bogdanov. But one cannot place them alongside:
either — or.
very true!
true!
The specific problem of communist
construction consists not in the fact that there is no basis
of social labor, but in the new combination of
torn social Strata, in the first place
in the inclusion into the new system of technical

of the scholarly intelligentsia. But this is a topic of a different order,
which we will examine below.
[56— 57]
The gigantic upheaval of the entire capitalist
system, which we assess as
its collapse,
a number of scholarly and unscholarly sycophants
of a quasi-Marxist bent consider an argument
against
socialism (1).
This view is logically
based on a complete failure to understand the dialectical x , in the contradictions of the developing pro
cess. The world war, the beginning of the revolutionary
era, etc., are precisely the expression of that objective "maturity"
which is being discussed. For
here the conflict of the greatest intensity was
a consequence of the maximally expanded antagonism, which was constantly reproduced and grew
in the womb of the capitalist system. Its shattering force is a fairly accurate indicator
of the stage of capitalist development and a tragic
expression of the complete incompatibility of the further
growth of the productive forces under the shell
of capitalist production relations... a pitiful reformist illusion is
the notion of a transition to socialism outside of
collapse, outside of a disruption of social equilibrium,
outside of bloody struggle (2).
very true!
First and foremost Kautsky. Before the war he "awaited"
a catastrophe that "had not matured." During the war he
warned against revolution, because the International — a "Friedensinstrument"*** — cannot
function amid the thunder of cannons. After the war he warns against
socialism, because the catastrophe "exhausts." Not
bad, a holistic conception.
<*> ...The following prediction by Engels is curious:
"...Aber diese Schutzzolle selbst sind nichts als die Rustungen fur den schliesslichen allgemeinen Industriefeldzug, der uber die Herrschaft auf dem Weltmarkt entscheiden soll. So birgt jedes der Elemente, das einer Wieder-
* This note was made by V. I. Lenin at the end of the book with the same
plain pencil as the previous inscription, with an indication to refer
it here, to p. 57.
** — Begriffsscholastik (playing with concepts).
*** — instrument, tool of peace.
"impossibility" is prov
able only prac
tically. The author does not
pose dialectically
the relation of theory
to practice.
NB true!
[58]
Once the disintegration of capitalist
production
relations
is really given,
and
once the impossibility of their restoration is proven
theoretically,
the question arises of resolving the dilemma: "the death
of culture" or socialism. ...the epoch of the rupture of pro
duction-technical-social strata
preserves on the whole the unity of the proletariat, which
embodies first and foremost the material
basis of the future society. This decisive and fundamental element in the course of the revolution only partially
disintegrates. On the other hand, it is extraordinarily
consolidated, re-educated, organized.
Empirical proof of this is given by the Russian
revolution with its relatively weak proletariat,
which nevertheless proved to be a
truly inexhaustible reservoir of organizational
energy.
The "mathematical
probability"
of socialism
under such conditions turns into "practical
certainty."
...Socialism will have to be built. The available
material and personal resources are only the
very true! starting point of a development that encompasses
a whole enormous epoch.
In the epoch of the disintegration of capitalism, as we saw
in the previous chapter, capitalism cannot be saved
because the main productive force of society, the working class, refuses to perform
its capitalist,
capital-forming
function. The basic prerequisite for socialist
construction is the transformation of this
capital-forming
function
into a
socially-labour
function. This is possible only under the dominant
position of the proletariat, i.e., under its dictatorship (1).
this is an approach
to dialectics.
|3ф not the right word|
holung der alter Krisen entgegenstrebt, den Keim einer weit gewaltigeren kunftigen Krise in sich" (Kapital... III,
2, S. 27, Anm. 8)*.
<1> The quite numerous "studies" on "socialization," written by bourgeois professors,
of course, bypass this basic question...
* —
"...But these very protective tariffs are nothing but
the armaments for the inevitable general industrial
war, which
not only by them.
must decide the question of domination on the world market. Thus,
each of the elements that counteract the repetition of crises
of the old type bears within itself the germ of a far more grandiose future
crisis" (Capital... III, 2, p. 27, note 8) 8.
"my" Bogdanovian
Begriffsscholastik is the main
enemy "of mine."
[59]
Only with the transformation of the proletariat from
an exploited class into a ruling
class is the restoration of the labour process,
i.e., social reproduction, possible.
Within these frameworks and on this basis, the tasks facing
the proletariat are, on the whole and in general, formally, i.e., independently of the social content
\н
not the right word
,of the process, the same as for the bourgeoisie under
^expanded
negative
reproduction:
economization of all resources, their planned
use, the maximum possible centralization. The exhaustion resulting from the war and
the disruption of the continuity of the production
process in the period of disintegration requires, from the point of view
\ of social-organizational technique, as
a phase of transition to socialist production
relations. One only has to pose the general
question of how a system of at least relative
equilibrium is possible, or, more precisely, how
the creation of conditions for movement towards such an equilibrium is possible, in order to understand
the categorical
obligatoriness of a centralized and |(formally;
socialized
economy...
[67]
...The transformation [under the dictatorship of the proletariat. — Ed.] of the process of creating surplus
value into a process of planned satisfaction
of social needs finds its ex-
production
??)
^regrouping |
pression in the
relations, despite the formal preservation of
the same place in the production-hierarchical
system, which in its entirety bears a fundamentally
different character, the character of a dialectical
negation of the capitalist structure, and which,
insofar as it destroys the social-caste
character of the hierarchy, leads to the abolition
of hierarchy in general.
...the relatively stable coexistence
of the ruling proletariat and the technical intelligentsia occurs after its temporary factual
falling out of the production process. It returns
firmly only as
the old accumulated connections are weathered from its collective head. Consequently, into the new
social-technical edifice enters an in-
what is telligentsia, internally reborn, according to all
this?
the rules of Heraclitus the Obscure9...
[70]
At the
disposal of the working
class
are
the following organizations: Soviets of Workers'
Deputies, transforming from an instrument of struggle for
power into an instrument of power; the party of the communist
upheaval, the spiritus rector * of proletarian
action; trade unions, transforming from instruments
of struggle against entrepreneurs
into one of the organs for managing production;
cooperatives,
transforming
from an
instrument of struggle against commercial mediation into one of the
organizations of the general-distribution state
apparatus; factory committees
or
similar
organizations
("Betriebsrate"
in Germany, "workers committees" and "shop stewards
committees"
in
England),
which
from
organs
of workers' struggle against entrepreneurs on the spot
become auxiliary cells
of general-production
administration.
The network of these, as well as of completely new organizations specially created
on their basis,
constitutes the organizational backbone of the new apparatus.
[71]
Under the given conditions, we have before us,
first of all, a dialectical change in the
functions of workers' organizations. It is absolutely clear that
with
the rearrangement
of relations
of domination
it
sehr
cannot be otherwise, for the working class, having taken
gut! **
state power into its own hands, must inevitably
®
*
become a force acting as the organizer
of production...
C h a p t e r  V
CITY AND COUNTRYSIDE IN THE PROCESS
OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
[73]
"The basis of every developed and
commodity-exchange-mediated division of labour
not the right word.
is the separation between town and country.
Separation (from)
One can say that the whole economic history
of society (is built! on the movement of this opposition" (1).
[75]
The contraction of the production base is expressed
here ,[i.e., in agriculture under
Karl Marx, Kapital, B. I, S. 299. (Volksausgabe):
"Die Grundlage aller entwickelten und durch Waarenaustausch vermittelten Teilung der Arbeit ist die Scheidung
von Stadt und Land. Man kann sagen, das die ganze okonomische Geschichte der Gesellschaft sich in der Bewegung
dieses Gegensatzes zusammenfasst"10.
* — inspiring force.
** — very good!
, the conditions of the process of expanded negative
why not profitability reproduction. — Ed.] paradoxically
without quotation } in
the
increase
of the monetary
marks?
) "profitability"
of agriculture...
[76]
The most essential distinction is,
however, the economic structure of this most important
branch of production.
The peculiarity of
this structure is the extreme diversity of economic
types, which reflects and expresses
the relatively
weak
degree
of socialization
very good
The author apparently wanted
to say: "process of
socialization," but
this thought
(and there is no other) his
word does not express.
of labour...
bag-
trading
[77]
How did capitalism solve this task [the task of incorporating
agriculture into the state-capitalist
system. — Ed.]?
In two ways: first, by the nationalization
of a part of the large production units;
second, by the indirect regulation
of the production
process
through the process of circulation.
...The greater significance was acquired by the second
method: the regulation of production through the regulation
of the process of circulation or the organization
of distribution. The state grain monopoly,
the rationing system for agricultural
products, the compulsory delivery of product, fixed
prices,
the organized release
of industrial
products, etc., etc. — all this in the
final
analysis directed
development towards
the nationalization of production. Here we observe a more backward type of development, the initial
stages of the organizational process, which,
as in industry, had as its starting point precisely
the process
of circulation
(corners,
rings,
syndicates)...
[78]
...The system of "free trade" in agricultural
products was undermined at
its root. True, the specific conditions of agriculture,
the large specific weight of small and medium
commodity-producing economy created
great difficulties here too, which was expressed in the "illegal," "free" market, speculative
under-the-counter trade (Schleichhandel,
as
the Germans call it)...
[78— 79]
Between city and countryside in the epoch
of state capitalism one can distinguish
the following types of connections: 1) connections of the credit-monetary,
financial-capitalist type (mainly
through banking institutions); 2) state
and municipal organizational apparatuses;
add: 3rd
in place, 1st
in importance
very true!
add: in Western
Europe,
not in Russia
(and in Western
Europe before
the victory of the
proletariat)
inevitability
for a time
3) the most real process of exchange between city
and countryside, proceeding partly through and
by means of organized apparatuses, partly outside
them...
...The social economy disintegrates into two
autonomous spheres: the starving city and the countryside,
which has — despite the partial destruction
of productive
forces — a fairly
significant
quantity
of unsaleable
product
"surpluses"...
[80]
Here [in the countryside. — Ed.] the following situation immediately
strikes the eye: given the relative
stability
of the "countryside" and the presence of a fairly
significant product mass, the process
of disintegration
of relations
within
agricultural
production must proceed much more
slowly; on the other hand, since here there is
such a diversity of economic formations as
large-scale capitalist
industry
does not know,
the very form of the transformational
process in all its phases will be different from
that process which we analyzed in the previous chapters.
Let us take
first
large-scale capitalist
enterprises. Here the process of the rupture of ties is most
similar to what is happening in industry.
However, with some modifications. First, here it proceeds more slowly than in the

kind. This happens because in agriculture, at the site of production of means of consumption, the underconsumption of the working class does not manifest itself so sharply...
[80— 81]
...The influence of the city and the organizations of the industrial proletariat gives an external impetus to the strengthening of an independently developing process, and in the end a rupture of capitalist production relations is inevitable, a rupture proceeding along the same line as in industry (1)...
[82— 83]
...Taken by itself, in isolation from the entire economic complex, this rupture of ties [production ties in the countryside. — Ed.] harbors within itself the possibility of a return to more primitive forms, for the active force here is precisely the dispersed labor of small proprietors, and not the socialized labor of proletarians...
The question now arises as to how a new equilibrium is possible: on the one hand, equilibrium within agriculture itself, on the other — equilibrium between town and country.
This question is decisive for the fate of humanity, for it is the most important and most complex question (1).
it should have been said: between the socialist tendency of the proletariat and the commodity-capitalist tendency of the peasantry. To substitute the word organizing here is a theoretical inaccuracy, a step back from Karl Marx to Louis Blanc.
[83— 85]
It is obvious that the real process of "metabolism" between town and country alone can serve as a firm and stable basis for the decisive influence of the city. The resumption of the production process in industry, the revival of industry in its socialist formulation! is thus a necessary condition for the more or less rapid drawing of the countryside into the organizing process.
But since the revival of industry is itself conditioned by the influx of means of subsistence into the cities,
(1) Kautsky is therefore right when he writes (Sozialisierung der Landwirtschaft, Vorwort, S. 12): "Für uns ist das agrarische Problem das komplizierteste, aber auch das wichtigste der Revolution"*. However, Kautsky's whole misfortune consists precisely in the fact that he does not see and does not understand the full complexity of the problem. For him, the basic "complicating" factor of the class struggle of various social groupings does not exist. This is logically connected with a failure to understand that the production relations of capitalist society are at the same time both social-class and technical-labor relations.
ha-ha-ha!! An egregiously incorrect term!
The more abstruse, the more theoretically incorrect.
Precisely the TERMINOLOGY is incorrect: there are no CLASS non-social ones.
It should be said more simply and correctly (theoretically): forgot the class struggle.
* (The Socialization of Agriculture. Preface, p. 12): "The agrarian question is for us not only the most complex, but also the most important question of the revolution."
it is necessary
very good
not only formally
not only formally
This is good, that the "sociologist" Bukharin finally (on p. 84) put the word "sociologist" in ironic quotation marks! Bravo!
Oh, oh! What a failure to understand "social-class" relations — in this non-admission of workers to a book with untranslated quotations!
then the absolute necessity of this influx at any cost is perfectly clear. This minimal "equilibrium" can be achieved only a) at the expense of part of the resources remaining in the cities and b) with the help of state-proletarian coercion. This state coercion (confiscation of grain surpluses, tax in kind, or some other forms) is economically grounded: first, directly, insofar as the peasantry itself is interested in the development of industry, which provides it with agricultural machinery, tools, artificial fertilizer, electrical energy, etc.; second, indirectly, insofar as the state power of the proletariat is the best means of protection against the restoration of the economic pressure of the large landowner, usurer, banker, capitalist state, etc. Consequently, here state coercion is not "pure violence" of the Dühringian type, and to that extent it is a factor proceeding along the main line of general economic development (1). Insofar as the industrial proletariat relies on formally socialized (nationalized by the proletariat) large-scale economy, it directly organizes the production process. The shortage of agricultural inventory may also induce a part of the rural proprietors to form production associations (agricultural communes, partnerships, artels). But for the main mass of small producers, their drawing into the organized apparatus is possible mainly through the sphere of circulation, consequently, formally by the same path as under the system of state capitalism (2)...
(1) This is absolutely not understood by the ||"sociologist"|| Kautsky...
"Angesichts des vorherrschenden Kleinbetriebes wird diese (d. h. Sozialisierung. N. B.) allerdings zunächst mehr auf eine Regelung des Zirkulationsprozesses zwischen Stadt und Land bedacht sein müssen, als auf eine Organisierung der Produktion"* (Kautsky, l. c. S. 9).
this is precise!
true and better than "anarchy".
it is incorrect to say and think (as the author often ends up doing) that "complete collapse" is "obligatory" for trusts.
this terminology, the deliberate substitution of classes with groupings, etc., is it not a step back to "sociology" in quotation marks?
[86— 87]
...In the cities, the main struggle for the type of economy [after the seizure of power. — Ed.] ends with the victory of the proletariat. In the countryside, it ends insofar as it concerns the victory over large-scale capitalism. But at the same moment it — in other forms — is reborn as a struggle between the state plan of the proletariat, embodying socialized labor, and commodity ||anarchy,|| the speculative unbridledness of the peasantry, embodying fragmented property and the market element. But since simple commodity economy is nothing other than the embryo of capitalist economy, the struggle of the above-described tendencies is in essence a continuation of the struggle between communism and capitalism...
How does such a situation reflect on the fate of the peasant cooperative apparatus? It is clear that the matter stands differently here than in industry. The cooperative apparatus can atrophy (with the ever-increasing decline of connection through exchange between town and country); it can be destroyed (with the preponderance of kulaks in the countryside and with the intensified struggle between them and the proletariat); it can be absorbed into the general socialist organization of distribution and gradually reconstructed (with the resumption of the real process of product exchange and the decisive economic influence of the cities). Consequently, here the complete collapse of the apparatus is theoretically not obligatory.
Chapter VI
PRODUCTIVE FORCES, COSTS OF REVOLUTION, AND TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
[87— 88]
...And the stability of any structural equilibrium, i.e., equilibrium between various social-human groupings, the human elements of the social system, rests on a definite equilibrium between society and the external environment, an equilibrium whose character is determined by the stage in the development of social-material productive forces.
[88]
In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx wrote: "To proceed from the division of labor in general with the hope of thus explaining the origin of the specific instrument of labor — the machine — means to fall into a clear contradiction with history. Machines can just as little be considered an economic category as, for example, the ox which is harnessed to the plow; they should be related to productive forces (our italics. — N. B.). The economic (our italics. — N. B.) category, i.e., the social relation of production, is not the machine, but the factory based on the application of machines" 11.
Here Marx by productive forces obviously means the material and personal elements of production, and, in accordance with this, the category of productive forces is a category not of economics, but of technology. On the other hand, we find in him also a different definition of productive forces. In Volumes I and III of Capital, Marx very often uses the term "productive forces" in exactly the same sense as the expression "productivity of social labor" (1)...
[89]
Rodbertus proposes to strictly differentiate both these concepts ["productive force" and "productivity". — Ed.]. In his work "Zur Beleuchtung der sozialen Frage"** he writes: "Productive force must be strictly distinguished from productivity. Productivity signifies the action or useful effect of productive force. If instead of 10 workers, 20 are put to work, or if instead of one machine of a certain degree of working capacity, two such machines are put in place, then the productive force has doubled; if 10 workers produce as much as 20 did until now, or if a machine that cost no more than another possesses a double degree of effectiveness compared to it, then productivity has doubled. Labor here too is the final measure.
to RELATE is not to IDENTIFY
"Conformity" precisely did not work out, for the "personal" (an imprecise term) is not the "technical".
not on topic
<*> Cf., e.g., "Das Kapital", B. I, Volksausgabe, SS. 451, 541—543 ff; also Volume III, Part I, where an analysis of the average rate of profit is given. Example: "Mit der Produktivkraft der Arbeit wächst die Produktenmasse, worin sich ein bestimmter Wert, also auch Mehrwert von gegebener Grösse darstellt. Je mehr die Produktivkraft der Arbeit zunimmt, um so mehr Mittel des Geniessens und Akkumulierens umfasst der Mehrwert" (539—540) *.
THIS is better than p. 88
** — "On the Illumination of the Social Question".
* "With the growth of the productive power of labor, the mass of products grows, in which a definite value, and therefore also surplus-value of a given magnitude, is represented. The more the productive power of labor increases, the more means of enjoyment and accumulation does the surplus-value encompass" (539—540) 12.
^
mathematics
worse than suspicious.
Utterly worthless.
Larger sums of labor are a greater productive force; a greater quantity of product with an identical sum of labor is an increase in productivity." In this formulation of the question, the reason for the "indeterminacy" of the concept of productive forces is quite clearly visible; the fact is that this is a borderline concept, standing at the boundary of technology and economics...
[89— 90]
...We can therefore speak of productive forces and the productivity of social labor as two sides of one and the same mathematical ^ quantity
M
a + b
ha-ha!
^America 1870 compared with 1860 according to censuses13.
where M is the entire mass of products, expressed in some units of utility (be it energy magnitudes or something else — in this case it makes no difference), and a and b are units of social labor: a — units of dead labor, b — of living...
if we need a sociological definition of productive forces, we can take the technical system of society, the active variable "factor" of social development...
[94]
...the development of productive forces in capitalist society is bought at the price of their constant waste. This waste ("costs of competition") is a necessary condition of forward movement for the entire capitalist system. For each new link in the chain of mobile equilibrium reproduces this equilibrium in a higher form

on the basis of the centralization process.
From this point of view, it is also necessary to consider
war, which is nothing other than one
of the methods of competition at a certain stage
of development. This is a | method | of combined
competition between state-capitalist trusts. Consequently, the costs
of war in themselves are nothing other than the costs
of the centralization process. From the point
of view of the capitalist system as a whole, they
play a positive role, insofar as they do not
lead the system to collapse...
[94—96]
...That the transition to a new structure, which
is a new "form of development" of the productive
forces, is unthinkable without a temporary decline
in the productive forces, should be self-evident. And the experience of all revolutions %, which played
a colossal positive role precisely
from the point of view of the development of productive
forces, shows that this development was bought
at the cost of sometimes colossal squandering and destruction of them. It cannot be otherwise, since
we are talking about revolution 1).
For in
revolution
the "shell" of production relations is "exploded" (wird gesprengt), i.e., the human labor
apparatus,
which means and cannot but
mean a disruption of the reproduction process
and,
consequently,
the destruction of productive
forces.
If this is so—and it is unconditionally so—then
a priori it must be clear that the proletarian revolution is inevitably accompanied by an extremely profound decline in productive forces, for no
|| revolution knows such a far-reaching and so deeply
|| penetrating demolition of old relations and their
restructuring in a new way. And nevertheless, precisely
from the point of view of the development of productive forces,
the proletarian revolution is an objective
necessity. This objective necessity
is given
by the fact
that
the economic
shell
has become
incompatible
with
the development
of productive
forces. The world productive forces do not tolerate
the state-national structure of society, and the contradiction
is "resolved" by war.
War itself becomes incompatible with the existence of the basic productive force—the working class, and the contradiction can be resolved—truly resolved—only by revolution (2).
The working class, the basic productive
force of society (3), alone can save this society and give impetus to further development.
But it can do this only at the cost of sacrifices, inevitably caused by the resistance of the bursting
not in general,
not every
true!
Щ p. 94]
very good!
NB
This is what the author
"forgot" on
pp. 88—90 and following.
cf. pp. 8 8—90
<*> The destruction caused by the civil
war in America, a war which gave a tremendous
impetus to the development of capitalism, is well known...
,2> Comrade L. Kritsman 14 (see his article: "The Development
of Productive Forces and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in the collection
"Two Years of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", published by the Supreme
Council of National Economy, p. 70) quite correctly says:
"But the proletariat differs from other productive
forces (machines, materials, etc.) in that it responds to the
destruction threatening it with indignation. The time
of crisis is the time of the awakening of revolutionary
indignation in the proletariat. The revolution of the proletariat itself
is nothing other than the counteraction of the proletariat
to the bourgeoisie's striving, by destroying its labor
power, to mitigate the waste and reduce the inactivity of
the forces belonging to it and, at the cost of sacrifices made by the proletariat, to overcome the crisis caused by the anarchy of the capitalist mode of production" (author's italics).
t*> Cf. K. Marx: Poverty of Phil., p. 140: "Of all
the instruments of production, the greatest productive
force is the revolutionary class || itself. The organization of revolutionary elements as a class presupposes the existence of all those productive forces which could have developed at all within the womb of the old society" 16.
cf. Engels,
on "destruction"
in a letter (1882)
about colonies16.
ugly and incorrect
terminology,
obscuring the conquest
of state power
by the class.
true!
and extremely unfortunate. Childish play
at copying terms used
by adults.
capitalist "shell", which is personified in the capitalist bourgeoisie (1)...
[97—98]
All the real costs of revolution reduce
to a curtailment of the reproduction process and
to a decline in productive forces. In their
form they can be divided into several
categories:
I. Physical destruction of elements of production...
II. Dequalification
of elements
of production...
III. Disintegration of the connection between elements
of production...
IV.
Redistribution
of productive
forces towards unproductive consumption.
Here, first of all, it is necessary to note the servicing of the needs of civil and class socialist war.
With the unfolding of the revolutionary process into a world revolutionary
process,
civil
war is transformed
into a class war, which on the part of the proletariat is waged by a regular "red army"...
[99]
...The decline in productive forces from
the last cause [from war.—Ed.] is linked
with their "revolutionary" decline: war and revolution, as an explosion of the capitalist system,
merge in the process of social transformation (2).
[101]
Here [in the last phase of the revolution—
the technical upheaval.—Ed.] it will be necessary to live through, at first, a period of "primitive
socialist accumulation" (3)...
[102]
But socialism, too, growing on a heap
of debris, must inevitably begin with the mobilization of living productive force. This labor
mobilization and
"socialization"
more should be said
about this
1) From this point of view, it is absolutely absurd to "blame"
the working class and its party for the devastation. For it is precisely it
that is the force which makes the restoration
of society possible. The resistance of the "old order"—that is what the devastation of the transition period should be "imputed" to.
...[101] Of course, all these gentlemen [bourgeois
economists.—Ed.] see only "the laziness of the working class", not noticing the sabotage of the entrepreneurs...
(3> A term proposed by Comrade V. M. Smirnov17
(in "Pravda Weekly").
mobilization
constitutes
the basic moment
у ф !! >
of socialist primitive accumulation,
which is the dialectical negation of capitalist
accumulation. Its class essence consists
not in creating prerequisites for the process of exploitation,
but
in
economic
revival
with the abolition of exploitation; not in the violence
of a handful of capitalists, but in the | self-|organization of the toiling
masses.
...the process of disintegration of the capitalist system is accompanied not only by the destruction of living labor power or its dequalification, but also by
its simple dropping out of the labor process.
It is therefore perfectly clear that when the proletariat sets about restoring the reproduction process, it must begin with the mobilization
of forces that have dropped out of the production process...
[103]
...The abolition of private property in the means
of
production,
the abolition of patent "law"
/ and commercial secrecy, the unity of plan and
etc.
| make possible the transition to
electric
\Д energy ...
V
II
Chapter VII
GENERAL ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS
OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD
It will hardly be correct
to define state
capitalism, capitalism without shares and trusts
(and perhaps without
monopolies). The author does not give
either the concrete or the economic
essence.
absolutely
true!
a bad definition.
There is nothing necessary in it. /
And "rationalization" is not
(
always .
^
[106—109]
If we now turn to state
capitalism, we will see that state
capitalism is a completely specific
and purely historical
category,
despite the fact that it contains both "social
rationalistics" and an "anti-chrematistic
tendency". For it is at the same time one of the
types—the most
"perfect"—type of capitalism.
The basic
production
relation
of the capitalist system
is the relation
between the capitalist, who owns the means of production, and the worker, who sells his labor power to the capitalist. When examining the state-capitalist structure, one cannot
absurdly
throw out
this
basic
class
feature. From the point of view of the correlation of social
forces, state capitalism represents
the potentiated (raised to a power) power of the bourgeoisie, where the domination of capital reaches its highest force, a truly
monstrous magnitude. In other words, state
capitalism is the rationalization
"The domination of capital" and
"antagonisticness"—
are one and the same. The dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie was (and is)
before state capitalism.
this is a tautology
of the production
process
on the basis
of antagonistic
true!
x an exaggeration.
Possible, for example, in 2-3 small
states, if
first the workers fully
win in
4-5 of the largest
and most advanced
гмп\ 2
the author misuses the word "dialectical negation": one cannot use it without first proving it with facts, carefully.
social relations under the domination
of capital,
receiving its expression in the dictatorship
of the bourgeoisie.
Since state capitalism is
the fusion of the bourgeois state with capitalist
trusts, it is obvious that there can
be no talk of any kind of "state
capitalism" under the dictatorship of the proletariat,
which
in principle
excludes
such a possibility.
Reasoning "in general", one could pose
the question of the possibility of such a form, when
the proletarian state at the very beginning of its
existence regulates the activity of capitalist trusts until the "expropriation of the expropriators", "rationally preparing" this expropriation
so as
to preserve intact all
the "apparatuses". If such a system were
possible, it would not be state capitalism, for the latter presupposes a capitalist
state. It would not be the highest
expression of the capitalist order, but some
intermediate stage in the development of the revolution. But such a form is impossible x, for
its admission rests on the illusion—true, an
extremely widespread one—that the proletariat can "take possession" of all capitalist
apparatuses,
without
touching
their
capitalist
virginity,
and
the gentlemen
capitalists
can
with pleasure submit to all the commands of the proletarian power.
Here, consequently, a state
of equilibrium is presupposed under conditions which
in advance exclude any equilibrium a>.
The system
| of socialist |
dictatorship,
which could be called state
socialism, if the latter term were not
spoiled by its usual usage, is
the dialectical
negation,
the opposite
of state capitalism... In the system of state
capitalism, the economic subject
is the capitalist state,
<!) See N. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist". "Communist
International", No. 9.
S
not collectively
? ? ? ?
monstrously
a collective, collective capitalist. Under
the proletarian dictatorship, the economic subject
=
#
is the proletarian state, the collectively
organized
working class,
"the proletariat,
organized
as
state
power". Under state capitalism, the production process is the process of production of surplus
value, falling into the hands of the class
of capitalists,
with a tendency to transform this
value into surplus product... The system of the proletarian dictatorship makes unthinkable any
kind of exploitation whatsoever, for it
transforms collective-capitalist
property and its private-capitalist form
into
the "property"
of the collective-proletariat.
Consequently, despite the formal moment
of similarity, here a diametrical opposition
in essence is given (1). This
opposition
also determines the opposition of all
functions of the systems under consideration, even if they
are formally similar. Thus, universal
labor
conscription
in
the system
of state
capitalism is the enslavement of the working masses; on the
opposition contrary, in the system of the proletarian dictatorship it
did not come out well
is nothing other than the labor
self-|organization
of the masses...
[110)
...all forms of state coercion
in the state-capitalist structure
are a press that ensures, expands, and deepens the process of exploitation,
while

as  
state  
coercion  
under the proletarian dictatorship is a method of building  
communist society. In a  
word, the f u n c t i o n a l  
o p p o s i t i o n  
of f o r m a l l y  
s i m i l a r  
p h e n o m e n a  
is entirely  
predetermined  
here  
by the f u n c t i o n a l  
o p p o s i t i o n  
of o r g a n i z a t i o n a l  
s y s t e m s ,  
by their  
o p p o s i t e  
class  
c h a r a c t e r i s t i c  (2)...  
very good!  
very good!  
End of the note begun on p. 108, relating to the quotation from Otto Neurath’s report. “Wesen und  
Weg der Sozialisierung” (Otto Neurath. “The Essence and Path  
of Socialization”.  
Ed.). [109] ... However, the elimination  
of the question of “Machtmittel”, i.e., of class struggle and of  
classes, makes the whole formulation of the question vague and  
diffuse.  
(2) Incidentally, all the “accusations” leveled against the communist  
party by the philistines of social democracy are based on a failure to understand this circumstance.  
At best, these gentlemen protest against “Hottentot morality,” thus creating a principled  
“equality” between communism and capitalist barbarism. Indeed, can a “demo-  
precisely!  
[110—112]  
The transition from capitalism to socialism  
is accomplished through the concentrated  
power of the proletariat — the lever of the proletarian dictatorship. The system of measures by which  
this transition is accomplished  
is usually designated  
by the term  
“socialization,”  
or “socialization” (1). It is already clear from the foregoing that this  
term is not entirely accurate. If we speak of socialization, understanding by this that the  
labor process as a whole satisfies social  
needs, i.e., the needs of the whole of society, as  
a system, then such “socialization” also existed within  
the limits of capitalism.  
It is precisely this that Marx meant when he spoke  
of “socialized labor”... For in the transition  
inaccurately expressed.  
NB> epoch between state capitalism  
and communism, the conscious economic  
subject  
is  
not  
“the whole  
of society,”  
precisely not this  
where? when? The author  
Precisely!  
??  
not at all.  
“Justified” the confusion  
of the “process” of human  
birth with the “process”  
of death!  
but the organized working class,  
the proletariat.  
Nevertheless, insofar as we consider the whole  
process as a whole, beginning with violent  
expropriation right up to the withering away of the proletarian  
dictatorship,  
which  
is also  
a process,  
the difference  
between the proletariat and the entire aggregate of social  
workers becomes smaller  
and smaller and, finally, disappears completely. Thereby  
a justification is also given for the term “socialization” (2)...  
It is clear that, insofar as in the  
transition  
period the economic subject is the  
working class constituted  
as state  
power,  
the basic form of  
socialization of production is its state-  
true!  
crat” deny the “equal right to existence” of the wolf  
and the sheep? That would be a violation of divine  
justice!  
(1) Characteristic of international conciliatory ideology  
is the fact that this term is used  
as a substitute for the term “expropriation of the expropriators” and  
“confiscation.” This is done in order to speak all the more easily  
of “socialization” in connection with the notorious  
“whole,” i.e., to subsume under “socialization” also the measures  
of the state power of capital. See especially the  
works of Edmund Fischer.  
(2) Otto Bauer in his pamphlet “Weg zum Sozialismus” [“The Path to Socialism”. —Ed.] counterposes socialization  
to state-ization and sees in the former  
a combination of organs from representatives of workers, employees,  
officials — on the one  
hand, consumers —  
on the other, the state, as a neutral entity —  
on the third; factories  
are supposed, among other  
measures, to be leased to agricultural cooperatives  
(i.e., syndicates). The question of dictatorship is not  
posed as it should be; the state is a “democracy  
in general”...  
ization, or nationalization  
If one does not look—  
well said!  
that’s just it!  
Precisely!  
as do the representatives of bourgeois  
science — upon the state apparatus as  
an organization of a neutral-mystical nature,  
then one must understand just as precisely that  
all the functions of the state also bear a class  
character. From this it follows that it is necessary to strictly  
distinguish  
bourgeois  
nationalization  
from  
proletarian nationalization...  
[113]  
...the system of so-called “local  
self-government”  
in any  
class  
society  
(consequently, in a society where  
the state exists) is nothing other than a component  
part of the local apparatuses of the state  
organization of the ruling  
class...  
C h a p t e r  V I I I  
SYSTEMS OF PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT  
UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT  
It didn’t work out. Profit  
also satisfies  
“social” needs. One should  
have said: where the  
surplus product  
goes not to the class  
of owners, but to  
all the working people  
and only to them.  
S  
2  
[114]  
Production under the domination  
of capital  
is production of surplus value,  
production for the sake of profit. Production under the domination  
of the proletariat is production for the  
satisfaction of social needs...  
[115]  
...Even the so-called “personal regime”  
is by no means correctly counterposed to class  
???  
And  
(1) The latter term, of course, is far from accurate,  
q  
* *  
|| Firstly, it confuses the “nation” (“the whole”) with the state-  
This is not confusion, but  
organization of the ruling class...  
a historical fact.  
The author “forgot” that  
the typical state  
under capitalism  
is the national  
state (+ colonies, but this is not  
relevant to the given question).  
true! only the words  
“personal regime” are  
not accurate. Hat Nebenbe-  
deutung*. Not the  
right word.  
here is the essence. The author  
should have dwelt more  
on the concept of the “ruling  
class.”  
domination.  
On the contrary,  
under a certain  
combination of conditions, the domination of a class can  
find its most adequate expression precisely  
in a personal regime...  
[116—117]  
...human technical-labor relations are at the same time social  
relations. Therefore, from the point of view of comparison  
with the absolute disorganization  
of the economic  
apparatus, when there is no organizing  
principle in the enterprise,  
the “seizure of power” at the  
factory by workers’ cells represents a plus  
even from the point of view of the logic of “pure production.”  
Immeasurably more significant is it  
from the point of view of its role in the general historical  
process.  
For  
only  
in this  
way  
can  
the implantation of the working class, as an organizing  
principle, into the production process occur.  
In essence, the task here is an economically combative one:  
to consolidate the working class, as the ruling  
very good!^  
class,  
in all the pores of economic life...  
The decomposition of the old, a rough sketch of the new —  
that is what  
the type  
of production administration under examination represents.  
Here it will be appropriate to draw an analogy with that  
process which occurs in the army...  
[118]  
...in the military sphere, development proceeds in great  
leaps, the whole process is expressed more sharply,  
hm! hm! g g )  
1  
) crudely, if you will, more revolutionarily...  
[118—119]  
...under the domination of the proletariat, the element of coercion and repression plays a large  
role, the larger, the greater the percentage of non-purely  
proletarian  
elements,  
on the one  
hand,  
and  
of unconscious or semi-conscious elements  
among the proletariat itself — on the other. In such  
a case,  
the “militarization” of the  
population —  
in the army organization above all — is  
a method of self-organization of the working class and  
of the organization by it of the peasantry...  
^  
(1) In essence, the term “militarization” and  
add: against  
the like is completely inapplicable here, because both the military organization  
philistine (“social- of the proletarian state, and the military type of organization  
democratic”) of industry have here a completely different  
meaning. “Red militarism” — a word combination truly  
pacifism.  
barbaric. But the poverty of language and “custom” compel  
us to use the term “militarization.”  
* — Has a secondary meaning, connotation.  
C h a p t e r  I X  
ECONOMIC CATEGORIES  
OF CAPITALISM IN THE TRANSITION PERIOD  
“Social system,”  
“social formation” — all this is  
insufficiently concrete without the concept  
of class and of c l a s s  
s o c i e t y *.  
Dialectics includes  
historicity.  
True. Compare  
earlier inaccuracies.  
V approximate,  
crude, in large  
numbers, a la longue**.  
[126]  
The objectively social point of view  
asserts the primacy of society over the individual  
economic  
subject — the person.  
It considers the latter  
not as an “atom,” not  
as an isolated Robinson, but as a particle of the  
social system. “Production by an isolated  
individual outside of society— is as much nonsense as  
the development of language without individuals living jointly  
and talking  
to one another” (1)...  
[127]  
The dialectical-historical method considers  
society in its specifically historical  
forms, and the general laws of social  
development in their concrete manifestation, as the laws  
of a definite social formation, limited  
in their operation by the historical  
boundaries of this formation...  
[127—128]  
In theoretically mastering the capitalist  
system  
of production  
relations,  
Marx proceeds from the fact of its existence.  
Since this system exists, it means,— whether badly,  
or well — social needs are  
satisfied, at least to such a degree  
that people not only do not die out, but also  
live, act, and multiply. In a society with  
a social division of labor — and commodity-  
capitalist  
society  
presupposes this  
latter — this means that there must be  
a definite equilibrium of the whole system. In the necessary  
quantities, coal, iron, machines,  
calico, linen, bread, sugar, boots, etc.,  
etc., are produced. In the necessary quantities, living  
human labor, using the necessary  
quantities of means of production, is correspondingly expended on the production  
of all this. There may  
be all sorts of deviations, fluctuations, the whole system  
expands,  
becomes more complex,  
develops,  
is in constant motion and fluctuation, but  
on the whole, is in a state of V Equilibrium...  
(1) K. Marx. “Einleitung”, S. XIII (K. Marx. “Introduction”,  
p. XIII. Ed.) 18.  
* This remark by Lenin refers to the text of pages 126 and 127.  
** — in the sense of: “from the point of view of a long-term perspective or prolonged period.”  
[130] The consideration  
of a social, and moreover  
irrational, blind, system from the point of view  
This is very good. But isn’t of  
equilibrium  
has  
nothing  
in common,  
of course,  
it more accurate to speak of the “ne- with  
harmonia  
praestabilitata *,  
for  
it  
cessity of a certain  
proceeds from the fact of the existence of this system  
proportionality,”  
and from the same fact of its development...  
than of the “p o i n t  o f  v i e w  
of equilibrium”? More accurate,  
more correct, for objectively  
the first, and the second  
opens the door to philosophical  
vacillations in the direction  
from materialism to idealism.  
[130—131] ...The task consists in analyzing the restructuring of the social system.  
Here: a) the collective, aggregate,  
conscious economic subject — the proletarian  
state with all its subordinate  
organs — grows; b) insofar as the anarchic-  
commodity  
system  
is preserved,  
the  
irrational, blind “fate” of the market, i.e., again-  
That’s just it!j  the social elemental force, is also preserved, increasingly falling  
under the regulating influence of the crystallized  
socially-conscious center;  
elements of disintegration c) finally, insofar as elements of the disintegration  
are limited  
of social ties are present (e.g., the formation of closed  
. . .  
natural-economic cells), they,  
X why not more  
on the one hand, are “limited” x  in their  
simply: “their  
actions by the economic environment (their very internal  
reorganization is a function of social  
limits.”  
shifts);  
on the other — they are, to an ever-increasing  
O, academism! O,  
degree,  
drawn into the  
construction  
process,  
pseudo-classicism!  
constantly  
being subjected to the planned  
influence  
O, Trediakovsky! ** from the  
side  
of the state-economic  
1  
‘  
organization of the proletariat (labor conscription,  
all possible types of in-kind obligations,  
etc.). Thus, even when individual  
elements  
fall out  
of the social-production  
process, they are in a constant  
^  
Not the right words. Error sphere of influence and are themselves considered ^  
of “Bogdanovist” terminology. from the point of view of the social system of production-

ology emerges: subjectivism,  
in moments of their maximum isolation  
they are theoretically interesting  
f t  
as  
solipsism. The point is not  
who "considers"  
* — by pre-established harmony.  
** V. K. Trediakovsky 19.  
it," to whom it is "interesting,"  
but what exists independently  
of human consciousness.  
"The method acquires  
a different tone" Bukharin  
has adopted a bad tone.  
Here it is not a matter of "tone" nor  
"logic," but of the  
material.  
nor  
' (2) not "it," not  
"point of view"  
cial component part of the new social  
system.  
However, despite the fact that the significance of the objectively social method is preserved, this  
latter acquires a different logical tone. In  
analyzing the social structure of the commodity-capitalist  
type, all  
regularities  
bear  
the character of elemental regularities, of a "blind"  
force,  
for  
the entire  
social-production  
process is irrational. In analyzing the structure  
of the transition period, the matter stands otherwise, because  
here the rationalization of the social-economic  
process occurs in increasing proportion.  
The material-production point of view  
|in general) also remains obligatory. However  
'©  
it undergoes essential changes and re-  
Incorrect. Previously  
the bourgeoisie "coerced"  
through courts, tax  
collectors, etc. (cf.  
Marx on France20,  
not only on Russia).  
Now the proletariat  
coerces more directly.  
The author forgot  
"social-class"  
relations.  
not only "on the  
surface" and not  
only "phenomena"  
strictions. First, the production process itself is not an a priori given magnitude...  
[132—133] Secondly,  
an  
extremely  
significant  
reduction,  
and in places  
cessation,  
of the production  
process  
may  
occur.  
Insofar  
as society does not die out, this is compensated  
for  
by  
other  
means:  
a)  
more  
economical  
distribution  
of the remnants  
of previous  
production  
(purely capitalist)  
cycles —  
here the consumption process is torn away from the  
production process and becomes incommensurable  
with the latter; b) forcible extraction from  
the countryside of agricultural  
production products (here the difference from the "normal" situation  
consists in the fact that this extraction is only  
partially funded by directly  
economic methods; consequently, only one half of the "national  
economy" enters the reproduction  
cycle);  
c)  
non-productive  
methods of obtaining products (war booty,  
the passing from hand to hand of base warehouses, etc.).  
Thirdly, insofar as the production process  
is torn away from the consumption process, to that extent —  
even where the free market is preserved — consumer  
motives appear on the surface of phenomena.  
The dialectical-historical approach is not only  
not subject to restriction, but, on the contrary, is  
pushed to the forefront. The emerging forms  
of new relations, their interweaving with old ones,  
sometimes in unusually bizarre combinations —  
all  
this  
makes  
the production  
relations  
of the transition period a complex sui generis*.  
Furthermore, it is perfectly understandable that the dialectical-  
historical point of view, which advances  
the principle of the constant mutability of forms, the principle of cognition of the process, must inevitably be  
emphasized in the analysis of an epoch where  
shifts of social strata of a directly  
geological type occur  
with  
unprecedented  
speed.  
The relativity of the "categories" of political economy becomes clear to the point of complete obviousness.  
From this phrase it is  
remarkably clearly  
evident that for  
the author, spoiled  
by the eclecticism  
of Bogdanov, the dialectical  
"point of view" is merely  
one of many  
equal "points  
of view." In-  
correct!  
W  
44  
The postulate of equilibrium is invalid. Equilibrium must be accepted as a state to which  
^  
the system must arrive (if it is to  
exist), but may not arrive. There is no  
proportionality either between production and consumption, or between various branches of production (let us add in parentheses: nor between the human  
elements of the system). Therefore, it is fundamentally incorrect to transfer to the transition period categories,  
concepts, and laws adequate to a state of equilibrium. To this one might object that, insofar as  
society has not perished, equilibrium exists. However,  
such reasoning would be correct if  
the  
period  
of time  
which  
we  
are considering,  
3 years (>) in Russia! represented a very lengthy magnitude.  
Society cannot live long outside equilibrium and  
dies. But this same social system can  
for some time be in an "abnormal"  
state, i.e., outside a state of equilibrium. In this  
case, some relative equilibrium  
■#.  
is bought  
(insofar  
as  
we  
do not  
have  
extra-production compensation, which is also not  
possible a la longue) at the price of partial destruction  
of the system itself...  
precisely!  
but it is always  
relative  
ф hence the invalidity is clear  
of the phrase: "the postulate  
of equilibrium is invalid."  
* — of its own kind.  
Now we must move on to some  
basic  
concepts  
of political  
economy,  
in order to clarify the degree of their applicability in the period under  
X consideration.  
For "ideas and categories  
X This is a precise, simple,  
clear,  
without frills, formulation of dialectical  
materialism. Quantum muta-  
tus ab illo * the eclecticism  
of Bukharin!  
are just as little eternal as the relations expressed by them.  
They  
represent  
historical  
and transitory products" a>...  
[134—136] ...The commodity can be a universal category only insofar as there is a  
constant, and not accidental, social connection on the  
correct!  
anarchic basis of production. Consequently,  
insofar as the irrationality of the production  
process  
disappears,  
i.e.,  
insofar as  
a conscious social  
regulator takes the place of  
elemental forces, to that extent the commodity is transformed into a pro-  
imprecise: is transformed  
not into a "product," but somehow  
differently. Etwa **: into a product going for social  
consumption  
not through the market.  
Les mots, qui  
hurlent de se voir  
accouples ***.  
duct and loses its commodity character.  
/  
Value appears when we have  
/ proper commodity production. Here  
not an accidental, but a constant type of anarchic  
Л  
connection through exchange is obligatory. Here a  
state of equilibrium is also necessary. The law of value is nothing  
other than the law of equilibrium of the commodity-anarchic * * * * system. From this point of view, e.g.,  
it is clear that the exchange of ivory for beads (where,  
as Marx said, exchange  
is indeed  
deception) is not value exchange. Not every  
exchange is commodity exchange (when boys exchange  
feathers; or when the proletarian state  
practices product exchange between city  
and countryside). On the other hand, not every  
commodity exchange is value exchange (e.g.,  
exchange on the "free market" with its "absurd"  
prices is not value exchange, although it is  
(1 > K. Marx. "The Poverty of Philosophy." There is another  
formulation of this thought: "Economic categories  
'у' represent only theoretical abstract  
expressions of the social relations of production"21.  
cross.  
14  
* — How different from this.  
** — Approximately.  
*** — Words that cry out against their coupling.  
**** The word: "anarchic" crossed out by V. I. Lenin with a cross-  
correct!  
correct! And well said,  
without frills.  
This should be developed  
(to the detriment of dozens  
of pages with "points  
of view")  
correct!  
commodity exchange). Consequently, value, as  
a category of the commodity-capitalist system  
in its equilibrium, is least of all applicable in the transition  
period, where commodity  
production  
largely disappears  
and  
((where there is no))  
equilibrium * ...  
...Under  
the system  
of the proletarian dictatorship  
the "worker" receives a social-labor ration,  
and not wages.  
Likewise, the category of profit disappears, as well as the category of surplus value, insofar as we speak of new  
production cycles. However, to the extent that  
the "free market" still exists, there is  
speculation, etc., speculative profit is present,  
the laws of whose movement are determined differently  
than  
in  
a normal-capitalist  
system.  
Here  
the monopoly position of the  
seller  
operates, which sucks product  
masses from other spheres to it...  
Chapter X  
"EXTRA-ECONOMIC" COERCION  
IN THE TRANSITION PERIOD  
[138—139] ...On  
the transition  
from feudalism  
to capitalism Marx wrote: "These methods rest  
partly on the most brutal violence (auf brutalster  
Gewalt), e.g., the colonial system. But  
all  
of them  
utilize  
state  
power  
(Staatsmacht),  
concentrated  
and  
organized  
social violence, in order to accelerate...  
the process of transforming the feudal mode of production into the capitalist and to shorten the transition period (die Uebergange). Violence is  
the midwife  
of every old  
society  
which is pregnant with a new one. It itself is an economic  
force,  
(okonomische  
Potenz)" (1).  
isn't "category" more precise? factor?  
(Violence is a force,  
sounds bad in Russian.)22 ------------  
(1) Karl Marx. Das Kapital, B. I, S. 680 (Volksausgabe) 23.  
* In Bukharin's text the words: "where there is no" are enclosed in double brackets  
by V. I. Lenin and the word "equilibrium" is corrected by him to "equilibrium."  
NB  
"definition"  
charming  
one should add:  
1) from  
numerical strength;  
2) from role in the economy of the country;  
3) from connection with the mass  
of working people;  
4) from its organization.  
very good!  
correct!!  
very good!  
...This revolutionary violence, on the other  
hand, must actively help the formation of new production relations, creating a new  
form of "concentrated violence," the state  
of a new class, which acts as a lever  
of economic  
upheaval,  
changing  
the economic  
structure of society (1)... This force is not  
some supra-empirical,  
mystical  
magnitude: it is the force of the class carrying out the  
upheaval,  
its social might.  
It is  
perfectly  
understandable, therefore, that in its magnitude it first  
of all depends on the degree of organization of this  
class...  
[139—141] In  
the epoch  
of transition  
from  
capitalism  
to communism, the revolutionary class, the creator  
of the new society, is the proletariat. Its state  
power, its dictatorship, the Soviet  
state, serves as a factor in the destruction of old  
economic ties and the creation of new ones. "Political  
power,  
in the  
proper  
sense of this  
word, is the organized force of one class,  
having as its aim the subjugation of another class" (2\  
Insofar as this political power, as "concentrated  
violence" over the bourgeoisie, itself  
is  
an economic force,  
this is a  
force,  
tearing apart capitalist production  
relations,  
transferring to the disposal of the  
proletariat  
the material-physical framework  
of production and gradually inserting non-proletarian human elements of production into the system  
of  
new  
social-production  
connection. On the other hand, this same "concentrated  
violence" is partially turned inward as well,  
being a factor of self-organization and compulsory  
self-discipline of the working people...  
The ruling proletariat in the first phase  
of its rule has against it: 1) parasitic  
<1> Kautsky, Bauer with tutti quanti speak with indignation and  
disgust "of violence, wherever it may come from"... These philistine-cowardly traits of the "true  
socialists" were typical also for intra-party relations. "It is characteristic of these old women," said  
Marx, "that they try to gloss over and sweeten  
every serious party struggle" (cited from Mehring,  
l. c. 92—93)24. Is this not the true prototype of the "impartial," "neutral," "independent" theoreticians?  
I2) K. Marx and F. Engels. Communist Manifesto2!".  
14*  
correct!  
forces of the proletariat  
around the dictatorship  
of the proletariat — one  
cannot say it like that  
correct!  
correct!  
strata (former landowners, rentiers of all  
kinds, bourgeois-entrepreneurs who had little  
relation to the production process); commercial  
capitalists, speculators, stockbrokers, bankers; 2) the unproductive  
administrative  
aristocracy  
recruited  
from the same strata  
(large  
bureaucrats  
of the capitalist  
state, generals, bishops, etc.); 3) bourgeois  
entrepreneur-organizers  
and  
directors (organizers of trusts and syndicates,  
"businessmen" of the industrial world, the largest  
engineers, directly connected with the capitalist  
world, inventors, etc.); 4) qualified  
bureaucracy — civil,  
military, and clerical; 5) the technical intelligentsia  
and the intelligentsia in general (engineers, technicians, agronomists, zootechnicians, doctors, professors,  
lawyers, journalists, teachers  
in the

majority, etc.); 6) the officer corps; 7) the large
prosperous peasantry; 8) the middle, and partly
the petty urban bourgeoisie; 9) the clergy,
even the unskilled.
All these strata, classes, and groups inevitably
wage an active struggle against the proletariat under
the political hegemony of representatives of finance
capital and under the military hegemony of the
generals... As the proletariat
wins in this struggle and its forces increasingly rally
around the main crystallization
point
of socio-revolutionary
energy —
the dictatorship of the proletariat, an accelerated
process of disintegration of the old psychology begins among the
economically
useful
and
non-parasitic
groups
of the hostile camp. These elements must be taken into account,
collected,
placed
in
new
positions,
pushed
into new labor frameworks. And this can only be done
by the coercively acting organization
of the proletarian state. It accelerates the
process of absorbing those human elements which
are useful in the new system as well, first and foremost
the technical intelligentsia. It goes without saying
that it is impossible to apply
these
forces
in any planned, socially
expedient way
without coercive pressure. For the old psychological remnants still residing in the heads of these human categories, with their partly individualistic, partly anti-proletarian psychology, perceive the plan of social expediency as a gross violation of the rights
of the "free individual." External state
coercion is therefore absolutely
necessary here. Only in the course of development, with the constant
c’est le mot*
re-education of these strata, as their
class deformation progresses and they are transformed simply
into social workers, do the elements of coercion
become ever smaller... The direct
struggle against them in the first phase of the revolution,
placing them in conditions where they can
perform socially useful work without being
able
to harm
the cause of communist
construction, the expedient deployment of these
forces, the correct policy towards them,
changing depending on their psychological
content — all this ultimately presupposes the "sanction" of "concentrated violence,"
standing
guard over communist
society im Werden **.
Coercion,
however,
is not
limited
to the framework
of the formerly ruling
classes
and
groups close to them. In the transition
period — in other forms — it is also transferred to
the working people themselves, and to the ruling class itself.
of the nascent
the point is not in the "premise" (that is ideal), but in the material: there is no such solid homogeneity.
true!
very
good!
We
must
examine
this
aspect
of the matter
in greater detail.
[141–144] In the transition period, analysis cannot
be limited to the premise of solid homogeneity
of the class. When studying the abstract laws of the capitalist mechanism, there was no need
to dwell
on
the molecular movements
within
classes
and
on the differentiation
of these "real aggregates." There they were
accepted
as a certain solid
magnitude,
more or less homogeneous. Transferring this
view — completely
correct
within the
framework
of abstract-theoretical analysis of "pure capitalism" — to the analysis of the transition period with its
extremely fluid forms, with its, so to speak,
principled dynamism, would be
a grossest (methodological) *** error...
...If we consider this process [the process
of the revolutionary
education of the proletariat. —
Ed.] from the point of view of intra-class strata,
then it can be designated as a process of constant
approximation to the vanguard of the working class
of its middle and lower strata. Here occurs
the transformation of the "class in itself" into the "class for itself."
The point of view on the "people" of the repentant nobleman consists in the idealization of each member of the "lower
class" in concreto. The proletarian-Marxist
* — that's the word! (well said!).
** The words: "im Werden" are crossed out by V. I. Lenin and replaced with
the word:
"of the nascent."
*** The parentheses are inserted by V. I. Lenin.
I] point of view operates with really ex-
11 isting magnitudes.
...The proletarian vanguard actively leads the
true!
others. It is a conscious,
deliberately
acting, organizing magnitude. It carries
that's
it exactly!
true!
along with it the sympathizing middle, which
instinctively "sympathizes" with the upheaval,
but cannot clearly formulate the goals and precisely
chart the paths... In the course of development, there is no boundary between
the vanguard
and
this
very extensive
stratum.
On the contrary,
there is a constant
drawing
into the advanced stratum of ever new forces. This
process is that internal welding which
makes a class out of a class.
Behind
the middle of sympathizers
there is a stratum of the indifferent, and then
the so-called self-seekers. The process of education,
however,
concerns
them
too:
the proletarian
vanguard
grows,
expands
numerically,
absorbs ever larger strata of the class, which
increasingly becomes a "class for itself."
If we approach this question from a somewhat
different angle, we will discover approximately
the following groupings: the core of the industrial
proletariat, which has broken ties with the countryside, the typical,
permanently employed in industry
working class; the labor aristocracy, sometimes
extremely tied to the interests of capital
(especially
skilled
workers of America,
Germany,
England;
printers
in almost
all
countries, etc.); seasonal workers, periodically
entering and leaving the sphere of industry;
workers with appendages of private
property (little houses,
sometimes land, etc.);
workers tied to the countryside, sometimes
farming on the land; workers who became such
during the war, who did not undergo capitalist
schooling,
sometimes recruited
from the urban petty bourgeoisie,
artisans, merchants, etc.; workers
specially selected
on socio-political grounds by capitalist
states
(e.g.,
certain
strata of railwaymen); agricultural
workers, pure farm laborers and semi-farm laborers,
etc., etc. Thus, a
rather motley
picture
of the "being" of various
categories of the working class is obtained, and consequently, of
their social "consciousness." It is clear that among
these groups there are also groups completely corrupted
by capitalism,
with a maximum
of narrow
egoistic,
"self-seeking"
motives...
Even
the proletarian vanguard,
which is rallied
in the party of upheaval, in the communist
true!
"itself"
(not >or<)
true!
party, establishes
such
coercive
self-discipline
in
its
own
ranks,
it is felt here by many component parts of this vanguard little, since it
coincides with internal motives: but nevertheless
it exists (1)...
...In
the transition
period, the self-activity
of the working class exists alongside coercion,
established by the working class, as a class
for itself, towards all its parts...
[145] ...the regime of labor conscription and
state distribution of labor power under the dictatorship of the proletariat already expresses a comparatively
high degree of organization of the entire apparatus and the solidity of proletarian power in general f2).
Under the capitalist regime, coercion
was defended in the name of the "interests of the whole,"
whereas in reality it was a matter of the interests of capitalist groups. Under the proletarian
dictatorship, for the first time, coercion truly
true!
I] is an instrument
of the majority
in the interests
of this majority.
[146] ...If
the large
peasants
(kulaks)
actively
struggle
against
the measures
of the proletarian
dictatorship, then the "concentrated violence"
of the proletariat has to give a (more
or less) impressive rebuff to the kulak Vendée.
But the masses of the middle, and partly even the poor
peasantry constantly vacillate, driven
now by hatred of capitalist-landlord
exploitation, hatred which pushes them
towards communism, now by the feeling of the proprietor (and consequently,
in
times of famine,
also of the speculator),
which pushes them into the embrace of reaction. The latter
is expressed in resistance to the state
grain monopoly, in the striving for free
true!
trade, which is speculation, and for speculation,
which
is
free
trade;
in resistance
to the system of labor conscription
It was necessary to say
?
O) In Soviet Russia, a communist who commits
d
* a crime, on the initiative of the party, receives a
punishment much greater than a "mere mortal."
on the initiative
of the party
<*> The howls of the Russian Mensheviks against coercion
in the era of the proletarian dictatorship are exactly the same
as the howls of capitalists about the violation of freedom of labor
I
by trade unions, which post pickets
true!
during a strike and do not allow capitalists to use
strikebreakers. It is known
that
the greatest
abominations were perpetrated by the capitalist clique precisely
under the slogan of protecting freedom of labor.
true!
and in general
to all forms of state
curbing of economic anarchy...
Thus,
in relation to
former bourgeois
groups,
coercion
on the part of the proletarian
dictatorship is coercion on the part
of an alien class, which
wages class
struggle with the objects of its coercion;
in relation to the non-kulak peasant
mass, coercion on the part
of the proletariat is
class struggle insofar as the peasant
is a proprietor and speculator; it is his
rallying and labor organization, his education
and involvement in communist construction, insofar as the peasant
is
a working person,
not
an exploiter,
an opponent
of capitalism...
From a broader point of view, i.e., from the point
of view of a larger historical
scale, proletarian coercion in all
its forms,
from executions to
labor conscription,
is,
paradoxical as this may sound, a method of forging
communist
humanity
from the
human
material
of the capitalist
era...
The dictatorship of the proletariat, expressing, in the very
first
period, the most glaring split of the capitalist
very good!
world, after the establishment of some equilibrium, begins to gather humanity together again...
This chapter is excellent!*
precisely!
the inevitability
of the war of 1914–8
not only
from
this (x).
"war" of 1914–8,
but not "war"
of 1911–1912.
The academician omitted
differentiam specificam **.
Chapter XI
THE WORLD REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
AND THE WORLD SYSTEM OF COMMUNISM
( X)
( X)
[148–150] ...the universal connectedness and interdependence
of individual
capitalist
states
on each other — the circumstance that
they were all component parts of a common system — inevitably
entailed
the world
character of the war.
...War under the conditions of the world economy, signifying a disruption of equilibrium in one place,
turned with inevitability into a gigantic upheaval
of the entire system, into a world war...
...On the whole, one can say therefore
that the stability of these systems was directly
proportional to the height
of the state-capitalist
* This remark is written by V. I. Lenin at the end of the tenth chapter.
** — specific difference.
true!
monopoly
capitalism (the author
generally forgets this
quite often)
not a finance-capitalist
organization, but an
organization of capitalism
into finance
capitalism.
NB
organization. Without it, capitalism would not
have survived even the term which history
allotted to it. This stability, connected with the form
of state capitalism,
ran along the lines
of production,
and
along the lines
of (social) *-class.
However, the state-capitalist form
of national
economy
itself was possible only given a certain
"maturity" of capitalist 4F relations in
general.
It was the more perfect,
the — other
things being equal — higher was the development
of the productive
forces,
the finance-capitalist
organization,
the totality
of monopoly
relations
of the new capitalism.
It
true!
incorrect:
with "medium-weak."
Without a certain
height of capitalism,
nothing would have
worked out for us.
was the less perfect, the more
backward
and agrarian the given country was, the less developed were the productive forces, the
weaker was the finance-capitalist organization
of the economy. But not only from the point of view
of the economic
and
social
structure,
but also from the point of view of the technical-productive,
the most stable in the gigantic conflict
were bound
to
prove
systems
with
the most
developed technology, which the imperialist
war demanded. This technology had decisive
military

meaning...
The concentration
of the social
power
of the bourgeoisie
in
state power,
fused with the economic organizations of capital, created gigantic resistance for
the workers' movement. Therefore, the collapse of the world
capitalist
system
began
with
the most
true!
to say:
upper echelons
of the working class
weak national economic systems, with the least
developed state-capitalist organization.
[150—151] ...On the other hand, precisely because
we are dealing with an anarchic world system,
with a special position "in the world economy" of its
component parts, the possibility
of exploiting colonies was created precisely for the "great"
imperialist
systems. And on this basis,
another possibility was created, namely the possibility
of a temporary "community
of interests"
between
the imperialist "fatherland" and the working class ...
* The word: "socially" was placed in parentheses by V. I. Lenin
and crossed out with a cross.
true
...But, on the other hand, after the victory of the
proletariat, the reasons for the ease of this victory dialectically
transform into reasons for the greatest
difficulty...
[152] Thus,
if we
consider
the revolutionary process on its world
scale, we can put forward the following general
proposition: the world revolutionary process berisky: must begin with the lowest in terms of their level, partial
it should be said "not
systems of the world economy, where the victory of the prolet-
FROM THE HIGHEST"_______ riat is easier, but the crystallization of new relations
is more difficult; the speed of the onset of the revolution
//■up
g t p i a m o
GGPO- u
^
' p s
upur
is inversely
proportional to the maturity of capital-
proportional"
ist relations and the height of the type of revolution.
...history
shows
imperialism
its
fatal a posteriori, which suddenly appears
before the "victors" in all its terrifying
nakedness (1'.
[153—154]
...In the entire capitalist world,
despite
attempts to breathe new life into it,
ruin is advancing with gigantic strides. Productive forces are falling. Production
relations are decomposing and rupturing. There is no economic
equilibrium between production
spheres,
and its disruption is taking
increasingly sharper forms. There is also no social ♦-class
equilibrium, and things are heading towards a
decisive
conflict...
The capitalist
system of the era of
industrial capitalism
was
the embodiment of a
spontaneous
process,
for here
there was
a complete
lack of regulation of
relations;
the place of a conscious regulator was taken by the unconscious
"market"... The correlation between the states
of the proletariat
and the states of the bourgeoisie is best seen in their military clashes-
not the right word
|| enia, in class war, where the old armies
are decomposing,
because the entire course of development
makes social equilibrium
on a capitalist basis impossible.
[154—155]
The greatest
factor in the decomposition
of the capitalist
system
is the disintegration
of the ties
between
the imperialist
states
and their numerous colonies. The so-called
"national state" already in the pre-war
period
was
a pure
fiction. In
reality,
there really
existed
subjects of colonial
policy, imperialist states,
very good!
not a pure fiction, but an impure
form. Violation
of "dialectical
S
tres bien!
...The collapse
of the imperialist
system retroactively instills in the imperialists a love for cooperation within
the unified framework of the world economy...
* The word "socially" is crossed out by V. I. Lenin with a cross.
materialism" consists in a logical (not material) leap over several
concrete stages.
The author forgot that (1)
the most >> imperialist
states
grew out of national ones; (2) that
"national" states are also forming in the colonies.
representing
complex
systems,
with a strong core and a subordinate
periphery,
and the objects of this colonial policy, with
various shades and degrees of subordination...
g
The state bond, ultimately resting on armed force, had decisive
significance.
Consequently,
as the
state power of capital decomposes,
the decomposition of imperialist
systems, the falling away of colonies,
the fragmentation
of the "great powers,"
the separation of independent
"national
states" must inevitably begin...
... colonial uprisings and national revolutions enter as a component part into the great
that's exactly it!
world revolutionary process, which
shifts the entire axis of the world economy. For objectively here we have factors of the general disintegration of capitalist
production
relations,
disintegration,
which
facilitates the victory of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the working class...
[156] ...the already begun disintegration of the capitalist
system, its colossal disorganization,
the mass of newly arisen frictions have extraordinarily
strengthened decentralizing tendencies, and therefore
the bourgeoisie is suffering collapse. The element of disintegration outgrows
the organizing reason of the bourgeoisie...
Thus, little by little, the world dictatorship
of the proletariat grows. As it grows, the resistance of the bourgeoisie weakens,
and in the end, the remaining
bourgeois complexes will, in all probability,
surrender with all their organizations
in corpore a '.
[156—157] ...But as soon as the decisive
very good!
world victory of the proletariat becomes clear, the growth curve of
proletarian
statehood
will sharply
begin to fall.
For the main and fundamental task
of state
power,
as such,
the task
of suppressing the bourgeoisie, will be finished. External
true!
11 > In these cases, which, as is easy to see,
can by no means be considered typical, there will not be
a complete disintegration of the apparatus, as is inevitably
the case in the typical case of social transformation.
coercive
regulations
will begin
to die out:
isn't it the other way around:
first
the army
and navy will die out,
as the instrument
first "further",
of the most acute
external coercion; then
then "later" and
the system
of punitive
and repressive
finally "first"? ----------
:---
g
organs;
further
— the coercive
character
of labor, etc...
2 2  * =  a fly in the ointment.
Note 2 on page 33 ** — naively, almost childishly
naively, Bukharin "took 'terms' 'in the meaning' in which
they are used by Comrade A. Bogdanov"---------------- and did not think
that both the terms and their meaning in Bogdanov are "funded" (may
the academician-author forgive me this funny, pedantic word)
by his philosophy, the philosophy of idealism and eclecticism.
Therefore, very often, too often the author falls into a scholasticism of terms (agnostic, Humean-Kantian, in its
philosophical foundations) contradicting dialectical materialism (i.e., Marxism), into idealism ("logic," "point of view,"
etc., outside of consciousness of their derivation from matter, from objective
reality), etc. Hence a whole series of precisely theoretical (why lay claim to a "general theory"?) inaccuracies, scholarly rubbish, academic fatuities. The book would be
quite excellent if the author, for the second edition,
threw out the subtitle; threw out 20-30 pages of scholasticism
and unconsciously idealistic (in the philosophical sense) and
eclectic exercises in terminology, replaced them with 20-30
pages of facts (from the rich economic literature he himself cites). Then the bloated, unhealthy beginning
of the book would recover, lose weight, strengthen in bone, shed anti-Marxist fat, and thus would more firmly "fund"
(ha-ha!) the excellent end of the book.
When the author personally stands on his head — it turns out very nicely and
cheerfully and unpedantically. But when he, blindly imitating Bogdanov's
"terms" (in reality, not "terms" at all, but philosophical errors) first in his book, for the sake of importance, for the sake of academism, quite often stands on his head, only to then turn over
and stand on his feet, — it turned out just pedantically, inappropriately.
It—is—per—mis—si—ble—to—hope that in the sec—ond
ed—i—tion, etc., etc.
On pages 131 and 133, Marxism clearly "sticks out" in
contrast to "Bogdanovism."
31/V 1920.
* — 22 — summa summarum — overall total.
** See above, p. 390.
Recensio academica *: The excellent qualities of this excellent
book suffer a certain dequalification, insofar
as they are limited by the circumstance that, primo **,
the author does not sufficiently fund his postulates with solid,
even if brief, factual material, although he possesses it perfectly
from the literature. Greater factual fundedness
would have saved the book from defects of the "sociological" or,
more precisely, philosophical aspect. But this secundo ***: the author examines
economic processes insufficiently concretely in actu ****,
often falling into what is called — "terminus technicus" —
"Begriffsscholastik" *****, and not realizing that many
unsuccessful formulations and terms wurzeln in philosophy,
falling sub specie "Grundgedanken" ****** under the line of idealismus philosophici seu agnosticismi: (recht oft unbesehen und
unkritisch von anderen ubernommen) *******, by no means materialismi ******** It is permissible to express the hope that this
small defect will disappear in the next editions, which
are so necessary for our reading public and will serve
to the even greater honor of the academy; we congratulate the academy
on the magnificent work of its member.
31/V 1920
First published in 1929.
1 V. I. Lenin's remarks on N. I. Bukharin's book "Economics
of the Transition Period" cover almost completely all the main issues set forth by the author.
This book reflected Bukharin's erroneous views
on the paths of transition to socialism, the glorification of "proletarian coercion"
as the main method of building socialism and communism.
The economics of the transition period and the socialist economic system,
he asserted, do not know objective regularities; they develop
at the discretion of the proletarian state. After the victory of the socialist
revolution, the need to study the economic
regularities of society's development supposedly disappears, and therefore political
economy also dies out.
Bukharin, putting forward the erroneous theory of "non-economic
coercion," at the same time advocated liberation from any guiding principles in the field of economic policy.
* — Academic review.
** — first.
*** — second.
**** — in action.
***** — "technical term" — "playing with concepts."
****** — under the guise of "profundity."
******* — philosophical idealism or agnosticism: (very often
carelessly and uncritically borrowed from others).
******** — materialism.
In his remarks, Lenin resolutely condemned this frank
preaching of voluntarism; he criticized the author for departing from the Marxist
definition of political economy, emphasizing the necessity
of cognizing objective economic regularities even after the overthrow
of capitalism. Lenin asserted that political economy as
a science of the economic laws of society's development would be preserved even under
communism.
Ignoring the economic regularities of the development of Soviet
society harmed the cause of socialism, hindering the search for new
forms and methods of socialist construction.
N.
I. Bukharin — was a party member from 1906. In 1915, he collaborated
in the journal "Communist," stood on non-Marxist positions on issues
of the state, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the right of nations to self-determination,
and others.
After
the Great
October
Socialist
Revolution, he held a number of responsible posts. He repeatedly spoke out
against the Leninist policy of the party. In 1918, he headed the anti-party
group of "left communists"; during the discussion in the party about trade
unions (1920-1921), he first took a "buffer" position, and then joined Trotsky's group; from 1928, he headed the right opposition
in the party. In 1937, for anti-party activity, he was expelled
from the ranks of the party.
2 Herbert
Spencer — English
philosopher,
psychologist
and
sociologist,
a prominent representative of positivism, one of the founders of the so-called
organic
theory
of society.
Striving
to justify
social
inequality,
Spencer
likened
human
society
to an animal organism and transferred the biological doctrine of the struggle for
existence to the history of mankind.
V. I. Lenin, in
his early
work "What the 'Friends of the People' Are and How They Fight the SocialDemocrats?" and in the book
"Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,"
subjected
Spencer's views to criticism and showed the ideological connection between his views
and the idealistic views of the Narodnik
N.

Mikhailovsky
(see
Complete
Works,
Vol.
1,
p.
133;
Vol.
18, pp. 214–215,
347).
Here Lenin has in mind the striving of subjective sociologists
of the Spencer type to interpret "society in general" instead of a class approach to the examination of phenomena.
3 Achille Loria — reactionary Italian sociologist and economist;
falsifier of Marxism.
4 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 21, p. 172.
5 Hans Gottlieb Leopold Delbrück — German military historian
and political figure.
6 Adolf Heinrich Gotthilf Wagner — German bourgeois economist
and reactionary political figure. As a representative of "Katheder-socialism," Wagner preached bourgeois-liberal reformism,
believed
that the exploitation
of workers by capitalists could be
eliminated through state legislation.
Actively collaborated with Bismarck, was one of the leaders of the Christian-Socialist
party. Wagner's reactionary economic views were
used by the Hitlerites in their "socialist" demagogy and glorification of the fascist state.
Eugen Böhm-Bawerk — bourgeois economist, one of the representatives of the so-called "Austrian school" in political economy. In his
works, directed against the Marxist theory of surplus value, asserted that profit derives from the difference in subjective
valuations of present and future goods, and is not the result of the exploitation
of the working class.
Georg Jellinek — bourgeois German theorist of law and state
science, professor at the University of Basel and later at the University of Heidelberg. Expressed the interests of the German bourgeoisie, which sought, during the period
of its entry
onto the path
of imperialism, to achieve maximum guarantees
of the right
of capitalist
property.
7 Concerning this note, V. I. Lenin speaks in detail
in his general review of Bukharin's book (see this collection, p. 428).
A.
Bogdanov
(A.
A.
Malinovsky) — Social-Democrat, philosopher.
In the field of philosophy, he attempted to create his own system — "empirio
monism," a sharp critique of which V. I. Lenin gave in his work "Materialism and Empirio-criticism."
After the October Socialist
Revolution, he was one of the organizers and leaders of Proletkult.
8 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 25, Part II, p. 32.
9 Heraclitus of Ephesus — ancient Greek materialist philosopher, one
of the founders of dialectics.
10 In the second edition of the Works of K. Marx and F. Engels (Vol. 23,
p. 365) this passage is translated as follows: "The foundation of every developed and commodity-exchange-mediated division of labor is the separation of town
from country. It can be said that the entire economic history of society
is summarized in the movement of this opposition..."
11 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 152.
12 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 23, p. 618. Bukharin cites here Volume I of "Capital" according to the so-called popular
edition by K. Kautsky of 1914. In this passage, Kautsky inserted into the text
of the German edition one additional phrase from the French edition
of 1872–1875.
13 V. I. Lenin has in mind the population censuses ("census") conducted every decade
in the USA, combined with censuses of industrial and agricultural enterprises (see about this in his work "New
Data on the Laws of Development of Capitalism
in Agriculture" — Complete
Works, Vol. 27, p. 133).
14 L. N. Kritsman — party member since 1918. At this time — member
of the Presidium
of Gosplan,
chairman
of the Commission for the Utilization of Material
Resources of the RSFSR under the STO.
15 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 184.
16 V. I. Lenin has in mind the following passage from a letter of F. Engels
to K. Kautsky dated September 12, 1882:
"In my opinion, the colonies proper, that is, the lands occupied
by a European population,
Canada,
the Cape (Cape
Province. — Ed.),
Australia, will all become independent; on the contrary, only the subject
lands, occupied by natives, India, Algeria, the Dutch, Portuguese,
Spanish possessions, the proletariat will have to take over for a time
and lead to independence as quickly as possible. How exactly this process will unfold is difficult to say. India may perhaps make a revolution, indeed it is very probable, and since the liberating proletariat cannot wage colonial wars, one will have to come to terms with this, whereby, of course, the matter will not pass without all sorts of destruction.
But such things are inseparable from all revolutions" (K. Marx and
F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 35, p. 297).
17 V. M. Smirnov — in the party since 1907. After the October
Socialist Revolution — member of the Presidium of the VSNKh; in 1921–
1922 — member of the Presidium of Gosplan.
18 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 12, p. 710.
19 V. K. Trediakovsky — Russian writer of the 18th century, one of
the initiators of Russian classicism.
20 V. I. Lenin has in mind K. Marx's work "The Class Struggles
in France, 1848 to 1850." In Chapter III, dwelling on the position
of the French peasant in the era of Napoleon III, Marx says:
"... the exploitation of the peasants differs from the exploitation of the industrial
proletariat only in form. The exploiter is the same — capital.
Individual
capitalists
exploit
individual
peasants
through
mortgages
and usury;
the capitalist
class
exploits
the peasant class through state taxes" (K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 7, pp. 85–86).
21 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 133.
22 In the second edition of the Works of K. Marx and F. Engels (Vol. 23,
p. 761) this passage is translated as follows: "These methods rest in part on the crudest violence, as, for example,
the colonial system. But all of them
employ the power of the state, i.e., the concentrated and organized social violence, to hasten the process of transformation
of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist and to shorten
its transitional stages. Violence is the midwife of every
old society when it is pregnant with the new. Violence itself is
an economic potency."
23 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 23, p. 761.
24 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 27, p. 415.
26 See K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 447.