Letter: Bolshevism and Socialism (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received a letter from a correspondent, Mr. F. Parker (Islington) about the social system in Russia. He asks in what way the aim of the Socialist Party differs from the Bolshevist system now functioning in Russia, and says that in Russia millionaires have been eliminated, there is no employing class, and, in short, “Russia has carried out Lenin’s programme by Marx and Engels.” He says that all are benefiting in “good wages,” and justifies the Bolshevist system of paying higher wages to some than to others.

Our reply is that the various features referred to do not constitute Socialism. In Russia goods are not produced solely for use (as they will be under Socialism), but are produced for sale, at a profit. While it is true that there is not an obvious employing class, the wages system is the prevailing system. When our correspondent claims that Bolshevism is the application by Lenin of Marxism, he forgets that Marx did not aim at improving wages but at abolishing the wages system. He wrote, for example:

“Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,’ they (the workers) ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wages system.’ ”

Moreover, Lenin, before the Bolshevik seizure of power, and in its early days, far from justifying inequality of pay as between one grade of workers and another, admitted that it was only a regrettable and retrogade step forced on the Bolsheviks by necessity.

Editorial Committee.