Letter: The Progress of Russia (1939)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (W. T. Fielding, Shrewsbury) asks us to comment on an issue of the News Bulletin of the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee. The issue in question (September 10th, 1938) is devoted largely to information and statistics about the progress of Russian industry and services, given in the speeches of the Commissar for Finance, A. G. Zverev, and others. Much of the speeches consisted of figures of State expenditure. The more interesting statements include the following : —

“He stated further that over 80 per cent. of the output of the industry in the U.S.S.R. is being manufactured in enterprises newly built or completely reconstructed during the last ten years. By 1937, the total output of Socialist industry exceeded the pre-War level eightfold. Tsarist Russia occupied fifth place in the world and fourth place in Europe in industrial output; the Soviet Union now holds first place in Europe and second in the world for industrial output.

The continuous progress of the national economy, together with price reductions on consumers’ goods, had resulted in a further considerable rise in the well-being of the people in the Soviet Union; this is shown, for instance, by the projected rise in the total wages of workers and offices employees from 82,000,000,000 roubles in 1937 to 94,000,000,000 roubles in 1938.”

Regarding educational progress, it was stated that there are now 33,000,000 pupils at elementary and secondary schools, and that the number of pupils in higher educational establishments considerably exceeds the number in the higher schools of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan taken together.

Much information was given about agricultural developments, mechanisation, etc. : —

“According to the 1910 census, the peasant farms of Russia had 7,800,000 primitive wooden ploughs, 2,200,000 improved wooden ploughs, 4,200,000 iron ploughs and 17,700,000 wooden harrows.

Now we have 6,158 machine tractor stations, in vehicles, and 104,323 modern threshing-machines, including the latest types. Some 500,000 tractors are working on our Soviet fields.

We now have in our villages our own Soviet skilled workers. We have in the villages of the U.S.S.R. 734,000 tractor drivers, 165,000 combine operators, 124,000 truck drivers, etc.

The peasant from time immemorial dreamed about the land, but he could receive that land only after the victory of the Socialist Revolution. Prior to the Revolution the greatest part of the land belonged to the landlords, monasteries, kulaks, and other exploiters. . . . About two-thirds of the peasants had less than three dessiatines each.

Of the total peasant farms in Tsarist Russia, 30 per cent. had no horses, 34 per cent. had practically no agricultural implements, 15 per cent. cultivated no land.

Now we have in the Soviet Union 243,000 collective farms, uniting over 18,000,000 peasant households (93 per cent. of the total) and embracing 99 per cent. of the total area cultivated by peasant farms.

Prior to the Revolution the landlords and kulaks had 72 per cent. of all the marketable grain. To-day 97 per cent. of the marketable grain is produced by the State and collective farms.

Tsarist Russia harvested annually, on an average, between 4,000 and 5,000 million poods of grain. Our Socialist agriculture already in 1937 produced 7,000 million poods of grain. The number of cattle is increasing year by year in our country. The well-being and culture of the collective farmers are steadily rising.”

The various figures of output, etc., must be considered in relation to Russia’s huge population, of about 170 million people, and in relation to the quality of the products.

Russia claims to occupy second place in world industrial output, U.S.A. holding first place, but the population of the U.S.A. is about 30 million less than that of Russia and it is not seriously disputed that the average quality of American industrial products is higher than that of Russia’s industries, many of which are relatively in their infancy.

The claim regarding the number of students in higher educational establishments is much more impressive because Russia’s population is about 130 million less than the total population of the countries with which comparison is made.

The final test of production is, of course, the standard of living of the mass of the population, and in spite of the rising level, no responsible authority in Russia, as far as we know, claims that it is high by comparison with, say, the standard of living in England or U.S.A. An example is the production of boots and shoes. The U.S.S.R. Handbook (1936) states that in 1934 Russia produced 69 million pairs of leather boots and shoes, and 65 million pairs of rubber boots and shoes. This means that it takes Russia about 2½ years to produce enough leather boots and shoes to provide one pair per head of the population. Production and sales of boots and shoes in Great Britain are about double the 1934 production in Russia, yet the population is only about one-quarter as large. Russian production will have increased considerably since 1934, though it may be mentioned that the production of leather boots and shoes in that year represented a big decline on 1933.

The statements about the progress of Russian agriculture must also be set against the admitted enormous decline in the number of horses, cattle and sheep that took place after 1929, due to deliberate slaughter by rich peasants who were opposed to the collective farms policy. This loss has not been made good.

Avowed opponents of the Russian Government, such as The Times, various oppositionists living in Russia, some visitors to Russia and former Communists who have become disillusioned, allege that the increased quantity of industrial products has been obtained at the cost of quality, for example, by using lower-grade coal and iron ore, poorer quality textiles, etc. Such allegations must be viewed in the light of the source from which they come, but so must the claims of the Russian dictatorship. Until such time as it is made possible for Russian workers freely to organise and to publish their own criticisms of the acts of the Government, the claims of that Government will be open to the charge that they are coloured to suit the interests of the governing clique. Indeed the authorities themselves have publicly admitted that their statistics have been faked by those responsible for compiling them, this being one of the charges against persons tried for alleged “Trotskyism.” A census of the population has just had to be taken again because the first lot of figures were found to be totally unreliable.

On the other hand, reliable testimony about the quality of some Russian factory products is provided by Mr. J. C. Little, President of the A.E.U., and a delegation of working engineers who visited Russia early in 1937. They say that in works they visited the work “equalled in skill and excellence the engineering products of heavy engineering in this country.” (The Times, November 10th, 1938.) It is probable that visitors are shown the more up-to-date works rather than an average selection, a practice not confined to Russia.

One last point is that no defender of the Russian system has been able to explain away the enormous and growing disparity of income between the mass of workers and the favoured group of specialists, officials, writers, bondholders, etc.

Ed. Comm.

Anarchism in Spain (1976)

Book Review from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval (Freedom Press, £2.00)

In the months following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War about 1,5000 collectives were formed, mainly in the countryside and small towns, under anarchist influence. This book gives details of the organization of a number of them, and presents the anarchist view of the conflict in Spain.

Leval starts with an account of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement in the last quarter of the 19th century. As elsewhere in Europe, there were organizations with large memberships and journals with circulations reaching 50,000. For their decline into irresolute factions Leval blames Marx, Engels and Lafargue, and the importation of “deviations” from France. However, had the movement been founded on understanding instead of the emotionalism he commends (“the ideal dwells deep in the Spanish soul”), its supporters would not have been so easily persuaded by whoever came along.

In his visit to Spain in 1872 Lafargue noted: “The agricultural workers live in the towns and villages like other labourers, with whom they are continually in touch; it is for this reason that so many peasants take part in the insurrectionary movements (Engels-Lafargue Correspondence, Moscow, Vol. 1, p.27). When the Civil War began in July 1936 the harvest awaited gathering-in, and the collectives were initially a movement by municipalities to organize labour and supplies in that emergency.

Anarchists and other radicals keenly fostered this sudden opportunity to apply their ideas and were helped by the fact, as Leval states, that “in general the Catalan industrial bourgeoisie was anti-francoist”. The collectives helped arms production and transport, and organized distribution; the Aragon Federation substituted ration-books for money. Inevitably, they in turn required military protection. Leval and his translator, Vernon Richards, are both self-conscious about this. Leval speaks of “libertarian troops” and says: “It is true that the presence of these forces . . . favoured indirectly those constructive achievements by preventing active resistance by the supporters of the bourgeois republic and of fascism.” They were at war, weren’t they?

The “bourgeois republic” contained four anarchist Ministers. Leval criticizes the “socialist and republican leaders” for not introducing “daring reforms” before the Civil War; their failure, he says, created support for Franco. That was the background to the rise of other European dictatorships — the inability of reformist labour governments to make parliamentary democracy appear worthwhile.

The collectives do provide an example, within limits and special circumstances, of communal organization and to answer to those who say workers by themselves could not manage anything. They also provide a lesson for anarchists. Leval speaks more than once of necessary “workshop disciplines” and tells how “workers wishing to advance to a higher category . . . were required to undergo an examination in theory and practice before the central council of the Syndicate and workshop delegates”. Yet anarchists still wax indignant over Engels' “authority letter”, written apropos Spain in 1871:

Whether it be the will of a majority of voters, of a leading committee, or of one man, it is still a will imposed on the dissentients; but without that single will, no co-operation is possible. Go and run one of the big Barcelona factories without direction, that is, without authority!

B.B.

Light on Soviet Russia. (1930)

Book Review from the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Economic Trends in Soviet Russia.” By A. Yugoff. (George Allen & Unwin.)

The above volume is intended as a broad general outline of affairs in Russia. It affords considerable support to the position maintained by the Socialist Party since the Bolshevik upheaval.

“Soviet Russia,” says the author, in his introduction 

“is a land of economic contrasts and oppositions. In the towns there are huge factories and workshops; in the countryside, a natural economy is still almost exclusively dominant. Huge trusts and syndicates, embracing whole branches of industry and commerce, confront independent home workers and itinerant traders. Theoretically, and as a matter of principle, all the economic life of the country is under State control; whilst in practice currency crises, crises of production, gluts, crises of demand, press hard on one another’s heels, and are renewed ever and again by the spontaneous play of economic forces and by the lack of due proportion between the various branches of economic life.

Furthermore, in latter-day Russia we can see a peculiarly vivid picture of the results of artificially cultivated Socialist economic forms in a country where neither the economic nor the social conditions are ripe for anything of the kind; we can note what a caricature of true Socialism such an enforced ‘Socialism’ must be.

Two conflicting tendencies arc at work in Soviet Russia to-day. One of them has originated out of the new economic and social situation created by the revolution, the overthrow of Tsarism, and the freshly-created possibilities for a rapid unfolding of productive forces alike in industry and agriculture. The other, which Communist policy has artificially introduced into the realm of economic reality acts as a brake upon economic progress, rivets Utopian fetters upon these same productive forces, and gives rise to a pendulum swing from ‘right’ to ‘left,’ and then back to ‘right’ again.”

Yugoff holds that not only is Russia unripe for Socialism, but that the elaborate bureaucratic structure of nationalisation which the Communist rulers have built up, is a barrier to the capitalist development, which is an essential preliminary to the establishment of Socialism. Nationalisation, he points out, is not Socialism; it has been adopted by the most reactionary governments on occasions when it has suited their interests, and does not in itself necessarily constitute economic progress. In this, Yugoff merely repeats what Engels says in his little work, “Socialism ; Utopian and Scientific” (see footnote and text on pp. 83-4-5)); but he shows also the practical bearing of this fact on the Russian situation.

Nationalisation was adopted by the Bolsheviks as a result of the chaos ensuing from the economic collapse in 1916-17, their seizure of power and the civil war. It was an emergency measure and was carried a good deal further than Lenin had suggested as being desirable in his writings just prior to the events of October-November, 1917. (See “Preparing for Revolt.”) Having adopted it as an immediate policy, however, the Bolsheviks proceeded to make the most extravagant claims for it. The collapse of the currency was hailed as the prelude to the final disappearance of money ; the system of compulsory rationing became the first step towards a planned economy. Small wonder then that the partial reversion to normal capitalism, represented by the N.E,P., should have been regretted by a considerable section of the ruling party as a retreat. Yugoff, however, maintains that the logical implications of the N.E.P. have never been carried out, and the reason is not far to seek.

“During the process of nationalisation thousands upon thousands of private property owners were replaced by new hosts of ‘red’ bureaucrats, trust managers and commissaries, who gobbled up all the savings which might otherwise have been made by the expropriation of the expropriators” (p. 99).

The Bolsheviks nationalised thousands of small enterprises whose owners were also their managers; but the new rulers lacked the technical resources necessary to the reconstruction of these enterprises upon a larger and more economical scale. Hence the surplus value extracted from the workers’ labour did not even provide fresh capital for the expansion of industry. It was swallowed up in “administrative expenses.” The motive of private gain remained the only one capable of acting as a stimulus to the accumulation of capital.

The Bolsheviks, in introducing the New Economic Policy, of course, recognised this fact; but having entrenched themselves in the realm of State industry, their parasitic, bureaucratic supporters are loath to surrender to outsiders the privileges which they enjoy. So far from having been smashed, the State in Russia has expanded into an excrescence which stands in the way of further economic development.

Hence the struggle between those who claim to be intent upon “building up Socialism” and the new class of private capitalists who are arising partly in spite of the Bolsheviks’ efforts, but partly also as a result of them.

In order to provide the capital for the expansion of State industry, the old Tsarist expedient of taxing the peasantry is adopted; but carried beyond a certain point, this defeats its own object by checking agricultural accumulation and the growth of food supplies and raw materials. The experiment of State farms, as Yugoff shows, involves inroads upon peasant cultivation which reduce numbers of peasants to beggary and increase the drift to the towns. The increase in the unemployed is greater than the industries of the State can absorb, and the way is thus opened up for private exploiters to embark upon industrial enterprise. Thus, sooner or later, Yugoff argues, the heavy hand of the State upon trade and industry will be relaxed. In the interests of an expanding capitalism, the State monopoly of foreign commerce will be broken down ; but in so far as these measures involve the abolition of the economic basis of the dictatorship, a serious political change is the essential preliminary. Yugoff puts the question : What form is this likely to take?

He sees three possible alternatives. 

“A democratic State authority might be set up; or part of the Communist Party might be transformed into a party of the possessing classes (Thermidor); or, finally, there might be a Bonapartist, or reactionary coup-d’etat. No one can foresee which course development will take. This much, however, is certain, that the party which now rules in the U.S.S.R. is no longer a party of the working class; is not a party which can carry out a policy of socialisation; is not even a party competent to promote in any consistent or enduring fashion the interests of the working class” (pp. 335-6).

Not that Yugoff blames the Communists for their failure to work a miracle. Indeed, his work is, in its way, a masterpiece of scientific method. He sees in the “dictators” the creatures rather than the creators of the present transitional period in Russia from feudalism to capitalism. Even the very illusions, which he credits them with sharing with their followers in the early days of the Revolution, have in Yugoff’s eyes an historical function. Intoxicated with the idea of an impending world Socialist revolution, the workers of Russia accomplished a task which the Russian capitalists were incapable of doing for themselves. They swept the last vestiges of feudalism from Russian society. They assisted the peasants to lay hands upon the land and free themselves “from the burden of high rents, land taxes, and interest on mortgages,” which Yugoff describes as the main historical task of the revolution.

No sooner, however, had the peasants overthrown the old ruling class in the country than a new one began to appear in the towns. This new class grows at the expense both of the peasants and the urban working-class, converting by degrees the former into the latter. Thus, in spite of certain differences, economic history in Russia repeats that of Western Europe.

The temptation to quote Yugoff’s three final chapters at some length is great, but the following brief extract must suffice:

“Behind the Socialist facade the features of a society which, though new, though born out of the revolution, is fundamentally capitalist, are disclosing themselves more plainly day by day; we must do our utmost to dispel the illusion that this revolution is a Socialist one, so that the working class (hitherto deceived) may be enabled to hold at least the second line of its revolutionary position, and may escape being crushed politically and morally as soon as the nature of the masquerade becomes plain to all the world.” (pp. 320-1).

For Yugoff sees quite plainly that the adversaries of Socialism can make good use of the Communist Party’s failure.

“They declare that the failure of nationalisation in Russia is tantamount to the failure of Socialism. . . . They consider that the Russian experiment provides them with a powerful weapon of defence against the struggle of the working class for Socialism” (p. 95).

To thoroughly appreciate Yugoff’s book, however, it is necessary to compare it with others that profess to cover similar ground. Mr. Maurice Dobb’s volume, “Russian Economic Development,” for instance, while more fully detailed, is vitiated by economic inaccuracies, chief of which is the fallacy that Russian development is Socialist. Mr. Farbman’s writings, while illuminating in many particulars, make no attempt to offer an explanation for the effects which he describes. They cannot therefore be classed as scientific. Anatole Baikaloff’s little book, “In the Land of Communist Dictatorship,” remains equally superficial, in spite of the author’s industrious accumulation of data exploding the stories of the Workers’ Paradise.

Yugoff’s book will be far from welcome to so-called reformers, Communist and Labour Party alike, to whom nationalisation is the panacea for working class ills. Miss Ellen Wilkinson, for instance, in the July “Plebs,” finds it somewhat “disturbing.” More important, however, than this, it spikes the guns of reactionaries, Tory and Liberal, who, ever since the introduction of the New Economic Policy, have sedulously paraded the legend that Socialism has failed in Russia. By laying bare the economic forces actually at work the author has stripped the Russian Revolution of its romance and enabled us the better to understand its reality.

Both publishers and translators (Eden and Cedar Paul) are to be congratulated on the results of their efforts,

Eric Boden

A Soviet Apologia. (1929)

Book Review from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

“An Outline of Political Economy.” I. Lapidus and K. Ostrovityanov. (Martin Lawrence, 12/6. 546 pages.)

The above volume reminds one very forcibly of the curate’s egg. Roughly, half of it is occupied with a summary review of Marx’s conclusions concerning Capitalist society generally, and this is done, on the whole, simply, accurately and clearly. The main aim of the book, however, is obviously not the popularisation of Marxism, but the vindication of the claim of the Bolshevik rulers of Russia to be Marxists.

In their introduction the authors state that, “Together with the laws governing the productive relations of Capitalist economy, we shall also study the laws of Soviet economy.”

“The peculiar feature of Soviet economy lies in the fact that it is in transition from Capitalism to Socialism.” (p. 4.) The attempt to prove this claim takes the form of chapters interspersed among those presenting the Marxian analysis.

For example, after three chapters dealing with value and surplus value, Marx does a rapid fade-out and the limelight is focussed on Lenin, who in 1918 specified the various economic elements in Russia as follows :—

1. Patriarchal, i.e., largely self-sufficing, peasant economy.
2. Petty commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell grain).
3. Capitalist production.
4. Elements of State Capitalism.
5. Elements of Socialism, (p. 92.)

By State Capitalism Lenin appears to have meant undertakings which were bound to the State by some agreement (such as concessions, leases, trading commissions, etc.) as distinct from undertakings actually run by the State itself.

These latter he classed as “Socialist,” and gave as his reasons that “the State is the workers, the leading section of the workers, the advance guard—it is ourselves.” (p. 93.)

Somewhat reminiscent of the French kings, “The State? that is me !” This statement of Lenin’s is the only evidence which the authors offer throughout their volume to support the claim that the workers of Russia are supplanting Capitalism by Socialism. This claim, however, has been repeatedly exploded in these columns, most recently in the issues of August and September, 1929.

Once grant their claim and the rest is easy. Surplus-value becomes surplus-product, since the former phrase implies exploitation which cannot be admitted to exist in State industry ! Wage-slavery likewise is “non-existent” in the State workshops, although the workers therein are paid wages ! Curiously enough these workers “also strive first and foremost to obtain as high a wage as possible.” They fail to recognise “the radical difference” between Soviet production and the usual forms of Capitalism. “This explains the existence o] standards of output and piece-work payment in Soviet State industry.” (p. 132.) (Italics the authors’.)

Apparently the workers in Russia have taken possession of the industries there without knowing it.

In spite of their “Marxism,” the authors are not above trotting out the stale Capitalist argument about the necessity for the workers “producing more.” Thus (on p. 127) we are told that :—

“Granted an unchanging productivity of labour, the higher the wage the greater will be the expenditure for each commodity turned out by the worker, and the dearer will be the cost of that commodity; and thus the worker himself will have to pay more when purchasing it (thus neutralising the rise in wages).”

The I.L.P. could not beat this !

The authors make no attempt to deny “the facts that the Soviet workers live in greater poverty and on no higher a standard than the workers of the foremost Capitalist countries, and the workers in the State enterprises sometimes live under worse conditions than the workers in private enterprises.” (p. 100.)

They do claim, however, that as the workers’ productivity rises so does their share of the produce. But their own figures hardly bear out the claim. According to the table shown on page 135 wages rose only 60 per cent. in the two years, 1923-1925 while productivity rose nearly 90 per cent. !

On page 210 we have another glaring example of the authors’ fondness for verbal conjuring tricks.

“That part of the surplus product created by the workers in State industry which is appropriated by the merchant capitalist is transformed into surplus-value. Thus exploitation can penetrate partially into Soviet State industry through the channel of private trade.”

Thus if the State sells its goods through a merchant the workers are exploited, but not otherwise ! Much play is made with the fact that the State builds schools, organises defence, supervises health, etc., oblivious of the fact that Tory, Liberal and Labour Governments do the same thing here.

On the subject of State finance very little is said, but the following paragraph (p. 264) illustrates which class really owns the State industries :—

“As to the rate of interest, it is quite high in the U.S.S.R. The rate of interest is higher still on the clandestine exchange. The high rate of interest in the U.S.S.R. is due to the insufficiency of capital, in which there is such a stringency owing to the very rapid growth of Socialist (!) construction.”

In other words, Russia has a special brand of ultra-revolutionary “Socialism” which is financed by the Capitalist class and is, of course, State Capitalism.

Figures are given showing the rapid recovery of State industry to the low pre-war level which had been lost.

In spite of the overwhelming importance of agriculture we are told (p. 504) that “The productive potentialities of individual peasant agriculture have not yet been exhausted.” Rykov declared (“The Present Situation,” 1928) that the State organisation of peasant co-operatives “is now the most important task of the party.” Yet (p. 529) we learn, “the collective and Government farms put together now produce a total of a little over 2 per cent. of farm products and supply 7 per cent. of the farm products on the market. Their relative strength, as compared with the millions of small farmers, is negligible.”

The transition is evidently not from Capitalism to Socialism, but to the former from semi-feudal forms of land tenure. The much-vaunted State planning schemes are but the emergency measures thrust upon the urban population by agrarian upheaval and the industrial collapse brought about by the strain of modern warfare upon a backward nation.

The transition from Capitalism to Socialism can only commence when and where the productive forces have outstripped capitalist ownership. They have not done that yet in Russia.

In conclusion, it may be noted that the “Sunday Worker” review (October 13th) passes over entirely the points in the above volume of interest to the Socialist worker.

Its chief complaint is that the authors ignore the principal bugbear of the British petty-bourgeois—”the money monopoly” —and uncritical praise is meted out to its “dialectical method.” When the Bolsheviks try to explain away what is obvious (namely, the exploitation of the workers in Russia) they make much play with the “dialectics,” but like Hegel they stand it on its head. They appear to imagine that things can be changed by changing their names. For the last twenty or thirty years we have fought a similar tendency in this country, namely, Fabianism, according to which the Post Office and the tramways are “ours” ! Now the Communists are carrying on the same tradition of confusion under new names.

Eric Boden

The Dictatorship in Russia. (1929)

Book Review from the September 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” By V. Molotov. Published by Modern Books, Ltd. 80 pp. Price : One Shilling.

This book deals very frankly with the internal problems of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has consistently maintained that the upheaval in Russia accomplished the overthrow of the absolute monarchy, and was a revolution only in the sense that the power of the land­ owners was shattered, and the obstacles to development along Capitalist lines were swept away. In the early days of the Bol­shevist regime, the Communist Parties in this and other countries claimed that Russia was the first country to achieve Socialism. Whilst due credit was given the Bolshevists for their intentions and actual achievements, we exposed this harmful contention—even at the risk of antagonising would-be suppor­ters who failed to grasp the real signifi­cance of Russian events. Our standpoint has been amply justified by the evidence during the last ten years or so, and the Communist Parties do not as often make this untenable assertion, realising, perhaps, that conditions in Russia could not be cited as an advertisement for Socialism. There is, however, one erroneous and harmful assertion that is still being spread about, namely, that in Russia the working class is supreme, or, in their own vague phraseo­logy, that there is a “Dictatorship of the Working-class.”

This assertion is made repeatedly in Molotov’s book, but, unfortunately for the author, he has himself supplied in this work the evidence which proves the absurdity of his claim.

In the first chapter (p. 13) he states :—

“Our Party cannot be regarded as separate from the mechanism and the whole system of the proletarian dictatorship. The Party is one of the most important organs of that dictatorship, it embodies within itself the leading role of the working-class in the proletarian revolution.“

From this quotation the impression is gained that in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union there is a preponderance of working-class members, but this is not, and never has been, the case.

The following quotation is from page 16:—

“The Party decided at its Thirteenth Congress that more than half of its members must be workers from the bench; that was more than four years ago. That task could not be realised within a year, and it has not been realised as yet. A year ago the Central Committee again resolved to take up this task, which was to be realised in the course of two years. The year which has elapsed since that decision of the Central Committee has shown that if we proceed at the present rate of recruiting workers into the Party, that task will not be accomplished by the end of the two years. “

So it is evident that in spite of periodical “recruiting drives,” working-class mem­bers are still in a minority in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When we take into consideration a statement (p. 22) that the proportion of industrial workers in the Party has remained practically stationary since the beginning of 1925, the prospects of achieving their limited objective in the course of the next few years is extremely doubtful.

Is the Russian Working-Class Communist?

On page 23 we are told that, according to the Central Statistical Department, there were 7,148,000 industrial workers (including factory and transport workers, agricultural labourers, builders, and handicraft workers) in the U. S. S. R. in 1927-1928. The proportion of these in the Party is 7.7 per cent. For factory workers only, numbering 2,900,000, the proportion is 11.9 per cent. Amongst transport workers Communists constitute 14 per cent.; amongst building workers and workers in small and handicraft industries there are 5 per cent. Communists; the oil-workers and workers in the printing industry have the highest percentage of Communists (18.5 per cent.); the leather, metal, chemical, and food workers have a percentage of Communists slightly below this figure, whilst agricultural workers lag behind with only 1 per cent. It is true, of course, that figures can be juggled with, but the magician is not born who could prove from these figures that the phrase “Communist Russia” is other than a figment of pious imaginations. The only deduction to be drawn is that 7.7 per cent. of an “insignificant” fraction of the population of the U.S.S.R. (i.e., the industrial workers) are “Communists,” and only a very tiny percentage of the “overwhelming mass” (i.e., the peasants, etc.) is “Communist,” and that this 7.7 per cent. of all industrial workers constitutes only a minority (42 per cent.) in a party which claims to be the party of the working-class.

Even so, it may be urged, does not the huge aggregate of 1½ million members of the C.P. prove that the population of Russia is far more advanced, politically, than that of any other country ?“Where else in the whole world can be found such a huge body of Marxists? But Molotov himself informs us that membership need not necessarily imply the possession of Socialist knowledge or even a Socialist outlook.

Is the level of Russian Communists high?

It may quite fairly be inferred that Molo­tov’s work would not be needed if all was well with the Party of the U.S.S.R. On page 14 he states :—

“But the question of the development of the Party was always bound up primarily with the question of bringing the most progressive elements of the working-class into its ranks.

Parallel with this the Party has, in the course of the last ten or eleven years, keenly considered the question of cleansing its ranks of alien elements, of people who joined it under false colours, and of degenerates.

Intensive recruiting of working men and women to the Party was inevitably bound up with the purging of the Party organisations of socially and ideologically alien elements.“

Again on page 25 :—

“Many examples could be given to show that non-party workers complain of the low cultural and political level of Communists. These are facts.“

On page 28 he writes :—

“The figures on the October recruitment show that 45 per cent. or almost half of the new workers accepted to the Party have an industrial standing of less than 5 years.“

And on page 34 :—

“It must be realised that we cannot postpone any further the problem of a cardinal improvement, the question of cleansing and renovation of our rural ranks. If we are not simply talking, but are seriously undertaking to advance and gradually to transform agriculture, the present make-up of our rural organisations can by no means be satisfactory to us. We find in our rural organisations a considerable percentage of elements incapable of realising these tasks, elements who even work directly against their realisation. (Our italics.)

On page 53 there is a letter of resignation from a member of the Party. The following is an extract therefrom :—-

“The workers say it is high time to have a general cleansing of the Party, and the fact that many are labelled as workers need not stop us, for under this label plenty of filth has crept into the Party. Let there be but half of the members left, but the Party should be of flint and not of jelly. … If you throw all self-seekers out of the Party, for which the help of the broad non-party masses is necessary, resignations will become less frequent. “

And finally on page 59 :—

“On the other hand, an out-and-out opportunist Right deviation from the Leninist line has lately raised its head in the Party …. The Right deviation has entered the scene at a moment when our economic situation has be­ come acute. But the Right deviation is not exclusively a result of the economic situation of this year. The roots of the Right Wing tendency are no doubt deeper than that.

The Right deviation cannot be regarded as a temporary and rapidly passing phenomenon“. (Our italics.)

The above quotations are ample proof that the Socialist movement need not look exclusively to Russia for guidance in the tasks which lie before it.

The Rural Party Organisations. 

In the early days of the Bolshevist regime, and right up to the present time, we have pointed out that the existence of a population which is 80 per cent. peasant in character, would prove not only a stumbling block, but an insuperable obstacle to the attainment of Socialism in Russia. The Bolshe­vists have throughout attempted to apply Lenin’s formula :—

“The supreme principle of the dictatorship is to preserve the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry, so that the former may retain its leading position in the government.”

In practice, however, the application of this formula has tended to strengthen the position of the peasantry, particularly the rich peasants, whose influence acts as a brake on all attempts even at land “nation­alisation.” Molotov gives figures of the Central Statistical Department which show that the rich farmers constitute a far higher relative percentage of Rural Party members than any other category, and, further, that the relative strength of workers in the Rural Party organisations is only 25 per cent., agricultural labourers working for wages being about 8 per cent. In view of these facts it is not surprising to find that Government schemes for the reconstruction of agriculture are rendered abortive. Regarding the Government farms, about which we have heard such rosy accounts, Molotov states :—

“Nine-tenths of the government farms have no Communist nuclei. Only 7,280 workers on government farms, out of a total of 140,000 be­ longing to the agricultural union, e.g., 5 per cent., are Communists. Such is the state of affairs in the government farms.“ (P. 32.)

The position in relation to the collective farms is much the same :—

“But here is a remarkable thing about the question of the role of the Party organisation in collective farming. Only a little over 4 per cent. of all rural Communists belong to collective farms. Of the 311,000 rural Communists only a little over 13,000 belong to collective farms. The fact that only 4 per cent. of the Communist farmers belong to collective farms is very ominous.“

With regard to the success in organising collective farms, an illustration is afforded by the following passage :—

“The non-Party peasants gladly came in, but the rich Party member, Ivan Gussev, categorically refused to join us for fear that our farm should fall to pieces and that he would not get his land back.

By this refusal he undermined the organisa­tion. Ivan Beliakov agitates against the collective farm, telling the peasants that the Party is wrong in urging them to organise collective farms. We have quite a few such Party members. The well-to-do Communists who possess their own farms not only do not agitate in favour of collectivism, but are definitely against it.“ (P.33.)

The suggested remedy of cleansing the ranks of alien elements, however, will not help to put Socialist ideas into the heads of the “overwhelming mass,” who have no desire to assist in schemes of “Socialist reconstruction” against their immediate interests. What the peasants want is private ownership.

So much for “the alliance with the peasantry” and the “leadership of the working-class” ! But other sores are exposed in the book.

The Rise of Bureaucracy.

Communists are apt to talk largely about “smashing the State machinery” and “building our own State,” but when the Bolshevists came into power they found that the working-class was inexperienced, and that very few among them were capable of organising the industries of the country, owing to lack of technical knowledge and training. The Bolshevists were compelled therefore to rely upon technical experts and men skilled in administrative functions, who were, in many instances, hostile to them and friendly to the old regime. Although much has been done since then to train members of the working-class for these vital positions, it is nevertheless admitted that “the old officialdom of the apparatus leaves its imprint on some of the Communists working there” (p. 37). In the Communist Party of the Soviet Union there are no less than 35 per cent. of Government office wor­kers. Obviously, as in the case of the rich farmers, a considerable proportion of these have joined the Party from motives other than the advancement of Socialism. On page 41 Molotov says plaintively,

“Is not perhaps the reason why we had so many excesses in applying Article 107 (which deals with the concealment of grain by peasants) and general distortion in the work of our local institutions, that rich peasant and White Guard elements get into some of the organs of our Government machinery and deliberately distort the policy of the Soviet Government, and mock the instructions of the superior government and Party institutions without ever being punished for it?”

So it will be seen that Russia is by no means immune from the diseases common to all capitalist countries.

The Trade Unions.

The existence of Trade Unions, which we are told embrace nine-tenths of the workers, is an indication that the class-struggle is just as much a reality in Russia as else­ where. As might be expected, these institutions suffer in full measure from the defects which characterise them in all countries. Molotov complains that the “leaders” have lost contact with the masses and are mainly reactionary in outlook, whilst ” there is much to be desired in the development of trade-union democracy” (page 49).

It is shown that Managers of Trade Unions are capable of evicting tenants as brutally as any British slum house-owners. Some shocking examples of Jew-baiting in large factories reveal an appalling back­wardness amongst the workers in the grasp of elementary Trade Union principles.

There certainly appears to be much scope for Socialist propaganda amongst the Russian Trade Unionists.

With regard to the Co-operatives, they have the same “petit-bourgeois” outlook as their counterparts in other countries. There is a casual allusion to the Red Army, showing that in it there are about 100,000 Communists (page 20). As the Red Army is about 800,000 strong, this is 12½ per cent.

The remedy advanced by the author for all the diseases encountered by the Bolshe­vists within their Party is to carry on a struggle against each of them. In no instance is an attempt made to find and destroy the cause of the disease.

There is one way by which the Bolshevists could mitigate the effects of these diseases and others which will of necessity arise from the economic conditions, and that is to make the utmost use of their opportunities to spread Socialist ideas broadcast amongst the workers in Russia. No other course can replace this. “Make Socialists ” is a sounder, if a less soundful, slogan than any yet coined in Russia.

The book could be improved by the dele­tion of much repetition of the same argu­ments and phrases. Otherwise it is force­ fully written and contains useful data.

W. J.

Editorial: Private Ownership in Russian Agriculture (1949)

Editorial from the July 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Communists attack the Labour government’s nationalisation policy on two grounds, that the compensation to former owners is too generous and that the government instead of going in for wholesale nationalisation is leaving most of industry and agriculture to private capitalism. It is therefore interesting to observe to what a large extent agriculture in Russia is in the hands of individual farmers. Farming in Russia is organised in three main groups, the State farms; the farms worked by individual peasant-owners relying on the labour of themselves and their families without hired help; and the collective farms. Some of the latter are on the basis that the whole of the land, buildings, implements and stock are owned by the organisation, and others are merely voluntary associations of individual farmers, each of whom retains ownership of his entire holding; but the great majority of the collective farms are a mixture, part of the farm is owned and worked collectively and part is owned and worked individually by the farmers. On these standard type collective farms the farmers receive produce and monetary income partly from the collective farm and partly from their private holdings. They work part of their time on the collective farm and the rest of the time for themselves. Their income from their private holding is their own but they also receive a share in the collective farm income varying in amount according to the number of labour-days they have worked. The collective farm has to give a certain part of its products to the State, and pay taxes, before the balance is divided up. According to H. A. Freund (“Russia from A to Z,” 1945, p.316), from whom the above details are taken, there is a great difference between the amount of produce and money received by members of the richest collective farms and the amount received on the poorer farms.

As regards the land and stock owned individually by the farmers Freund states that it varies in amount and kind according to the district and the type of farming. The farmer has his own house, and an allotment which ranges up to 2½ acres. In some districts he may also own privately one cow, two calves, one sow with sucklings, up to 10 sheep and goats, 20 beehives and an unlimited number of fowls and rabbits. In more developed stock-breeding districts he may have two or three cows, also calves, two or three sows, up to 25 sheep, also fowls, rabbits and beehives. In districts where stock-breeding is the all-embracing branch of industry he may have 8 to 10 cows, up to 150 sheep or goats, up to 10 horses and 8 camels, with unlimited poultry.

Some further information has been given by Mr. Andrew Rothstein, who is Lecturer on Soviet Institutions at the School of Slavonic Studies and a defender of the Russian system. Recently he has written to the Times correcting correspondents who have inaccurately quoted figures relating to Russian agriculture. In a letter on 19th May, 1949, he made the point that at April, 1949, the 30 million head of cattle that are "the personal property of collective farmers, workmen, employees, and individual peasants" considerably exceed the herds of cattle on the collective part of the collective farms. In addition to the 30 million cattle these private holdings include 26½ million sheep and goats and over 7 million pigs, but these private holdings of sheep, goats and pigs appear to be considerably less than the collective holdings. The overall picture would therefore appear to be that rather more than half of the total stock is owned by the State farms and the collective part of the collective farms, and rather less than half is owned privately.

As a footnote to the above we learn from the Moscow correspondent of Reuters (Manchester Guardian, 27/5/49) that the authorities have been criticising the collective farms because they have been sending lean cattle as the compulsory quota they have to deliver to the State. As the quota requires a certain weight the farmers have been making up the weight in the form of a large number of lean cattle instead of a smaller number of fat cattle, and thus depleting the collective herds.

The collective farm system bears an obvious resemblance to the serfdom that existed in Europe before the rise of capitalism and experience of that system suggests that the individual farmers are likely to be more interested in their private farms than in the collective part.