AUT: Re: Re: Leninism = fascism?? (Lenin as a supporter of state capitalism)

["Cercle social" <cerclesocial@xxxxxxxxxx>]

About state capitalism before 1924, it's clear in Lenin texts that is
himself, consciently, a strong supporter of state capitalism.

Here's a few quotes of Lenin about State capitalism. You'll note the change
between the May 1917 (first quote) and the June 1917 (second quote), that
show Lenin definition is still unprecise. After, it's clearthat's for Lenin,
state capitalism is already done in Russia and should be consolided, as a
first step to socialism. This question is already a part of the polemic with
left communists.

The last quote is from Bukharin's ABC of communisme, and gives a very
different view of state capitalism, with a description wich is exactly he
situation in Russia at the times is writing... Does he realizes this ? Is it
a part of its defiance against ultra-industrialism of Trotsky and consorts ?
Is it an indirect answer to the masive attack of Lenin against him in 1918
debate on satet capitalism (see below) ?

Nico

-----
On the other hand, opposed to this, mainly Anglo-French group, we have
another group of capitalists, an even more rapacious, even more predatory
one, a group who came to the capitalist banqueting table when all the seats
were occupied, but who introduced into the struggle new methods for
developing capitalist production, improved techniques, and superior
organisation, which turned the old capitalism, the capitalism of the
free-competition age, into the capitalism of giant trusts, syndicates, and
cartels. This group introduced the beginnings of state-controlled capitalist
production, combining the colossal power of capitalism with the colossal
power of the state into a single mechanism and bringing tens of millions of
people within the single organisation of state capitalism.
Lenin, War and Revolution, may 1917.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/14.htm

-------
Only people who had not read the resolution right through, or who cannot
read at all, could, with clear conscience, find any syndicalism in it.

And only pedants, who understand Marxism as Struve and all liberal
bureaucrats "understood" it, can assert that "skipping state capitalism is
utopian" and that "in our country, too, the very type of regulation should
retain its state- capitalist character".

Take the sugar syndicate or the state railways in Russia or the oil barons,
etc. What is that but state capitalism? How can you "skip" what already
exists?
Lenin, "Economic dislocation and the struggle of proletariat against it",
June 1917

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/17.htm
-----
What is state capitalism under Soviet power? To achieve state capitalism at
the present time means putting into effect the accounting and control that
the capitalist classes carried out. We see a sample of state capitalism in
Germany. We know that Germany has proved superior to us. But if you reflect
even slightly on what it would mean if the foundations of such state
capitalism were established in Russia, Soviet Russia, everyone who is not
out of his senses and has not stuffed his head with fragments of book
learning, would have to say that state capitalism would be our salvation.

I said that state capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia,
the transition to full socialism would he easy, would be within our grasp,
because state capitalism is something centralised, calculated, controlled
and socialised, and that is exactly what we lack: we are threatened by the
element of petty-bourgeois slovenliness, which more than anything else has
been developed by the whole history of Russia and her economy, and which
prevents us from taking the very step on which the success of socialism
depends.
[...]
Only the development of state capitalism, only the painstaking establishment
of accounting and control, only the strictest organisation and labour
discipline, will lead us to socialism. Without this there is no socialism.
(Applause.)
[...]
Comrade Bukharin is completely wrong; and I shall make this known in the
press because this question is extremely important. I have a couple of words
to say about the Left Communists' reproaching us on the grounds that a
deviation in the direction of state capitalism is to be observed in our
policy; now Comrade Bukharin wrongly states that under Soviet power state
capitalism is impossible. So he is contradicting himself when he says that
there can be no state capitalism under Soviet power-that is an obvious
absurdity. The large number of enterprises and factories under the control
of the Soviet government and owned by the state, this alone shows the
transition from capitalism to socialism, but Comrade Bukharin ignores this.
Lenin, Session of the All-Russia C.E.C.., april 1918

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm
------
If the words we have quoted provoke a smile, the following discovery made by
the "Left Communists" will provoke nothing short of Homeric laughter.
According to them, under the "Bolshevik deviation to the right" the Soviet
Republic is threatened with "evolution towards state capitalism". They have
really frightened us this time! And with what gusto these "Left Communists"
repeat this threatening revelation in their theses and articles. . . .

It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as
compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in
approximately six months' time state capitalism became established in our
Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a
year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become
invincible in our country.
[...]
But what does the word "transition" mean? Does it not mean, as applied to an
economy, that the present system contains elements, particles, fragments of
both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all
who admit this take the trouble to consider what elements actually
constitute the various socio-economic structures that exist in Russia at the
present time. And this is the crux of the question.
Let us enumerate these elements:
1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;
2) small commodity production (this Includes the majority of those peasants
who sell their grain);
3) private capitalism;
4) state capitalism;
5) socialism.
Russia is so vast and so varied that all these different types of
socio-economic structures are intermingled. This is what constitutes the
specific features of the situation.
[...]
In the first place, economically, state capitalism is immeasurably superior
to our present economic system.
[...]

Lenin, "Left-Wing" Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality", avril
1918. [This text seems to be the best description of what Lenin meens by
State capitalism and its realization in Russia]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm


-----------
Whenever I wrote about the New Economic Policy I always quoted the article
on state capitalism which I wrote in 1918 ["Left-Wing" Childishness and the
Petty-Bourgeois Mentality; part III]. This has more than once aroused doubts
in the minds of certain young comrades but their doubts were mainly on
abstract political points.

It seemed to them that the term "state capitalism" could not be applied to a
system under which the means of production were owned by the working-class,
a working-class that held political power. They did not notice, however,
that I use the term "state capitalism", firstly, to connect historically our
present position with the position adopted in my controversy with the
so-called Left Communists; also, I argued at the time that state capitalism
would be superior to our existing economy. It was important for me to show
the continuity between ordinary state capitalism and the unusual, even very
unusual, state capitalism to which I referred in introducing the reader to
the New Economic Policy. Secondly, the practical purpose was always
important to me. And the practical purpose of our New Economic Policy was to
lease out concessions. In the prevailing circumstances, concessions in our
country would unquestionably have been a pure type of state capitalism. That
is how I argued about state capitalism.
Lenin, "On cooperation", January 1923.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

------
State capitalism signifies an enormous accession of strength to the great
bourgeoisie. Just as under the working-class dictatorship, in the workers'
State, the working class is more powerful in proportion as the soviet
authority, the trade unions, the Communist Party, etc., work more
harmoniously together, so under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie the
capitalist class is strong in proportion to the success with which all the
bourgeois organizations pull together. State capitalism, centralizing all
these organizations, converting them all into the instruments of a single,
united organization, contributes immensely to the power of capital.
Bourgeois dictatorship attains its climax in State capitalism.
[...]
State capitalism uniting and organizing the bourgeoisie, increasing the
power of capitalism, has, of course, greatly weakened the working class.
Under State capitalism the workers became the white slaves of the capitalist
State. They were deprived of the right to strike; they were mobilized and
militarized; everyone who raised his voice against the war was hauled before
the courts and sentenced as a traitor. In many countries the workers were
deprived of all freedom of movement, being forbidden to transfer from one
enterprise to another. ' Free' wage workers were reduced to serfdom; they
were doomed to perish on the battlefields, not on behalf of their own cause
but on behalf of that of their enemies. They were doomed to work themselves
to death, not for their own sake or for that of their comrades or their
children, but for the sake of their oppressors.
N. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky, The ABC of Communism, 1920.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/04.htm#030




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