Lenin's reflections on how to carry out socialist economic construction in backward countries

Abstract: At the 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Russia and the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, Lenin analyzed and reflected on the lessons of the New Economic Policy: the Communist Party of Russia learned how to integrate the new economy with the peasant economy, realized how to manage enterprises "from scratch", and how to develop "state capitalism" in a proletarian state that is different from that of a capitalist country. At the same time, Lenin was soberly aware that although the Soviet Union had overcome a serious internal political crisis, it was still an economically backward country and faced severe challenges. Thus, in the last years of his life, Lenin gave instructions and reflections on how the nascent Soviet power could promote the transformation of state institutions, strengthen cultural work, and build socialism in a strategic and tactical balance. These reflections of Lenin are still of great significance for the development of the world socialist movement.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian government implemented a policy of war communism from 1918 to 1920 under the conditions of internal and external troubles and the imminent collapse of the economy. Subsequently, due to the changing situation, Lenin began in March 1921 to implement a new economic policy for the transition to socialism to replace the policy of war communism. An important part of the NEP is to replace the surplus grain collection system with a grain tax, which has greatly reduced the burden on the peasants. At the same time, the NEP also allows foreign-funded enterprises to manage enterprises that the state is temporarily unable to operate, restore commodity-money relations, and regulate production. This paper analyzes Lenin's thinking on how to carry out socialist economic construction in backward countries based on Lenin's reports and writings on the New Economic Policy from 1922 to 1923 and his classic works "On Cooperatives" and "Rather Less, but Better" left at the end of his life.

I. The Challenges of the New Economic Policy and the New Connotations of State Capitalism

On March 27, 1922, Lenin, on behalf of the Central Committee, delivered a political report at the 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Russia, summing up three points of experience in the implementation of the NEP over the past year. The NEP was a major turning point in Soviet Russia's economic policy, marking the end of wartime communist policy during a period of internal and external troubles.

(1) Three major experiences of the New Economic Policy

The first point is the most gratifying, "we have found the integration of the new economy that we have spent a great deal of effort building with the peasant economy," "there was no such integration before, so now we must first establish such a combination," and economic construction must "integrate our socialist work in large industry and agriculture with the work carried out by every peasant." For Lenin, this was the first fundamental political lesson of the NEP: "To unite with the peasant masses, with the ordinary working peasantry, and to begin to advance together, much slower than we would have hoped, by an unknown amount, but the masses as a whole will really march with us." ”

The second experience was in fact a challenge, and at the same time an inevitable consequence of the NEP, "to test the management level of the Communists by means of a competition between the state-owned enterprises and the capitalist enterprises". Lenin openly stated that the problem was that "we will not operate." However, in joint ventures (both state and private, foreign and Russian) and in the wider sphere of production, it is essential to pass this test, "either we can pass the examination in this competition with private capital, or we will fail altogether". In any case, the lesson to be drawn from here is to "learn from the beginning".

The third point of experience that Lenin emphasized concerned state capitalism. In part, this report of Lenin and other writings of the following months have given new elaborations on this subject. Lenin, in his polemic with Bukharin's dogmatic position, pointed out that the book "writes about state capitalism under capitalism, and not about state capitalism under communism." Even Marx did not think to write a single word on the subject, and he died without leaving any clear words to quote and irrefutable instructions. So now we have to figure it out for ourselves." In fact, "state capitalism, as interpreted by all economic writings, is a form of capitalism under capitalism in which the state power directly controls these or those capitalist enterprises." But the mainland is a proletarian country, which relies on the proletariat, gives the proletariat all kinds of political priorities, and draws the lower strata of the peasantry to its side through the proletariat." In other words, "our society has moved away from the capitalist track, but it has not yet embarked on a new track, but it is no longer the bourgeoisie that leads the country, but the proletariat." We don't want to understand that when we speak of 'state', that country is us, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class...... State capitalism is the kind of capitalism that we should put into a certain scope, but until now we have not been able to bring it into these categories. That's the whole problem. What will happen to this state capitalism in the future is up to us". Lenin pointed out that in the Soviet state, the nature and limits of state capitalism were determined by the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party. But this vanguard must be able to do that, but so far it has lacked that skill. Lenin's idea was to create a dualistic political structure between private capitalism (which had to be allowed, "the capitalist economy and capitalist circulation had to be allowed to function as usual, because this is what the people need, without which it is impossible to live") and state power. However, if those in power are incompetent, state power under a dualistic political structure is in danger of spiraling out of control. It is worth pointing out that for Lenin this power was economic power. It is in the economic sphere that it must prevail over private capital. This victory was achieved not by decree, but by the ability to organize the economy better than private capital (to be proven).

(2) A new type of state capitalism

During the 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Russia, Lenin once again addressed the question of state capitalism, this time in the "Concluding Speech on the Political Report of the Communist Party of Russia" with Preobrazhensky. Preobrazhensky believed that "state capitalism is capitalism, which can only be understood and should be understood as such". Lenin retorted that this was a scholastic assertion that the development of post-revolutionary Russia had taken on new features that neither Marx nor any Marxist could have foreseen. In fact, state capitalism in Soviet Russia "was a very unexpected capitalism that no one could have foreseen, because no one could have foreseen that the proletariat would take power in a country that was among the least developed; It initially tried to organise large-scale production and distribution for the peasants, but was unable to accomplish this task due to cultural constraints and had to resort to capitalism". In short, "our present state capitalism is not the state capitalism that the Germans have discussed. This is capitalism with our permission." Therefore, "state capitalism in the proletarian state should not and dare not go beyond the limits and conditions favourable to the proletariat, which the proletariat has set for it".

According to Lenin, Soviet Russia was able to meet this challenge for a substantial objective reason: the state took control of the land and the most important branches of industry. As he said in his report to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International on November 13, 1922: "The state capitalism which we practice on the mainland is a special kind of state capitalism. It is different from the usual concept of state capitalism. We have all the economic lifeblood in our hands...... The difference between our state capitalism and state capitalism in the literal sense of the word is that our proletarian state controls not only the land, but also all the most important branches of industry. ”

This basically explains Lenin's speech at the Third Congress of the Communist International: "State capitalism in a society in which the power belongs to capital and state capitalism in a proletarian state are two different concepts. In capitalist countries, the so-called state capitalism means that capitalism is recognized by the state and supervised by the state, thus benefiting the bourgeoisie and not the proletariat. In a proletarian state, the practice is the same, but in favour of the working class, in order to confront and fight against the still powerful bourgeoisie. But in his speech at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, Lenin mentioned much more. He clearly pointed out that in the proletarian state, the main means of production belong to the state, which is the specific characteristic of the proletarian state.

Despite Lenin's clarifications and distinctions, the use of the concept of "state capitalism" remained controversial within the party. Lenin praised Trotsky's report "On the New Economic Policy in Russia and the World Revolution" at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, which Lenin recommended for publication in newspapers and pamphlets, considering Trotsky's report "particularly suitable for the propaganda of our New Economic Policy to the foreign public". However, Trotsky himself stated in his report that he could not accept the use of the term "state capitalism" in the context of Soviet Russia.

(3) Successes and failures

Lenin's report at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International was significant. Because Lenin's report not only reflected on state capitalism, but also provided an important opportunity to take stock of the NEP's successes after a year and a half of its implementation.

For Lenin, the first success was the overcoming of the worst internal political crisis in Soviet Russia. Here, Lenin placed special emphasis on freedom of trade, and then mentioned the good results achieved in the imposition of a tax on grain, and there were almost no peasant protests and riots. "Before 1921, peasant revolts were a common phenomenon in Russia, but today they are almost completely gone. The peasants are satisfied with their current situation. We can rest assured that this assertion will be made. These statements of Lenin have basically been accepted by modern historians: "With the implementation of the NEP, some 22 million peasant families have not only realized their dream of owning land (they now own 95% of the land, and each family owns more than 8 hectares of land), but also realized the desire to use this land and organize their own lives as they wish...... In short, the new situation is more favorable to farmers than ever before. "There is a general upsurge in light industry. By contrast, the situation for heavy industry remained dire, in part because the Soviet Union had been cut off from international capital markets. However, Lenin stressed that the state had begun to allocate funds (though still insufficient) for the reconstruction of heavy industry.

But, as always, Lenin's speech was completely devoid of the self-satisfied sense of triumph that characterised the later stages of Soviet history, and there was no shortage of reflection on mistakes, mistakes and their roots: "There is no doubt that we have done and will do many stupid things." There are four main reasons: "First, we are a backward country. Second, the level of education on the mainland is extremely low. Thirdly, we do not have access to foreign aid. None of the civilized nations help us, on the contrary, they are all against us. Fourthly, due to the fault of the functionaries of our state organs. "On closer inspection, each of these questions refers to what Lenin considered to be the preconditions for the realization of socialism: the necessity of the development of the productive forces, the development of mass culture, the Western revolution and the break with the state apparatus left over from the tsarist period. However, Lenin spoke of the last question with apprehension and sarcasm: "It is our misfortune that we have taken over the functionaries of the old state organs. State functionaries often oppose us. It happened that after we seized power in 1917, we were sabotaged by the functionaries of the state organs. We were frightened and begged, 'Come back to us.'" So they all returned, and that was our misfortune. Now we have a large number of staff, but there is a lack of people with considerable real talent to manage them effectively. In fact, it often happens that here, above, where we are in charge of state power, the functionaries of the organs are still barely carrying out their duties, but below they do whatever they want, and often oppose our measures...... There is no doubt that there is no way in this regard in the short term. It will take many years of hard work in this regard to improve the organ, to change its appearance and to absorb new forces. Here, the fourth point is linked to the second, namely, the raising of the cultural level of the masses: "We have run Soviet schools and preparatory schools for workers, and hundreds of thousands of young people are studying, perhaps too quickly, but the work has finally begun, and I think it will bear fruit." ”

2. Lenin's reflections on cooperatives and the transformation of the state and cultural work in the last phase of his life

By the time Lenin gave his speech in German at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, he had been ill for some time. By the end of 1920, Lenin's serious health problems manifested themselves in migraines, insomnia, and difficulty concentrating. In December 1921, Lenin had planned to take a week's sabbatical in Gork, but the actual recuperation period was much longer than expected. The Eleventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party in March 1922 was the last that Lenin was able to attend, although his ability to read and converse with the delegates declined. On May 27, 1922, Lenin suffered his first stroke, temporarily losing his ability to speak and write clearly. Over the next few months, his health improved. On 2 October, Lenin was able to resume his work in full force, and in November he attended the Fourth Congress of the Communist International. But in mid-December, a second stroke left him unable to write again. From then on, under strict medical supervision, Lenin was able to work only a few hours a day, leaving no choice but to dictate his manuscripts himself. During Lenin's lifetime, only a partial part of the manuscripts written by the secretaries in the last months of his life were dictated by Lenin. From the point of view of his economic thought, two of them are particularly important: the first is "On Cooperatives", published in January 1923, and the second is "Rather Less, but Better", which was dictated on March 2, 1923. A few days later, on March 6, 1923, a third stroke deprived Lenin of the ability to communicate with people, and he died on January 21, 1924.

(i) The new role of Soviet power and cooperatives

The article "On Cooperatives" elaborates on the new role of cooperatives in the context of the New Economic Policy, and its importance goes beyond the specific topics it covers. Lenin's starting point was this: there were many illusions in the ideals of the old cooperative workers, which deserved to be criticized by the socialists. But why are these fantasies out of touch with reality? Because they "do not understand the fundamental meaning of the political struggle of the working class to overthrow the rule of the exploiters". In short, the utopianism of the members of the cooperatives is the belief that socialism can be achieved only through the development of the cooperative system. However, the situation is very different when state power is already in the hands of the working class, and all the means of production are already in the hands of the working class. In the NEP, "we made concessions to the peasants as merchants, that is, to the principle of private sale...... Now we have found the degree of appropriateness of the combination of private interests, that is, the interests of private sale, with the inspection and supervision of such interests by the State, and the degree of subordination of private interests to the common interests, which has been a stumbling block to so many socialists in the past." In this new context, cooperatives ("cooperatives that we once despised as buying and selling") became "everything necessary for a fully socialist society", "not yet a socialist society, but everything that is necessary and sufficient for a socialist society". It is important that all residents participate in cooperatives. Lenin made no secret of the fact that to achieve this goal, "a whole historical epoch is needed." In the best-case scenario, it will take us another decade or two to survive this era", and in order to achieve this goal, the state must "give cooperatives all kinds of preferential treatment in terms of economy, finance, and banking".

The question of cooperatives also provided an opportunity for Lenin to reaffirm his views on state capitalism. On the one hand, he distinguishes between "ordinary state capitalism" and "that special, even very special, state capitalism", and on the other hand declares that there is a "inherited link" between the two types of state capitalism. Under three different social systems, cooperatives have different properties and roles: "under private capitalism, cooperative enterprises are different from capitalist enterprises, the former is a collective enterprise, and the latter is a private enterprise"; "Under state capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from state capitalist enterprises, which are first private enterprises and secondly collective enterprises"; "Under the existing system on the mainland, the cooperative enterprise is different from the private capitalist enterprise, which is a collective enterprise, but it is no different from a socialist enterprise, and if the land it occupies and the means of production it uses belong to the state, it belongs to the working class." In this context, Lenin did not equate the system of Soviet Russia with state capitalism. On the basis of the above views, Lenin concluded: "Under the conditions of the continent, cooperatives are often completely consistent with socialism. ”

(2) Transforming state organs and cultural work

With the establishment of Soviet power, it was not just the concept of cooperatives that needed to be transformed. In Lenin's view, "we have to admit that our whole view of socialism has fundamentally changed." This fundamental change is manifested in the fact that the focus that had been and should have been on political struggle, revolution, the seizure of power, and so on, has now shifted to the work of organizing peaceful 'culture'. If it weren't for international relations, if it weren't for the fact that we had to fight for our position on the international scale, I would say that our focus would have shifted to culturalism. If we put international relations aside and focus on domestic economic relations, then the focus of our work now is indeed on culturalism. ”

Lenin noted that "we have before us two epoch-making main tasks". The first task is "to transform the simply useless state apparatus that we have received from the old times as they are; We have not had time or have had time to seriously transform this kind of organ in the struggle of the past five years." The second task is "to carry out cultural work among the peasants." This cultural work among the peasants is, for its economic purpose, cooperative. If we are fully cooperative, we will also have a firm foothold on the socialist base." The article concludes with a reference to the concept of a "cultural revolution" and clarifies its cultural and material premises: "Now, as long as this cultural revolution is realized, our country will become a fully socialist country." But this cultural revolution is extremely difficult for us, both in terms of pure culture (because we are illiterate) and in material terms (because in order to become a literate person, we need to have a fairly developed production of material means of production, and to have a considerable material base). ”

It is noteworthy that the article "On Co-operatives", more specifically, stating that the development of cooperatives equals the development of socialism, was used by Stalin and Bukharin in 1925 to prove that Lenin was once convinced that Russia had all the elements for building socialism and did not need foreign capital.

(3) Achieving the victory of socialism between tactics and strategy

In his last work, "Less but Better", Lenin raised the question in this regard: "Under the conditions of production of the small and extremely small peasants on the mainland, and under the economic destruction of the mainland, can we support the day when the capitalist countries of Western Europe will develop into socialism?" Lenin admitted that the West would not complete this process of development "as we had previously expected." They will complete this process of development not through the balanced "maturation" of socialism in these countries, but through "the exploitation of the first defeated country in the imperialist war, plus the exploitation of the whole of the East". Moreover, the capitalist powers, by instigating a civil war, achieved at least partially the desired result in Russia: "They did not overthrow the new system created by the revolution, but they did not allow it to advance at once in a great stride, in order to confirm the prophecies of the socialists, to enable them to rapidly develop the productive forces and to exploit all the potential for the development of socialism, and to prove intuitively and clearly to all that socialism contains great power, and that humanity has now been transformed into a new A stage of development with a brilliant future. Russia was thrown back to the economic level of the past, and "the productivity of national labor, on the whole, is now much lower than it was before the war."

In light of this, "What to do?" This question was clearly raised as a response and defense. Lenin first urged caution: "What strategy should the mainland adopt in such a situation? It is clear that we should adopt such a strategy: in order to preserve the workers' power on the mainland, in order to maintain the prestige of the workers' power among the small and very small peasants on the mainland and its leadership over them, we must be extremely cautious. ”

In this article, Lenin, as in his previous writings, offers remarkable insights into the world-historical significance of the uprisings of the exploited peoples of Asia: "The outcome of the struggle depends in the final analysis on the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., constitute the overwhelming majority of the world's population. Lenin believed that on this basis (and no longer on the basis of the victorious results of the revolution in the West), the final victory of socialism was "completely and absolutely guaranteed."

But the questions that the Russian Communist Party had to ask were tactical, not strategic: "We are not concerned with this inevitability of the final victory of socialism. We are concerned with the tactics that we, the Russian Communist Party, the Russian Soviet power, should adopt to prevent the counter-revolutionary countries of Western Europe from strangling us. Lenin's answer to this question boiled down to several main points: on the one hand, "we should strive to build a state in which the workers can maintain their leadership over the peasants and maintain their trust in them"; On the other hand, "we should make our national organs more economical. We should eradicate all traces of waste left in our state apparatus in Tsarist Russia and its capitalist bureaucracy." The humility shown by these tactics led Lenin to ask the question: "Will this not become a world of peasant limitations?" His answer was clearly no, "No." As long as we can maintain the leadership of the working class over the peasantry, we will be able to preserve every little savings on the mainland by great economy in order to develop our big machine industry and develop electrification." In short, the guidance given by Lenin in his last work was a gradual and steady path of internal accumulation. This path considers the maximum reduction of the bureaucratic apparatus as one of its basic premises.

III. Conclusion

In the years that followed, the Soviet Union underwent an unprecedented process of internal accumulation and economic modernization, and the most representative works of Western scholars on the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union were written. However, this process is not gradual and includes social trauma. This process is characterized by the expansion of the bureaucratic apparatus and its social and political influence. Of course, the subject of this article does not allow for a more specific analysis here, but there can be no doubt that the expansion of the bureaucratic machine did not correspond to the final instructions of the founders of Soviet Russia.

Nevertheless, Lenin's theoretical contributions in the last year of his leadership of Soviet power were destined to have an impact on the subsequent development of the world socialist movement. These include the following topics: the complexities of socialist construction; It is necessary to be able to redefine the opposition to dogmatism as a theoretical category arising from the understanding of capitalist social and economic realities in the context of the post-revolutionary society; the two interrelated issues of national transformation and cultural emancipation of workers; The uprising of the exploited peoples of Asia, destined to change from the object of history to the subject, was crucial for the victory of socialism on a world scale. These themes are still relevant and relevant today, a century later.

(Author: Vladimilo Giacquet, Vice-President of the Italian Association for the Political Culture of Marx in the 21st Century; Translator: Li Kaixuan, associate researcher at the Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, this article was originally published in World Socialist Studies, No. 1, 2024)