Charles
Bettelheim
Class
Struggles
in the
USSR
Second Period: 1923-1930
[Section 6 -- Sec. 2
of Part 4]
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Charles Bettelheim Class
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© 1978 by Monthly Review Press
Translated by Brian Pearce
Originally published as
Les Luttes de classes en URSS
© 1977 by Maspero/Seuil, Paris, France
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Contents | |||
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2. |
The fight for rapid industrialization and |
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page 7
Key to abbreviations, initials, and Russian
words used in the text
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Artel |
A particular form of producers' cooperative |
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Cadet party |
The Constitutional Democratic Party |
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CLD |
See STO |
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Cheka |
Extraordinary Commission (political police) |
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Glavk |
One of the chief directorates in the Supreme Council of the National Economy or in a people's commissariat |
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Gosplan |
State Planning Commission |
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GPU |
State Political Administration (political police) |
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Kulak |
A rich peasant, often involved in capitalist activities of one kind or another, such as hiring out agricultural machinery, trade, moneylending, etc. |
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Mir |
The village community |
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Narkomtrud |
People's Commissariat of Labor |
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NEP |
New Economic Policy |
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NKhSSSRv |
National Economy of the USSR in (a certain year or period) |
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NKVD |
People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs |
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OGPU |
Unified State Political Administration (political police) |
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Orgburo |
Organization Bureau of the Bolshevik Party |
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Politburo |
Political Bureau of the Bolshevik Party |
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Rabfak |
Workers' Faculty |
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Rabkrin |
See RKI |
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RCP(B) |
Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik): official |
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name of the Bolshevik Party, adopted by the Seventh Party Congress in March 1918 |
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RKI |
Workers' and Peasants' Inspection |
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RSDLP |
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party |
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RSDLP(B) |
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolshevik) |
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RSFSR |
Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic |
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Skhod |
General assembly of a village |
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Sovkhoz |
State farm |
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Sovnarkhoz |
Regional Economic Council |
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Sovnarkom |
Council of People's Commissars |
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SR |
Socialist Revolutionary |
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STO |
Council of Labor and Defense |
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Uchraspred |
Department in the Bolshevik Party responsible for registering the members and assigning them to different tasks |
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Uyezd |
County |
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Volost |
Rural district |
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VSNKh |
Supreme Economic Council |
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VTsIK |
All-Russia Central Executive Committee (organ derived from the Congress of soviets) |
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Zemstvo |
Administrative body in country areas before the Revolution |
page 398
From January 1928 on, elements of a political line different from that approved by the Fifteenth Congress began to be formulated explicitly. They made their appearance in the speeches delivered by Stalin in Siberia (at Novosibirsk, Omsk, Barnaul, etc.), where he went in order to call for vigorous application of the emergency measures.[1]
In these speeches, Stalin did not speak only about those measures. He also dwelt upon the technical superiority of the collective and state farms. He stressed that these farms produced "marketable surpluses" larger than those produced by the kulak farms. He even mentioned quantitative targets which had not been contemplated by the Fifteenth Congress, saying that it was necessary to ensure that, "in the course of the next three or four years the collective farms and state farms, as deliverers of grain, are in a position to supply the state with at least one-third of the grain required."[2]
The three first months of 1928 were marked by the development of divergences (which were not publicly proclaimed) between, on the one hand, the "three" (Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky) and, on the other, Stalin, Molotov, and Kuibyshev. The remaining members of the PB vacillated, more or less, between these two camps.
page 399
During the plenum of April 1928 no direct clash occurred between Stalin and Bukharin. Nevertheless, each of them presented a different picture of the situation.
Stalin denounced those who wanted a policy for the rural areas that would "please everyone" saying that such a policy had "nothing in common with Leninism."[3] On his part, Bukharin denounced the tendency of "certain people" to look upon the emergency measures as something "almost normal," and to "exaggerate the recourse to administrative measures."[4]
In general, however, the April plenum passed off without obvious tension between the members of the PB. Broadly, the resolution which was adopted on the question of procurement and preparations for the agricultural campaign of 1928-1929 repeated the theses of the Fifteenth Congress. It explained the procurement crisis essentially by mistakes made in the application of economic policy, referring only in a subordinate way to the "kulaks' offensive": it was the mistakes which had been made, said the resolution, that had been exploited by the kulaks and speculators. The resolution consequently stressed the need to establish "more correct proportions between the different elements in the economy."[5]
The resumed application of the emergency measures at the beginning of the summer of 1928 resulted in a sharp increase in the tension between the two tendencies that existed in the PB. From then on they fought each other harder and harder, each of them trying to win the support of those members of the PB who were still hesitant.
However, it was not in the PB that the first systematic criticism of the policy actually being followed by the Party's administrative organs was formulated. This was done by the Communist Frumkin, who was assistant commissar of finance. On June 15, 1928, he declared, in a letter addressed to the PB, that the policy applied since the Fifteenth Congress repre-
page 400
sented a "new political line in relation to the countryside." He said that this line was harmful, having "led to lawless actions against the entire peasantry" and aroused anti-Soviet feeling among the peasants, a feeling which was "already beginning to spread to the working-class centres." According to Frumkin, the acts of sabotage being committed should be attributed primarily to the worsening of the internal situation, due to political mistakes, and only to a secondary extent to influences from outside.[6]
The PB decided to circulate Frumkin's letter to the members of the CC, following it up with a reply from the PB itself. This reply was composed by Stalin personally, and was sent directly to the members of the CC, contrary to the decision taken by the PB. Bukharin, Tomsky, and Rykov, reacting against this irregularity, accused Stalin of substituting his individual leadership for the collective leadership of the PB, and treating the PB not as the Party's highest organ but as a mere advisory council attached to the general secretary's office. The other members of the PB did not see Stalin's initiative in this light, and agreed only to a mild reprimand, in the form of an admission by the PB that Stalin's reply to Frumkin had been "incomplete."[7]
This incident was one of the first to indicate, more or less formally, a serious departure from the principle that leadership was the prerogative of the PB. It was the start of a gradual shifting of political authority, which passed increasingly out of the hands of the PB and the CC and into those of the general secretary. At that stage, however, the decisions taken by the PB and the CC continued to determine, in the main, the conditions governing application of the political line formally decided on by the Party's congresses and conferences, or the modifications introduced into this line.
During the summer of 1928 the divergences that developed within the PB were not always made explicit to the world outside (not even to the CC plenum of July 4-12, 1928). Yet these divergences were becoming sharper and sharper, and echoes of them even reached the CC. Until the end of the year, however, the myth of the "unity of the PB" was preserved.[8]
page 401
At the meetings which preceded the plenum of July 1928 serious disagreements were expressed within the PB.[9] Bukharin and Stalin clashed, coming close to a rupture between them. The former demanded that a general discussion be opened regarding all the problems posed by the procurement crisis, especially in connection with the tempo of industrialization, and Stalin was unwilling to agree to this. Bukharin prepared draft theses for submission to the CC. Stalin said that he accepted them, but the other members of the PB gave only partial approval. To avoid an open rupture, Bukharin accepted the text as amended (which, he said, included "nine-tenths" of his theses).[10] The PB adopted this text unanimously, and submitted it to the CC.
This unanimity was only for show: in fact, the lines advocated by Stalin and Bukharin were more and more divergent. In his speech of July 9 Stalin defended the emergency measures and maintained that rapid industrialization would make it possible to strengthen the alliance with the peasantry. He expounded the idea that "the alliance between the working class and the peasantry cannot be stable and lasting . . . if the bond based on textiles is not supplemented by the bond based on metals."[11]
In this speech Stalin brought up the crucial question of how industrialization was to be financed, and said that there could be only "two such sources: firstly, the working class, which creates values and advances our industry; secondly, the peasantry."[12] Thus for the first time he systematically supported an idea very close to that of "primitive accumulation," advocated by Preobrazhensky (whose ideas had previously been condemned by the Party), namely, that the peasantry must of necessity pay relatively high prices for industrial products and be "more or less underpaid" for their own produce. Stalin explained: "It is something in the nature of a 'tribute', of a supertax, which we are compelled to levy for the time being in order to preserve and accelerate our present rate of industrial development, . . . in order to raise further the standard of life of the rural population and then to abolish altogether this additional tax, these 'scissors' between town and country."[13]
In a speech made next day, July 10, Bukharin, while not
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openly attacking Stalin's position, took what was practically the opposite view. He stressed the idea that steady industrialization could not be achieved without a prosperous agriculture, whereas the requisition measures were causing agriculture to decline. He asserted that mass discontent was developing in the villages, which constituted a threat to Soviet power and risked uniting the middle peasants around the kulaks. While agreeing that the emergency measures had been needed in the past, he declared that the CC should abolish them for the future. Economically, he said, they no longer made any substantial contribution, and politically they were producing harsh consequences of a deeply negative character, "bringing us into conflict with the broadest strata of the peasantry." He emphasized the need to distinguish clearly between pressure exerted on the kulak, in conformity with the Party's decisions, and pressure exerted on the middle peasant, which was inadmissible, since it jeopardized the worker-peasant alliance. He warned against the desire to advance simultaneously in all directions: certain balances ought to be maintained, through correct planning, and price policy should be improved so as to strengthen the alliance with the peasantry. Bukharin ended by opposing exaggerated state centralization such as would stifle initiative.[14]
Tomsky supported Bukharin's views, as also did Andreyev, who spoke about peasant riots;[15] Osinsky, who called for an increase in the prices paid to the peasants;[16] and Rykov, who criticized the emergency measures. Molotov and Kaganovich, on the other hand, supported the emergency measures and the price policy which had been followed so far.
The plenum itself learned little of the respective positions of the two opposing tendencies. The resolution put before it by the PB was apparently more favorable to the theses of the "Right," coming down in favor of an upward readjustment of grain prices and repeating most of Bukharin's arguments.[17] The usual formulations regarding the relation between industry and agriculture were repeated, such as this: "While industry itself is a powerful drawing-force for agriculture, making possible its transformation on the basis of socialist indus-
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trialization, agriculture constitutes the foundation for the development of industry. . . ."[18]
The resolution emphasized that collective farms must be formed only on a voluntary basis [19] and explained the procurement crisis mainly by economic imbalances and political mistakes, which capitalist elements in town and country had been able to exploit. It acknowledged that revolutionary legality had been violated, arousing protests among the peasants and enabling "counter-revolutionary elements to spread gossip about N.E.P. being abolished."[20]
Altogether, the voting of the resolution on the economic situation seems to have reflected "victory" for those who were soon to be denounced as representatives of a "Right deviation." The resolution did indeed embody their principal theses. This was how the vote was usually interpreted by persons who were already aware of the existence of a serious conflict of tendencies within the leadership.[21]
In fact, however, during the plenum of July 1928 the Right suffered a defeat. It actually lost ground. The resolution adopted merely repeated what had already been set forth in the resolutions of the Fifteenth Congress, while the theory of the "tribute" to be levied from the peasantry had not aroused real objections on the part of the majority in the CC. On this essential point, the July plenum marked the implicit triumph of a thesis which the future majority in the Party leadership would strive to put into effect in order to realize the policy of industrialization which was to be adopted a few months later.
Immediately after the closure of the plenum the positions of the Right were attacked in various ways by their opponents, who developed their offensive first of all on the international plane.
page 404
The first of these attacks was launched against Bukharin during the Sixth Congress of the Comintern (July 17 September 1, 1928). As chairman of that organization, Bukharin presented the principal reports. These contained an evaluation of the situation and prospects in international affairs which resulted not from the discussions at the July plenum of the CC but from discussions which had not been published.[22] According to echoes from these, and also to subsequent discussions, the disagreements between Bukharin and the majority in the CC (which did not emerge publicly at this time) related to the tactics to be adopted by the Comintern in a situation when a world capitalist crisis was in the offing.
For Bukharin, the development of an economic crisis in the advanced capitalist countries would not lead directly to a prospect of revolution. He thought that the metropolitan centers imperialism would not experience internal collapse in the years ahead, and that the center of gravity of the world revolution lay in the countries of the East (thereby developing further one of the ideas set forth by Lenin in his last writings[23]).
Bukharin and his supporters therefore condemned as being "radically wrong, harmful and grossly mistaken from the tactical standpoint" the statement that the crisis of Western capitalism would prove to be the eve of a revolutionary upsurge.[24] Bukharin thought that it was necessary to declare in favor of unity in the struggle of the working class, and not to launch into a sectarian line that would result in "isolation" of the Communist Parties, with a tragic outcome. The characterization of Social Democracy as "Social-Fascism"[25] seemed to him extremely dangerous: the ideological struggle against the Social Democratic parties must, of course, lead to their being denounced as bourgeois parties, but not to identifying them with Fascist organizations.
Stalin and the majority at the plenum of July 1928 appreciated the situation differently. As they saw it, the
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advanced capitalist countries were then on the brink of revolutionary upheavals,[26] and this dictated three tactical requirements: (1) refusal of any collaboration with the Social Democrats, and the need to create new, revolutionary trade unions, so as to take advantage of the new situation (which corresponded to what was called the "third period"[27]; (2) destruction of reformist influence over the working class, for in this new situation the Social Democratic parties became the main enemy of the working class; (3) purging of the Communist parties of all vacillating elements, and especially of the "Right deviationists," who, in the existing circumstances, became the main danger within the Communist movement.
In his speeches and in the theses he put before the Comintern Congress,[28] Bukharin, taking as his point of departure the fact that the Social Democratic parties and the trade unions under their influence embraced the immense majority of the European workers, refused to draw a line through these organizations, to regard them as "Social-fascist" and denounce them as the main enemy of the labor movement. Taking account, however, of attitudes which had been revealed during the plenum of July 1928, he made use of a cautious formulation: he said that "social-democracy has social-fascist tendencies," but at once added that "it would be foolish to lump social-democracy together with fascism." He opposed the idea that Communists might ally themselves with Fascists against Socialists, saying: "Our tactics do not exclude the possibility of appealing to social-democratic workers and even to some lower social-democratic organizations, but we cannot appeal to fascist organizations."[29]
These formulations were criticized by the delegation of the Soviet Communist Party, which put down a number of amendments,[30] thereby seriously undermining, for the first time, Bukharin's international prestige, and splitting the Congress into two tendencies, one "pro-Bukharin" and the other "pro-Stalin." In fact, Stalin, who was unusually active at this Congress of the Comintern, came out openly against Bukharin.[31] He was elected to the Congress Presidium, to the Program Commission, and to the Political Commissions entrusted
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with drawing up the theses on the international situation and the tasks of the Comintern.
The adoption of important amendments to his theses meant a grave defeat for Bukharin. It revealed that he was in a minority in the Soviet delegation, so that his standing within his own party was lowered. Furthermore, the content of some of the amendments passed was later to be used against Bukharin and his supporters in the Bolshevik Party.[32]
During the Sixth Congress no mention was made of the existence of a "Right danger" in the Soviet Communist Party -- only in the foreign sections of the Comintern. On September 18, 1928, however, Pravda denounced a "basically Right-wing mood" alleged to be present in the Soviet Party. A month later, the problem of this "Right danger" was put on the order of the day by Stalin in a speech delivered on October 19, 1928, before the Moscow Party Committee.[33]
In this speech he still spoke only of a "Right danger," not of a deviation in the strict sense. He referred to "a tendency, an inclination that has not yet taken shape, it is true, and is perhaps not yet consciously realised, but nevertheless a tendency of a section of the Communist Party to depart from the general line of our Party in the direction of bourgeois ideology."[34] Stalin went on to define what this Right tendency consisted of, saying that it "underestimates the strength of our enemies, the strength of capitalism." This led, he claimed, to a readiness to make concessions to capitalism, to calling for a slowing-down of the pace of development of Soviet industry, to treating the question of collective and state farms as secondary, and so on. He linked the existence of this danger with the fact that "we live in a small-peasant country" and that the roots of capitalism had, therefore, not been torn out, which implied "the possibility of the restoration of capitalism in our country."[35]
page 407
Stalin said that the danger of a "Left" (Trotskyist) deviation still existed, but that the Right danger was now more important, because less obvious. He therefore called for stress to be laid upon the Right danger, though without relaxing the fight against the "Left." Finally, he said that the danger of a Right deviation was present in the Party at almost all levels, either in the form of representatives of this ideological tendency or in that of a conciliatory mood. The latter, he alleged, had been shown even in the CC at the July plenum. Nevertheless, "in the Political Bureau there are neither Right nor 'Left' deviations nor conciliators towards those deviations. This must be said quite categorically."[36]
Thus, at the end of 1928, public criticism of Bukharin's positions began to take shape, although neither he nor Rykov nor Tomsky was attacked by name. Not considering themselves officially as being the targets aimed at, the three associated themselves with the denunciation of the "Rights" and the "conciliators." Their position was consequently to become practically untenable when they found these epithets applied to themselves.
All the same, Bukharin did not remain silent at the end of 1928. He even tried to counterattack in a long article[37] published in Pravda (which he edited) on September 30, 1928, under the title, "Notes of an Economist."[38]
This article constituted an implicit reply to Kuibyshev's statements in defense of the new program of industrial development put forward by the VSNKh, which included a rate of development higher than had been provided for in June. An increase of 20.1 percent in gross industrial production was proposed for 1928-1929, with one-third of all investment allocated to the building of new factories. These figures, already very high, were regarded as inadequate by the leaders of industry, whose views Kuibyshev supported: they refused to contemplate any reduction in industrial investment, despite
page 408
the difficult budgetary situation. Kuibyshev accused of "defeatism" those who criticized this program, and he asserted the need, at all costs, to concentrate investment in heavy industry, even if this meant provoking economic imbalances and "discontent and active resistance" on the part of the population.[39]
Bukharin vigorously opposed a conception of an industrialization to be achieved at the expense of the standard of living of the masses and, as he thought, first and foremost, at the expense of agriculture and of the peasants, thereby destroying the foundations of the worker-peasant alliance. Bukharin's article remained on the terrain of theory and principles: he did not openly attack any specifically defined "tendency" still within the Party, but rather the ideas of the Trotskyist "super-industrializers." Indeed, his real "political target" could be recognized only by those, in the leading circles of the Party and of the state machine, who were already aware of the discussions that had been going on. At that period, as has been said, this was practically true, also so far as the "political target" aimed at by the attacks on the "Right deviation" was concerned.
In his "Notes of an Economist" Bukharin developed systematically the principle (laid down by the Fifteenth Congress) that it was necessary to work out a plan which would permit harmonious development of industry and agriculture and of the different sectors of industry themselves. According to him, this plan must respect certain proportions dictated by the demands of expanded reproduction of the different branches of the economy. It must not give one-sided preference to one branch at the expense of the others, leaving these to stagnate, to lag behind or even to regress.
In referring to the demands of expanded reproduction, Bukharin emphasized that if these were not respected, the economic and political consequences could be grave. He said that, in "the society of the transition period," account must be taken of the relations shown in the diagrams of Marx's Capital, volume II, so as to ensure "the conditions for exact co-
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ordination of the different spheres of production and consumption and of the different branches of production among themselves, or, in other words, to establish the conditions for a 'dynamic economic equilibrium.'" And he added: "Serious mistakes in the direction of the economy, violating the fundamental proportions of the economy . . . can cause regroupings of classes to take place which would be extremely unfavorable to the proletariat."[40]
Bukharin described refusal to strive for correct proportions in the development of the different sectors of the economy as a surrender "to petty-bourgeois indecision: 'It will work out all right, one way or another -- something good will come of it.'"[41]
Taking up the problem of transferring to industry part of the value created in agriculture, he agreed that this could and even must take place, but he opposed too large a transfer, which would hinder expanded reproduction in agriculture. On this subject he wrote:
Naively, the ideologists of Trotskyism suppose that by squeezing as much as possible each year out of the peasantry so as to invest it in industry we could ensure the fastest rate of development for industry in general. But, clearly, this is not so. The highest permanent rate of development is to be obtained by a combination in which industry will grow on the basis of an economy in rapid growth. . . . This presupposes that rapid real accumulation can take place in agriculture, something which is remote from the Trotskyist policy. . . . The Trotskyists do not understand that the development of industry depends on the development of agriculture.
At the same time Bukharin attacked those whom he called "the petty-bourgeois 'knights' who stand forth to forbid our imposing any burden at all upon the agriculturists for the benefit of industry," and whose standpoint was that of "the survival of petty economy for ever and ever," adding that these "ideologists of the 'farmer' prepare the way for real kulak elements."
Bukharin concluded: "While the Trotskyists do not understand that the development of industry depends on the de-
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velopment of agriculture, the ideologists of petty-bourgeois conservatism do not understand that the development of agriculture is dependent on industry. . . ."[42]
Concretely, Bukharin accepted the maintenance of investment at the level attained, but not the way this investment was distributed. He declared that the future growth of investment required that the situation of agriculture be improved. For him, refusal to recognize this requirement meant not realizing that agriculture was the basis for the actual development of industry (as was still acknowledged to be the case in the resolution of the plenum of July 1928). As he saw it, steps must be taken quickly to overcome the inadequacy of the production of grain and of industrial crops (sugar beet, cotton, flax, oil seeds, etc.), and it must be appreciated that the shortage of industrial products and raw materials was due to the growth in the investment of money running ahead of the growth of production, with the result that industry was lagging behind the demand engendered by its own rate of expansion. This being so, to speed up the tempo would merely worsen the shortages and protract the period in which factories were being built thereby adversely affecting the long-term rate of development of the economy as a whole.[43]
Bukharin therefore wanted an upper limit to be fixed for the expansion of industrial investment, so that the sums allocated to industry could be employed in "real" construction. "It is not possible," he said, "to build today's factories with tomorrow's bricks."[44] In this connection he denounced what he called "a kind of fetishism of money" the effect of which was that "people think that, if they have money, they can automatically have everything else," whereas it is material shortages that have to be reckoned with at each moment, so as to overcome them in reality.[45]
The article called for costs of production to be reduced drastically, through an appeal to the masses combined with the use of science. In Bukharin's view, no appeal to the masses could succeed unless "over-centralisation" was renounced, and that meant taking "some steps towards the Commune-State," together with a struggle against "the elements of a
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bureaucratic degeneration absolutely indifferent to the interests of the masses," so denouncing "functionaries . . . who are ready to draw up any sort of plan" -- a phrase aimed directly, though without naming them, at the specialists of the VSNKh.[46]
On the theoretical plane this article amounted, as can be seen, to a systematic onslaught on the increasingly great priority accorded, in a one-sided way, to investment in industry, and on the claim that this priority would make possible the solving of the problems of agriculture, and particularly that of grain procurement. The argument set out showed that, in the immediate future, such a conception could only worsen the economic situation and the tension between the Soviet government and the peasantry.
This article of Bukharin's was far from answering all the questions that had arisen at that time in the domains of economics and politics. It had the twofold defect of not showing how to help the poor and middle peasants to advance along the road to collective forms of production (failing to show the decisive role that ideological and political struggle must play in doing this), and of not defining what concrete measures might be taken on the basis of the practical experience of the peasants themselves. Despite these weaknesses, however, the article had the merit that it stressed (referring, moreover, to the decisions of principle previously taken by the Party) the necessity of not attacking the standard of living of the masses ; of respecting certain objective relations between consumption and accumulation, between industry and agriculture, and between heavy and light industry; and of not setting targets which failed to correspond to the material and human resources available, and which, instead of enabling the economy to operate with reserves, actually multiplied shortages.
"Notes of an Economist" also indicated the negative consequences, from the angle of the class struggle, of failure to respect a number of objective requirements. Yet this article made practically no political impact at all: as it attacked, in principle, only certain conceptions which had been con-
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demned long since -- those of the Trotskyists -- it did not give rise to any real discussion.
At the meeting ( November 16-24, 1928) of the plenum of the CC an offensive was launched against what was thereafter officially called the "Right deviation" -- without its principal representatives being named as yet. It was still claimed that there were no adherents of this deviation in the PB, nor any "conciliators" toward it. This statement conformed, moreover, to a request presented by Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky, who thereby shut the door on any possibility of discussing, clearly and precisely -- at least at the level of the CC -- the different conceptions held and the significance of the resulting divergences of view.
From the Trotsky Archives and Kamenev's notes on his talks with Bukharin (their meeting on July 11 had been followed by several others) we know that, during the meeting of the PB which preceded the plenum, Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky had asked Stalin to deny the "baseless rumours" about divergences in the PB. They also asked for a general discussion to be opened on the situation in the country. Though given satisfaction on the first point,[47] they were rebuffed on the second.
Following this rebuff, and that given to their demand for a reduction in the proposals for investments, which they considered to be too large and liable to interfere seriously with the regular supply of goods to the population, Rykov (who was then chairman of the Sovnarkom) and Bukharin wished to resign from the responsible posts they held, so as to dissociate themselves from the line which had been adopted and which they saw as running counter to the decisions of the Fifteenth Congress. After a compromise had been reached on some secondary matters, they withdrew their resignations: had they gone through with them, this would have started a crisis of
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leadership and made it very hard to persist with the policy they criticized.
The plenum of November 1928 was dominated by Stalin's speech on "Industrialisation of the Country and the Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)."[48] This speech contained some propositions which, though they did not appear word for word in the draft resolution before the plenum, Stalin considered were implicit in this resolution.[49] They expressed, in fact, the way in which Stalin, from this time on, was to present the problem of industrialization and collectivization. We must therefore examine closely these propositions destined to play such a decisive role, for they constituted the initial formulation of a new political line which broke with the resolutions previously adopted by the Party Congresses and endorsed the actual practice of the economic and administrative organs.
Two of Stalin's propositions call for special attention.
He considered the key factor in industrialization to be "the development of the production of the means of production, while ensuring the greatest possible speed of this development. "[50] This contradicted the resolution of the fundamental role of agricultural development in the continuity and maintenance of the balanced character of industrialization. By stressing development "at the greatest possible speed" of the production of means of production (which meant heavy industry), he ignored the need to respect certain ratios between the development of the different branches of the economy: hence his assertion that what was needed was "the maximum capital investment in industry."[51]
This assertion also broke with the resolutions previously
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adopted by the Party's congresses and plenums.[52] It went even further than what was said in the resolution put before the plenum of November 1928 by the PB, which spoke merely of "the most rapid development possible of the socialist sector of the economy," of an "intense rate of development of industry," with the word "maximum" used only in relation to "the mobilisation of the Party and of the worker and peasant masses."
Subsequently, the idea of the necessity for maximum investment in heavy industry was to be repeated many times, to the point of affirming that "the basic economic law of socialism" was "inseparably linked with the law of priority development of industries producing means of production,"[53] this law having allegedly been propounded by Lenin. It is true that Lenin spoke of the necessity for priority development of the production of means of production, but when he did so he was speaking of capitalism. In his polemic with the Narodniks, Lenin referred to this "priority" as being related to the capitalist forms of uneven development. Under capitalism, he said, "to expand production . . . it is first of all necessary . . . to expand that department of social production which manufactures means of production . . . ," adding that "it is well known that the law of development of capital is that constant capital grows faster than variable capital. . . ."[54]
This law of capitalism is a consequence of its contradictions: it tends to develop the productive forces even when this development keeps coming up against the limits to growth in the masses' capacity to consume which are set by the striving for profit.
In Stalin's speech of November 19, 1928, the problems of industrialization and of "development of the production of the means of production at the greatest possible speed" were not yet presented in terms of a "basic law." They were considered from the angle of the conditions, both external and internal, in which the Soviet Union was then placed.[55]
Examination of the external conditions, with which Stalin began, showed that the USSR was "a country whose technical equipment is terribly backward," while being surrounded by
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many capitalist countries with much more highly developed industrial technique. Hence, said Stalin, there was a contradiction between the extremely backward technique possessed by the Soviet Union and its soviet system, which was "the most advanced type of state power in the world."[56] This contradiction must be resolved if the Soviet Union was not to find itself in a situation with no way out.
Stalin "generalized" the argument by saying that what was at stake was not only the building of socialism but the defense of the country's independence: "economic backwardness," he said, had been "an evil" even before the Revolution -- and in this connection he referred to Peter the Great, who "feverishly built mills and factories"[57] in order to defend Russia.
Developing his argument, Stalin quoted from Lenin's article "The Impending Catastrophe And How to Combat It," written in September 1917. But, although this article does indeed say that it is necessary to surpass, as quickly as possible, "the economically advanced countries," it says nothing about maximum investment in industry or about priority development for the industries producing means of production.
As regards the "internal conditions" invoked to justify the tempo of industrialization proposed, Stalin abandoned the formula according to which agriculture was the foundation of the economy, while industry was its driving force. He now put forward the idea of "industry as the main foundation of our entire national economy" and of the need to "reconstruct agriculture on a new technical basis,"[58] which would require the provision of the maximum quantity of instruments and means of production. Emphasis was placed here upon technical changes, not on changes in production relations.
Referring to a speech by Lenin at the Eighth Congress of Soviets (in December 1920, well before Lenin's writings on cooperation and material aid to the poor and middle peasants), Stalin expounded the second theme of his speech. This was
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the affirmation that the rate of development of agriculture was lagging behind that of industry, and that this fact accounted for the grain problem, which could be solved only by reconstructing agriculture "on a new technical basis. "[59]
Here we observe a constant sliding from consideration of one type of contradiction to consideration of another type, these two types being: (1) the contradictions arising from the existence of two social forms of production (state-owned industry, socialist in character, on the one hand, and petty-peasant production, on the other); and (2) the contradictions due to the existence of two "technical bases" of production (the up-to-date, large-scale industrial production units, on the one hand, and on the other, "backward" small-scale production). The argument aimed at justifying development of the industries producing means of production at the greatest possible speed brought forward as the "principal contradiction" in this domain the existence of two technical bases. Changing the social forms of production seems here to be subordinate to changing technique and developing heavy industry.
Yet there is no such subordination. Socialist development of collective forms of production is a matter above all of ideological and political class struggle, not of technique.[60] This development makes it possible in a first phase (as was proved by the experience of the "spontaneous" forms of collective labor and production which appeared during the NEP) to increase production without providing "new" technical means on a massive scale. Actually, in 1928 a far from negligible increase in production by the poor and middle peasants could have been achieved merely by supplying simple instruments of labor which would not have necessitated huge investments in heavy industry.
More generally, the idea of eliminating as quickly as possible the diversity of the "technical bases" of production does not correspond to any objective requirement for the building of socialism. This can, on the contrary, be carried out on the basis of a great diversity of techniques, by "walking on both legs," as they say in China nowadays. Such diversity makes it possible to advance faster, without any sharp increase in the
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rate of investment, and to progress steadily, without excessive strain, so that increasing mastery of increasingly advanced means of production is ensured, in agriculture and industry alike.
The possibilities of technical diversification opened up by socialism, and the varying forms that can be assumed by mastery of technique on the part of the direct producers, were denied by Stalin in his speech of November 19, 1928. In so doing he went against the Party's earlier resolutions and against Lenin's last writings. We see outlined here a path of economic development dominated by expanded production of means of production. It is upon this that the success of collectivization is made to depend -- collectivization being seen not as the outcome of the struggle of the poor and middle peasants to free themselves from production relations that oppress them and make possible their exploitation, but as a technical change having the purpose of increasing agricultural production and, in particular, the marketable part of this production which the state is allowed to acquire at stable and relatively low prices.[61]
Thus, Stalin's speech of November 19, 1928, opened the way to a certain conception of industrialization and of agricultural development which enjoyed the approval of the VSNKh and of the leaders of industry. It accorded priority to industry and to heavy industry in the first place, and it made agricultural development depend on increased industrial production.
Apparently, however, this path of development was not the only one considered. Stalin's speech also assigns great importance in principle to immediate aid to the farms of the poor and middle peasants, to multiplying the links between these farms and the trading apparatuses of the state and the cooperatives (by extending a system of contracts between them, providing for reciprocal obligations) and to increasing forthwith the supply of goods and credits to these farms. From this standpoint, the NEP did not seem to have been abandoned, and transition to collective forms of production remained subject to the explicit wishes of the poor and middle peasants.[62]
In reality, however, the magnitude of the investments pro-
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vided for heavy industry, and the aggravation of the shortage of industrial products supplied to the rural areas which resulted from this (especially as regards means of production such as the poor and middle peasants could use), increasingly negated, at ground level, the intentions expressed regarding aid to be given to the bulk of the peasant producers. Consequently, the immediate possibilities of growth in agricultural production, and, above all, in grain production, continued to be gravely compromised. Also compromised was the strengthening of the worker-peasant alliance, for the policy that was pursued in practice tended to demand more and more produce from the peasant masses without the necessary measures being taken to increase the supply, in exchange, of the industrial products that the poor and middle peasants needed.
The adoption by the plenum of the "control figures" for 1928-1929,[63] and the effort made to put them into effect, giving priority to heavy industry,[64] helped to worsen the discontent which had been gathering in the rural areas since the beginning of 1928. In this way, a basis was created for a real threat to the Soviet power, through the dissatisfied peasants rallying behind the kulaks. At the same time, the possibility of drawing the mass of the poor and middle peasants on to the path of collectivization on a voluntary basis was reduced because of the weakening of the Party's leading role among the peasantry.
During the winter of 1928-1929 the way in which the decisions of the plenum of November 1928 were applied, and in which the targets of the First Five-Year Plan were defined, confirmed that the basic principles of the NEP were being increasingly abandoned. An open split became inevitable, between the positions of Bukharin and his supporters (who wanted to lay down a path of industrialization that would remain within the framework of the NEP) and the positions of
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those who considered, in fact (if not in words), that rapid industrialization of the country was now incompatible with maintenance of the NEP.
The articles, speeches, and declarations of the supporters of the two contrasting policies of industrialization resembled less and less a discussion aimed at convincing those who held a different view: debate gave way to polemic, and reciprocal accusations tended to take the place of arguments and analysis of the concrete situation. It is therefore futile to try to reconstitute a "debate" which was no debate. Instead, we must try to bring out those few facts and arguments which, in spite of everything, were put forward, on one side or the other, during the winter of 1928-1929 and at the beginning of spring 1929, and which enable us to grasp better the political and ideological meaning of the split which was consummated at the plenum of April 1929.
It was in the winter of 1928-1929 that Bukharin defended his positions publicly for the last time, while continuing to expound his views before the PB and the CC. He was, of course, repeating many of his earlier formulations, but these were often articulated in a new way and, on certain points, were more fully elaborated.
One argument frequently advanced by the supporters of accelerated industrialization (which was to be carried out "for the time being" at the expense of agriculture) was that an imperialist attack on the Soviet Union was probably imminent. Bukharin did not deny that this danger existed. However, his analyses led him to emphasize especially the revolutionary role of the peoples of Asia and also to declare that the decisive factor in the defence of the Soviet Union was its internal political situation -- in particular, the firmness of the worker-peasant alliance. To take a road which would compromise this alliance for the sake of promoting a more rapid
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industrialization program therefore seemed to him extremely dangerous.[65]
Bukharin emphasized the conditions for the strengthening of the worker-peasant alliance, largely repeating the content of Lenin's last articles, which, he said, set out "a vast long-term plan for all our Communist work. . . ." As Bukharin saw it, the future of the revolution depended on a firm and trusting alliance with the peasantry, and it was essential for the Party to seek to strengthen this alliance through organizational and cultural work that took account of the peasants' interests. He warned against the idea of a "third revolution" which would impose collective forms of production from above. He maintained that industrialization and accumulation must be carried out in a way that respected conditions of exchange which were acceptable to the peasants, through efforts aimed at economy and efficiency. These themes were in conformity with the resolutions of the Fifteenth Congress, but when reaffirmed at the beginning of 1929 they looked like a criticism of the political line which had been followed de facto for the past year. They brought many attacks on Bukharin from the supporters of maximizing investment in heavy industry. One of these, Postyshev, described Bukharin as a "vulgar peasant philosopher."[66]
In the same period as Bukharin's articles were published there appeared in Pravda, on January 20, 1929, an article by Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's widow, entitled "Lenin and the Building of Collective Farms." Recalling the decisive place given by Lenin to the development of cooperation and the formation of collective farms, she emphasized that he had said that the peasants ought not to be forced to take the path of cooperation and collective farming against their will. She recalled also the importance ascribed by Lenin to Engels' article published in Die Neue Zeit in 1894 ("The Peasant Question in France and Germany"), in which he said that socialism would not expropriate the peasant but would help him to go over to cooperation and communes by using the power of example, and showing all the patience needed. In conclusion, she said that she thought it stupid to try and upset "from above" the
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economic relations in which the middle peasant was involved, and to resort to measures of coercion in order to do so.
This article of Krupskaya's came as a reply to those among the supporters of absolute priority for heavy industry who were declaring themselves increasingly in favor of forced collectivization. Krupskaya defended, on this point, the same positions as Bukharin.
The latter's public statements accounted for only part of his writing at that time. He also prepared a "platform" destined for the PB. He read this at the meeting of the PB held on January 30, 1929, and came under violent attack from the advocates of the speediest possible development of heavy industry. His position, which was supported by Rykov and Tomsky, did not apparently give rise to a genuine fundamental discussion. A few days earlier (on January 20, the day when Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union), a clandestine Trotskyist sheet had published a report of the talks between Bukharin and Kamenev, and it was essentially Bukharin's conduct -- described as "factional" -- that was attacked by his opponents.[67]
All that we know of the "platform" presented by Bukharin on January 30 and of the declaration made by the "three" on February 9 are a few quotations -- which, nevertheless, enable us to reconstitute the bulk of what they said during that session of the PB.
One of the reproaches addressed by the three to the executive organs related to their failure to observe the decisions taken by the Fifteenth Congress and by the plenums of the CC regarding help to the farms of the poor and middle peasants. The notion of industrialization based on a "tribute" to be levied from the peasantry was also subjected to systematic criticism. The tribute idea entailed, as the three saw it, the risk that it could lead to "military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry." These terms were reproduced and condemned in the PB resolution of February 9.[68] In the report he presented to the plenum of April 1929 Stalin was to defend the idea of the tribute, while maintaining that it was inconceivable for the peasantry to be "exploited" in the Soviet Union.[69]
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Bukharin considered it necessary to develop collective farming, but he refused to see this process as dependent on measures of coercion aimed primarily at using it as a means to serve an industrialization policy which assigned very high priority to heavy industry. Bukharin stressed that development of collective farming must be associated with a real ideological struggle, and he recalled, in this connection, what Lenin had written on the necessity of a cultural revolution.
Bukharin's opposition to the levying of a tribute from the peasantry as the basis for industrialization was bound up, first and foremost, with his conception of the worker-peasant alliance, which, he considered, must be based on a policy of systematically reducing the gap between the standard of living of the peasant masses and that of the working class. This attitude of his was inspired also by his view that important sources for accumulation and industrial development existed elsewhere than in agriculture. What was referred to here was, especially, the possibility of cutting down the size of the administrative machinery of the state, through greater decentralization and the freeing of local initiative that would make possible "real participation by the real masses" (as Lenin put it) in developing the productive forces.[70] Yet Bukharin did not really ask himself why what he was advocating had not actually been done, although this same line had long figured in the Party's resolutions. Formulating this question would have obliged him also to question himself regarding the social forces and social relations which obstructed the actual execution of some of the Party's decisions, and the forms of struggle that would make it possible to break through these obstacles: but, then, men never pose problems to themselves for which they cannot find solutions.
At the meetings of the PB in March and at the beginning of April 1929, held to prepare the plenum of the CC on April 16-23 and the Sixteenth Party Conference on April 23-29, Bukharin and Rykov put forward counterproposals to the draft of the Five-Year Plan which had been submitted to the PB. This draft provided for investment in the state sector to be
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multiplied by three or four, depending on the variant, and for 80 percent of this investment to be destined for heavy industry. Their counterproposals were rejected, together with a draft plan submitted by Rykov which aimed at developing agriculture, seen as the basis for industrial development. After this plan had been rejected, Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky abstained from taking part in the vote by which the PB gave its approval to the industrial provisions of the Five-Year Plan.
At the same time as they criticized the economic conceptions of the advocates of one-sided priority for the development of heavy industry and of financing this development by a massive transfer of resources from agriculture to industry, the three, and Bukharin in particular, also criticized the developments that were going on in the superstructure. Their criticism related to the distention of the state apparatus and the increase in it that could be foreseen if collectivization was not carried out voluntarily but so as to serve as a device for extracting a tribute from agriculture.[71]
Bukharin also criticized various aspects of the way the Party functioned. His arguments concerned primarily the content of the discussions that were held in the Party -- these, he said, dealt mainly with internal problems of organization, instead of analyzing the concrete situation and systematically consulting the masses:
Problems of great seriousness are not even discussed. The entire country is deeply concerned about the grain problem, and the problem of food supplies. Yet the conferences of the proletarian party in power remain silent. The whole country feels that all is not well with the peasantry. Yet our Party conferences say nothing. . . . This policy fails to face up to the real difficulties, it's no kind of policy at all. The working class must be told the truth about the situation, we must take account of the needs of the masses, and in our management of their affairs we must identify ourselves with the masses.[72]
The stress laid on Soviet democracy, on the role of the masses, and on organizing the supervision that the masses should exercise over the various apparatuses, corresponded to
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a long-standing preoccupation of Bukharin's. This was reaffirmed in an article he published in Pravda on December 2, 1928, and in his speech on "Lenin's political testament," in which he called for multiplication of "all possible forms of association by the working people so as at all costs, to avoid bureaucratisation," and to ensure that the Party knew the feeling of the masses and their reasons for discontent. This attitude of Bukharin's was later to be charged against him as showing a tendency to bow before "the backwardness and discontent of the masses."[73]
Bukharin's argument was also aimed at what he regarded as the development of a sort of blind discipline in the Party. He called on Party members "to take not a single word on trust . . . to utter not a single word against their conscience." He appealed to Bolshevism's tradition of critical thought.[74] For Bukharin there was a connection between the tendency to give up critical thought and what he saw as the gradual disappearance of collective leadership by the CC, in favor of the growing concentration of authority in the hands of one man.
This challenge to the type of discipline practiced in the Party was rejected by the majority of the PB, who insisted on the need for "iron discipline" and emphasized the weak points in the positions of the three. The absence of a sufficiently precise statement of how they conceived the conditions for transition to collective forms of agricultural production, their tendency to lay special stress on the economic forms of the worker-peasant alliance (based on the supply of consumer goods to the villages), their reservations regarding the role of the agricultural tax imposed on the well-to-do peasants -- all these features made it easy to identify the positions of the three with defense of the status quo of the NEP, or even with defense of the interests of the kulaks. And the majority in the PB resolved to take that step. They also blamed Bukharin and Sokolnikov for their contacts with Kamenev, and Bukharin for publishing in the press writings which had not been previously discussed by the PB. These actions were considered as amounting to factional activity.
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All these accusations and reprimands were summed up in a draft resolution for submission to the PB and to the Presidium of the CCC. However, a commission of the CC was given the task of composing a "compromise" document: if the three voted for this, the draft resolution would be withdrawn. Acceptance of this compromise by the three[75] would have implied Bukharin's withdrawal of his resignation from his posts at Pravda and in the Comintern. On February 7, the three refused to vote for it and decided to keep their resignations in force until the April plenum (Rykov alone was subsequently to go back on this decision).
This action meant a complete break between the three and the majority in the PB. Stalin, in particular, saw the three thenceforth as constituting a "distinct group" whom he accused of opposing the Party line and wanting to "compel the Party . . . to stop fighting against the Right deviation." In his speech to the April plenum, Stalin declared that it was not possible to tolerate "in our own ranks, in our own Party, in the political General Staff of the proletariat . . . the free functioning of the Right deviators, who are trying to demobilise the Party [and] demoralise the working class," for that would "mean that we are ready . . . to betray the revolution."[76]
The PB majority passed a resolution on "the internal affairs of the Party"[77] and ratified a resolution dealing with the same matters which had been voted on February 9 by the PB and the Presidium of the CCC.[78] These documents condemned Bukharin's criticisms in "Notes of an Economist" as being groundless, "eclectic," and calculated to "discredit the line of the CC." They also condemned, for the same reasons, Bukharin's declaration of January 30, 1929, and what was said about his positions in the notes taken by Kamenev. In its conclusions, however, the resolution of the plenum laid special stress upon the hesitations of Bukharin and Tomsky in rela-
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tion to the "new" line, and upon the need to safeguard Party unity. In contrast to the severer criticisms of Bukharin expressed in Stalin's speech,[79] the plenum resolution did not accuse the three of being Right deviationists. It spoke of their "de facto solidarity" with the opportunist tendencies in the Comintern and the role of "centre of attraction played objectively " by the three where those tendencies were concerned. Later on, the same resolution spoke of a "convergence on basic questions between the positions of the 'three' and those of the Right deviation."[80]
These formulations implied that the political positions of the three and those of the Right deviation did not fully coincide. The practical consequence of this was that the three kept their membership in the PB, even though they had not agreed to vote for the compromise document of February 7. The resolution forbade the three to give any public expression to their disagreements, thereby imposing new limits to the ideological struggle, which was being allowed to take place only inside an ever narrower circle.
While refusing to accept the resignation of Bukharin and Tomsky, the plenum relieved them of their posts, at Pravda and in the Comintern in the case of Bukharin, and in the trade-union leadership in the case of Tomsky.[81] The three had suffered a heavy defeat, and one that was to prove final.
The resolution of the PB which was ratified-by the plenum also included a series of criticisms of the three. In particular, it rejected Bukharin's analysis of the economic situation. It declared that the supply of goods to the rural areas was better than in the previous year, and that procurement was proceeding in a way that could be regarded as satisfactory.[82] This appreciation of the situation had nothing in common with reality. Except during two months, the procurement of grain in the first half of 1929 fell far below the figure for the previous year : for these six months as a whole it came to 2.6 million metric tons, as against 5.2 in 1928.[83] Besides, these results had only been obtained by bringing strong administrative pressure to bear on the middle peasants, which had given rise, in a number of regions, to open expressions of discontent
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by broad strata of the peasantry. The grain shortage which then developed brought about a considerable rise in the market price of grain, and there were cases of speculation.[84] The plenum of April 1929 willfully ignored these realities, and that was to have serious effects later on, both economic and political
The bulk of this speech[85] was devoted to criticizing the positions of the three. In close connection with this critique Stalin put forward certain theses[86] to which we must now turn.[87]
The first thesis concerned the intensification of the class struggle "at the present stage of development and under the present conditions of the relation of forces."[88] It was thus not a "general thesis" but a formulation aimed at characterizing the conjuncture of a particular moment.
This characterization was correct, yet inadequate, for it was not derived from a many-sided analysis of the conjuncture. Thus, Stalin declined to explain the intensification of the bourgeois class struggle by the mistakes made by the Party in its handling of the problems of the poor and middle peasantry, as a result of the weakening of the machinery of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of its connections with the masses. As he saw it, any analysis of the situation which took account of such factors amounted to trying to attribute the intensification of the class struggle to "causes connected with the character of the apparatus,"[89] or to saying that what had been "good" last year had suddenly become "bad"[90] (for he denied that there had been any change in this matter during the intervening period).
Restricting in this way his analysis of the causes of the intensification of the class struggle amounted to focusing one-
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sided attention upon the attempts made by the adversaries of the dictatorship of the proletariat, without examining what it was, in the disposition of the latter's forces, that enabled these adversaries to transform their attempts into effective counteroffensives. Whether they could do this or not depended on the firmness of the bonds between the working class and its allies, and on the political line of the Party. What the analysis left out was therefore the main thing, the political line and its contradictions: this prevented correct treatment of these contradictions and speedy introduction of the necessary rectifications.
The second thesis set out in this speech of April 1929 was that of the need to impose upon the peasantry "something in the nature of a tribute," so as to make possible industrialization of the Soviet Union.[91]
In the general way in which it was presented, this thesis was both true and false. It was true in the sense that, in the concrete conditions in which the Soviet Union was placed, no industrialization of any magnitude was possible unless the peasantry made a certain contribution [92] to the effort of industrial development.
Formulated, however, in so general a fashion, this thesis could open the way for a wrong policy, one entailing grave consequences, for it was not accompanied by any indication of the limits which this tribute must not exceed if it was not to jeopardize the worker-peasant alliance and the requirements for expanded reproduction in agriculture. The facts were not slow in revealing that these limits were being exceeded.
The negative consequences of the "tribute" thesis set forth in these general terms were enhanced decisively by the linking of this thesis with another, false one, namely, the assertion that "the very nature of the Soviet regime precludes any sort of exploitation of the peasantry by the state."[93]
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Such a formulation did not allow for either the contradictory nature of the Soviet state (a state of the working class but also a "bourgeois state," as Lenin put it, in so far as it ensured the reproduction of certain bourgeois relations, particularly on the plane of distribution), or for the presence of bourgeois elements in the Soviet state machine. Yet these factors could constitute the objective conditions for despoiling and exploiting the peasants (and the workers, too, for that matter) and drive the peasantry into opposition to the Soviet power. This formulation of Stalin's was therefore a step backward as compared with Lenin's.
Stalin's speech at the plenum of April 1929 set forth a thesis of the necessity for "new forms of the bond between town and country." These new forms were to involve the supplying by industry of means of production to agriculture -- agricultural machinery, tractors, fertilizers, etc. -- for, now, "it is a question of reconstructing agriculture," reorganizing agricultural production "on the basis of new technique and collective labour."[94]
This thesis developed and sharpened the contrast which had been made up to that time between a worker-peasant alliance based on textiles and that based on steel. The prospect which it opened up certainly corresponded to future needs, but the formulations used gave rise to a series of problems, and the following in particular:
(a ) Even at the end of the NEP period the "restoration" of agriculture was far from having been completed. Millions of small- and medium-sized farms still lacked the most elementary instruments of production.[95] In practice, this meant that it was still possible to help the poor and middle peasants to bring about a rapid increase in agricultural production in return for modest investments, and without having to wait for the building of new steelworks, new tractor factories, and so
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on. The problem of waiting periods and rates of progress therefore did not really arise in the terms in which it was formulated at the plenum of April 1929.[96]
(b ) According to Stalin, the period of "restoration" was one which had to be a period when what predominated was a form of the worker-peasant alliance aimed at satisfying "mainly the personal requirements of the peasant, hardly touching the productive requirements of his economy."[97]True, this was how the alliance had been practiced, but that practice had been mistaken: from the very beginning of the NEP, supplying the peasant farms with means of production, even if only rudimentary ones, should have been a priority task, as Lenin had said. The alliance based mainly on textiles had not helped the poor and middle peasants to free themselves from domination by the rich ones.
Stalin's speech presented collectivization as having been necessitated by technical changes and by the need for increased marketable production. The development of collective production in agriculture did not appear as a form of class struggle but as a technical and economic necessity.
What was stressed was "the danger of a rift between town and country" due to the inadequate rate of growth in agriculture as compared with industry, from which Stalin drew the conclusion that, "in order to eliminate this danger of a rift, we must begin seriously re-equipping agriculture on the basis of new technique. But in order to re-equip it we must gradually unite the scattered individual peasant farms into large state farms, into collective farms."[98]
In this conception, which was the one that eventually prevailed, the aspirations and needs of the poor and middle peasants were not the main consideration. It was the needs of the towns and of industry that dictated the technical conditions of agricultural production and these, in turn, that dictated its social conditions. We may well wonder why such a conception took shape (I shall return to this question when I deal
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with the changes in the Bolshevik ideological formation), but what is certain is that its implementing explains why collectivization was carried out in the way it was, and also its "counterproductive" consequences -- a setback to agricultural production instead of an advance.
The thesis of the urgent need for a technical transformation of agriculture having been laid down, that of the need for rapid industrialization could be "deduced" therefrom: "it will be impossible to supply the countryside with machines and tractors unless we accelerate the development of our industry.[99]
Here Stalin argues in a circle: agriculture must be rapidly supplied with up-to-date equipment so that it does not lag behind industry, and industry's rate of development must be accelerated so that it may rapidly provide the equipment for agriculture. Illusory movement around this circle was what compelled the continual readjustment upward of the targets of the First Five-Year Plan.
In Stalin's speech at the plenum of April 1929 the difficulties experienced in grain procurement were explained essentially by the alleged "economic strengthening" of the kulaks. Having asked what were the causes of these difficulties, Stalin answered himself with the following formulation: "During these years the kulak and well-to-do elements have grown, the series of good harvests has not been without benefit to them, they have become stronger economically; they have accumulated a little capital and now are in a position to manoeuvre in the market.[100]
Unfortunately, this "economistic" explanation of the procurement crisis begs some questions: (a) When was this "series of good harvests"? The last good harvest had been that of
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1926. (b) Starting in early 1928, it had been necessary to employ emergency measures, and the exhaustion of the grain stocks held by the rich peasants had, as the Party leadership admitted, compelled the extension of these measures so that they affected the middle peasants. This being so, how could the "capital" held by the kulaks in 1929 be larger (in the form of grain, at any rate) than it had been in 1927?
In reality, if the position of the kulaks had indeed been strengthened between 1927 and 1929, this was because their ideological and political influence had grown.
And this growth in the kulaks' influence was due to the mistakes made by the Party in its peasant policy. Any examination of these mistakes, however, such as would have been necessary if they were to be eliminated, was ruled out from the start in Stalin's speech. When he mentioned the procurement difficulties, he asked: "Perhaps the policy of the Central Committee is responsible for this?" only to answer himself with an unproved assertion: "No, the policy of the Central Committee has nothing to do with it."[101]
This last formulation -- which contradicted everything that had been admitted in 1928 -- made it necessary to "explain" the procurement crisis by an economic strengthening of the kulaks, and prevented any correction of the policy followed, since this was held to "have nothing to do with" the situation.
Stalin's speech at the April plenum was of quite special importance. On the one hand, the theses contained in it, even when they were inadequate, or contradicted reality, were not subjected to any systematic criticism: the ideological campaign waged during the period preceding the plenum was such that any questioning of these theses was immediately repudiated as constituting a "pro-kulak" position, and the development of a real movement of criticism and self-criticism, which would presuppose respect for democratic centralism, was consequently blocked. On the other hand, these theses were the point of departure for a new turn in the Party line, a turn toward the road of an accelerated industrialization the burdens of which were to be borne by the peasantry. This was
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confirmed (though still in hesitant fashion) by the Sixteenth Party Conference, which led to the "great change" effected at the end of 1929.
The Sixteenth Party Conference saw a last attempt at strengthening socialist relations while basically remaining within the framework of the NEP and laying the foundations for transition to a higher stage. The decisions it took are therefore of considerable interest, even if the prospect outlined by this conference failed to materialize. The contradictory character of some of these decisions, and the rapid course taken by the class struggle, meant that, a few months after the Sixteenth Conference, the Party leadership was faced with a choice -- either to renounce some of the economic (especially industrial) targets defined in April 1929, or to try and realize these targets by taking economic and political measures other than those provided for by that conference (including brusque abandonment of the NEP).
The second of these roads was the one that was followed. It was to take the Soviet Union into a wholly new era, before the conditions had matured for mastering many of the new and immense problems it presented.
Analysis of the principal aspects and decisions of the Sixteenth Conference enables us to see more clearly the conditions that made it seem possible, in April 1929, to reconcile maintenance of the NEP with the launching of a process of rapid social and economic changes. This analysis, together with examination of the concrete situation at that time, can also enable us to see the contradictory character of the decisions taken by the Sixteenth Conference, and some of the reasons which explain why these contradictions were "resolved" during the second half of 1929 in the sense which has been mentioned.
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One of the characteristic features of the Sixteenth Conference was the way that the problem of political divergences within the PB was dealt with. These divergences, despite their importance and the seriousness of the questions they raised, were not gone into in a fundamental way.
It was only on the eve of the closure of the conference, and "at the request of the delegates," that Molotov gave a report on the work of the plenum which had just been held. He then put down a short resolution which "noted" that "the Bukharin group" had departed from the Party's general line and was pursuing a "Right deviation." This resolution was adopted without discussion. Though it approved the decision taken by the CC regarding "the Bukharin group"[102] it was not included in the report of the Sixteenth Conference published in 1929: nor did this report include those passages in delegates' speeches in which they attacked Bukharin.[103]
For several months yet, the existence of profound divergences within the PB was still kept secret. Rykov was even included among those entrusted with presenting a report to the Sixteenth Conference on the Five-Year Plan, and he continued to serve as chairman of the Sovnarkom.[104]
The lack of a broad discussion dealing with the opposing political positions did not help to clarify the situation, and, in particular, to distinguish between what, in the positions of the three, might properly be called a Right deviation and what might be correct views.
The reasons why no real discussion was ever held have never been given. It may be supposed that desire to demonstrate the "unity" of the PB was the decisive factor, since such a discussion was sought neither by the majority nor by the three. Nobody wanted to risk a split in the Party. While the majority in the PB enjoyed the support of a section of the proletariat in large-scale industry and of many of the leaders of economic and industrial organizations, the positions of the three were backed by a high proportion of the Party members
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working in the countryside, by many trade-union cadres, and by a section of the workers in the consumer-goods industries, especially in the textile mills.[105] It should be added that, the greater the tension in the rural areas became, the more dangerous it seemed to allow the Party leadership to seem divided, since open resistance to the "emergency measures" might then develop among the peasantry.
At all events, the absence of a genuine discussion made it impossible for the respective positions to be clarified, with identification of what was and what was not correct in the theses of the two sides. This being so, the contradictions in the resolutions of the Sixteenth Conference were not analyzed, either. Thereafter that tendency prevailed which accorded one-sided priority to heavy industry and ignored the demands of the worker-peasant alliance. Significantly, some of the supporters of the former opposition, especially the Trotskyists among them, considered that the line of the Sixteenth Conference was such that they could ask to be readmitted to the Party -- though Trotsky, from his exile abroad, condemned this move.[106]
An important aspect of the Sixteenth Conference was its placing on the agenda "the fight against bureaucracy." The conference linked this question closely with that of the economic and social changes to be brought about, with collectivization and industrialization. A connection was thus made between radical transformation of the state machine (revolutionizing of the superstructures ) and success in socialist transformation of the economic basis.
The resolution adopted on this subject by the Sixteenth Conference sought to define some of the requirements which must be satisfied if a real breakthrough by the masses into the activity of the soviets and the administrative bodies was to be achieved, and resistance to the revolutionary changes overcome in this way. It denounced the harmful political conse-
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quences of the manner in which the state apparatus functioned. Thus, the resolution in question[107] declared:
The struggle by the Party and the Soviets against bureaucratic perversion of the machinery of state, which often conceals from the broad masses of the working people the actual nature of the proletarian state, constitutes one of the most important forms of the class struggle.
The contradiction between the magnitude of the tasks and the agrarian and technological changes laid down by the Five-Year Plan and the way the bureaucratic apparatus functioned was thus clearly appreciated. Nevertheless, the ideological conditions for revolutionary transformation of the machinery of state were left imprecise. The questions raised by such a transformation were approached, mainly from the angle of organization, and this was not adequate for showing the path whereby the initiative of the masses could succeed in smashing the tendency of the apparatuses to dominate them and to function in a bourgeois rather than a proletarian way. On the plane of organization, the resolution of the Sixteenth Conference stressed mainly the following points:[109]
(1) Checking up on the execution of the Party's political line. The resolution recalled what Lenin had said about the state machine often working "against us"[110] -- which testified to how little improvement had been made in this situation since Lenin's death. It suggested, among other measures, that increased scope be given to rank-and-file control commissions, stating that "these commissions must be elected directly in the factories and workshops and by the Soviets of the corresponding towns."[111]
(2) Improvement in the composition of the personnel of the state machine, and introduction of a system of leadership cor-
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responding to the economic system and to the demands of the building of socialism[112] -- these were two themes which were also emphasized in this resolution of the Sixteenth Conference. The indications given for realizing these aims were, however, vague and even contradictory. There were a number of considerations regarding "decentralization of leadership functions," "personal leadership," labor discipline, and "active participation by the masses in leadership," without it being made clear which of these were of principal importance and which were secondary. This resulted from the presence of contradictory tendencies: one favoring reinforcement of the existing organs of leadership and the other favoring broader intervention by the masses in the drawing up of plans and the taking of decisions.
Finally, this part of the resolution seems to have been dominated above all by concern to obtain "economic" results : rationalization of the production apparatus, increased productivity of labor, cutting down of the unproductive departments and services in the enterprises, reduction in the costs of the state trading apparatus, and so on.
The organization of supervision by the masses occupied a central position in this resolution, which called upon the non-Party workers and peasants to learn to make use of the rights which the Soviet Republic guaranteed them -- for, as the resolution said, "any fight against bureaucracy which is not based upon the activity and initiative of the working class, but seeks to substitute for supervision by the workers and peasants themselves the activity of some apparatus or other is doomed, however good its intentions, to produce no serious result as regards real improvement in and fundamental reconstruction of the machinery of state."[113]
The resolution then listed various experiments which had already been made[114] and urged that these be learned from. Nevertheless, it did not analyze why these experiments had
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produced such limited results, and nothing was said about what should be done to ensure that things would be different in future.
"The tasks of the fight against elements of bureaucracy in the Party and in the state machine" were also dealt with in the resolution.[115] This part of the document was, in principle, one of the most important, for it tried to define the road leading to reversal of the trend which had separated the Party from the masses and caused the latter to hesitate to criticize the Party and Party members, as Stalin had observed in his report to the plenum of April 1928.
In that report Stalin had noted that, because of the growing prestige of the Party leadership, "the masses begin to look up at [the leaders] from below and do not venture to criticize them" -- which "cannot but give rise to a certain danger of the leaders losing contact with the masses and the masses getting out of touch with the leaders," so that the latter are in danger of "becoming conceited and regarding themselves as in fallible. . . . nothing can come of this but the ruin of the Party.[116]
The resolution spoke of the need for developing criticism from below, without respect of persons, so as to eliminate bureaucratized elements and those who were connected with the kulak and capitalist elements still present in the country; of the need to combat violations of democracy in the Party, to hold elections in order to remove those who had lost the sympathy of the masses and contact with them, and to resist the tendency of leading bodies to substitute themselves for the organs they were supposed to lead (e.g., usurpation by the presidiums of soviets of the functions of the soviets themselves).[117]
This resolution, the principal terms of which I have summarized, therefore presented as a condition for the building of socialism a fundamental reorganization of the machinery of state and of the way that this functioned. It revealed that what had already been said on this subject over several years had remained more or less inoperative. Reading this document, we can see, too, that there was great uncertainty regarding the
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targets to be aimed at. Were they, first and foremost, increased "efficiency" in the machinery of state? Or did they consist in transforming this machinery in revolutionary fashion so that new proletarian political relations might develop? The resolution gave no clear answer to this question -- or, rather, this question was hardly raised in it. It could therefore not give a precise answer to the concrete problems of the road to be followed in order to transform the machinery of state: hence the juxtaposition in it of various recommendations the relative priority of which was not indicated.
In practice, during the months that followed the adopting of this resolution, the tasks laid down in the sphere of industrialization were amplified, and the pace at which these targets were to be reached was speeded up. Thereafter, most attention was focused upon economic questions, while the priority which had been accorded to the requirements for transforming the machinery of state was lost sight of. The few changes that were carried out, all the same, were carried out from above, which did not fail to bring with it some negative consequences, and in particular to reduce, instead of increasing, the place accorded to intervention and supervision by the masses.
The Sixteenth Conference formally decided on a Party purge.[118] This operation was bound up with the attempt to recast the state machine, but also with the general crisis of the NEP and the fight against Right deviation. The conference recalled that the purge to be undertaken would be the first general purge since the one carried through in 1921, at the outset of the restoration period.[119]
Between 1922 and 1929 there had indeed been only partial purges,[120] connected with the regular activity of the CCC.[121] The decision of the Sixteenth Conference, however, aimed at an operation of an exceptional and general character.
A few days before he placed before the Sixteenth Conference the theses on purging the Party, with the corresponding
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resolution, Yaroslavsky gave a report on these questions to a conference of the Moscow Party organization. His report was especially severe in what it said about the rural Party organizations. He also criticized those factory workers who had kept their ties with the village, for, he said, these workers looked on their work in industry merely "as a means of enriching their farms." He stressed that the purge must be effected on ideological lines, every member being judged "from the standpoint of the accomplishment of the tasks of the class struggle. At the same time, he warned against "inquisitorial methods," "enquiries among neighbors," etc.[122]
The theses on the purge were examined by the Sixteenth Conference only on the last day of its discussions. The corresponding instructions for the local control commissions were dispatched even before this examination had been undertaken. The resolution on the purge did not give rise, therefore, to any real debate. Nevertheless, the interruptions made by certain delegates show that a section of the conference feared that this purge would serve principally to restrict discussion in the Party. However, the resolution was passed unanimously.[123]
The policy of purging the Party was inspired by the ideas which underlay the resolution on the fight against "bureaucracy." Several paragraphs of that resolution concerned the Party itself, and deserve to be mentioned here. The following paragraph is especially noteworthy.
The conference draws the attention of the whole Party and of every Party member individually to the need to wage the most resolute, the most determined, the most persevering struggle against elements of bureaucracy in the Party itself, in the Party apparatus: these elements result from the many ties between the Party apparatus and the soviets, from the involvement of a very large number of Party members in administrative work, and from the influence exerted upon Communists working in the state machine by elements belonging to the bourgeois intelligentsia and to the corps of officials.[124]
This paragraph is remarkable because of the importance it ascribes to the fight against "bureaucracy" in the Party; but also because of the limited character of the reasons it gives for the
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existence of this phenomenon which restricted the practical significance of the methods recommended for struggle against it. Problems of the division of labor and of participation by the cadres in productive work were thus not put in the center of the analysis of what constituted, in reality, the development of bourgeois political practices.
The measures proposed were difficult to apply. However, the list of the principal measures which was given illustrates the way in which the Party worked on the eve of the "great change," and also the attempts made to modify this way of working so as to reduce the "bureaucratization" of the Party.
Among these measures was reduction in the number of paid Party functionaries and their replacement, wherever possible, by a group of especially active Party members (the Party "activists"). These should form, in every factory, locality, administration, etc., where they were sufficiently numerous, an organization called the Party's aktiv. Organizations like this did indeed develop in 1929, but without, apparently, causing a real reduction in the number of functionaries on the Party's payroll.[125] The extent of any such reduction would, in any case, not have been obvious, for a very large proportion of the Party cadres held jobs in the state machine and were paid in that capacity.[126]
The resolution on the Party purge also mentioned the need to fight against violations of democracy within the Party, so as to eliminate "bureaucratized" elements who had lost the confidence of the masses. It linked changing the Party's style of work and its makeup, on the one hand, with correct fulfillment of the tasks arising from the reconstruction of the economy and the industrialization of the country, on the other. It pointed out that during the NEP period, the Party had recruited, not only hundreds of thousands of proletarians, but also petty bourgeois who, by their personal and social example, "bring disorganization into the ranks of the Party, [who] despise the opinions of the workers and the working peasants, . . . [and] are careerist elements . . . whom the Party has got rid of only to an inadequate extent through the systematic, day-to-day work of the control commissions. . . ."[127] Hence the need for a more thoroughgoing purge.
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The formulations used in the resolution showed that in 1929 the composition of the Party was even worse than it had been in 1922, when the situation was already far from satisfactory.[128] They also showed the need, if the road to new social changes was to be followed successfully, for a series of measures to be taken which would place the Party under supervision by the masses and remove from it the elements alien to communism.
The resolution made the point that, although the factory and workshop cells were the soundest section of the Party, this did not imply that those cells did not equally need purging, for, there too, "elements have infiltrated which are incapable of playing the role of a Communist vanguard," owing to their thirst for personal enrichment, their failure to participate actively in improving labor discipline, or the fact that they had not broken with religion, or that their antisemitism showed that they had a counter-revolutionary attitude, etc.[129] The resolution declared that, without purging the entire Party it would not be possible "fully to draw into the Party's ranks the best elements from the considerable body of non-Party proletarian activists," and thereby put the Party in a position to fulfill the "great and complex tasks of the new phase."[130]
The resolution was even more severe on the situation prevailing in the rural cells. It stressed the need to show special care in checking the composition of these cells, so as to remove from them elements alien to the ideology and politics of the proletariat. It provided a long list of the characteristics of persons who ought to be expelled from the Party.
Finally, the resolution mentioned the need to purge the cells operating in the "non-productive" sectors, pointing out that the specific role played by these called for particular attention to be given them.[131]
On the plane of principle, the resolution emphasized the need to bring the masses into the application of the policy of purging the Party. Thus, dealing with purges to be carried out in the village cells, with the help of "activists" from among the
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agricultural workers and the poor and middle peasants, it declared that such purges must be effected before the eyes of the broad masses of the peasantry: "only a purge like that can transform the rural cells."[132]
On the plane of concrete measures, however, the resolution put the problem mainly in terms of organization, and not of a mass movement. It dealt essentially with the part to be played by the CCC and the local control commissions, and merely mentioned participation by the non-Party masses in purging operations. The masses were not called upon to develop their initiative so as to remove from the Party the elements that were not genuinely proletarian and Communist, or to insist that those Party members who had made mistakes be placed in conditions which would enable them to turn over a new leaf. The results of the purges would thus depend mainly on the way that the control commissions functioned, their notion of their task and of the requirements for a thorough cleanup in the Party, and the information they could collect (in the absence of a broad mass movement) on the practices and relations engaged in by the Party members whose cases they examined. Given that the members of the control commissions were actually chosen from among the Party cadres, they were unable, in most cases, to act otherwise than in accordance with what those whom they were called upon to "judge'' considered proper. Since there was no mass movement, they were therefore led to "punish," in the main, only the most glaring cases of careerism, corruption, contempt for the masses, and bureaucratic and bourgeois behavior, while "ordinary" cases were usually passed over, although it was also upon the treatment of these -- especially when they were numerous -- that the masses' trust, or lack of it, in the Party and its members depended, and so the Party's own capacity for revolutionary action.
The way in which the question of purging the Party was presented included other aspects, too, for the commissions were required to take into consideration the members' opinions[133] and ensure that "hidden" supporters of various trends -- such as the "Democratic Centralism" group, Myasnikov's supporters, and other "anti-Party groups," including
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the Trotskyists -- were "ruthlessly expelled." What was struck at here was not any activity, but mere opinions, including supposed opinions, since the resolution spoke of "hidden opinions," which were to be the target of a "ruthless" struggle,[134] This made it possible to expel anyone who expressed reservations regarding some of the Party leadership's appreciations of the economic or political state of the country, or who drew different practical conclusions from these appreciations. In the absence of adequate control from below, and of genuine desire for unity, and without clear awareness that it was inevitable for ideological contradictions to arise in the Party, and that these must be dealt with otherwise than by coercion, the terms of the resolution favored resorting to "administrative methods" in the sphere of the ideological struggle. And that entailed grave consequences for the Party itself, for Marxism can develop only in open struggle and discussion: besides which, if the Party is to have concrete knowledge of the economic, social, and political situation as it really is, then every Party member must be allowed to express his views.
It was precisely because the resolution on the purge, and the directives sent to the local control commissions by the CCC, emphasized expulsions as the means of uniting the Party ideologically,[135] that Yaroslavsky's speech at the Sixteenth Conference was interrupted by delegates who were unhappy about the content of the resolution, and about the fact that they were not allowed to discuss it. These interruptions were all the more significant because, in his speech, Yaroslavsky avoided dealing with the directly political aspects of the purge. It was also remarkable that the delegates who had interrupted and criticized Yaroslavsky's speech nevertheless eventually adopted the resolution, which was passed unanimously.[136]
From the quantitative standpoint the purge of 1929-1930 was relatively less important than that of 1921-1922. Whereas in the earlier period the purge eliminated a quarter of the
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Party's membership, in 1929-1930 it affected only about 11 percent -- and some of these were subsequently readmitted.[137]
The effects of the purge upon relations between the Party and the masses were also very limited. The purge was mainly carried out by internal Party commissions, without active participation by the worker and peasant masses, as the resolution of the Sixteenth Conference had demanded. Actually, that resolution had hardly been adopted when the bulk of the Party's forces found themselves committed to the struggle for industrialization and large-scale collectivization. As a result, the purge carried out in 1929-1930 did not lead to the decisive changes in the functioning and composition of the Party that the Sixteenth Conference had considered necessary: the changes did not enable the Party to become the indispensable instrument for a real socialist transformation of social relations, with authentic knowledge of the situation and aspirations of the broad masses of the peasantry. This knowledge was, instead, darkened thereafter by the fear which members of the Party's basic units might feel regarding the consequences of reporting difficulties which were due to mistaken directives from the higher authorities, since such initiatives could easily be identified with manifestation of "ideological dissent" and punished by expulsion. More generally, the use of such measures as weapons of "ideological struggle" reduced the Party's capacity to enrich itself from the experience and thought of the majority of its members: the latter were often led, through concern not to "make trouble for themselves," to express agreement with every directive, however trivial, and not to reveal any opinion that might differ from that held by the leadership. The development of this attitude had a profoundly negative effect on the functioning of democratic centralism, on Party life, and on the Party's relations with the masses.
In the immediate period, however, the measures taken in 1929-1930 helped to make the Party a more "efficient" instrument for carrying out decisions than it had previously been, and this was what the leadership had wanted, so as to be able to cope with increasingly heavy tasks of economic construction.
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The Sixteenth Conference was a decisive moment -- but only one such moment -- in the conflict between the advocates of "maximum" industrial growth and those who advocated "optimum" growth. This moment, in contrast to what had happened at the Fifteenth Congress, saw the victory of the former over the latter. A new, explicit political line of immediate and accelerated industrialization was thus defined, which was to produce a series of effects on class relations, and especially on the worker-peasant alliance. The more this line hardened and developed, the more clearly its class consequences were to emerge; and that was not yet the situation at the time when the Sixteenth Conference was held.
In order to evaluate correctly the implications of the decision taken regarding industrial policy, we must see how the contrasting lines on this matter were reflected -- before, during, and after the Sixteenth Conference -- in the "plan figures" for industrialization and investment. We must also see how the line that prevailed meant bringing nearer the final break with the NEP: this was a contradiction within the resolutions of the Sixteenth Conference, which actually resolved that the NEP should not be abandoned in the near future.[138]
We have seen how, after the Fifteenth Congress, two lines on industrialization were in conflict.[139] One line continued to defend the orientation of the Congress, declaring that, while industry was the "driving force" of the economy, agriculture was its "basis," and upholding the need for allocating investments in such a way as to enable every branch of the economy to develop at a rate that would enable it to meet the needs of the other branches and those of the consumers (hence the idea of an "optimum" development). The other line asserted that what was required was "maximum'' development of in-
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dustry, with priority given to investment in heavy industry. We have seen that this second line, to which Stalin adhered more and more closely, until he became its defender, tended to win the battle -- implicitly, at least, since, until the spring of 1929, no formal resolution decided clearly between these two orientations.
The increased influence of the advocates of "maximum" industrial growth was reflected in the gradual raising of the targets of industrial production and investment proposed by the various organs which participated in the framing of the plans. Thus, in December 1927 Gosplan forecast that, during the First Five-Year Plan (which was then intended to end in 1931-1932), production by large-scale industry would be multiplied by 1.77 (according to the "minimum" version of the plan) or by 2.03 (according to the so-called optimum version).[140] In August 1928 the VSNKh proposed a draft which forecast that at the end of the five-year period (now ending in 1932-1933), production by large-scale industry would be 2.27 times as great. In December 1928 the so-called optimum variant prepared by Gosplan and the VSNKh forecast a coefficient of 2.68. In April 1929 the "optimum" variant adopted by the Sixteenth Conference forecast a coefficient of 2.79. Thus, between December 1927 and April 1929, the "forecast coefficient of five-year growth" in large-scale industry increased by 37 or 60 percent, depending on the variant.[141]
Parallel with this increase, the amount forecast for gross investment in plant rose from 16 milliard roubles (March 1927) to 64.6 milliard (April 1929).[142] Thus, within two years, the forecast for investment had increased fourfold. More than 40 percent of this investment was earmarked for industry, and, within that total, heavy industry's share rose from 69.4 percent to 78 percent.[143]
This "growth" in the targets for investment and industrial production was all the more significant because it did not result from a more rigorous analysis of the Soviet economy's potentialities and the prospects opened up by the changing of property relations and production relations. Examination of the successive drafts of the Five-Year Plan shows that the
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"growth" in the industrial targets reflected, fundamentally, a change in the political line -- that is, increased influence by the advocates of rapid industrialization. To convince oneself of this it is enough to look at the resolution on the Five-Year Plan adopted by the Sixteenth Conference and by the Congress of Soviets, together with the decisions and forecasts relating to the industrial targets.
The resolution on the Five-Year Plan adopted by the Sixteenth Conference was ratified in May 1929 by the Congresses of Soviets of the RSFSR and the Ukraine and by the Fifth All-Union Congress of Soviets.[144] This resolution adopted the so-called optimum variant of the draft prepared by Gosplan. It declared (thereby rejecting the conclusions of the Fifteenth Party Congress) that the plan must ensure "maximum development of production of means of production as the basis for the industrialization of the country."[145] The principle according to which agriculture was the basis of the economy was thus no longer stated.
In the resolution adopted by the Sixteenth Conference, realization of the forecasts for increases in industry and investment presupposed that agricultural production would increase to more than 50 percent over the prewar figure.[146] Yet agricultural production had not increased since 1926, and was even tending to decline, as a result of the application of the "emergency measures.'' Nothing, therefore, justified such optimism (which facts were, moreover, to refute absolutely) where the progress of agricultural production was concerned. The forecasts for agriculture were also unrealistic in assuming that, throughout the five-year period, there would be only good harvests.[147]
By adopting the hypothesis of maximum and uninterrupted growth, the resolution on the Five-Year Plan took no account of a number of points made by Lenin regarding the need, if
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one was to draw up an economic plan properly, to follow the method of guiding links, so as to proceed from the determining of one task to another. Lenin also spoke of the need to define the minimum (not "optimum") conditions that would have to be fulfilled if the various tasks were to be accomplished, and to prepare several variants to be applied in the light of the conditions that actually prevailed -- which meant not persisting in the attempt to fulfill certain tasks if the conditions for their fulfillment failed to materialize. Lenin also stressed that, in the actual situation of Soviet Russia, the point of departure, or base factor, for the compiling of the plan must be the actual availability of foodstuffs, which, in practice, meant grain. None of these points made by Lenin was taken into account in 1928-1929, either in the drawing up of the optimum version or in connection with what happened later on, when harvests turned out to be much poorer than had been forecast in the Plan.[148]
The resolution on the Five-Year Plan also forecast that the productivity of labor in industry would increase by 150 percent. This forecast was actually nothing but a wish. It was based on no objective facts, and contradicted the actual evolution of productivity -- and it was not realized. However, on the basis of these "forecasts" regarding agriculture and the productivity of labor, the Plan provided for real wages to rise by 71 percent, while costs of production would fall by 35 percent in industry and 50 percent in building.[149] These forecasts of reductions in costs were based on the hypothesis (which nothing justified, and which was not fulfilled) of a very great improvement in the use made of raw materials and power.
There were many reasons why forecasts were adopted which were so unrealistic[150] and which were known to be such by a large number of Party members and cadres, though they dared not say this publicly. Among these reasons were the development of unemployment during the preceding years, and the steadily growing difficulties in the sphere of food supplies, which impelled the Party to seek a way of escaping from a situation which had become dangerous for the Soviet power. The worsening of relations with the peas-
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antry as a result of the application of the emergency measures meant that, for many Party members and cadres, this way out of the crisis had to take the form of industrialization at the fastest possible rate, while they looked upon as "defeatists" those (very few) who took upon themselves the risk involved in pointing out what was unrealistic and contradictory in a number of the forecasts. The worsening of the worker-peasant alliance which began early in 1928 thus played a considerable role in the rallying of support for the forecasts of the Five-Year Plan as it was then laid down. This support reflected the illusion that a technological and economic solution could be found for the political problem presented by the deterioration of the alliance. It gave expression to a "technicist-economist" component in the Bolshevik ideological formation (something to which I shall return) -- a component which acquired special importance under the impact of a series of factors: the enthusiasm for industrialization with which a section of the working class, especially the youth, was fired; pressure by the heads of the big enterprises and industrial trusts; the influence of a nationalism which was flattered by the idea of "catching up with and surpassing" the industrialized countries within a short period; and so on.
A set of objective and subjective conditions thus favored the elaboration and acceptance of an industrial plan which was extremely ambitious,[151] to the extent that it contained not only unrealistic forecasts but also many internal contradictions.
Even a moderately close study of the forecasts of the Five-Year Plan, and of the way the economy actually functioned, reveals, indeed, that in a certain number of sectors the material resources needed for reaching the set of targets laid down were not available, and would not become available within the five-year period. Thus, in 1928-1929, the quantity of iron and steel products needed for satisfying the needs arising from the Plan's targets was 30 percent larger than the production actually available, which meant that 30 percent of the demand engendered by the Plan could not be met. A similar "deficit," on the order of 25 percent, was observed where nonferrous metals were concerned, and the same was true in relation to many other products.[152]
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The incompatibilities between the various targets of the Plan, and the unrealism of some of its forecasts, were not unknown to the economists and technicians who prepared it. However, in the atmosphere of "ruthless struggle" against the Right which reigned at the beginning of 1929, most of them preferred to keep quiet, or to voice their doubts only cryptically, for such warnings might easily be described as expressions of "defeatism" and signs of one's adherence to the "Right tendency."
Strumilin, though himself an advocate of ambitious targets, noted that most of the specialists working on the Plan were no longer prepared to point out its weaknesses, or the adjustments that needed to be made in it. He wrote on this subject: "Unfortunately, it would not be reasonable to put to the test the civil courage of these specialists, who are already saying, in the corridors, that they prefer to stand for higher tempos rather than sit [i.e., in prison] for lower ones."[153]
It was not only fear of repressive measures that led such men to keep their mouths shut about the unrealistic character of certain aspects of the Plan (which called in question the "realism" of the Plan as a whole), but also the ideological and political atmosphere which developed during 1928, in connection with the rupture, already far advanced, of the worker-peasant alliance. Even those Party leaders who favored rapid industrialization, but who were aware of the unrealism of certain forecasts, ceased to voice their doubts in public.
A letter sent by Kuibyshev to his wife at the end of 1928 (and not published until nearly forty years later) testifies to the situation in which some leaders were placed, even though they were far from being suspected of "Rightism": "Here is what worried me yesterday and today: I am unable to tie up the balance, and as I cannot go for contracting the capital outlays -- contracting the tempo -- there will be no other way but to take upon myself an almost unmanageable task in the realm of lowering costs."[154]
In this situation, the plan was drawn up without even any definition of the concrete conditions that would have to be combined if the forecast increases in production and produc-
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tivity were to be realized. Essentially, the plan counted on the effects to be brought about by technological changes which had not yet been studied, and on the introduction of "up-to-date techniques" which were to be imported, without allowing for the time needed for these techniques to be mastered on the scale of society as a whole.
It must be noted that the plan, which was conceived as a plan for building socialism, offered no prospect of change in the social organization of labor and production. The relations which had become consolidated in the state sector during the NEP period seemed untouchable. Nowhere was there any question of realizing the prospect outlined by Marx, who wrote that socialism would change labor relations and bring about "a new organisation of production, or rather the delivery (setting free) of the social forms of production in present organised labour (engendered by present industry) of the trammels of slavery, of their present class character. . . ."[155]
In the absence of development of new forms of the organization of labor, an increase so rapid as was forecast for the productivity of labor in industry was expected to result mainly from the exercise of increased authority over the workers by the managers of enterprises. The resolution on the Five-Year Plan gave precise attention to this point. It called for "determined struggle against unjustified absenteeism and slackness in production" and for strengthening labor discipline.[156]
At the beginning of 1929, a broad campaign was launched for the strengthening of discipline. On January 17 a CC resolution drew a harsh picture of the situation in the Donbas mines, denouncing "a decline in labor-discipline among the miners and the technical personnel responsible for supervising the lower echelons." It also denounced "inadequate improvement in the productivity of labour."[157] On February 21 the CC called for stricter labor discipline.[158] On March 6 the Sovnarkom adopted a decree imposing severer punishments for ab-
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senteeism and unpunctuality. The managers of enterprises were called upon to enforce the strictest penalties, and the labor exchanges to give priority to workers who had not been dismissed for indiscipline.[159] In the same month, the head of the department of "labour economy" in the VSNKh, I. Kraval, complained of the inadequacy of penalties for offences against discipline, and the indulgence shown in such cases by the arbitration commissions, the inspectorate of labor and the courts.[160] Thus at the very moment when the First Five-Year Plan was relying on labor discipline to bring about a rapid increase in productivity, the existing conditions failed to justify this expectation. The Party therefore increasingly called upon the trade unions to help in strengthening discipline. After adopting the resolution on the Five-Year Plan, the Sixteenth Conference addressed an "appeal to all the workers and working peasants of the Soviet Union,"[161] which stressed the gigantic scale of the tasks that had to be accomplished in order to ensure a rapid development of industry. This document emphasized the role that should be played by emulation in the phase that was opening, and the "indissoluble link which binds together emulation and the Five-Year Plan." It called for the adoption by the trade unions and by the economic organs of "a system of incentives for those who engage in emulation."[162]
We have seen[163] that a large number of trade-union leaders, including Tomsky, resisted, to some extent, directives which, in their eyes (with the knowledge they possessed of the workers' day-to-day problems) implied the exercise of too strong a pressure upon the workers. They considered that, carried beyond a certain point, this pressure might produce negative effects. Hence their reservations regarding the scale of the tasks projected in the domain of productivity of labor and reducing production costs.
Already in December 1928, at the Eighth Congress of the trade unions, open clashes took place between Tomsky and those who supported his views, on the one hand, and, on the other, the advocates of a "maximum" tempo of industrialization.
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Pravda of December 12 uttered a warning to trade unions which gave insufficient attention "to the new tasks of the reconstruction period." At the Congress itself, Kezelev, one of the leaders of the metalworkers' unions, denounced this charge as "a calumny against the trade-union movement," including in his rebuttal also some articles of the same sort which had appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda. In these articles he saw "an attitude of disdain" toward the interests of the working masses and a revival of "Trotskyism" (alluding to the controversy of 1920-1921 about the "statisation" of the trade unions).[164] He declared that taking the road of industrialization required that "increased attention be given to the everyday personal interests and needs of the worker masses."[165]
A large proportion of the trade-union cadres who supported this view were relieved of their posts by a decision of the Party. In 1929-1930, in Moscow, Leningrad, the Ukraine, and the Ural region, between 78 and 86 percent of the members of factory trade-union committees were replaced.[166] These very high percentages show that the overhauling of the factory committees was due to disagreement on the part of the majority of the trade-union officials with demands which they considered could only produce a loss of confidence in the trade unions among the working class.
After this overhaul, the trade-union apparatus was better equipped to act so as to bring about an increase in the productivity of labor, particularly by helping to revise wages and work norms.
A situation thus developed which was marked by a hardening of labor discipline and by the introduction of output norms imposed from above -- a situation unfavorable to an increase in initiative on the part of the masses and to their participation in the fight against "bureaucracy" for which the Sixteenth Conference had appealed.
While the Sixteenth Conference inaugurated a new political line in the industrial sphere, it reaffirmed existing principles,
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those of the NEP, so far as relations with the peasantry were concerned.
True, the resolution on agriculture[167] dwelt upon the development of collective and state farms, but it stated that this must be brought about very gradually, in view of the amount of ideological and political work that the Party would first have to undertake in the rural areas. The middle peasant thus continued to be presented as "the central figure"[168] in agriculture, and was due to remain so for a long time yet. Here are some indications of how cautiously the problem of collectivization was still dealt with at that time.
According to one of the resolutions adopted by the Sixteenth Conference, the maximum possible development of the "socialised sector" (state and collective farms) would enable the sown areas of this sector to be increased to 26 million hectares in 1933, or 17.5 percent of the entire area to be sown in that year. It was forecast that in 1933 this sector would provide 15.5 percent of the gross production of grain, and 43 percent of the marketed production, or over 8.4 million metric tons.[169]
Individual farming was thus still to play the predominant role in agriculture, providing nearly 90 percent of total gross production.[170]
Furthermore, the resolution on agriculture said that "in the next few years the principal increase in agricultural production will come from the individual farms of the poor and middle peasants," for "small farming is still far from having exhausted its potentialities, and will not exhaust them so soon. . ."[171]
The complete transformation of the agrarian structures was thus situated in a perspective of at least a decade, and kept within the framework of the NEP.[172]
The resolution on agriculture adopted by the Sixteenth Conference dwelt at length on "the systematic aid that the Soviet
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power must render to the poor and middle peasants in order to increase the productivity of their labour."[173] Consequently, the state farms and the machine-and-tractor stations were being called upon to help individual peasants. The contract system (kontraktatsiya ) was also regarded as a means for increasing the productivity of the farms of the poor and middle peasants, while constituting a form of linkage between agriculture and industry -- which was to give priority to supplying means of production to peasants who had entered into contracts for delivery of their produce.[174]
Thus, the Sixteenth Conference stressed, above all, consolidation of the worker-peasant alliance, within the setting of the NEP, this consolidation implying massive aid to individual farms by supplying them with means of production: this was one of the "new forms of the bond." It was to be combined with an increase in direct aid to the peasants by workers going into the countryside to help with the work in the fields, and to develop ideological and political activity there so as to contribute to the struggle of the poor and middle peasants against the kulaks.[
2. The fight for rapid industrialization
and for priority for heavy industry
I. The clashes in the first months of 1928
(a) The plenum of April 1928
(b) The first clashes in the summer of 1928
II. The deepening of the split in the Party
leadership in the late summer and
autumn of 1928
(a) The extension of the divergences to
international questions
(b) The denunciation of a "Right danger"
and of a "conciliationist mood" in the
Bolshevik Party
(c) Bukharin's attempt at a counterattack
(d) The open offensive against the "Right
deviation" and the plenum of November
1928
(e) The beginning of a break with the
Bolshevik Party's previous line
(1) Stalin's view on industrialization and
the expansion of industry producing
means of production
(2) Stalin's view on the reconstruction of
the technical basis of agriculture
III. The open split in the Party leadership
(a) The positions defended by Bukharin
during the winter of 1928-1929
(b) The condemnation of the positions of
Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky by the PB
and by the plenum of the CC and the
CCC
(c) Stalin's speech at the plenum of April
1929
(1) The intensification of the class struggle
(2) The problem of the "tribute" and of the
possibility of the peasantry being
exploited by the Soviet state
(3) The "new forms of the bond" and the
"technical basis" for increasing
agricultural production
(4) Mechanization and collectivization
(5) Mechanization and industrialization
(6) The procurement crisis of 1928-1929
and the relations between classes
IV. The Sixteenth Party Conference (April
23-29, 1929) and its consequences
(a) The condemnation of the political
positions of the "three"
(b) The fight against "bureaucracy"
The tremendous tasks laid down by the Five-Year Plan . . . cannot be accomplished without a decisive improvement in the machinery of state, without simplifying it and reducing its cost without precise execution of their respective tasks by each link in the chain, without decisive overcoming of inertia, red-tape, bureaucratic suppression, mutual 'covering-up' and indifference to the needs of the working people. . . .[108]
(c) The organization of supervision by the
masses
(1) The need to purge the Party, and its
significance
(2) The ways in which the policy of purging
was applied, and its limitations
(3) Remarks on some immediate effects of
the purges
(d) The plans for industrial development
(1) The evolution of the plans for industry
and investment before the Sixteenth
Party Conference
(2) The decisions of the Sixteenth Party
Conference and of the Congress of
Soviets
(3) Labor discipline, material incentives,
and the role of the trade unions
(e) Agrarian policy
(1) The Sixteenth Conference and the
problems of agriculture