We can divide the theories of those who do not regard the Eastern European states as workers' states into two main camps: theories which analyse them as capitalist states (either classical bourgeois or state capitalist) and those which hold that a 'new class' is in power in these countries.
The first group includes most social democrats (Mensheviks, Otto Bauer, etc.), the Bordigists, the neo-Trotskyist theorists of state capitalism (Grandizo Munis and Tony Cliff) and the Chinese theorists of the restoration of capitalism, as well as their 'sophisticated' variants (Sweezy, Bettelheim). The Yugoslav leaders could be included in this group at the beginning of the fifties.
As far as the second group is concerned, mention should be made of the theories of 'bureaucratic oligarchy' (Lucien Laurat in the early thirties); bureaucratic collectivism (Bruno Rizzi, Max Schachtman, James Burnham); the 'new class' (Milovan Djilas); the central political bureaucracy (Kuron and Modzelewsky); and 'statism' (S. Stojanovic in Yugoslavia).
Of course, any system of classification must be arbitrary to some extent. The differences within these two groups that we have outlined are considerable. Tony Cliff will not much appreciate — with good reason — being placed under the same heading as the Chinese leaders (we shall try to put this 'injustice' right later on by seeing what differentiates them). Some theories are difficult to classify (for example, the ideas of the French group Révolution!, which split from the Ligue Communiste in 1971 and occupies a midway position between the theory of the new class and that of the restoration of capitalism).¹ But our classification does have the merit of allowing us to distinguish these theories by virtue of what is their central aspect: the definition of the class nature of the Eastern countries.
In the framework of this article we will deal solely with the first group. We will therefore examine theories concerning 'capitalism' (classical or state) in the USSR.
We are dealing here with the group of theories least distant from Marxism. The theories of a 'new class' involve a clearer abandonment of Marxism (the fates of Burnham and Djilas provide us with evidence of this), since they try to invent a new mode of production with new laws of development, different from the Marxist analysis of modes of production and economic-social formations. The theories of 'capitalism' in the USSR are, on the other hand, often based on Marxist texts: on what Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring on bourgeois nationalizations; on what Lenin wrote between 1917 and 1923 on state capitalism; on what Rakowsky said on the manner in which the State bureaucracy can be said to 'own' the means of production; and on what Trotsky wrote about restorationist dangers in the USSR.
Otto Bauer
The oldest of these theories is the one put forward by the Mensheviks. The historical reasons for this are not hard to find: was it not the Mensheviks who thought that the final proof of the adventurism of Lenin and the Russian communists was their seizure of state power in 1917? For them, Russia was too backward to be able to give birth to a workers' state. They believed that a one-to-one relationship existed between the level of development of the material forces of production and the corresponding state superstructures. In spite of all the heroism of the Bolsheviks, therefore, only a bourgeois state could be built in Russia in 1917. Without the intervention of the Mensheviks this state would be an authoritarian bourgeois dictatorship. In the best of cases, with the Mensheviks, a democratic bourgeois republic could be built.
It was Otto Bauer, the theoretician of Austro-Marxism, who gave a more polished expression to these theories.² In his pamphlet Bolshevism or Social Democracy written in 1920, he describes Soviet Russia as a 'transitional state', which, through the agrarian revolution, had created the conditions for the future development of a bourgeois class in the countryside, a preliminary to an evolution to bourgeois democracy. 'State socialism in industry, transport and the banking system; co-operative organization of the commune; the private activity of the peasants; the enrichment of the peasants on the basis of poverty in the town; the appearance of the new bourgeoisie thanks to the black market — which is inevitable given a private agricultural sector; the creation of new capitalist enterprises on the basis of special concessions to foreign capitalism: these are the elements which will make up Russia's new economic life' (p.70). In the pamphlet The new course in Soviet Russia written in 1922, Bauer sees the NEP as a striking confirmation of his theory. Instead of regarding it as a policy of controlled concessions by the workers' state, he thought on the contrary that it represented an acceptance of his theories by the Russian Communists. From then on he 'advised' the Bolsheviks to suppress the 'contradiction' between economic necessity and the form of political power. 'The economic turn represented by the NEP should be complemented with a peaceful political turn: the transformation of the dictatorship into a bourgeois democracy' (p.46-7).
Bauer's theory is interesting for us because it demonstrates an aspect that we shall meet again in other authors: an economic fatalism, which is due to an over-estimation of the role of the material forces of production coupled with an under-estimation of politics. In the framework of this theory, the State has — or should have — only a secondary role, simply registering the modifications resulting from the development of the forces of production.
Another (minor) aspect of Bauer's theory, but again something that we shall see more of when we come to deal with other theoreticians, is his use of Lenin's writings on 'state capitalism'. We shall return to them later.
Amadeo Bordiga
Bordiga — the founder of the Italian CP and initially its foremost theoretician, who passed over to the opposition in the Communist International after 1922 — put forward a left variant of this theory.³ For him, the October revolution was an anti-feudal revolution from which the bourgeoisie was absent. For that reason, the proletariat played the chief role in it. But later on, principally because of Russia's prolonged isolation, the new state was 'consolidated' as a political organ of emergent capitalism.
Here again we meet with the economic fatalism that we discovered in Bauer's writings — but under a slightly different guise. Aided by the proletariat of the developed European countries, the Russian working class could have been able to construct a workers' state. Isolated it was unable to do so.
What is missing from both these theories is any concept of a 'transitional' stage between capitalism and socialism. We have either capitalism (and a capitalist state) or we have socialism (and a workers' state).
Marx and Engels, as we know, envisaged the question in these terms: the 'lower' stage of the new society or 'socialism' (as opposed to 'communism', the higher stage) would be achieved practically immediately after the defeat of the bourgeoisie. It would be characterized by the suppression of the private character of the means of production; by the heightened development of the forces of production; by the absence of the market, money and commodities; by distribution of use values; by the abolition of wage labour and the disappearance of classes. Most of these characteristics are either entirely lacking or only very partially present in the Soviet Union and the countries of the Eastern bloc. From this point of view, they are paying the price for the detour of history — for the fact that the socialist revolution did not take place, as expected, in the developed countries.
But Bordiga keeps to the old schema. His theory can be qualified as schematic and normative. He gives good definitions of what a socialist society and a communist society should be like. From these theories we can see in what ways the USSR and the other workers' states fall short of being socialist or communist. But that does not allow us to draw any further conclusions.
Bordiga goes on, however. Capitalism, he says, is a market economy. Well, in the USSR commodity production exists. Therefore, the USSR is a capitalist society. That is Bordiga's syllogism. His conclusion is false — because his starting-point is wrong. Capitalism is not defined by saying that it is a market economy (commodity production exists in pre-capitalist societies). What distinguishes capitalism is that it is a mode of production which generalizes commodity production, because under capitalism both labour power and the means of production become commodities. For capitalism to exist there must simultaneously exist both wage-earners and means of production transformed into capital. This is what differentiates capitalism from other societies where commodity production takes place.⁴ In a society in transition from capitalism to socialism, commodity production does still exist (for example consumption goods) but not in the essential sectors, which would allow us to qualify the mode of production as capitalist: the means of production are not commodities. The transitional society is a society where commodity production is progressively restricted. That is why we say that the mode of production there is non-capitalist, since, according to our definition, capitalism is characterized by the progressive generalization of commodity production.
Munis and State Capitalism
Grandizo Munis developed the theory of state capitalism at first inside the Fourth International and later outside (at the end of her life Natalia Sedova Trotsky shared his ideas).⁵ Munis' theory is simple enough. His argument is not based on empirical data (pretty scarce in 1946 as far as the USSR was concerned), but on what he considers to be Marx's model of the functioning of the capitalist economy. Munis took the well-known equation which represents the different elements which make up the value of the product (P=C+V+S). Under the capitalist mode of production, he said, the 'centre of gravity' of the formula is S (surplus value). The future increase of capital depends on the size of S. In a socialist society, however, V (variable capital — wages) becomes the centre of gravity. Capitalization will depend on the consumption needs of the masses.
Now this is not the case in the USSR. 'Behind S from this time onwards (the triumph of Thermidorian capitalism) there was, just as under capitalism, a group of men. S thus regains its character as surplus-value to the extent that the bureaucracy usurps power.' (p. 19).
Munis concluded that in the USSR a variant of capitalist exploitation exists, the bureaucracy not yet being finally structured as a capitalist class. He predicted that when that final restructuring took place, the bureaucracy would have to abandon planning.
Munis' error is in his model. It is incorrect to say that, under socialism, the formula for the social product will remain C+V+S. By definition this formula can only apply to a system characterized by the working of the law of value. Under socialism the equation C+V+S disappears altogether. To be concerned whether the emphasis passes from one element of the formula to another, therefore, is to pose a completely false question. Munis' formula is strangely close to that of some Yugoslav theoreticians who define self-management as a system where the workers decide the size of V.
Some Soviet economists admit that C+V+S can still be applied to their country, while still pronouncing it socialist. We think that this proves that it is not. But it does not prove that it is capitalist. From this point of view, Munis' demonstration is even weaker than Bordiga's.
Tony Cliff and State Capitalism
As the main theoretician of the I.S. group, Tony Cliff is the best-known of the partisans of state capitalism. He has devoted a book to this question, which has gone through three editions. When Cliff talks about state capitalism, he talks at the same time about a state, a mode of production, relations of production and society, without making any sharp differentiation between the different levels. It will be useful, therefore, to see how the concept of state capitalism has developed in Marxist literature, so that we can construct a scientific concept to compare with Tony Cliff's ideas.⁶
Lenin used the term state capitalism in several senses. In 'The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat it' (as well as in the Preface to 'State and Revolution') he talks about state monopoly capitalism, meaning by this term a centralization of capital in cartels and trusts (the 'sugar syndicate in Russia'), without indicating clearly whether he is talking about the creation of a single monopoly per state or of the creation of a state monopoly. The picture becomes clearer when we know that a young Bolshevik militant, J. Larin, had at that time just published some articles (they were later republished as War-time State Capitalism in Germany, Moscow 1928) dealing with the economic measures taken during the First World War in Germany. In other words, this state capitalism was not a distinctive mode of production. It was a particular mode of functioning — more precisely a form of organization of capitalist production.
In other works (beginning with the 1917 text '"Left-wing" Childishness and the Petty-bourgeois Mentality'), and especially after 1921, state capitalism takes on another meaning. In these writings Lenin defines the Russian socio-economic formation as a society where different modes of production coexist: patriarchal agrarian economy, petty commodity production, 'free' private capitalism and socialism. The state capitalist sector, here, is still capitalist, but it functions under workers' control (nationalizations were relatively few during the first months of the Soviet Republic's existence).⁷
But it is above all Lenin's writings from 1921 to 1923 which take up this question of state capitalism. They deal with the concessions made to foreign capitalism (American, Japanese) in the framework of the NEP, with the purpose of attracting the capital Russia needed and enabling her to benefit from its higher productivity (see items 3 and 4 in the bibliographical appendix). In 'The Tax in Kind', [illegible] agreements made with Russian capitalists. He is thus dealing with centrally controlled activities — an economic sector where the capitalist mode of production operates. The qualification state indicates that these activities are controlled by the proletarian state (see on this subject items 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13).
What conclusion can we draw from this rapid survey? We can say that state capitalism for Lenin does not refer to a socio-economic formation, nor to a state, nor to a new mode of production, nor to new forms of property, but to a mode of functioning of capitalism under the control of a workers' state.
In his study Cliff does not refer to these latter texts of Lenin, which deal with state capitalism properly called. He refers to some writings of Engels in Anti-Dühring which deal with bourgeois nationalizations and (pp. 113-15) to Lenin's writings on state monopoly capitalism.⁸ Cliff's formula, according to which state capitalism is a 'partial negation of capitalism' (p. 110) is, moreover, copied from Lenin's formula on monopoly capital as a partial negation of capitalism. But for Cliff this state capitalism — and here is the crux of the matter — is developed under the protective shadow of a capitalist state, whose ruling class, the bureaucracy, is 'the personification of capital in its purest form' and 'the truest personification of the historical mission of this (capitalist) class' (p.18).
It is at this point that we find the central [illegible] of Cliff's work: while Cliff uses the term 'state capitalism' for what Lenin called 'state monopoly capitalism' — i.e. a sector of the capitalist economy protected by the capitalist state — his analysis of the economic functioning of state capitalism leads him to the conclusion that it can no longer be capitalism.
Cliff, in fact, considers that there is no commodity exchange in the USSR as far as the means of production are concerned. He even thinks that labour power is not a commodity in the USSR (p.158), because only one buyer of labour power exists — the State.⁹ He admits that investment is not determined by the capitalist law of the tendential decline of the rate of profit (pp. 172-3).
Having admitted all this, it is difficult to talk of capitalism. From the point of view of his analysis of the Russian economy, Cliff is nearer to a theory of a new system of exploitation and a 'new class' than to one of state capitalism.
What arguments does he use to show that, in spite of all these factors, the USSR is a capitalist state? He uses four arguments: the lack of workers' power over the state; the lack of workers' power over the economy; the privileges of the bureaucracy; and the pressure of international capitalism. We will examine each of these arguments in turn.
First Argument
'Can a state not under workers' control be a workers' state?' (p. 132). Such a question demands a negative response — and Cliff does not hesitate to give it one. This first argument is exceptionally weak: it does not take into account the historical possibility of various different forms of state power. Thus a bourgeois state can be parliamentary or fascist, with a whole series of intermediate variations. Why, therefore, is it not possible for a workers' state to pass through different forms too, according to the historical context.
Second Argument
'The economy of a workers' state and a capitalist economy have many common characteristics ... Common to both ... is the division of labour, primarily the division between mental and manual labour. The distinguishing feature is the existence or non-existence of workers' control over production' (p. 98). Since there is no workers' control, we cannot be dealing with the economy of a workers' state.
Cliff forgets that workers' control is not the distinguishing feature of a workers' state: at certain times, workers' control can exist transitorily within the framework of a capitalist state (dual power: the metal factories in Turin in 1920, for example). In a workers' state, it is possible for a whole period for several economic sectors to coexist (antagonistically) — not all of them under workers' control or management. What distinguishes the two economies is that the capitalist economy generalizes commodity production, while the economy of the workers' state restrains it.
Third Argument
'The size of this (the bureaucracy's) income is in itself sufficient to reveal the qualitative difference between the income of the bureaucracy and the wages of the workers' (p. 119). We are not convinced by such an argument. Using this criterion such professions as doctors or architects in the West would be classes. Differences in standards of living or income have never been what defines a social class.
Fourth Argument
Even if the first three arguments were to be allowed, we could only reach the conclusion that the USSR is not a workers' state. We are told nothing about the positive qualification of such a state. At this point, Cliff brings in the pressure of international capitalism. 'The rate of exploitation, that is, the ratio between surplus value and wages (S/V) does not depend on the arbitrary will of the Stalinist government, but is dictated by world capitalism' (p. 159). This argument is not well-founded. The USSR's trade with the capitalist world is extremely limited: it constitutes a mere 35% of its foreign trade. What is more, this percentage lumps together trade with the developed countries (22%) and the underdeveloped (13%). Moreover, foreign trade represents only a small percentage of the total production of the Soviet economy. The argument is accompanied by a 'sub-argument', which invokes military pressure. As the preface puts it: 'The author shows that even after a victorious proletarian revolution, a backward country like Russia, isolated as it was by the defeat of the Socialist revolutions in Europe, and under the constant threat of imperialist attack, can exist only if it achieves military power equal to that of its enemies. Military power can be attained only by massive investments which, under conditions of backwardness, means forced savings, freezing the level of consumption of the masses, extracting as much surplus value from the workers as is possible in order to accumulate capital' (p. 8).
But this means that not only is it impossible to build socialism, but it is impossible even to establish a workers' state and set about preparing the foundations for socialism in backward countries. Once again we meet with the economic fatalism which we discovered in Otto Bauer.
It is difficult to find any Chinese 'theory' about the USSR. We have to reconstruct an implicit theory from articles, declarations and speeches.¹⁰ Whereas the theories that we dealt with before were all more or less economist, we are dealing this time with an over-estimation of the political level.
Let us look first at a Chinese article where a synthesis is given of the process of capitalist restoration in Russia. This is what it says: 'After Stalin's death, great Marxist-Leninist that he was, the rotten careerist and conspirator Khrushchev, who had sneaked into the party, and his friends judged the moment right to launch a palace revolution. They usurped the leadership of Party, Army and State in the USSR. From that time onwards, the state power of the Soviet Union changed its nature. A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie replaced the dictatorship of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, through the hands of its agents, carried out a counter-revolutionary restoration.'
The Chinese theory is, therefore, a thesis of peaceful coup d'état, a 'palace revolution'. It suffices to take power in the Party and imprint on it a counter-revolutionary line and the class nature of the State will automatically change.
This thesis has two main characteristics: firstly it allows for peaceful transition (gradual or reformist) from one type of State to another; secondly it gives primary importance to the political factor (the politics of the Party) in making an analysis of the class nature of the State.
The Chinese leaders have never explained why they believe that a peaceful return to capitalism is possible, since they admit that the opposite is not possible. We must say in defence of Tony Cliff that he has at least attempted to make this explanation. He thinks that a professional army cannot be peacefully transformed into a popular militia — hence the impossibility of a peaceful transition to socialism. On the other hand, a popular militia can be peacefully transformed into a professional army and the possibility of a peaceful transition from socialism to capitalism follows from this (op. cit., p. 127). However, even if for a moment we allow what he says about the army to be true, this still does not permit us to draw any conclusions about what the class nature of this army might be (the Swiss bourgeoisie still has a militia!) nor about the class nature of the State.
The more 'sophisticated' Maoists have a more refined argument to account for the seizure of power by the bourgeoisie. But it is, however, only a refinement of the same theory. Professor Bettelheim writes that 'the diversity of concrete forms that the power of the working class can take does not modify its class character, as long as the relationship of the organs of power to the masses is not a relationship of domination and repression but a mass/vanguard relationship, allowing the masses to express their opinions and the leadership to centralize the correct ideas coming from the masses. When the organs of power become separated from the masses, however, these organs cease to be those of a working-class state and become those of a bourgeois state pure and simple.'¹¹
Here we come across the same arguments that we met with Cliff: a workers' state which is not democratic cannot be a workers' state. This normativism is doubled in Bettelheim's case with a real salto mortale. When Bettelheim was a critic of Stalinism, he still regarded the bureaucratic state as a workers' state despite everything.¹² Today the same Bettelheim, having become an admirer of Stalin, rejects the Soviet state since it is separated from the masses!
In another work Bettelheim puts forward this key idea on the restoration of capitalism in the following way: '1. The concept of vanguard describes the governing workers' party, but only to the extent that it is a workers' party through its social base, through its close links with the immediate producers and through its ideology. 2. If such a vanguard does not exist, in particular if the governing "workers' party" no longer has the characteristics which make it a vanguard of the working class, the political and ideological conditions which permit the domination of planned relations over market forces no longer exist. When this situation has come about, there may well be a document which still bears the name of "plan" but this only serves to mask the absence of real [illegible].'¹³
Ideological factors thus have a privileged status. Not only can they be responsible for the stagnation or the blocking of the transition to socialism, but the workers' state can even be destroyed and replaced by another state through their influence! 'The domination of the State bourgeoisie brings about a tendency for the rapid spread of market relations and monetary accounting.'¹⁵ This privileged status accorded to ideology is accompanied by an under-estimation of the resistance that the working class will put up to the new economic structures and the state and governmental structures accompanying such a transformation.
Sweezy's point of view is a little more nuanced. 'I consider the process in a slightly different way. The relationship between the development of a new bourgeoisie and the extension of the market is not a simple relationship of cause and effect but rather a relationship of a dialectical type, with reciprocal interaction.'¹⁶ Sweezy evades replying to the question on the nature of State Power itself.
Sailing beside the Cliffs in the China Sea
The Révolution! group in France takes an original position.¹⁷ It has developed the theory that a new exploiting class took power in the Soviet Union in 1928, at the time of the final victory of Stalinism. In fact it is the theory of a new class. But this new class has internal differentiations and is giving birth to a classical bourgeoisie. The process is, however, far from being finished.
In other words Russia is passing from a workers' state through state capitalism to classical capitalism.
What is this view based on? Its argument is not so very far from the over-estimation of the political level that we found in Bettelheim. The point of departure is the difference in nature between a bourgeois revolution and a socialist revolution. The first is a purely political revolution whose relations of production have already come into being under feudalism. The second is a social revolution, which is still faced with the task of creating new relationships of production. Up to this point the analysis is correct, as is the following formulation: 'We can judge the class character of political power and the existence or otherwise of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the functions that the state performs.' But a little further on these functions are described in a more limited way. To examine the nature of state power, we have to look at the relations of production 'whose emergence it assures or prepares' (p. 11). The function of the state is sharply limited here, for one particular aspect is lost sight of: a state can also be defined by its defence of existing relations of production, that is by defence of the status quo. When they lose sight of this essential aspect, the Révolution! comrades are then able to turn the terms of the debate upside down and say that 'the class meaning of the relations of production depends to some extent on the nature of political power' (pp. 10-11). This is exactly the opposite of what they started out by saying.
In order to be able to over-politicize the relations of production in this way, the Révolution! comrades take one precaution: they push the date of the Stalinist counter-revolution back as far as possible, to a date (1927) when they claim the new relations of production did not yet exist, even in an embryonic form; to a time when there was nothing to defend except the Party: 'Under the conditions of civil war, the pressure of the peasantry and the imperialist encirclement and the delay of the European revolution, the proletarian dictatorship was confronted with such difficulties that the revolutionary character of the Soviet state was guaranteed only by the revolutionary line of the Bolshevik leadership' (p. 4). In other words, the counter-revolution has been pushed back so far that nothing else except the Party existed in Russia. This analysis overlooks a few details. The new state, the nationalizations (the most important took place in 1918-19), the creation of the first planning bodies (well before 1927), the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, etc., etc.
To explain the second stage (reconstruction of the bourgeoisie), Révolution! makes use of the economic reforms. They assert that 'plant autonomy already extends by and large to investments and these latter are therefore at least partially dependent on the profits realized by individual concerns' (p. 62). This demonstrates a great ignorance of the actual facts.
Even after the economic reforms, major investment still remains centralized in the USSR. What is involved is only putting part of the profits at the disposal of individual production units. And only a part of this part is allotted to funds which make self-financing possible. In fact only 8-15% of profits go to enterprise funds.¹⁸ They are divided into three parts: funds for material incentives; money for social and cultural needs and the construction of housing; and, finally, funds for the development of production. With these last funds, pilot enterprises self-finance investments to the extent of some 10-15% of centralized investment. So the situation is a long way away from widespread autonomy! The real meaning of the economic reforms was different. If we look at the first fund (material incentives) we can see that it is to pay bonuses — as much to the workers as to the managerial personnel of the factories. But while the bonuses of the workers are only partially dependent on these funds (another part comes from the wages fund which is still centralized), the whole of the managerial bonuses are financed by the material incentives funds. What this means is that an organization which does not make a profit will not receive any bonuses. This is the 'carrot' that the economic reform offers to the enterprise bureaucrats so that they show initiative.
We do not dispute that these reforms 'stimulate' the factory bureaucrats to reduce the size of the work-force and wages costs. We will not deny either that the factory bureaucrats — or at least some of them — would like to be free to dispose of more sizeable investment funds. It is obvious that this process can provoke differentiations in the bureaucracy, one wing of which will wish openly for the return of capitalism. Moreover, this is one of the points on which the Fourth International has always insisted, in its criticism of the Soviet economic reform. But we should not confuse a movement with the final destination. For to do so is a characteristic of reformism — including reformism in reverse!
The bureaucracy is still obliged to manoeuvre and its behaviour is still far from that of a ruling class. Before such a transformation takes place, the ruling class in name — the working class — still has time to prepare itself to take back its heritage. For that to happen a political revolution must be made, which will give it the possibility of controlling the state through representative bodies of workers, an anti-bureaucratic revolution, which can alone guarantee that the long journey will reach its end: socialist society.
Bibliographical appendix: Lenin on 'State capitalism'.
1. 'The impending catastrophe and how to combat it', (September 1917), section entitled 'Can we go forward if we fear to advance towards socialism?', Collected Works Vol. 25, pp. 356-60.
2. '"Left-wing" childishness and the petty-bourgeois mentality' (May 1918), section III, CW Vol. 27, pp. 333-9.
3. 'Letter on oil concessions' to members of the Political Bureau (February 1921), CW Vol. 32, pp. 134-6.
4. Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B), 'Report on the substitution of a tax in kind for the surplus-grain appropriation system', (15 March 1921), ibid., pp. 114-29.
5. 'Report on the tax in kind' delivered at a meeting of secretaries and responsible representatives of R.C.P.(B) cells of Moscow and Moscow Gubernia, (9 April 1921), ibid., pp. 286-99.
6. 'Report on concessions at a meeting of the Communist group of the all-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions', (11 April 1921), ibid., pp. 300-16.
7. 'The tax in kind', (21 April 1921), ibid., pp. 320-65.
8. Recorded speech: 'Concessions and the development of capitalism', (25 April 1921), ibid., pp. 368-70.
9. Third Congress of the Communist International. 'Theses for a report on the tactics of the R.C.P.', section 7, (13 June 1921), ibid., pp. 457-8.
10. Plan of an article 'Commercial Organization', (October or November 1921), CW Vol. 42, pp. 357-9.
11. 'Draft theses on the role and functions of the trade unions under the New Economic Policy', (4 January 1922), ibid., pp. 374-85.
12. 'Sur les tâches du commissariat du peuple à la justice dans les conditions de la nouvelle politique économique', (20 February 1922), Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 45, pp. 483-9. (Not in English edition).
13. Eleventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B), 'Political report of the Central Committee', (27 March 1922), CW Vol. 33, pp. 263-310.
14. Eleventh Congress, 'Closing speech on the political report of the Central Committee', (28 March 1922), ibid., pp. 310-25.
15. Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 'Five years of the Russian revolution and the prospects of the world revolution', (13 November 1922), ibid., pp. 418-32.
16. 'On co-operation', (6 January 1923), ibid., pp. 467-75.
1. There are also theories with a foot in both camps: e.g. Gerry Healy (who believes that China is a workers' state and Cuba a bourgeois state), or Lutte Ouvrière (who think that the USSR is a workers' state and China a bourgeois state).
2. Otto Bauer, Bolschewismus oder Sozialdemokratie, Volksbuchhandlung, Vienna 1920; De Nieuwe Koers in Soviet-Rusland, De Wilde Roos, Brussels 1923.
3. A. Bordiga, 'Dialogue avec Staline', in Programme Communiste no. 8, 1959; 'L'économie soviétique de la Révolution d'Octobre à nos jours', Programme Communiste, no. 19, 1962.
4. [illegible] 'Chapter of Capital' [Un Chapitre Inédit du Capital] published in France through the efforts of Roger Dangeville (K. Marx, Un Chapitre Inédit du Capital, Editions 10-18, Paris 1971).
5. G. Munis, Les révolutionnaires devant la Russie et le Stalinisme Mondial, Editorial Revolución, Mexico 1946.
6. T. Cliff, Russia. A Marxist Analysis, International Socialism, London 1955. See too J. Maille, Le Trotskysme et l'USSR, Pouvoir Ouvrier, Paris 1965.
7. See E. Lokshin, How the Nationalization of the Economy was Achieved in the USSR, Moscow 1965.
8. [Cliff uses] the term 'State Monopoly Capitalism' for War[-time state capitalism]. [illegible] The fact that there is only one buyer or seller on the market does not necessarily mean that the product bought or sold loses its commodity character. It would be different if there was only one seller and one buyer.
10. Peking Review since 1967. Also see The Great Chinese Revolution and the Tragedy of the Soviet Union, and Let Us Go Forward on the Road Opened by the October Socialist Revolution, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Peking 1967.
11. Paul M. Sweezy and Charles Bettelheim: The Transition to Socialism, Monthly Review Press 1972.
13. Charles Bettelheim, La Planification soviétique, Marcel Rivière [illegible].
18. [On the new Soviet incentives system, see] 'The new Soviet incentives system: study of its functioning in Kiev', Revue Internationale du Travail, January 1970.