PART 1. (from The Militant. )
By Barry Sheppard
"The Soviet Union has changed from being a country whose meana of production were owned by the working peoples to ome controlled and omed by | sew exploiting olass whose origina are in the forior managerialtechi.cal-professional strata-"
‘The state apparatus (in the Soviet Union) is in the hands of capitalist forces, and thia is what characterizes the system today."
These quotations are from the statement by the national sonnittee of the pro-Maocist Progressive Labour Party in the Feb.-March issue of Progressive Labor. The theory that the USSR is capitalist is not newth this statement,PL has arrived at the same position on the sociologdeal nature of the Soviet Union as the Socialist Labour Party, Norman - Thomas and Brich Fromm of the Socialist Farty, most Russian Nenshevika, amd a host of others. Fron its beginning, the Trotskyist movament has countered thia wrong and dangerous theory, which can lead to profoundly ~ counter-revolutionary conclusions and conciliation with capitaliam-
Unlike PL, most of the other groups which believe the USSR te be Gap= italist are rabidly anti-Stalinist and anti-Communist. But there have been important recent precedents for PL's latest discovery within the camp of Stalinism itself. In 1948,when Moscow forced a rupture with Yugoslavia, Stalin and his spokesmen characterised Yugoslavia as Capit-= alist - and fascist to boot. In 1950, by way of retaliation, Milovan Djilas, the Yugoslav theoretician, put forward the conception that the USSR was state capitalist. More recently, Mao has characterized Yugo- Slavin a8 capitalist, and it appears that PL is only a atep ahead of Peking in so labeling the Soviet Union- No Theoretical Basis.
In all these cases, the characterisation of the nature of the regimes was changed overnight from socialist to capitalist- This was not dona on the basis of any objective analysis of fundamental tranaformationa in the structure of the countries involved, but amounted to name-calling tao justify factional and temporary diplomatic needa. Thus, when Moscow and Belgrade patched up their differences in 1955, each then acknowledged . that the other had rejoined the roster of socialist countries. One peculiar feature of PL's analysis is its vagueness on the question of when so momentous a transformation occurred in the Soviet Union. If their analysis is true, this reversal cf the Oetober Revolution signifies a colossal defeat for the workers of the world. When did this epoch-making counter-revolution ocour? PL attributes it to the "revisionists", the gang of bursaucrats,especially Krushchev and his heirs, who took over after Stalin. They say that the "naw soononic system" was “ushered in" by the proposals advanced by the economist, Eveei Licberman- @inoe Lieberman's projected reforms go back only two yeara, presumably it has been within the past two years that the sounterrevolutionary process was completed and the new capitalist ruling class took over the former aoolalist society.
This ig amassing: <A total counter-revolution in the oldest and most _ powerful non-capitalist state occurred - peacefully and unnoticed,except “by the thedréticdans of PL. Neither Washington nor #all Street,which
should be exceedingly interested, is. yet aware of this development:
Lidn't Notice-
What were the Soviet workers doing while the capitalists came in md
took their factories away from then? Was this earth-shaking avent per=
formed by some sleight of hand, like @ card trick, so tha it went un=obe
served by the workers! A capitalist counter-revolution mould not have
succeeded in the 4oviet Union without violent class struggles in which
the workers were crushed in battle. 4a such olashea have taken place.
PL's theory of a pesceful throwback from m claliss to tapitaliam ie no
better grounded than the theory of a peaceful transition from capitalian
to aocialisn, which P.L. correctly criticizes.
PL is forced into this ridiculous contention because, out of loyalty
to Stalin ani Mao, it must insiat that the counter=-reyolution had to take
place since the death of Stelin. Thay still wphold tha theory that the
Soviet Union under Stalin had arrived at soocisliar.
Ta the socio-economic atructure of the Soviet Union today fPundanent-
ally different from what 1t was under Stalin? The four areumente PL
offers on this question are paltry. They are: 1) “Profit - the private
appropriation of tha society's economic surplus - haa replaced planning
the enonomy for the benefit of the workera. Profit has been brought.to
the fore in all aspects of the Boviet economy? 2) The managers, the new
capitalists, live “high on the hog' at the expense of the workers.
3) The USSR is imperialist- 4) The managers posseas ".--the ability to
will away complete personal fortunes to heirs."
Profita, that is, tha difference between the soest of production
prices and selling prices fixed by the state, have been used in Soviet
accounting since the second five year plan in the 1930's- "The enterprises
- which are state property - sre administered as juridicielly independent
enterprissa- Each enterprise recelvea from the atate equipsent and cap-
ital(money) Por its own axclusive use» It then operates independently,.
with its own financial accounting system, its ow bank account,with
ereditsa which are often extended to it, and finally with the right to
realize a certain profit." The Soviet Financial @yaten,1945,pp-8-9)
The reforms advocated by Lieberman boil down ta using the profits
of the enterprises as an indication of their performance within the over-
all plan- They would also sallow individuel mensgers in charge of firma a
certain latitude in gauging the market and adapting products to "consumer
taste" and effective demand- Part of the profits are ta be sat aside for
"bonuses" for workers ani, especially and disproportionately, for the top
industrial bureaucrats and fechniciana-
PL quotes from the Ootober issue of Sovist Life: "To us the Volgo-
grad Red October Works as an example,: Of its 500,000 rubles of addition-
al profits, 720,000 rubles are going for bonuses--+" This quotation
implies that the vast bulk of the profite of enterprises would be in the
forn of bonuses undar the propesad feformae In fact, according to tne
proposed reforms, 75 per cent of the profits of the enterprias would be
returned to the atate. The remainder would be used in part for bonusaa,
part for re-investment, part for payment of previous debts,etc. He-invest=
ment by the enterprises would hevye to be in accordance with the atate plan.
State Ownership -
The profit level itself would depend to a very large extent on the
prices of raw materials and finished articles - fixed by the state. wll
funda invested in Soviet enterrrises do not belong to the enterprises tut
to the state- In other words, the state still owns the ceans of production.
Under these conditions, the nationslisad oharacter of the means of production and the planned character of the aconomy are not fundasentally altered by using profit as an index of the efficiency of production. There are certain dangera inherent in the Lisberman reforma, especially the inoreased reliance upon the market which can disrupt the plan, and, as in Yugoslavia, increased social inequality» But, in and of thenselves, ti. do not amount to a restoration of capitalism. Thoy are essentially techiiioal in. nature and do-not affaet collestivye ownership of tha means of production whatsoever. Finally, the reforms thansalyes are: still tbe= ing debated in the USSR, and have only been introduced on a linited ex perimental basis.
The use of bonuses is not at all new- In 1947,51-4 % of the total revenues of engineers and technicians of the metallurgy industry was in the form of benuses- (E-L-Hanevich,Forus of Wage Payment in Sociat Industry, Moscow, Gosplanizdat,1951-p.190. ) The bonuses pald pamgera and tachnicians are part of the gravy these upper layers of society akim off at the expense of the direct producers- ‘onuses ara part of the special privileges the bureaucracy and labour aristocracy enjoy, and are marks of inequality. Is this growth of inequality and spacial privileges now? Hardly.
The Stalin constitution of 19346, which proclaimed that socialism had been achleved in the USSR, took «es its motto, "to each aocording to his work." This unequal norm of distribution does not distribute accarding to the needa of the workers, (which ean be realised in full-onijy at the final stage of communism) tut rather according to their disparate output. Moreover, it enables officials, who define how much work is worth, to reward thensaelyés much nore generously than tha workers.
In 1935, the ratio of high-rarcing engineers’ salariaa to those of janitora, porters and night-watchmen, wes 20 to one-(i-TUGOY, Russia's Eoonomic Front For War 4nd Peacs,p-165) In 1952, another investigation reported a janitor’s aalary at 300 rublas;700,800 for a chauffeur;s2,500 for a chief of a technical section in a ministry, and 7-6,000 for a chief of a large enterprise- (Bulletin of the Institute of Statistica, Oxford, Sept-Oct-,1952). uch inequality which enables the upper crust to "live high on the hog” goes back to the days of Stalin.
Stalin intensified speed=<up cethods developed by capitaliam to force workers to erestar producticn.: Btakhanovite sovement was designed to pit worker against worker and reward special skilled and favoured workers at raes of pay mmy times higher than ordinary employees. Progreasivye Labor further points to the counter-revolutionary rola of the remlin's foreign poliay as proof of ita capitalist olasa character. Is thia something new? What about Stalin's policy during the Sparish Civil war, which subordinated the revolution of the Spanish workers and easanta to the government and interests of the Republican sector of tha Banish bourgeoisie = with the same results as the recent Communiat catastrophe in Indonesia? What about the betrayal of the Greek revolution by Stalin after World War 27 What sbout Stalin's spposition to the Yugoslav revolution? In Franve after World War 2, in accordance with the agreement Stalin made with Roosevelt and Churchill, the Communists were told to join de Gaulle's tripartite government which salvaged and consolidated French capitalise. Sabotage of workers’ revolutions elaewhere is not new for the Krenlin; it goes back to Stalin and carks his whole ara.
The laws of inheritance are not new either-. They are restricted to
personal belongings and do not allow anyone to pass on property rights in
the means of production, ani thereby have no bearing.on the collective
omership of the means of production, which is the basis of a: socialist
economy.