Disbelief in the Possibility of Building Socialism in One Country - 4 - Basmanov

BASMANOV

In the twenties the Communist Party set about building socialism on a big scale. It was guided by Lenin's dictum that in the Soviet Union there were all prerequisites for the building of a complete socialist society. In this period the Trotsky "theory of permanent revolution" became the platform for bringing together the most diverse anti-socialist elements.

Trotskyism reflected the mood of a certain section of the petty bourgeoisie, mostly urban, who feared the socialist reconstruction of society.

The party policy for strengthening socialism was received with hostility by precisely those petty-bourgeois elements, who, having been swept off their feet by the gale of revolutionary events, took part in the civil war on the side of the working class, but had only the vaguest notions of the ultimate aim of the conflict. They became depressed, pessimistic and even anti-revolutionary when life put before the Soviet people the problem of the transition from Civil War to the hard work of peacetime, and the construction of socialism became the chief direction of the party's practical activity.

Pessimism infected even part of the working class, who considered that Russia had not yet got the requisites for a decisive onslaught of socialist forces against those of capitalism. Trotsky was joined by vacillating members of the party, who turned out to be incapable of withstanding the petty-bourgeois influence that was growing at that time.

Trotsky's platform also attracted opportunists who were opposed to the building of socialism and yet continued to swear their allegiance to the revolutionary cause and Marx- ism-Leninism. The Trotskyites disguised their defeatist views on the impossibility of building socialism in the Soviet Union with high-sounding phrases about the need to support world revolution.

In accordance with Lenin's precepts, the Bolshevik party laid mankind's first road towards socialism, strengthened Soviet Russia as the bulwark of world revolution, and gave its utmost support to the revolutionary struggles in other countries. Thereby the victorious working class not only solved national problems, but carried out its highest international duty with regard to the world revolutionary movement. "Our socialist Republic of Soviets," Lenin emphasised, "will stand secure, as a torch of international socialism and as an example to all the working people.'"

One of the fundamental arguments that Trotsky advanced against the policy of building socialism was that this task could not be accomplished in a national framework in any case. It could be tackled only after the victory of the revolution in all or in the majority of capitalist countries. In 1922 he wrote in the epilogue to A Programme for Peace: "Socialist economy can only arise in Russia after the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe."

In this way Trotsky again tried to instil the idea that Soviet Russia had no alternative other than to unleash a revolutionary war against the capitalist world, or wait for revolution in other countries. In either case the gains of the October Revolution were threatened.

Indeed, what would it have meant for Soviet Russia to await revolution in other countries without trying to strengthen the socialist beginnings in its own social and economic life? The historic argument as to who would win being undecided, the various capitalist elements and remnants of the exploiting classes would inevitably have come to life. They would most certainly have concentrated their efforts on strengthening and expanding their position. In these conditions the danger of a restoration of capitalism would have arisen, and this would have thrown the world revolutionary movement as a whole a long way back. 

Trotsky tried to base his conclusions on the fact that, owing to her backwardness, Russia would be about the last country that would be able to get down to the business of socialist construction. "The present state of world economy," he asserted in the years when the party and the people had adopted the policy of large-scale socialist construction, "allows it to be stated without any sort of hesitation that capitalism has come nearer to proletarian revolution than the Soviet Union has to socialism." He maintained that the building of socialism in Russia would become a real possibility in not less than 30 to 50 years. Besides, he went on, the peasants would not support the working class in socialist construction, and the socialist reorganisation of the country- side would be possible only with the victory of the revolution in other countries. 

Trotsky and his supporters did not believe in the possibility of carrying out Lenin's co-operative plan for the rural areas. They considered that this could only result in mutual distrust and hostility between the working class and the peasants. Trotsky would not hear of the idea that, given a correct rural policy, the peasants would follow the working class, and become its most reliable ally in the work of socialist construction. He only saw the reactionary side of the peasantry and did not believe it could have any interest in promoting the revolutionary transformation of the country- side.

Trotsky also produced a pseudo-scientific argument to the effect that the Soviet people would not be able to escape from economic dependence on imperialist states. His simile was that the October Revolution could not switch off the post-revolutionary economy from the general system of world capitalist economy, in the way that electric light can be switched off with a flick of the finger. The orientation on surmounting economic backwardness, according to Trotsky, would inevitably put the Soviet Union into an even greater danger of dependence on capitalism.

In the end Trotsky went to the length of asserting that the policy of building socialism would serve the interests not so much of the proletariat, as ,of the international bourgeoisie. And in a letter addressed to the Sixth Congress of the Communist International, he announced that the policy of socialist construction in the Soviet Union was "a policy of co-operation with the foreign bourgeoisie".

Trotsky's arguments about the impossibility of socialist construction in one country were directed not only against the vital interests of the Soviet people, but against the revolu- tionary movement as a whole. Trotsky's line would actually have thrown away the victories that had been paid for by the blood of Soviet Russia, the bulwark of world revolution.

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