Catching up with Europe - in a socialist way

 Safarov G.

Source: Leningrad truth. 1925. No. 264. November 18. C. 3.

This article appeared in the course of discussions about the further ways of developing the industry, and at the end of the article it is briefly noted (and criticized) the positions of the “deviators”. It is interesting, first of all, with an analysis of the problems facing the country and society, as well as an explanation of the origins of these problems - as they were explained at that time. Published with minor edits.

Our country is one of the industrially backward. In a number of capitalist countries an incomparably higher level of productive forces has been achieved a more favorable ratio has been achieved between large-scale industry and small-scale agriculture.

Here we bear the brunt of the legacy of the past when the dominance of landlordism fettered the growth of productive forces in general and of peasant economy in particular.

It is no coincidence that during the whole period of our struggle we determined the direction of our social development depending on how the relationship between capitalism of the landowner type and capitalism of the peasant type developed.

In the era of Stolypinism, this question was the main and decisive one. It was on this basis  we emphasized that Russia suffers not only from the development of capitalism, but also from the "lack" of capitalism. At that time, the peasant economy had no other prospects for the future than bourgeois development. The dominance of the landowners disfigured and retarded the growth of the productive forces in the peasant economy, forcing it to pay huge tribute to the representatives of the landlords.

The October Revolution radically turned the state of affairs in the field of large-scale production and exchange.

The commanding heights of the national economy, raised by the previous course of economic development, were in the hands of the working class.

As a result, the proletariat was given the opportunity to develop the country's productive forces in the socialist direction it desired.

At the same time, the old struggle between peasant-type capitalism and landlord-type capitalism was eliminated. If in the first four years of the October Revolution the peasant economy, which was basically middle-peasant and even more middle-peasant during the revolution, could not take advantage of this, then during the second four years of the NEP, its restoration proceeded especially rapidly, precisely because of this elimination of landownership.

During the transition to the NEP, Vladimir Ilyich quite precisely and definitely pointed out that "since we are not yet able to carry out a direct transition from small-scale production to socialism, since capitalism is inevitable to a certain extent as a spontaneous product of small-scale production and exchange, and since we must use capitalism ( especially by directing it into the channel of state capitalism), as an intermediate link between small-scale production and socialism: as a means, a way, a method, a way of increasing the productive forces.

Back in 1918 Comrade Lenin demanded a clear understanding of the fact that in our country, to a certain extent, an inevitable struggle is taking place between state capitalism and that private capitalism, which, to a certain extent, inevitably rises out of the petty-bourgeois economy.

The relationship between the commanding heights and the free-market element is the area in which this struggle takes place.

The peculiarity of our economic situation lies in the fact that in the transition to socialism we must finish what capitalism has left unfinished in the economic field.

In an industrially backward country, this is “finishing up”, accompanied by such difficulties and obstacles that directly affect the alliance of workers and peasants.

Our approach to the pre-war level—given the presence of new free conditions for the development of peasant economy—with particular acuteness and perseverance raises the danger of a "commodity shortage," the danger of a shortage of manufactured goods on the peasant market.

On the other hand, approaching the pre-war level—with a certain intensification of class stratification in the countryside and a more distinct identification of the peasant elite, with the indisputable socialist growth of the working class, with a revival in all sections of the population—inevitably raises the question of a decisive struggle between the two paths of our development - the socialist path and the bourgeois path. We must catch up with other peoples both industrially and culturally.

But you can catch up in different ways: the Nepach, the kulak, the bourgeois specialist want “only” that we have “like in all Europe” - no more. The proletarian and the sections of the peasantry adjoining him want us to “catch up with Europe” by thereby developing our socialist gains and achievements, our socialist superiority over “civilized” capitalism...

To be able to connect the particular with the general, everyday tasks with the ultimate goal is the main thing in the work of the proletarian party.

The industrial underdevelopment of our country, which has hit so sharply in the form of a commodity shortage, is capable of pushing us to such a view that, because of the task of developing the productive forces, one cannot see in an abstract form the concrete conditions necessary for their socialist development.

This is what we meet with Bogushevsky, if we take him as the most typical figure.

Another danger, the danger of underestimating the middle peasants, which was repeatedly expressed by Comrade Larin, there is a consequence of underestimating the very dictatorship of the proletariat, which is a "club" in the hands of the proletarian not only in the political sense, but also in the economic field.