From A Political Current — To An Unmasked Gang Of Enemies Of The People
M. Moskalev
The Plenum of the CC AUCP(b) that ended in March 1937 expelled
Bukharin and Rykov from the ranks of the AUCP(b) for anti-party, treacherous
activity directed toward destroying the socialist conquests of workers and
peasants, toward restoring capitalism.
Bukharin, Rykov, and others for many years before and after the
victory of the Great Proletarian Revolution in October 1917 waged a struggle
against Lenin and the Bolshevik party, trying to impose their anti-Marxist
bourgeois views on it. Throughout all periods of our party's life, Bukharin,
Rykov, and their like- minded people spoke out against the line of the
Lenin-Stalin party.
With the transition of the USSR to the reconstruction period,
Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, and others formalized the faction of the right
deviation.
The platform of the rights — this kulak agency — was directed toward
the restoration of capitalism in our country.
Having been repeatedly beaten by the party, the rights, verbally recognizing the anti-party nature of their views, in reality, vilely two-faced, passed over to underground anti-Soviet activity directed toward disrupting socialism, toward restoring capitalism in our country.
Bukharin, Rykov, and others were direct allies and accomplices of the Japanese-German-Trotskyite band.
The counter-revolutionary fall of Bukharin, Rykov, and others is
only the logical culmination of their prolonged, vile, treacherous struggle
against the Bolshevik Party.
This historical reference highlights only the main moments of the vile, treacherous struggle of Bukharin, Rykov, and others against the Bolshevik Party, against the Soviet state, against socialism, against the Soviet people.
I
Long before the October Revolution, Bukharin spoke out against Lenin
and the revolutionary policy of the Bolsheviks. In the years of reaction
(1909–1910) he sided with the otzovists
1. Bukharin
stated that the bourgeois-democratic revolution had ended and therefore all
questions of the struggle for democracy were removed, one should not lead the
peasant and national-revolutionary movement.
Bukharin spoke out against the Bolshevik requirement of support by
the working class of the peasantry in its struggle for the confiscation of all
landlord lands.
At the beginning of the imperialist world war, in the spring of 1915, Bukharin, having organized an anti-party group, which included Pyatakov and others, began a struggle against the fundamental questions facing the revolutionary movement of Russia and the whole world.
In the years of the world imperialist war, the Bolshevik party, led
by the great Lenin, was the only party that gave a thoroughly consistent
Marxist assessment of the character of the war and put forward clear slogans of
revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. In these years, the leader of the
Bolshevik party and the world proletariat, Lenin, gave a complete theory of
imperialism as the final, dying phase of capitalism, formulated the law of
unevenness and spasmodic development of capitalist countries under imperialism, and on the basis of this law gave the working class the teaching on the
possibility of the victory of socialism in a single country.
Imperialism means the omnipotence of monopolistic trusts, banks, and financial groups. In the epoch of imperialism, contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie become extremely aggravated. "Imperialism leads the working class to revolution"69, notes Comrade Stalin. Characteristic of the epoch of imperialism are the exploitation and oppression by a handful of imperialist states of colonial and semi-colonial countries, whose populations begin to rise against imperialist oppression. In connection with the unevenness of the development of capitalist countries in the epoch of imperialism, contradictions between them, their struggle for markets, for sources of raw materials, for spheres of investment of capital, for the redivision of the already partitioned world inevitably lead to wars. The specified contradictions weaken the capitalist system, which in the epoch of imperialism "as a whole is already ripe for revolution"70. In the chain of the capitalist system, weak links appear, and conditions are created for the victory of the proletarian revolution and the building of socialism in a single, separately taken country.
The only correct tactical slogans, stemming from the Leninist
assessment of imperialism and the character of the world war as an imperialist
war, were the Bolshevik slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil
war and the directly connected slogan of the defeat of "one's own"
government in the imperialist war. These revolutionary slogans served as the
watershed between the Bolsheviks-Leninists, on the one hand, and
social-chauvinists and centrists of the Kautsky and Trotsky type — on the other.
The Bolsheviks in the years of the war had to wage a struggle for
the correct theoretical stance and revolutionary tactical line not only against
opportunism in the international workers' movement, but also against
opportunists inside the party.
The behavior of Kamenev was treacherous; being arrested at the beginning
of the war, he solidarized at the tsarist court with social-defensists,
speaking out against Lenin, against Bolshevik revolutionary slogans.
Anti-Bolshevik, essentially purely Trotskyite, was in these years the
position of Bukharin, who jointly with Pyatakov, Radek and others fought
against the Leninist policy and Leninist slogans.
In March 1915, the conference of foreign sections of the RSDLP was
held in Bern, at which the tasks of the Bolsheviks in the struggle against war
were discussed. Bukharin, jointly with Pyatakov, spoke at this conference with
their theses and resolutions directed against Lenin.
Instead of the Leninist slogan of transforming the imperialist war
into a civil war, Bukharin tried to impose on the party the centrist slogan of
Kautsky and Trotsky of the struggle for peace. The slogan of the struggle for
peace in the conditions of the imperialist war of 1914–1918 was
non-revolutionary; it prevented the party from carrying out the preparation of
the proletariat for using war for revolution. The slogan of peace sowed
illusions about the possibility of getting out of the war without revolution,
about the possibility of a fair democratic peace without overthrowing the power
of the bourgeoisie. This slogan made the proletariat, as Lenin points out,
"...a toy in the hands of secret diplomacy of warring countries"71. Lenin wrote at the beginning of the war about the
slogan of peace: "This is a philistine, priestly slogan. The proletarian
slogan must be: civil war"72.
Lenin persistently argued that one can put an end to war only as a result of overthrowing the power of the imperialists, that without the victory of the proletarian revolution the conclusion of peace will mean only a temporary breathing spell for preparing even greater imperialist wars. Lenin wrote: "We cannot stand for the slogan of peace, because we consider it arch-confused, pacifist, philistine, helping governments (they now want with one hand to 'be for peace,' in order to entangle themselves) and breaking revolutionary struggle"73. To this Trotskyite position, breaking, according to Lenin, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, slid Bukharin, who spoke out against the Bolshevik slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war.
Lenin taught that for the victory of the revolution it is necessary to promote the defeat of "one's own" government in the imperialist war. Every revolutionary must know that the defeat of the imperialist army unties the forces of revolution, facilitates the victory of the proletariat. The defeat of tsardom in the war not only facilitated the victory over tsardom and the bourgeoisie, but opened the road to the world socialist revolution. Social-defensists, centrists (Trotsky and others) sharply spoke out against the Bolshevik slogan of the defeat of "one's own" government. Sliding to the position of Trotsky, Bukharin, jointly with Pyatakov in the spring of 1915, also openly spoke out against this Leninist slogan, especially objecting against the slogan of the defeat of tsarist Russia in the war. Bukharin wrote: "The group categorically rejects... any putting forward as a slogan for Russia of the so-called defeat of Russia".
Bukharin and his group categorically objected to all kinds of
"agitation for defeat".
Lenin pointed out that only by waging a constant agitation against war, exposing the imperialist goals of "one's own" government, only by organizing strikes, demonstrations, fraternization at the front, etc., can one prepare the victory of the revolution and the conquest of power by the proletariat. "Revolutionary struggle against war," wrote Lenin, "is an empty and unconscionable exclamation, to which such masters are heroes of the II International, if by it is not meant revolutionary actions against one's government and during the war"74.
Rejecting the slogan of the defeat of "their" governments,
refusing to call for revolutionary mass actions, Bukharin and his group with
both feet stood on Trotsky's position. It is no accident that the Bukharinite
group at this same conference of foreign groups of the RSDLP in March 1915
insisted on an agreement with Trotsky and his group, who published the centrist
newspaper Nashe Slovo in Paris.
Trotskyites and their allies in the Bukharinite group, speaking then
against the defeat in the war of "their" imperialist governments,
actually supported the social-chauvinists who openly spoke out in defense of
the imperialist war, and showed themselves as opponents of the victory of socialism
over capitalism. After the victory of the socialist revolution and the building
of socialism in our country, the Trotskyites and their allies in the
Bukharinite group, having become enemies of the people, bet on the defeat of
the socialist fatherland, betrayed the fatherland, and helped international
fascism.
74 Lenin, On the defeat of one's government in the imperialist war, Works, vol. XVIII, p. 169.
Bukharin's struggle in the years of the imperialist war against the
fundamental tactical slogans of the Bolshevik party stemmed from his
anti-Leninist views on all major issues.
Bukharin, just like Trotsky, denied the Leninist assessment of the
epoch of imperialism. Instead of concrete analysis of imperialism, Bukharin
viewed imperialism as a system that completely transformed industrial capitalism
and simple commodity production. He denied the presence under imperialism of
pre-capitalist structures. Bukharin denied the Leninist proposition that
"imperialism is a superstructure over capitalism"75.
Bukharin and his group had an empty scheme of "pure imperialism"76. Bukharin stated that imperialism completely
destroyed competition, the market, crises, the anarchy of production, etc. In
the theses of Bukharin-Pyatakov (1915) it was said: "The imperialist epoch
is an epoch of the absorption of small states by large state units and the
constant redrawing of the political map of the world in the direction of its
greater state homogeneity".
Bukharin's viewpoint on imperialism converged with the theory of
ultra-imperialism (super-imperialism) of Kautsky (on whose position stood
Trotsky). Kautsky pointed out that a new epoch of ultra-imperialism will come
and then the contradictions of the capitalist world will be smoothed out, there
will be no political upheavals, conflicts, wars, and imperialists will
peacefully distribute colonies among themselves.
75 See History of the Civil War, vol. I.
76 Lenin, VIII Congress of the RCP(b), Works, vol. XXIV, p. 134.
Talking about the new epoch of ultra-imperialism, "organized
capitalism," Kautsky, Trotsky, and others distracted the masses from the
struggle against modern imperialism, dulled the class consciousness of the
proletariat, subjecting it to the influence of the bourgeoisie. Lenin
mercilessly exposed the anti- revolutionary essence of Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism.
Just like Kautsky and Trotsky, Bukharin refused to view imperialism
in all its concrete content, denied the fact that imperialism, giving birth to
monopoly, does not destroy the contradiction within unions of capitalists:
trusts, syndicates, etc., but even more aggravates and intensifies competition
both in individual branches of production and simultaneously throughout the capitalist economy as a whole. "Pure imperialism" does not exist and
cannot exist. "There are no pure monopolies," wrote Lenin, "but
monopolies side by side with exchange, market, competition, crises — that is
the most essential feature of imperialism in general"77.
Proceeding from the anti-Leninist theory of "pure imperialism," Bukharin, Pyatakov, and Radek talked about a "pure" socialist revolution, in which only two classes fight against each other — the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Behind the talk about a "pure" socialist revolution was concealed the ignoring of the peasantry as a reserve of the proletarian revolution, ignoring the national-revolutionary movement in Europe, in colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Exposing Bukharin, Pyatakov, Radek and others, Lenin wrote: "Whoever waits for a 'pure' social revolution will never live to see it. That is a revolutionary in words, who does not understand actual revolution"78.
The Bukharinite group denied the features of the socialist
revolution and its driving forces. Lenin wrote: "...to think that a social
revolution is thinkable without uprisings of small nations in colonies and in
Europe, without revolutionary explosions of a part of the petty bourgeoisie
with all its prejudices, without the movement of unconscious proletarian and
semi-proletarian masses against the landowners, church, monarchical, national,
etc. oppression — to think so means to renounce social revolution"79.
Insisting on his anti-Leninist theory of "pure"
revolution, Bukharin at the Bern Conference of the RSDLP in March 1915, speaking against Lenin, stated that one
cannot call revolutionary struggle a democratic petty bourgeoisie. One cannot
think, Bukharin said, that the petty bourgeoisie can act against organized
unions of capitalists — trusts, etc. For Bukharin, the petty bourgeoisie is
stock-holders connected with big capital. Proceeding from this anti-Bolshevik
position, Bukharin and Pyatakov denied the necessity for the party of the
working class to put forward democratic slogans, including the slogan of the
right of nations to self-determination up to secession.
78 Lenin, Results of the discussion on
self-determination, Works, vol. XIX, p. 269.
79 Ibid.
This viewpoint of the Bukharinite group also coincided with
Trotsky's position, who wrote that "imperialism opposes the non-bourgeois
nation to the old regime, and the bourgeois nation to the proletariat".
Lenin wrote regarding Trotsky's position: "He is for self-determination,
but... he has an empty phrase, because he does not demand the freedom of
secession of nations, of oppressed 'fatherlands' of the given national
socialist"80.
Lenin subjected to harsh criticism the views of the Bukharinite
group, which was sliding toward Trotsky. Regarding Bukharin's assertion that
democracy is unrealizable under imperialism and therefore we must throw out
democratic requirements from our program, Lenin, exposing Bukharin, pointed out
that imperialism turns democracy into an illusion, but petty-bourgeois masses
strive for democracy. Imperialism draws into the revolutionary struggle
enormous masses of the peasantry, wakes up the oppressed peoples of colonies
and semicolonies. These peoples enter the struggle with imperialist states for
national liberation.
Lenin proved that the Marxist solution of the question of democracy consists in using by the proletariat leading its class struggle all democratic aspirations of the petty bourgeoisie for the purposes of preparing the proletariat for overthrowing the bourgeoisie. One cannot deny democracy in general also because the working class must educate itself in the struggle for democracy, and, having come to power and established the dictatorship of the proletariat, must conduct genuine democracy for the working people. "Socialism is impossible without democracy for the working people. Socialism cannot be victorious without democracy, if it does not lead humanity to the withering away of the state without fully implementing democracy"81.
The denial of democratic reserves in the person of the peasant and
national-revolutionary movement meant the Menshevik- Trotskyite denial by the
Bukharinite group of the hegemony of the proletariat.
Lenin called the position of Bukharin — Pyatakov "imperialist
economism". Exposing the position of Bukharin—Pyatakov, Lenin wrote:
"Capitalism has won — therefore there is no need to think about political
questions, reasoned the old 'economists' in 1894–1901, reaching up to the
denial of political struggle in Russia. Imperialism has won — therefore there
is no need to think about questions of political democracy, reason modern
'imperialist economists'"82. The abandonment of the hegemony of the proletariat, of
leadership over the broad democratic masses, thereby pushing them under the
influence of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie — to this boiled down the
position of the Bukharinite group.
Denying the possibility of using allies — the reserves of the
proletariat in the struggle for power, the Bukharinite group slid to Trotsky's
bourgeois theory of the impossibility of socialist revolution and the victory
of socialism in a single country. In the article "World Economy and
Imperialism" (1915)
81 Lenin, On the caricature of Marxism... Works, vol. XIX, pp.
233–234.
82 Lenin,
On the caricature of Marxism... Works, vol. XIX, p. 195.
Bukharin wrote that the actions of the proletariat of individual countries
against the bourgeoisie will inevitably "be disjointed, hesitant, weak and
will not be able to defeat the bourgeoisie. For the destruction of the power of
the bourgeoisie, a 'storm' by millions of armies of the proletariat in all
countries is necessary".
Exposing this Trotskyite position of the Bukharinite group, Lenin
wrote, that to dream "about 'combined action of the proletarians of all
countries'... means postponing socialism to the Greek kalends, i.e., to 'never'"83.
Lenin proved (and life brilliantly confirmed this Leninist
proposition): "The development of capitalism proceeds to the highest
degree unevenly in various countries. Otherwise it cannot be under commodity
production. Hence the infallible conclusion: socialism cannot conquer
simultaneously in all countries. It will conquer initially in one or several
countries, while the remaining ones will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois"84. The Trotskyite
denial of the law of uneven and spasmodic development of capitalism in the
epoch of imperialism, the denial of the possibility of the victory of socialist
revolution and socialism in a single, separately taken country — on this
position stood the Bukharinite group back in the years of the imperialist war.
Then, in the years of the war, regarding Bukharin's theses, Lenin
wrote: "The war pushed him (i.e. Bukharin. — Ed.) toward semi-anarchist
ideas. At the conference which passed the Bern resolutions (spring 1915), he
gave out theses (I have them!) — the height of absurdity; disgrace;
semi-anarchism"85.
In the article published in the journal Jugend-Internationale in 1916 under the pseudonym Nota-Bene,
Bukharin wrote: "For social-democracy, which is or at the very least must
be an educational mass, it is now more than ever necessary to
85 Lenin,
vol. XXIX, p. 230.
emphasize its principled hostility to the state". Similar semi-
anarchist views Bukharin developed in the article "Toward the Theory of
the Imperialist State" in the collection Revolution and Law, which he published in 1925. "Any speech
inevitably turns into... an attack on state power. Hence the definite tactical
requirement: social democracy must increasingly emphasize its principled
hostility to state power". Thus, Bukharin an- archistically denied not
only the bourgeois state, but also any state power in general, Bukharin denied
the necessity of the proletarian state. The path to socialism lay through the
dictatorship of the proletariat, through strengthening the workers' state, and
Bukharin and his group in practice were opponents of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, opponents of building a socialist
society.
Bukharin defended the anarchist theory of the "blowing up"
of the state after the victory of the revolution. The anarchist theory of the
"blowing up" was counterposed to the Marxist- Leninist theory of the
"smashing" of the old bourgeois state machine and the building of a
new state of effective democracy for the working people — the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
Lenin, exposing Bukharin's anarchist views on the state, wrote:
"Socialists stand for the use of the modern state and its institutions in
the struggle for the emancipation of the working class, as well as the
necessity to use the state for a peculiar transitional form from capitalism to
socialism. Such a transitional form, also a state, is the dictatorship of the
proletariat".
Anarchists want to "abolish" the state, "blow it
up" (sprengen it, as expressed
in one place by Comrade Nota-Bene (i.e.,
Bukharin. — Ed.), mistakenly attributing this view to socialists)86.
Thus Lenin, exposing Bukharin, proved that the state is not blown
up, but the victorious proletariat smashes the old bourgeois state machine and
creates a new, proletarian state.
In his famous work The State
and Revolution (1917), Lenin developed the teaching of Marx — Engels on the
state, and, summing up the experience of the revolutionary international and
Russian movement, exposed the reformist distortion of the II International
(primarily its leader Kautsky) of Marx's teaching on the state. At the same
time, in this work Lenin spoke out against the semi-anarchist views of Bukharin.
Lenin wrote that "Bukharin's mistakes can ruin this 'right cause' in the
struggle against Kautskyism"87.
Comrade Stalin at the April Plenum of the CC in 1929 reminded
Bukharin of his anarchism in assessing the state, which (Bukharin) defended not
only in the years of the war, but also after the victory of the October
Revolution. Comrade Stalin said that with his theory of the "blowing
up" of the state Bukharin "overlooked a trifle here," namely —
he overlooked a whole transition period, when the working class cannot do
without its own state, if it really wants to suppress the bourgeoisie and build
socialism88.
In the work World Economy and Imperialism (1915) Bukharin wrote that after the victory of the proletarian revolution "instead of the idea of defending or expanding the borders of the bourgeois state... the slogan of destroying state borders and merging nations into a single socialist family is put forward." The preface to this book was written by Bukharin at the end of 1917, after the October Revolution, and then he also did not pose the question of defending borders except for the borders of the victorious Soviet state. And in this question Bukharin completely repeats Trotsky, in whose opinion the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat within the framework of a single country is impossible.
86 Lenin, Jugend-Internationale, Works, vol. XIX, p. 296.
87 Lenin Collection II, p. 283.
88 Stalin, Questions of Leninism, p. 274, 10th ed..
After the Bern Conference of the RSDLP in 1915, Lenin, criticizing and exposing the anti-Marxist essence of Bukharin's positions, wanted at the same time to give Bukharin and his group an opportunity to correct their mistakes. At the end of 1915, one issue of the journal The Communist came out abroad. Lenin wrote that the journal The Communist "was a temporary bloc of ours with two groups or elements: 1) Bukharin and Co.; 2) Radek and Co. As long as it was possible to go together with them, it had to be done"89.
Lenin had to stubbornly work on gathering genuinely internationalist
elements in the international workers' movement and, in these conditions, wage a
struggle against the Bukharinite group.
Bukharin and Pyatakov tried to use the journal to defend their anti-Bolshevik views. They tried to smuggle into the work in Radek's journal and thus sought to make the journal Kommunist an organ of struggle against Lenin. As early as autumn 1915, Bukharin and Pyatakov moved to Stockholm, and taking advantage of the fact that correspondence of the foreign center with Russia was conducted through Stockholm, they intended to establish themselves as a "special commission for relations with Russia". Pyatakov had large personal financial resources; Lenin characterized him as a man with power, as a capitalist. Pyatakov refused to give his funds for party purposes. Pyatakov, supported by Bukharin, stated that he would give money only for the publication of Kommunist, which should be granted freedom to propagate the anti-Marxist views of Pyatakov, Radek, and Bukharin. This was an attempt to create their own faction. Lenin rejected this pretension of the Bukharinite group. Then Bukharin and his group, moving further away from Lenin towards Trotsky, relying on Radek's group, utilizing Zinoviev's favoritism, who, behind Lenin's back, strongly supported and encouraged these opportunists, proclaimed the necessity of creating "Bolshevism on a West European scale".
"Bolshevism on a West European scale" meant a departure
from Leninist theory and revolutionary tactics, a refusal of the victory of the
socialist revolution and the construction of socialism in a single, separately
taken country.
Lenin wrote on this occasion: "I can only say that the author's
(i.e., Bukharin's. — Ed.) projected 'Bolshevism on a West European scale',
according to my deep conviction, is neither Bolshevism nor Marxism, but a small
variant of the very same old 'economism'."90
90 Lenin, On the Nascent Trend of "Imperialist Economism", Works
[Соч.], vol. XXX, p. 256.
Lenin demanded an open and decisive struggle against these
capitulators. "The bloc with Bukharin's group is impossible. 'The journal,
as an organ of Polish-Bukharinite vacillations, is harmful,'"91 — wrote
Lenin. The journal Kommunist ceased
to exist. The Bolsheviks continued publication of their independent organ Sotsial-Demokrat.
In 1916, while in New York, Bukharin was on the editorial board of
Trotsky's newspaper Novy Mir,
together with Trotsky, he fought against Lenin and the Bolshevik Party.
Opportunistic distortions of Bukharin on the most important political questions during the war led Lenin to the conclusion that Bukharin "(1) is trusting to gossip and (2) in politics is diabolically unstable."92 At the same time, Lenin emphasized Bukharin's grossest errors on economic questions.
After the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February
1917, the Bolshevik party placed on the agenda the task of immediate struggle
for the socialist revolution.
In Lenin's famous theses of April 4 (17), 1917, a
developed program of struggle for the Soviet socialist republic, for the
dictatorship of the proletariat, was given.
In this responsible period in the life of the party, Rykov, together
with Kamenev and Zinoviev, were fierce opponents of the struggle for the
socialist revolution.
At the VII (April) Conference of the RSDLP(b) in 1917, Rykov, hand in hand with Kamenev, spoke in his speech: "Can we count on the support of the masses, throwing out the slogan of the proletarian revolution? Russia is the most petty- bourgeois country in Europe. To count on the sympathy of the masses for the socialist revolution is impossible... The impetus for the socialist revolution must be given from the West."93
Like all opportunists, Rykov did not believe in the possibility of
raising the working class and its ally — the rural poor — to accomplish the
proletarian socialist revolution. Like all Mensheviks, Rykov did not believe in
the strength of the working class, in its ability to victoriously accomplish
the socialist revolution. Rykov said: "Where will the sun of the socialist
revolution rise? I think that, according to all conditions, according to the
philistine level, the initiative of the socialist coup does not belong to us.
We do not have the forces, the objective conditions for this."94
Rykov, standing on Menshevik-Trotskyist positions, fought against
the socialist revolution, not believing in its victorious completion.
Lenin said on this occasion: "...Rykov says that socialism must
come from other countries with a more developed industry. But this is not so.
It is impossible to say who will begin and who will end. This is not Marxism,
but a parody of Marxism."95
93 Minutes of the Seventh (April) Conference of the RSDLP(b), p. 92, Partizdat, 1934.
94 Ibid.,
p. 93.
It should be noted that Rykov, long before the proletarian revolution, fought against Lenin. In 1909 Rykov, just like Bukharin, supported the
otzovist-god-builder Bogdanov, acting together with Kamenev and Zinoviev
against the expulsion from the party of Bogdanov and other enemies of
Bolshevism. Rykov in 1910–1911 acted as an agent of Trotsky, demanded an
alliance with the liquidators, with Trotsky, the Vperedists.
Rykov in those years belonged to the conciliator group, whose
position Lenin characterized as the position of "inconsistent
Trotskyists".
Regarding Rykov's attempt to unprincipledly unite with the
liquidators, Trotsky and the Vperedists, Lenin wrote that Rykov continued to
"flirt with the anti-party factions of Golos
and Vpered, hindering our work
(in the party spirit)."96
This explains why after the victory of the
February revolution Rykov was in close alliance with Kamenev and other
opponents of the socialist revolution.
96 Lenin Miscellany [Ленинский сборник] XVIII, p. 27.
Pyatakov, who subsequently turned into a vile traitor, fascist spy and wrecker from the anti-Soviet Trotskyist gang, a companion-in-arms of Bukharin, who together with him already in the years of war opposed the Bolshevik program on the national question, at the VII (April) Conference of 1917 defended all his anti-Bolshevik provisions. In the report on the national question, Comrade Stalin substantiated the revolutionary program of the Bolshevik party on the national question. He said: "...our point of view on the national question reduces to the following provisions: a) recognition of the right of nations to secede; b) for nations remaining within the borders of a given state — regional autonomy; c) for national minorities — special laws guaranteeing them free development; d) for the proletarians of all nationalities of a given state — a single indivisible proletarian collective, a single party."97
Pyatakov spoke with a special hatred on the national question,
defending the bourgeois views condemned by Lenin. Pyatakov and Bukharin
essentially denied the struggle for the socialist revolution, and therefore
ignored the question of the allies of the working class, the question of the
peasantry and the national-liberation movement. Pyatakov argued that in the era
of imperialism the national state is already a bypassed stage, that instead of
the slogan "right of nations to self-determination up to secession"
one must put forward the slogan "down with borders".
Lenin and Stalin sharply criticized the views of Bukharin's
associate — Pyatakov. Lenin emphasized:
"The method of socialist revolution under the slogan: 'down
with borders', is complete confusion... What does this mean — 'method of
socialist revolution under the slogan "down with borders"'? We stand
for the necessity of the state, and the state presupposes borders... One must
go mad to continue the policy of Tsar Nicholas."98
97 Minutes of the Seventh (April) Conference of the RSDLP(b), p. 194, Partizdat, 1934.
98 Ibid., pp. 199–200.
Criticizing Pyatakov's denial of the right of nations to secede,
Comrade Stalin in his concluding speech at the April Conference on the national
question said:
"I ask — and life itself asks — are we for those nations that
are fighting against oppression, or for those classes that oppress them? We
say: social democracy, since it holds a course towards the socialist
revolution, must support the revolutionary movement of peoples directed against
imperialism."99
In his position on the national question, Pyatakov, like Bukharin, actually supported the imperialist policy of the Provisional Government and defended the line in favor of imperialist states.
The correct resolution by the Bolsheviks of the national question
was of exceptional importance in that period. Upon it depended attracting to
the side of the proletarian revolution the peoples oppressed by Russian tsarism
and the bourgeoisie. In essence, the position of Pyatakov, as well as Bukharin,
coincided with the capitulatory position of Kamenev and Rykov. For whoever was against
the allies of the proletariat, reserves, was in fact against the victory of the
socialist revolution.
The Party Program is the greatest theoretical document in which the goals of the working movement are defined with all clarity. The old party program was divided into two parts: the minimum program and the maximum program. The maximum program set forth our ultimate goal — communist society; the minimum program set forth immediate requirements subordinate to the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution: a democratic republic, an 8-hour workday, etc.
The minimum program showed the ways of revolutionary struggle,
helped mobilize the broad popular masses under the leadership of the workers'
party.
Bukharin, already in the years of war, as we already know, argued
the uselessness of the minimum program (the presentation of democratic
demands). In connection with this, the British Socialist Party gathered to
abolish the minimum program; Lenin wrote in early 1917: "here is the
temptation and danger for Bukharin, who stumbled 'in the seventh place' with us
since 1915!"100
100 Lenin Miscellany II, p. 282.
After the victory of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution,
in the famous April Theses of 1917, Lenin wrote that it is necessary to revise
our minimum program. It is necessary to take into account the higher tasks put
forward by the era of imperialism, the victory over the tsarist autocracy, and the
struggle of the working class for Soviet power. Lenin demanded a revision of
the minimum program, and Bukharin stated that it is necessary to completely
throw it away, to abandon the minimum program.
Lenin proved that as long as the power of the working class is not won, it is impossible to abandon the minimum program, "because this would be equal to empty boasting: we do not want to 'demand from the bourgeoisie', but to carry it out ourselves, we do not want to work in small things within the framework of the bourgeois system."101
101 Lenin, On the Revision of the Party Program, Works, vol. XXI, p. 312.
Until the final victory of the working class, there are still many
difficulties to overcome; if we have not yet won, we cannot act as if we had
already won. Lenin reminded Bukharin of the famous proverb: "Do not boast
when going to battle, but boast when coming from battle".
Bukharin therefore demanded an immediate abandonment of the minimum
program, that he did not believe in the revolutionariness of the working
peasantry, following Trotskyist lines denied the leadership of the working
class over the rural poor.
In 1917, Bukharin developed the bourgeois theory of "organized
capitalism." In the article "State Capitalism and Socialist
Revolution," Bukharin wrote that "previously dispersed and unorganized
capitalism is replaced by organized capitalism".
In connection with the discussion of the party program, Lenin once again subjected Bukharin's views to criticism. To assert that monopoly capitalism is organized capitalism is to refuse to see the essential feature of imperialism, in which monopoly exists alongside competition and above competition, that within the united alliances of capitalists there are contradictions, struggle. All this leads to the intensification of capitalist contradictions, aggravates the class struggle, preparing the socialist revolution. "Imperialism," wrote Lenin, exposing Bukharin, "is a continuation of the development of capitalism, its highest stage... Imperialism in reality neither reconstructs nor can reconstruct capitalism from top to bottom. Imperialism complicates and aggravates the contradictions of capitalism, 'confuses' them with the freedom of competition, monopoly, but cannot eliminate exchange, the market, competition, crises, etc. in imperialism."102
At the VI Congress of the Party, in August 1917, Bukharin, in a
Trotskyist manner, denied the possibility of an alliance of the proletariat with
the poorest peasantry in the socialist revolution and thereby denied the
possibility of the victory of the socialist revolution and socialism in our
country. Lenin and Stalin pointed out that broad strata of the peasantry are
not interested in the imperialist war, that they are honest defensists, that
they only through misunderstanding support the bourgeois Provisional
Government, that through patient explanatory work the broad strata of the
peasantry will be won over to the side of the revolution. Bukharin did not
agree with this. Just like the Trotskyists, like Kamenev, Rykov and other
capitulators, Bukharin spoke of a solid bloc of the peasantry with the
imperialist bourgeoisie. At the VI Congress of the party, in August 1917,
Bukharin stated: "The peasant as a property owner will inevitably have to
shake hands with allied imperialism".
Bukharin stated with all categoricalness that a bloc of the peasantry with landowners and manufacturers had been realized. Exactly like Trotsky, Bukharin denied the presence of allies for the proletariat inside the country; therefore, in his opinion, one should not deal with the peasant question.
Bukharin denied the Bolshevik assessment of the driving forces of
the revolution: the alliance of the proletariat with the rural poor along the
path of the growing over of the bourgeois- democratic revolution into a socialist.
Exposing Bukharin, developing the Leninist theory of the socialist
revolution and the victory of socialism in a single, separately taken country,
Comrade Stalin at the VI Congress pointed out that one cannot view the
peasantry as a "single proprietary mass." Comrade Stalin also exposed
Bukharin's anti-Marxist, fundamentally incorrect "toy scheme", which
mechanically separated the first phase of the revolution from the second. On
the first phase, Bukharin stated — in the bourgeois-democratic revolution — the
working class has an ally — the peasantry, and on the second phase — in the
socialist revolution — the working class inside the country has no allies.
Comrade Stalin at the VI Congress of the party, exposing the
opportunists and mobilizing the party and the working class for the struggle
for the socialist revolution, pointed out:
"Bukharin asserts that the bourgeois-imperialist has concluded
a bloc with the muzhik. But what kind of muzhik? We have different muzhiks.
With us there are grassroots muzhiks representing the poorest strata of the
peasantry. With them — this bloc could not be built. They have not concluded a
bloc with the big bourgeoisie, but go along with it through misunderstanding;
they are simply deceived, they are led."
"Against
whom is the bloc?"
"This Bukharin did not say. This is a bloc of allied and Russian capital, the command staff and the top of the peasantry in the form of Socialist-Revolutionaries of the Chernov type. This bloc was formed at the expense of the grassroots of the peasantry, at the expense of workers."
"Where is the perspective of t. Bukharin? His analysis is
incorrect in its very basis. In his opinion, in the first stage we go with the
peasant revolution. But after all, it cannot meet, nor coincide with the
worker revolution. It cannot be that the working class, constituting the
vanguard of the revolution, did not fight together with this for its own
demands. Therefore, I consider it. Bukharin's scheme ill-conceived."
"The second stage, according to Bukharin, is the proletarian
revolution with the support of Western Europe without peasants, who received
land and were satisfied. But against whom is this revolution directed? Comrade
Bukharin, in his toy scheme, does not give an answer to this."103
103 Minutes of the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b), pp. 138–139, Partizdat, 1934.
These provisions of Comrade Stalin were
brilliantly justified.
At the VI Congress of the party, in August 1917, Comrade Stalin, exposing the Trotskyist Preobrazhensky, who denied the possibility of the victory of socialism in our country, gave a battle to the entire front of opportunism — Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Bukharin and others — and with all clarity defined the tasks of the party of the working class in the struggle for the victory of the socialist revolution and the building of socialism in our country.
Not agreeing with the Leninist-Stalinist policy, Bukharin, together
with Kamenev, Rykov and other capitulators, spoke out in September 1917 against
participation in the pre- parliament, this "abortive offspring of
Kornilovism", as Comrade Stalin characterized this monstrosity. Bukharin
did not believe in the possibility of the victory of the socialist revolution;
therefore he, just like Kamenev, Pyatakov, Rykov and other opponents of the
Leninist-Stalinist line, wanted an agreement with the Mensheviks, wanted to
linger at the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.
The Great Proletarian Revolution followed the path indicated by
Lenin and Stalin.
Rykov, Bukharin, Tomsky, as well as the despicable strike- breakers
of October, Kamenev and Trotsky, were not included in the military-practical
center for the leadership and conduct of the armed uprising in October 1917.
Lenin and the Central Committee could not entrust this most responsible task to
opportunist, semi-Menshevik elements.
Rykov, being in Moscow, opposed the organization of the armed
uprising and the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Rykov joined the
company of strike-breakers of the October Revolution.
Rykov and Bukharin were opponents of the Leninist-Stalinist line in the struggle for the socialist revolution. At the most important stage of the history of our party, in the period of preparation of the victorious socialist revolution, in the period of the direct transition of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into the socialist one, Rykov and Bukharin stood on capitulatory, essentially Menshevik-Trotskyist positions.
On the very first day of the socialist revolution, November 7, 1917,
Lenin, speaking at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, said:
"Now a new strip in the history of Russia begins, and this third Russian revolution must in its ultimate outcome lead to the victory of socialism."104
What position did Rykov and Bukharin occupy at this responsible
moment? They believed, just like Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, that Soviet
power would not stand against numerous enemies without direct state support of
the world socialist revolution.
A position of Rykov in the days following the victory of the Great Proletarian Revolution, when he, together with Kamenev and Zinoviev, tried to return the Soviet country to the path of bourgeois democracy? It is known, for example, that Rykov supported then the capitulatory policy of Kamenev and Ryazanov, who insisted on accepting the counter-revolutionary proposal of Vikzhel (All-Russian Committee of Railwaymen, led by Mensheviks and SRs) on the creation of a government with the participation of Mensheviks and SRs. When, upon Lenin's proposal, the CC of the party ceased any negotiations with Vikzhel, Rykov insisted on continuing negotiations with them and on accepting the counter-revolutionary proposals.
At the meeting of the Party CC on November 14, 1917, Rykov,
supporting Kamenev, said that if we stop negotiations, "then those groups
that support us will fall away from us, and we will not be in a position to
hold power".
Rykov, like other capitulators, insisted on the repeal of the decree
of the Soviet government on the closure of counter- revolutionary newspapers.
He, like other capitulators, tried by all means to find a common language with
Mensheviks and SRs. Deserting at this responsible moment from the CC and the
government, Rykov in this way tried to impose a bourgeois line on the party.
But this was an attack on the party line with unworthy means. The party routed
the right opportunists.
Bukharin, actually solidifying with Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov and
other capitulators, proposed to wait for a blow against the
counter-revolutionary party of Cadets before convening the Constituent
Assembly. Bukharin, just like the right-wing capitulators, placed hopes on the
counter-revolutionary Constituent Assembly. At the meeting of the party CC with
criticism of Bukharin's position, Comrade Stalin said: "At the present
time we definitely must finish off the Cadets or they will finish us off, since
they have opened fire on us."105
105 Minutes of the CC of the RSDLP(b). August 1917 — February 1918, p. 182.
After the victory of the October Socialist Revolution, Soviet power
considered it necessary to finish as quickly as possible with the war and
conclude peace with Germany and its allies. This Leninist line for the
immediate conclusion of peace proceeded from the main and decisive task of the
proletariat in that period: to win a breathing space in order to preserve and
strengthen the conquered dictatorship of the proletariat and organize socialist
construction.
Bukharin and his group (Pyatakov, Radek and others), not believing
in the internal forces of the revolution, decisively opposed peace and
advocated a "revolutionary war", which would inevitably have led to
the ruin of the Soviet power. Bukharin's group, calling themselves "left
communists", proceeding from the Trotskyist denial of the possibility of
the victory of socialism in a single country, stated that the dictatorship of
the proletariat in Russia would not hold out, that to strengthen the socialist
revolution in Russia is impossible without the prior victory of the socialist
revolution in the West.
In their theses, Bukharin's group wrote: "No socialist
revolution can be victorious without going beyond national limits, without
turning into an international socialist revolution." Trotsky and Bukharin
believed that without the Western European revolution, the dictatorship of the
proletariat would inevitably degenerate and perish. Therefore, not believing in
the possibility of preserving the dictatorship of the proletariat and building
socialism in our country, Bukharin tried to impose on the party the capitulatory
line of "revolutionary war", which led at that period to the
inevitable defeat and ruin of Soviet power.
Exposing the Trotskyist stance of Bukharin's group of "left
communists", Lenin wrote that the policy of "revolutionary war"
"would perhaps meet the needs of a person in the desire for a beautiful,
effective and bright, but completely failed to take into account the objective
correlation of class forces and material factors in the experienced moment of
the beginning socialist revolution."106
Opposing the immediate conclusion of peace, Bukharin denied the
possibility of a German offensive, thereby sowing illusions about the kindness
of German imperialism and objectively helping it.
Lenin and Stalin decisively warned against these illusions. The
Trotskyists and Bukharinites in January 1918 disrupted the peace business, the
Germans went on the offensive, and we had to sign harsher peace terms.
"Facts say," wrote Lenin, "that Bukharin denied the
possibility of a German offensive, sowed illusions, which in fact... helped
German imperialists. The harsher peace terms proposed by the German command in
March 1918 resulted because alongside Trotsky... our woe-left Bukharins
and Co."107
106 Lenin, Theses on the Question of the Immediate Conclusion of a Separate and Annexationist Peace, Works, vol. XXII, p. 196.
107 Lenin, A Serious Lesson and a Serious Responsibility, Works, vol. XXII, p. 308.
To get a breathing space — such is the central point of Bolshevik tactics in this period. The working class and its party use the breathing space to crush the Russian bourgeoisie, carry out the socialist reorganization of the country and create a mighty Red Army.
Bukharin's group wrote that it considers Soviet power formal and
ready to go to its elimination.
This monstrous assertion of the formal, so-called meaning of Soviet
power was the result of the fact that the "left communists", like the
Trotskyists, were defeatists in relation to the Soviet motherland.
It is necessary to treat the revolutionary war and defense
capability seriously — taught Lenin and Stalin. Lenin wrote: "We are
defenders now; from November 7 (October 25) 1917, we are for the defense of the
fatherland from this day. For we have proved in practice our break with
imperialism. We tore up and published the secret imperialist treaties-plots. We
overthrew our bourgeoisie. We gave freedom to the peoples oppressed by us. We
gave land to the people and workers' control. We are for the defense of the
Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia."
But precisely because we are for the defense of the fatherland, we demand serious attention to the defense capability and combat training of the country. We declare a ruthless war against revolutionary phraseology about revolutionary war. It must be prepared for lengthily, seriously, starting with the economic recovery of the country, with the laying of railways (for without them modern war is the emptiest phrase), with the restoration everywhere of the strictest revolutionary discipline and self-discipline. 108
The Trotskyists and Bukharinite group, actually fulfilling the tasks
of the Russian and international bourgeoisie, pushed Soviet power to war with
the German imperialism armed to the teeth, knowing full well that in such a war
we would suffer defeat.
In that period we did not yet have an army. The old army had to be
demobilized as soon as possible. Soldiers must return to the village, taste the
land that the October Revolution gave, and then they will protect the land and
Soviet power, which ensured these conquests.
Lenin and Stalin pointed out that the continuation of the war
entailed the inevitable rupture with the peasantry. The Bukharin group, like
the Trotskyists, called for a rupture with the peasantry. In No. 1 of the
newspaper Kommunist, the organ of the
Bukharin group, on March 19, 1918, in the editorial article "Politics of
Concessions and the Proletariat," it was recorded: "The further policy
of the Russian proletariat must less and less be built on its alliance with the
Russian peasantry; its reliable ally is now only the international
proletariat." Here is a striking example of the Trotskyist denial of the
alliance with the peasantry, Trotskyist disbelief in the internal forces of the
revolution.
108 Lenin, A Heavy, but Necessary Lesson, Works, vol. XXII, p. 291.
Opposing Lenin and Stalin, pursuing a Trotskyist policy, Bukharin actually helped the bourgeoisie. "If one maneuvers in the Bukharin way," wrote Lenin, "then one can ruin the revolution nicely."109
The Brest-Litovsk peace was signed, despite the desperate resistance
of the Trotskyists and Bukharinites. The signing of peace, the revolutionary
exit from the war, saved the Soviet Republic.
Not agreeing with the decision of the CC, and then with the decision
of the VII Party Congress (March 1918) confirming the Leninist-Stalinist policy
of peace, Bukharin at the head of his faction, sought to disrupt the policy
pursued by Lenin and Stalin. Bukharin and his anti-party group published a
factional organ in which they continued to stubbornly insist on
"revolutionary war."
To complicate the situation of the party and government, the
Bukharinites (like the Trotskyists) fled from responsible party and Soviet
posts. The Bukharin group went on a split of the party. It was blocked by the
party of Left Socialist- Revolutionaries, who also occupied a defeatist
position in relation to Soviet power. Bukharin in a number of articles
published in their factional organ Kommunist,
slandered the leader of the Bolsheviks — Lenin. Lenin's policy of consistent
struggle for peace, for strengthening the Soviet country — the stronghold of
the world revolution — Bukharin called "opportunistic."
109 Lenin, Seventh Congress of the RCP(b), Works, vol. XXII, p. 335.
Bukharin had the audacity to compare Lenin with Kautsky, who, as is known, betrayed the cause of the working class. It should not be forgotten that later, in 1923, with the same slander, Trotsky and his disciples acted; a significant part of this in 1918 was in the Bukharin anti-party group.
The struggle of the opponents of peace against Lenin and our party
reached such fierceness that the Left SRs, supported by the Bukharin group of
"left communists", began to plan a coup d'état. In March 1918, at the
III Petrograd Conference, the Left SRs threatened to disrupt Brest, which in
essence meant a threat of armed struggle against Soviet power. To disrupt the
peace business, the SRs wanted to arrest Lenin and make chairman of the
Sovnarkom the "left communist", companion- in-arms of Bukharin, now
shot one of the ringleaders of the fascist gang of Trotskyists — Pyatakov. With
this proposal, the Left SRs turned to Bukharin. Because of these criminal
negotiations with the Left SRs, Bukharin then hid from the party.
Later Comrade Stalin wrote: "Never, it seems, inside-party
struggle among the Bolsheviks did not reach such fierceness as in this period,
in the period of the Brest Peace. It is known, for example, that the left
communists, who constituted a separate fraction at that time, went to such
fierceness, that they seriously talked about replacing the then existing
Sovnarkom with a new Sovnarkom of new people entering the composition of the
fraction of left communists."110
110 Stalin, Coll. "On the Opposition", p. 37.
In the spring of 1918, Soviet power received a "breathing space". Lenin developed a plan for economic construction. From the "Red Guard attack" on capital, which was necessary in the first months of Soviet power because capital stubbornly and in a military way resisted and it had to be subdued in a military way, in the spring of 1918 it was necessary to move to accounting, control, and organization of socialist production.
The Leninist plan of socialist construction meant the struggle for
high labor productivity, for the slogan "catch up and surpass" in
technical and economic relation to the advanced countries of capitalism, for
building in the Land of Soviets the foundation of a socialist economy.
Lenin attached
great importance to socialist emulation.
"Our task now, when the socialist government is in power, is to
organize emulation."111
111 Lenin, How to Organize Emulation?, Works, vol. XXII, p. 158.
Agitation for emulation, for a conscious attitude to labor — is only
one side of the task in the struggle against indiscipline, slackness. For all
this, firm power is needed. The struggle against the influence of
petty-bourgeois elements on the working class, said Lenin, cannot be conducted
only by persuasion; the struggle must be conducted by persuasion and coercion.
Lenin wrote: "It is necessary at the same time, going to increase labor productivity, to take into account the features of the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, which require, on the one hand, that the foundations of the socialist organization of emulation be laid, and on the other hand, require the application of coercion, so that the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not desecrated by the gelatinous state of proletarian power."112
Incorrigible wreckers, truants, hooligans — to court. To ensure
order and discipline, it is necessary to create in factories, plants, at all
enterprises of the proletarian state one-man management. "It must be
learned," Lenin pointed out, "to combine together the stormy, beating
spring flood, breaking out of all banks, meeting democratic spontaneity of the
working masses with iron discipline during work, with unquestioning obedience —
to the will of one person, the Soviet leader, during work."113
This great plan of socialist construction, outlined by Lenin,
proceeded from the Leninist theory of building socialism in our country. But
for the implementation of this plan, it was required that the working class,
which showed heroism and self-sacrifice in the struggle for power, also showed
heroism in raising labor productivity, in the organization of the socialist
economy. Lenin wrote: "We, the party of Bolsheviks, have convinced Russia.
We have won back Russia — from the rich for the poor, from exploiters for the
working people. We must now govern Russia."
Against the petty-bourgeois element — this enemy threatening Soviet
power, Lenin mobilized the party of Bolsheviks.
112 Lenin, Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power, Works, vol. XXII, p. 455.
At the time when the entire party met with enthusiasm the Leninist plan of socialist construction, the Bukharin group — "left communists", expressing the influence of the petty- bourgeois element, opposed the Leninist plan. In its struggle against the Leninist economic plan, the Bukharin group (Bukharin, Pyatakov and others) proceeded from the Menshevik-Trotskyist platform of denying the possibility of building socialism in our country.
"If there is no socialist revolution in the West, it is
impossible to think about socialist construction in our country," the
"left communists" stated.
"Doomed in advance to failure are attempts to organize
'socialism on the side' from the high road of the European revolution," —
was written in the Bukharinite journal Kommunist
No. 1 of March 5, 1918. The anti-proletarian Trotskyist-Menshevik platform
— such was the ideology of the "left communists."
"The state of affairs with the socialist revolution in Russia
must be made the basis of any definition of the international tasks of Soviet
power," — said Lenin. Against this fought the Trotskyists and
Bukharinites. The Bukharin group denied the socialist character of the October
Revolution, the necessity of strengthening Soviet power and victorious
socialist construction.
"Left communists" opposed one-man management, accounting, and control, against raising socialist labor discipline. In their theses "On
the Current Moment," the Bukharin group slandered the working class, saying
that to raise discipline means to "enslave" the working class.
"Left communists" defended
petty-bourgeois license and slackness. They wrote that the introduction of piece-rate wage systems means that we will have a dictatorship over the proletariat. This position was defended by Mensheviks, SRs and other counter-revolutionary parties.
Lenin emphasized that the complete coincidence of the views of
"left communists", their attacks against the plan of socialist
construction with counter-revolutionary attacks on this plan from the side of
the Mensheviks, in particular the Menshevik Isuv. In the article "On
'Left-Wing' Infantilism and Petty- Bourgeoisness" Lenin wrote: "Here
is the most striking proof that the 'lefts' fell into a trap, succumbed to the
provocation of Isuvs and other agents of capitalism... Such speeches, as the
cited thesis of the 'lefts', are the greatest disgrace and complete
renunciation of communism in practice, a complete transition to the side of
precisely the petty bourgeoisie."114
114 Lenin, On "Left-Wing" Infantilism and Petty-Bourgeoisness, Works, vol. XXII, p. 524.
The use of state capitalism by the proletarian state was regarded by the "left communists" as capitulation to the bourgeoisie, as an agreement with the bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, state capitalism implemented during that period by the proletarian state in a country where the petty-bourgeois element predominated was a step forward to socialism. Small- scale commodity and capitalist production, eluding accounting and control, — here is the main enemy of socialism in that period. Exposing the harmful anti-proletarian positions of "left communists" on economic questions, Lenin wrote: "Precisely because from Russia's present economic position it is impossible to move forward without passing through what is common and state capitalism and socialism (all-people's accounting and control), to frighten others and oneself with 'evolution towards state capitalism' (Kommunist No. 1, p. 8, col. 1) is sheer theoretical nonsense. This means to roam and spread thoughts 'aside' from the real path of 'evolution', not to understand this path; in practice this is equivalent to dragging back to small-proprietor capitalism."115
The Leninist directive on the necessity of attracting bourgeois
specialists to work at enterprises was regarded by "left communists"
as a "deal with Russian capitalists." They in general, were opponents
of the use of bourgeois specialists by the proletarian state.
In the article "Economic Notes" published on April 20,
1918, in the newspaper of the "left communists", it was said that
instead of using bourgeois specialists by the Soviet government, these
specialists use Soviet power in the interests of the bourgeoisie. In response
to this, Lenin wrote:
"And when I read in the left communists the ironic words: it is still unknown who uses whom, it becomes strange to me their shortsightedness. Of course, after the seizure of power in October and after the victorious campaign against the bourgeoisie from October to April, we can doubt who uses whom — the workers organizers of the trust, or dividing and milking the workers, if it were so, then we need to pack our bags and clear out to our own place, giving way to Milyukovs and Martovs. But this is not so. And the conscious worker will not believe, and the petty-bourgeois fear is ridiculous; they know that socialism begins where more large-scale production
begins, that this cause is learned by merchants and money-changers
from their own experience."116
116 Lenin, Meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee April 29 1918, Works, vol. XXII, pp. 484–485.
Lenin was confident that the proletariat, having cast off the power
of the bourgeoisie, would be able to use the experience and knowledge of
bourgeois specialists and subordinate them to its proletarian leadership.
Under "left" phrases about "pure" socialism, in
the disrespect for accounting and control was hidden the defense of the
petty-bourgeois element. The refusal to understand the "mosaic
nature", multi-formity of the then economy of Russia, the desire to
"leap over" through the small-peasant character of the country meant
the Trotskyist line for the rupture with the peasantry. The position of the
Bukharin group was explained by the fact that it did not believe in the
alliance of the proletariat with the working peasantry, did not believe in the
victory of socialism in our country.
The hostile attitude of the petty bourgeoisie to the proletarian state appeared also in the question of the state. Bukharin placed an equal sign between state capitalism under the conditions of the dominance of capitalism and state capitalism being under the direct control of the proletarian state. The entire position of the "left communists" on economic questions proceeded from the denial of the proletarian state and the transitional period. The leader of the "left communists" Bukharin continued to defend his semi-anarchist view of the state. In the materials for the preparation of the brochure "State and Revolution" still in early 1917, Lenin, subjecting Bukharin's semi-anarchist views to criticism, wrote: "What distinguishes the anarchists from us is (a) the use of the state now and (b) during the revolution of the proletariat ('dictatorship of the proletariat') — points most important for practice right now. (And Bukharin forgot!)"117
In 1918 Lenin exposed the anti-Bolshevik review by Bukharin of the
book "State and Revolution". Lenin noted that Bukharin
enthusiastically accepts everything said regarding the proletariat to the
bourgeois state, and completely hushes up the tasks that faced the victorious
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Bukharin "wrote about what — says Lenin — is already embodied
in Soviet organizations, and was silent about what concerns accounting, control,
discipline."118 Here in the denial of the tasks of strengthening the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the struggle against the petty-bourgeois
element, against capitalism, for the victory of socialism, was expressed the
petty- bourgeois nature of the Bukharin group. "They," wrote Lenin,
"reveal their petty-bourgeoisness precisely in that they do not see the
petty-bourgeois element as the main enemy of socialism with
us."119
117 Lenin Miscellany XIV, p. 257.
118 Lenin, Meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee April 29 1918, Works, vol. XXII, p. 493.
119 Lenin, On "Left-Wing" Infantilism and Petty-Bourgeoisness, Works, vol. XXII, p. 513.
Taking a defeatist line in relation to the dictatorship of the proletariat, showing Trotskyist disbelief in the victory of socialism, "left communists" were the most typical representatives of the "frenzied" petty bourgeois. The social source of "left communism" Lenin considered the petty bourgeois "who went mad from the horrors of war, from sudden ruin, from the unheard-of torments of hunger and destruction, who hysterically rushes, looking for an exit and salvation, fluctuating between trust in the proletariat and support of it, on the one hand, a fit of despair — on the other."120
"Left communists" were smashed. The party was rallied
around Lenin and Stalin. The implementation of the Leninist plan of socialist
construction was hindered by the started civil war, which disrupted the
"breathing space". The significance of the Leninist plan
theoretically and practically is enormous. In this brilliant plan, Lenin
anticipated, among the main features the New Economic Policy introduced in 1921.
In the summer of 1918, the civil war unfolded. German troops occupied
Ukraine. Throughout the country, kulak counter- revolution raised its head,
helping White Guards organize their forces to fight Soviet power. In industrial
regions, a shortage of grain was felt. The kulaks sabotaged the food procurement
measures of the Soviet government.
The party carried out the grain monopoly and established a food dictatorship. Lenin and Stalin were directly engaged also in the food question. The opportunist Rykov spoke on May 9, 1918, at a meeting of the Sovnarkom against the food dictatorship, which was in fact an attempt to hinder the struggle of Soviet power against kulak counter-revolution.
120 Lenin,
Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power,
Works, vol. XXII, p. 468.
In March 1919 at the VIII Party Congress, among other most important
questions, a new party program was discussed. With a report on the program of
the party, Lenin delivered. Unlike the old program, adopted by the II Congress
of the RSDLP, the new draft program gave not only an assessment of industrial
capitalism, but also an assessment of imperialism and the unfolding socialist
revolution. In the program program also was given an assessment of Soviet power
as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the experience of
the first steps of socialist construction was
summarized.
In the program commission of the congress and at the congress
itself, there was a struggle of Lenin against Bukharin and Pyatakov, who sought to
push opportunist provisions into the program.
Bukharin proposed to throw out of the general part of the program the analysis of pre-monopoly forms of the economy (simple commodity economy, industrial capitalism), limiting himself only to the consideration of imperialism. Bukharin continued to persist in his anti-Marxist theory of "pure imperialism", criticized by Lenin still in the years of war. Yet again exposing Bukharin's opportunist conception of imperialism, Lenin pointed out that "pure imperialism" never existed anywhere and cannot exist, that everywhere along with monopolies exist other, lower forms of economy. In such a peasant country like Russia, the predominance of simple commodity economy was especially clearly visible, and this required of the victorious Russian proletariat and its party large and serious work on the restructuring of peasant small- commodity economy into socialist. Denying the significance in the economy of the country of simple commodity economy, Bukharin thereby denied the tasks of the socialist restructuring of small-commodity economy.
Lenin wrote: "if we had before us integral capitalism, which
through and through remodeled capitalism, our task would have been a hundred
thousand times easier. This gave such a system when everything was subordinated
to single finance capital. Then it remained only to remove the top and transfer
the rest into the hands of the proletariat. This would be extraordinarily
pleasant, but this does not exist in reality... In reality there is a huge
hotbed of old capitalism."121
121 Lenin, VIII Congress of the RCP(b), Works, vol. XXIV, p. 133.
To draw up the program according to Bukharin, proceeding from his theory of "pure imperialism", meant a complete ignoring of real reality and, first of all, ignoring the middle peasant as the bearer of a simple commodity economy. Lenin taught Bukharin: "In reality, where could the middle peasant come from in the era of pure-imperialist capitalism? Indeed, even in countries of pure capitalist economy he was not there. If we are to decide our attitude to this as almost a medieval phenomenon (to the middle peasant), standing exclusively on the standpoint of imperialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, we will not have ends meet at all, and we will break our heads a lot. If we are also to change our attitude to the middle peasant, then in the theoretical part you will take the trouble to say where he came from, what he is. He is a small commodity producer. Here is the ABC of capitalism that needs to be said, because we have not yet gotten out of this ABC. To wave this aside and say: 'Why should we deal with the ABC, when we have studied finance capital!' — is extremely frivolous."122
Bukharin's theory of "pure imperialism", which denied the
significance of small-commodity production, led to the Trotskyist ignoring of
the peasantry.
Together with this, when discussing the program at the VIII
Congress, Bukharin denied the danger of the growth of capitalist elements from the small-proprietor peasant economy. Here lie the roots of the right-opportunist
theory of "peaceful growing of the kulak into socialism."
During the discussion of program questions, Bukharin spoke out against Lenin and Stalin also on the national question. In the party program is formulated: "the right of nations to self- determination up to state secession." The correct resolution of the national question played a huge role in our victories on the fronts of the civil war. At the VIII Congress of the party, against the Bolshevik slogan of "the right of nations to self- determination up to state secession," spoke Pyatakov and Bukharin, defending anti-Leninist positions on the national question. Bukharin stated: "The concept of a nation includes all classes of a given society. Therefore, since we are now pursuing a course towards the proletarian dictatorship... we cannot put forward the slogan of the right of nations to self- determination." Bukharin and Pyatakov put forward the slogan "self-determination of the working people within each nation." Lenin, exposing these opportunists who tried to instill bourgeois views on the national question into our party, emphasized that Bukharin, Pyatakov refused to see all the complexity of the differentiation of classes within the nation, all the complexity of the process of secession of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie within the oppressed nation.
The fuller the self-determination of the nation occurs, the sooner
the proletariat will separate from the bourgeoisie within each nation, fully
and to the end realizing the opposition of its class interests to the interests
of "its" bourgeoisie.
"Each nation," said Lenin, "must receive the right to self- determination, and this promotes the self-determination of the working people."123 Until national oppression is finished off, semi-proletarians feel themselves bound to their bourgeoisie. If a nation is liberated and there is no national oppression, the class struggle by the proletariat against the national bourgeoisie unfolds wider and working people within the nation more easily and faster separate from "their" bourgeoisie. The path to this lies through the self-determination of the whole nation. The program states: "At the forefront is placed the policy of rapprochement of proletarians and semi-proletarians of different nationalities for joint revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of landowners and bourgeoisie..." In the question of who is the bearer of the nation to secession, the WCP stands on a historically class point of view, considering at what stage of its historical development a given nation stands: on the path from feudalism to bourgeois democracy or from bourgeois democracy to Soviet or proletarian democracy, etc.
123 Lenin,
VIII Congress of the RCP(b), Works,
vol. XXIV, p. 133.
In any case, from the side of the proletariat of those nations which
were nations-oppressors, special caution and special attention to the remnants
of national feelings in the working masses of oppressed or disenfranchised
nations is necessary. Only under such a policy is the creation of conditions
for truly solid, voluntary unity of nationally diverse elements of the
international proletariat possible, as the experience of uniting a number of
national Soviet republics around Soviet Russia showed.
Bukharin, speaking out against the slogan "right of nations to
self-determination up to secession", simultaneously spoke out against the
slogan "defense of the fatherland." Bukharin did not recognize that
this slogan "defense of the fatherland" after the conquest of power
by the working class would become the sacred duty of every working person of the
Soviet country.
The Leninist-Stalinist resolution of the national question was of
enormous importance in strengthening the alliance of the working class with the
peasantry of formerly oppressed nationalities. Comrade Stalin wrote: "The
revolution in Russia would not have been victorious, and Kolchak with Denikin
would not have been smashed, if the Russian proletariat had not had the
sympathy and support of the oppressed peoples of the former Russian
Empire."124
Opposing the Bolshevik slogan "right of nations to self-
determination", Bukharin and Pyatakov actually supported great-power
chauvinism. The VIII Congress of the Party gave a resolute rebuff to the
anti-Marxist, chauvinist views of Bukharin.
In 1919, in the brochure "Class Struggle and Revolution in
Russia," Bukharin defended the Trotskyist proposition about the
impossibility of the victory of socialist revolution and the construction of
socialism in our country. Bukharin wrote: "The proletariat cannot remain
within the limits of property relations of bourgeois society. It goes to power,
to socialism. However, this task, which is 'placed on the agenda' in
Russia, cannot be resolved 'within national borders'." Here the working
class runs into an impassable wall which can be broken through only by the ram
of the international workers' revolution.
In 1920, Bukharin wrote the book "Economics of the Transition
Period", in which he tried to show how capitalist society turns into
communist. Originally Bukharin dedicated this book to Lenin, but when Lenin
familiarized himself with the contents of the book, he refused this dedication,
and by Lenin's order it was removed from the
book.
On the margins of this book by Bukharin, Lenin noted anti- Marxist provisions, especially on the peasant and class struggle questions. Lenin and Stalin repeatedly pointed out that the individual peasant economy breeds capitalism. Bukharin did not agree with this. He wrote in the book "Economics of the Transition Period": "The dictatorship of the proletariat is inevitably accompanied... by struggle between the organizing tendency of the proletariat and the commodity-anarchist tendency of the peasantry." Underlining these places, Lenin on the margins of Bukharin's book makes the following sharp remark: "it should have been said: between the socialist tendency of the proletariat and the commodity-capitalist tendency of the peasantry. Substituting here the word organizing is a theoretical untruth, a step backward from Karl Marx to Louis Blanc."125
As is known, Louis Blanc was a petty-bourgeois socialist in the
first half of the 19th century in France. Louis Blanc thought
"socialism" on the basis of a small-proprietor economy. He stated that
it is enough to organize small commodity producers into cooperatives for
marketing and purchase to overcome private capital in circulation, and then
capitalism in general will be destroyed. The main evil Louis Blanc saw was in the
existence of the market, and not in the presence of private ownership of the
instruments of production.
Lenin, even before the revolution, repeatedly noted that Bukharin is
not a consistent Marxist, that he is under the influence of Bogdanov, who in
questions of philosophy defended idealism, and in politics defended bourgeois
views. Bogdanov was expelled from the Bolshevik Party back in June 1909. In the
resolution of the Bolshevik center in June 1909, it was stated that Bogdanov's
views were idealistic and priest- serving, and therefore the Bolsheviks had no
path with Bogdanov and his supporters. Bukharin, even in pre-revolution years
and in subsequent times, was under the direct influence of Bogdanov and departed
from Marxism to his bourgeois
Somewhat later, in 1922, Lenin gave the following characteristic of
Bukharin as a theoretician: "his theoretical views can be attributed with
very great doubt to fully Marxist ones, because there is something scholastic
in them (he never studied and, I think, never fully understood dialectics)."126
126 Quoted from Problems of Leninism, p. 272, 10th ed.
In April 1920, the IX Congress of the party took place, which along
with military questions discussed a single economic plan for restoring the
ruined national economy in the conditions of the still continuing civil war.
The Leninist line in the economic construction of the party had to be implemented in a ruthless struggle with opposition elements inside the party — with the Trotskyists and the anti- party group of "democratic centralism." Leaders of this group — Sapronov, Maximovsky, Osinsky and others were participants in Bukharin's group of "left communists" in 1918.
The entire platform of the "decists" was permeated with overtly Menshevik views on party and Soviet construction. They opposed the leading role of the party in the country, against the alienation of the local Soviet apparatus from the leadership of the central power; they insisted on the Trotskyist requirement of freedom of factions and groupings. The entire platform of the "decists" inevitably led to the Menshevik denial of the party and the dictatorship of the proletariat. "Decists" were direct continuers of the views of Bukharin's group of "left communists", reflecting the dissatisfaction of petty-bourgeois, kulak elements with the regime of the dictatorship of the working class.
At the IX Congress of the RCP(b), Sapronov and other
"decists" particularly sharply opposed one-man management in
administration, i.e., against the principle defended by Lenin.
The introduction of one-man management in administration dealt a
strong blow to petty-bourgeois slackness; therefore, against one-man management,
for petty-bourgeois collegiality in administration spoke the Sapronovites. With
the Sapronovites blocked against one-man management, for collegiality Tomsky
and Rykov, who in the future became leaders of the right capitulators,
champions of the restoration of capitalism.
Tomsky already at that time opposed Bolshevik organizational
principles, he insisted that Bolshevik fractions (now party groups) in local
soviets of trade unions be subordinate not to their territorial party
organizations, but to the fraction of the AUCCTU (All-Union Central Council of
Trade Unions).
Tomsky thereby wanted to make the AUCCTU fraction a special
anti-party center opposed to the CC of the party. The Central Committee of the
party rapped Tomsky's knuckles, and his anti-party attempt failed.
By the end of the civil war, in late 1920, under the leadership of
Lenin, a grandiose plan for the electrification of the country —
the GOELRO plan (State Commission for
Electrification of Russia). The Leninist idea of electrification of the entire country was warmly supported by Comrade Stalin. In a famous letter to Lenin in early 1921, Comrade Stalin exposes Trotsky and Rykov, who were opponents of the Leninist plan of electrification of the country. Comrade Stalin wrote to Lenin: "Remember last year's 'plan' of Trotsky (his theses) of 'economic revival' of Russia on the basis of mass application to the remnants of pre-war industry of unqualified peasant-worker mass (labor army). What poverty, what backwardness compared to the GOELRO plan! Medieval artisan, imagining himself an Ibsen hero, called upon to 'save' Russia with old-fashioned saga... Or else: philistine 'realism' (in reality Manilovism) of Rykov, still 'criticizing' GOELRO and up to his ears in routine."127
In late 1920 and early 1921, on the eve of the transition from war
communism to the new economic policy, an acute discussion took place in the
party on the role and tasks of trade unions.
This was one of the most difficult periods in the life of the Soviet
republic: it was necessary to move from war to peaceful construction,
strengthen the dictatorship of the working class and in a new way, in new
conditions, strengthen the economic alliance with the middle peasant. For this
it was necessary to restructure the work of the party and all mass
organizations.
The Trotskyists did not recognize the necessity of strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat, the alliance of the working class with the middle peasant, denied the necessity of transition from war communism to the new economic policy, and denied the necessity of restructuring the work of all organizations. Trotsky again began the struggle against the party. At the signal of Trotsky against the party, the anarcho-syndicalist "workers' opposition" (Shlyapnikov, Kollontai, Medvedev and others), Bukharin acted as Trotsky's assistant in the struggle against Lenin and the party.
Trotsky spoke at the trade union conference in November 1920 with
the proposal to "statize" trade unions, "shake up" the
leadership of trade unions from above, "wipe with sandpile" trade
union cadres, etc. The Trotskyists believed that trade unions as mass
organizations of the working class had outlived themselves; they needed to be
merged with the state apparatus. Lenin pointed out that the views of Trotsky
were hostile to the very essence of the question of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The party fought against the Trotskyists also on the question of
"how to master the mass, in the approach to it, in connection with
it." This was noted by Comrade Stalin in the article "Our
Disagreements", published on January 19, 1921 in Pravda.
"Our disagreements," wrote Comrade Stalin, "lie in the area of questions on methods of strengthening labor discipline in the working class, on methods of approach to the working masses, drawn into the business of reviving industry, on ways of turning the present weak trade unions into powerful, truly production unions capable of reviving our industry."128
Instead of the Trotskyist method of coercion, Lenin and Stalin spoke
about the method of persuasion as the main method in the work of the party
among workers and working people.
During the discussion on trade unions, Bukharin formed his own
faction, which initially tried to occupy an intermediate ("buffer")
position, but in fact Bukharin fought against Lenin, supporting Trotsky.
At the plenum of the Central Committee of the party on December 7,
1920, when Lenin and Stalin proposed to condemn the bureaucratic methods of
jerking trade unions, which were applied by the Trotskyists, which led to a
split in the Central Council (Central Committee of Transport Workers), Bukharin
occupied a "buffer" position, supporting in essence Trotsky. Lenin
wrote on this occasion: "There resulted in the Central Committee porridge
and commotion; this is the first time in the history of our party during the
revolution, and this is dangerous. The nail of it was that there resulted a
split, resulted the 'buffer' group of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky and Serebryakov,
which did more harm and muddled more than anyone."129
128 Lenin, On Trade Unions, Works, vol. XXVI, p. 68.
129 Lenin, On Trade Unions, Works, vol. XXVI, p. 75.
The factional struggle of Trotskyists against the party, supported by the "buffer" group of Bukharin, led to the fact that disagreements on the role of trade unions went beyond the CC. On December 25, 1920, Trotsky published his factional brochure-platform. At the joint meeting of the fraction of the RCP(b) of the VIII Congress of Soviets, the AUCCTU and MGPS on December 30, 1920, Trotsky and Bukharin publicly spoke against Lenin. Not coincidentally, Lenin in his brochures, unites Trotsky and Bukharin: "On Trade Unions and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin", "Once Again on Trade Unions and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin."
Bukharin boasted of his "buffer" position; he said that
when a train is threatened with wreck, a buffer is a very good and necessary
thing. Bukharin's "buffer" helped Trotsky fight against Lenin and the
Bolshevik Party. Exposing Bukharin's "buffer" position, Lenin wrote:
"If the 'buffer' is dialectical, it with all its power attacks every
mistake which it perceives on both sides or on all sides. This is what Bukharin
does not do. He does not even try to analyze Trotsky's brochure from the point
of view of the policy of rummaging. He simply is silent about it. Is it not
remarkable that such a performance by the buffer of its role causes laughter in
everyone?"130
Bukharin not only supported Trotsky, but he also put forward
anarcho-syndicalist proposals that candidacies for the management of trade
unions be made mandatory for corresponding economic bodies. According to
Bukharin, not the party should nominate candidates for leading economic bodies,
but trade unions. This is anarcho-syndicalism.
Lenin considered the theses of "Bukharin and Co." the
"height of ideological decay." Bukharin's syndicalist thesis means,
as Lenin pointed out, "complete rupture with communism and
130 Lenin,
Once Again on Trade Unions, Works,
vol. XXVI, p. 133.
Thus, in Bukharin's "buffer" position, Trotskyism merged
with anarcho-syndicalism. This anarcho-syndicalist digression by Bukharin was
not accidental, since he already in the years of imperialist war (and in
subsequent years), speaking against the dictatorship of the proletariat,
defended anarchist views on the state.
Lenin said that Bukharin does not understand materialist dialectics,
that in all his reasoning is "dead and empty eclecticism."131 Thus, for example, Bukharin contrasted the
political and economic approach to trade unions. Lenin wrote on this occasion:
"The theoretical essence of the mistake
which
t. Bukharin makes here consists in that he replaces the dialectical correlation between politics and economy (which Marxism teaches) with eclecticism. 'And the one, and the other' - here is the theoretical position of Bukharin. This is eclecticism. Dialectics requires comprehensive consideration of relations in their concrete development, and not pulling out a little piece of one, a little piece of the other."132
Speaking at the discussion on December 30, 1920, Bukharin,
developing his point of view, was ready to agree with Lenin that "trade
unions are a school of communism", but immediately agreed with the
Trotskyist provision that "trade unions are an apparatus for managing
production."
"This is dead and empty eclecticism," Lenin answered
Bukharin. "Therefore, the theses of the Bukharin group are purely eclectic
trash. Bukharin fundamentally incorrectly, eclectically places the whole
question of the correlation between 'school' and 'apparatus'."133 Showing concretely with figures what this means, Lenin said that out
of 6 million trade union members only 1.5% of working representatives of trade
unions manage production, and 98.5% learn and will long learn conscious and
active participation in the arrangement of the national economy.
Lenin wrote: "trade unions are a school of administrative-
technical management of production. Not 'on the one hand' — school, and on the
other — something else, but from all sides, under this dispute, under this
formulation by Trotsky, trade unions are essentially a school, a school of
unification, a school of solidarity, a school of protecting their interests, a
school of economic management, a school of management. Instead, in order to
understand and correct this fundamental error...
132 Lenin, Once Again on Trade Unions, Works, vol. XXVI, p. 136.
Bukharin, with his "buffer" group, as Lenin pointed out,
did great harm to the party and was an accomplice of the "worst and most
harmful factionalism". Bukharin ended this period by completely uniting
with Trotsky's group, entering his faction, and, at the X Congress in March 1921, voting against Lenin and Stalin on the theses of Trotsky, condemned by the
congress.
In Lenin's resolution "On Party Unity" there was a
paragraph which proposed that the CC expel from the party those CC members who
would conduct criminal anti-party struggle against the party. This paragraph
applied also to Bukharin.
Bukharin denied the Leninist understanding of NEP as the policy of the proletarian state, ensuring the overcoming of capitalist elements in the country, ensuring the building of socialism. Lenin said at the All-Russian Party Conference in May 1921 that we need such an alliance of the working class with the peasantry, which would ensure the socialist restructuring of the peasant, ensure the destruction of classes. In the brochure "On the Food Tax" Lenin wrote that Soviet power will facilitate the gradual unification of the least profitable and most backward small peasant farms into large socialist farms.
Bukharin did not agree with these Leninist provisions. In the
article "The New Course of Economic Policy" (1921), opposing Lenin, he
wrote that he considered only petty-bourgeois development of agriculture
possible. These anti-Leninist views of Bukharin in the period 1920–1921 have a
direct bearing on his subsequent struggle against the socialist restructuring
of agriculture, have a bearing on his further defense of the kulak.
In the summer of 1922, during the trial of the Right SRs who
organized terrorist acts against the leaders of the party and Soviet power,
Bukharin and Radek, violating Lenin's directives, conspired with the leaders of
the II International that capital punishment would not be applied to the SR-terrorists.
Lenin stigmatized the behavior of Bukharin and Radek. In the article
"We Paid Too Much" Lenin wrote that Radek and Bukharin "acted
incorrectly".
In late 1922, Bukharin together with Sokolnikov opposed Lenin on the
question of the monopoly of foreign trade, proposing its partial abolition. The
monopoly of foreign trade is one of the most important commanding heights of
socialism, and this monopoly of foreign trade helped us create our own large
industry. To weaken the monopoly of foreign trade meant to harm the working
class, to weaken the positions of socialism and render support to capitalist
elements inside the country, render support to the world bourgeoisie.
Bukharin was an opponent of the Leninist-Stalinist policy on the
national question.
At the XII Congress of the party (in 1923), Bukharin again spoke
against the Leninist-Stalinist policy on the national question. Comrade Stalin
in his report at this congress on the national question, pointed out the
necessity of waging a struggle on two fronts, against great-power chauvinism
and local nationalism. Against the Leninist-Stalinist policy on the national
question at the XII Congress of the party spoke the group of Georgian
deviationists — allies of Trotsky in the struggle against the Bolshevik party
(the current counter- revolutionary hireling of fascists Mdivani and others),
which led a line towards turning Soviet Georgia into an appendage of the
capitalist world, which was against the creation of the USSR and the
organization of the Transcaucasian Federation, which defended the position of
the chauvinistic Georgian bourgeoisie in relation to the peoples of
Transcaucasia (Armenians, Turks, etc.). The Georgian deviationists — allies of
Trotsky — were routed.
Bukharin at the XII Congress of the party (in 1923) supported the
nationalism of the Georgian deviationists. Bukharin, who for many years fought
on the national question against Lenin, at the XII Congress stated that the
struggle against the Georgian deviationists was exaggerated, that local
nationalism does not represent a serious danger. Comrade Stalin exposed this
anti-Leninist position of Bukharin. On the national question, it is obligatory
to wage a struggle on two fronts, since both deviations represent the ideology
of capitalist elements: great-power chauvinism — the ideology of the Russian
bourgeoisie, and local nationalism — the ideology of the bourgeoisie of a
previously oppressed nation.
After Lenin's death, Bukharin organizes an anti-party
"school" to fight the party. "Cadres" of Bukharin: Slepkov
— former cadet, Sapozhnikov — former SR, Ayхenvald, Astrov, Maretsky and other
figures from a bourgeois background, alien to the working class and the party,
wormed their way into the Institute of Red Professors and, with Bukharin's help, advanced on the ideological front. These degenerate elements, grouped around
Bukharin, tried to "popularize" the anti-Marxist views of Bukharin on
the state, on the dictatorship of the proletariat, and others, smashed by Lenin
and the party. These degenerate elements were Bukharinite cadres, traitors,
two-facers as well in all their subsequent counter-revolutionary struggle
against the Leninist-Stalinist party.
The party, led by Comrade Stalin, firmly and unwaveringly following
the Leninist path, strengthening socialist commanding heights, strengthening
the dictatorship of the proletariat and the alliance of the working class with
the middle peasant, prepared conditions for a launched socialist offensive. The
party of Lenin and Stalin led the working class and working masses to the
building of socialist society. It was necessary to rearm industry, create our
own heavy industry, which could ensure the independence of the Soviet homeland.
Creating a powerful industry was necessary for the socialist restructuring of
small peasant farming, for creating collective and state farms, for
strengthening the defense capability of our country.
Only in fierce struggle with class enemies can capitalist elements be liquidated and a socialist society built. The offensive of socialism could not but evoke fierce resistance of the class enemy, could not but create new difficulties. It was impossible to lead the masses into battle for socialism without routing the saboteurs of the class enemy in the ranks of the party. Waging the struggle on two fronts, the party in 1925– 1927 directed its main fire against the Trotskyist-Zinovievite group — restorers of capitalism, which staked on the rupture of the proletariat with the main masses of the peasantry, trying to drag the party off the Leninist-Stalinist path of building socialism in our country.
In December 1925, at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist
Party (Bolsheviks) [VKP(b)], the Zinoviev- Kamenev group was exposed, which had
slid to the positions of Trotskyism, opposing the building of socialism in our
country, defending the program of restoring capitalism. "The historical
significance of the XIV Congress of the VKP consists in that," said
Comrade Stalin, "it managed to uncover the roots of the errors of the new
opposition, cast aside all its disbelief and whinging, clearly and distinctly
outlined the path of further struggle for socialism, gave the party the
perspective of victory and armed the proletariat with indestructible faith in
the victory of socialist construction"135.
135 Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 150, 10th ed.
The XIV Congress of the party, in the
resolution on Comrade Stalin's report, underlined the necessity of the struggle
against restorers of capitalism — Trotskyists, Zinovievites, who denied
"the main question of politics in the village, the question of the
attitude to the middle peasant — the central financial figure of agriculture,
to cooperation, as the main organizational form of the movement of the village
to socialism". And the XIV Congress of the party also noted the necessity
of the struggle against the right kulak deviation, also leading, though from
the other side, to the restoration of capitalism in the country.
"The congress resolutely condemns the deviation consisting in
underestimating differentiation in the village, not seeing the dangers
associated with the growth of the kulak and various forms of capitalist
exploitation, not wishing to understand the full necessity of rebuffing the
kulak and limiting his exploitative aspirations, not seeing the obligation for
the party of the proletariat to organize and rally the poor and farmhands
against the kulak and in the struggle against him"136.
As an exponent of the right deviation, Bukharin already stood forth
then. As early as April 1925, in connection with the decisions of the XIV Party
Conference, Bukharin put forward the kulak restorationist slogan "enrich
yourselves", which was a call to unleash capitalism in the country and
encourage the kulak. Comrade Stalin at the XIV Party Conference underlined that
we have every opportunity for overcoming capitalism and winning socialism in
our country, and Bukharin, with his slogan "enrich yourselves," called
for the path of restoring capitalism.
In June 1925, Comrade Stalin said that "this slogan is not
ours"; the slogan "enrich yourselves" represented "in
essence a call to restore capitalism, etc." Bukharin's mouthpieces (Sypov
and others) said: "Accumulate in good time". The present-day
counter-revolutionary, student of Bukharin — Slepkov called for unleashing
capitalist elements in the village.
On the initiative of Comrade Stalin, the Party CC condemned even
then, in 1925, Bukharin's overtly restorationist slogan.
At the XV Congress of the party, in December 1927, the rout of the
Trotskyists was completed, who had slid into the swamp of White Guardism,
becoming rabid counter-revolutionaries, and then a gang of hired assassins, the
vanguard of international fascism. In the period when the party moved to a
launched socialist offensive, the right deviation, which was the agency of the
kulak, became the main danger. But, concentrating in new conditions the main
fire against the right restorers, the party did not leave off the struggle
against the remnants of Trotskyism, against the restorers of capitalism from
the camp of counter-revolutionary Trotskyist- Zinovievites.
At the XV Congress, in December 1927, Comrade Stalin outlined the
tasks of the party: "to expand and strengthen our socialist commanding
heights in all branches of the national economy both in town and in the
countryside, maintaining a course towards the liquidation of capitalist
elements in the national economy"137.
137 Minutes of the XV
Congress of the VKP(b), p. 52, Partizdat,
1935.
The offensive of socialism against capitalist elements inevitably
led to the aggravation of the class struggle in the country. To smash the
agency of the class enemy in the party was an indispensable condition for the
victory of socialism.
Comrade Stalin pointed out: "it is impossible to wage a real struggle against class enemies, having in the rear their reflection in the party, leaving in the rear people who do not believe in our cause and in every way try to slow down our movement forward"138.
The leaders of the rights were Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky and others, who again began the struggle against the party of Lenin — Stalin, against the launched socialist offensive, defending the interests of capitalist elements, the interests of the kulak.
Already in the spring of 1928, the working class had to withstand an
acute struggle with the kulak on the grain front. The kulak put up resistance
to Soviet power in grain procurement, establishing ties with urban traders, and incited the middle peasant not to sell grain to the state, trying in this way
to disrupt the deployment of socialist construction. All this threatened the
food supply of cities and the Red Army.
Around the grain question, an acute class struggle unfolded in the countryside in this period. To break the resistance of kulaks and profiteer-speculators, emergency measures were carried out (bringing profiteer-speculators to judicial responsibility and confiscating hidden grain reserves from kulaks). Carried out with the broad participation of poor-middle-peasant masses, the emergency measures helped obtain the necessary amount of grain for state needs and were a strong blow to the kulak-dom.
In this period, the class struggle was aggravated not only in the
countryside. In 1928, a counter-revolutionary wrecking organization in the coal
industry was uncovered in the Shakhty district. The wrecking work was paid for
by former Donbas factory owners, who fled abroad after the October Revolution,
and foreign counter-intelligence agents. Wreckers existed also in a number of
other branches of industry. They set as their task — to disrupt socialist
construction and thereby help the attack of imperialist governments on the
Soviet Union.
"What is the essence of the Shakhty case from the point of view
of improving industry? The essence and meaning of the Shakhty case is that we
turned out to be almost unarmed and completely backward, hopelessly backward in
the matter of providing our industry with a certain minimum of specialists
devoted to the cause of the working class. The lesson arising from the Shakhty
case is to accelerate the pace of training, creation of a new technical
intelligentsia from people of the working class devoted to the cause of
socialism and capable of technically leading our socialist industry"139.
139 Stalin, On the Results of the July Plenum of the CC VKP(b), coll. "Lenin and Stalin", vol. III, pp. 303–304.
Just in this period of acute class struggle, the right capitulators — champions of the restoration of capitalism — raised a struggle against the general line of the Leninist-Stalinist party, helping class enemies.
The right restorers spoke out in defense of the kulak, against the
application of emergency measures to him; moreover, Bukharin stated that the
struggle against the kulak leads supposedly to a "rupture with the middle
peasant". Bukharin and Rykov proposed to give complete freedom to trade,
not limiting it by state regulation, i.e., proposed to help the strengthening
of the privateer-speculator.
In the summer of 1928, one of the rights — Frumkin (then working in
Narkomfin) in his letter to the Politburo of the CC demanded full support for
Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky's revision of the party's policy. Frumkin proposed
to abandon the decisions of the XV Congress on the accelerated offensive
against the kulak, to abandon the course on the development of collectivization, and not to hinder the development of kulak farms, proposed to slow down the
pace of industrialization.
This kulak platform Frumkin covered with the slogan "back to
the XIV Congress". The decision of the Politburo adopted on Comrade
Stalin's initiative — to give a rebuff to Frumkin's anti-party letter — met
with resistance from Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky and Uglanov.
The July Plenum of the CC 1928, in its decisions, pointed out the
necessity of solving the grain problem through the collectivization of peasant
farms and the construction of state farms. Solving the grain problem was
necessary to ensure the fast pace of industrialization.
The rights did not agree with the decisions of the July Plenum of
the CC. Bukharin continued to speak out, stating that the struggle against the
kulak leads to a rupture with the middle peasant. Rykov, delivering a report to
the Moscow party active,
hushed up the acute class struggle that had unfolded around grain
procurements, and spoke against the party's line on the question of
collectivization.
The restorer of capitalism, Uglanov, stated that Moscow should be
textile, chintz. Mechanical engineering, electrical industry in Moscow, as well
as in the whole country should not be created. In general, Uglanov and other
Rights stated that the link could only be "on the textile", and
therefore excluded the collectivization of fragmented peasant farms on the
basis of new technology.
In his report to the Leningrad party, "On the Results of
the July Plenum of the CC VKP(b)" on July 13, 1928, Comrade Stalin exposed
the positions of the right capitulators — defenders of the kulak.
"In connection with grain difficulties, we faced the question
of the link, of the further fate of the alliance of workers and peasants, of
the means of strengthening this alliance... The matter is clear: who thinks to
ensure the link only along the line of textiles, forgetting about metals and
machines transforming peasant farming on the basis of collective labor, he
perpetuates classes; he is not a proletarian revolutionary, but a peasant
philosopher"140.
Thus Comrade Stalin exposed Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov, Uglanov and
others, who wanted to shift the center of gravity to heavy industry and instead
of collectivization perpetuate small peasant farming from which the kulak
grows.
140 Stalin, On the Results of the July Plenum of the CC VKP(b), coll.
"Lenin and Stalin", vol. III, pp. 302–303.
Party organizations were closely rallied around the Leninist-
Stalinist CC. Bukharin seeks a bloc with the Trotskyists and, in June 1928, with
the full agreement of Rykov and Tomsky, through the mediation of Sokolnikov,
conducts behind-the- scenes negotiations with Kamenev on joint struggle against
the CC of the party, against the leader of the party, Comrade Stalin. The rights
and the Trotskyists had one goal — the restoration of capitalism in the USSR.
Not coincidentally, the outcast from the USSR, Judas Trotsky wrote at that time
that since he was against socialism, then he was against industrialization and
collectivization. The Trotskyists considered the platform of the Rights acceptable, and the leader of the Rights Bukharin, sought a bloc with the
Trotskyists. Struggle against socialism, for the restoration of capitalism —
that is what always united Trotskyists and Rights.
Already in 1928, Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky, conducting
behind-the-scenes negotiations with Trotskyists, applied vile two-faced methods
of struggle against our party. At the time when they conducted
behind-the-scenes negotiations with Trotskyists, at the CC plenum they voted
for the resolution of the Central Committee of the party on economic questions.
The right capitulators borrowed from the Trotskyists methods of
subversive, factional struggle against the party. In the summer of 1928, the Rights tried to use the Moscow party organization to fight the party. At the
head of the right capitulators, the present counter-revolutionaries — bandits
Uglanov, Ryutin and others- created in the Moscow committee a stronghold of the
Rights to fight the CC of the party.
Uglanov and his assistants gathered in Moscow the so-called
"narrow active", where supporters of the right capitulators were
invited. At this "narrow active" questions of factional struggle
against the party were discussed. The restorer of capitalism, Uglanov at the
plenum of the Moscow Committee in September 1928 asserted that there is no
right deviation in the party. This speech of Uglanov was supposed to underpin
Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky in their struggle against the CC. But Uglanov and
his plan failed. Moscow Bolsheviks rose against them. On October 18 the Central
Committee addressed a special letter "To all members of the Moscow
organization", and on October 19, 1928 at the plenum of the Moscow
Committee, Comrade Stalin spoke with the speech "On the Right Danger in the
VKP(b)", in which he lambasted the right restorers of capitalism and
conciliators towards them.
Comrade Stalin said in his speech that "there are people in the
ranks of our party who try to adapt, maybe without realizing it themselves, the
cause of our socialist construction to the tastes and needs of the 'soviet'
bourgeoisie". The victory of the right deviation in our party meant a huge
strengthening of capitalist elements in our country. And what does the
strengthening of capitalist elements in our country mean? This means weakening
the proletarian dictatorship and strengthening the chances of the restoration
of capitalism. Thus the victory of the right deviation in the party meant the
growth of conditions necessary for the restoration of capitalism in our country141.
Comrade Stalin's speech played a huge role in mobilizing the party
to fight the right restorers. The plenum of the Moscow Committee removed
Uglanov and his henchmen from leadership. As the first secretary of the Moscow
Committee, V. M. Molotov was elected, who rallied the Moscow organization around
the CC, around Comrade Stalin.
In July 1928, in Moscow, the VI Congress of the Comintern met, which
had great significance in strengthening communist parties.
The capitalist world, by the time of the VI Congress of the Comintern, had entered a period of shaking, temporary and relative stabilization of
capitalism, and a sharp aggravation of the revolutionary struggle.
Bukharin tried to push through his opportunist views on
international questions as well, recruiting his supporters in the Comintern for
this purpose. Over the head of the VKP(b) delegation, Bukharin sent his theses
on the international situation to foreign delegations of the VI Congress of the
Comintern. In his theses on the international situation Bukharin wrote that
capitalism is not being shaken, but is strengthening. This was an obvious
retreat to the positions of the leaders of the II International, all the time
asserting that "strengthening and recovery" of capitalism is taking
place and therefore the victory of the socialist revolution is impossible.
"With Bukharin," Comrade Stalin said, "it turned out in these
theses that nothing new, shaking capitalist stabilization, is happening at the
present moment, but on the contrary, capitalism is being reconstructed and
holds on basically more or less solidly...
Whether capitalist stabilization is shaken or strengthened — on this depends the orientation of communist parties in their everyday political work. Whether we are experiencing a period of decline of the revolutionary movement, a period of simple gathering of forces, or we are experiencing a period of growth of conditions for a new revolutionary upsurge, the period of preparation of the working class for upcoming class battles — on this depends the tactical orientation of communist parties". The amendment of the VKP delegation, adopted by the subsequent congress, is actually good in that it gives a clear orientation to the second perspective, to the perspective of the growth of conditions for a new revolutionary upsurge142.
Bukharin's theses also said nothing about the tasks of the struggle
against conciliation towards the right deviation in the sections of the
Comintern, and said nothing about the necessity of iron discipline in the ranks of
Bolshevik parties. On the initiative of Comrade Stalin, the VKP(b) delegation
at the VI Congress introduced about 20 amendments and gave essentially new
theses on the international situation. "To safeguard the party from
factional sallies of right deviationists, it is necessary to put the question
of iron party discipline and unconditional subordination of party members to
this discipline. Without this there is no use thinking about a serious struggle
against the right deviation". Therefore the VKP(b) delegation introduced
into Bukharin's theses a corresponding amendment, adopted then by the VI
congress143.
The leader of the Rights Bukharin, was isolated at the VI Congress of
the Comintern, and the capitulatory platform of the Rights was condemned.
In the summer of 1928, the CC addressed a letter to all party
organizations and the working class on deploying self- criticism, in order to
uncover shortcomings in the work of all organizations, to expel bureaucratic,
degenerate and opportunist elements. Being bureaucratic, degenerate elements,
resisting the restructuring of organizations and activation of the masses, the
Rights opposed the deployment of self-criticism.
A rabid representative of the Bukharinite "school," Slepkov
spoke with theses in which he travestied the party's slogan on self-criticism.
Comrade Stalin pointed out that the theses of Bukharin's disciple Slepkov
"only outwardly resemble the theses on the slogan of self-criticism... I
have no doubt," wrote Comrade Stalin, "that the bureaucratic elements
of our party and Soviet organizations will read Slepkov's theses without a
feeling of some satisfaction".
The party smashed the resistance to self-criticism from the Rights.
Bolshevik self-criticism hardened and hardens the army of builders of socialism
and exposed and exposes all uncleanness, all rot.
In autumn 1928, Bukharin, without the knowledge of the CC, published his programmatic, right-opportunist article "Notes of an Economist",
in which he attacks the general line of the Party CC.
If the party evaluates the reconstructive period as the most serious turning point, causing class shifts inside the country, causing an aggravation of class struggle, an intensification of the resistance of capitalist elements, then for the right deviationists the reconstructive period does not represent a principled change in the correlation of class forces in the country. "The transition to the reconstructive period, of course, does not express a principled shift in economic policy," — wrote Bukharin in "Notes of an Economist". The capitulatory line of the rights flowed from this incorrect evaluation of the new period in the development of our country. "They are connected with that strip of development," says Comrade Stalin, "which has already been passed and which is called the period of restoration of the national economy, when construction went peacefully, so to speak, in an order of run-as- you-please, when there were not yet those class shifts, there was not yet that aggravation of class struggle which we observe now. But now we have a new strip of development, different from the old period, from the restoration period. Now we have a new period of construction, a period of reconstruction of the entire national economy on the basis of socialism. This new period causes new class shifts, aggravation of class struggle. It requires new methods of struggle, regrouping of our forces, improvement and strengthening of all our organizations. The misfortune of t. Bukharin's group lies precisely in that it lives in the past; it does not see the characteristic features of this new period and does not understand the necessity of new methods of struggle"144.
In his "Notes of an Economist," Bukharin opposed the
five-year plan, against the pace of industry, calling these paces
"fantastic somersaults". He proposed that the party be guided by
narrow spots. "If there is no brick," — wrote Bukharin, — "and
it cannot be produced in a given season (according to technical conditions)
more than a definite magnitude, then one cannot invent construction programs
exceeding this limit, and provoke by this demand which cannot be met, because
no matter how you push construction further, you still won't make factory
buildings and housing out of air. It is necessary to narrow down the paces of
industrialization," wrote Bukharin.
The party, led by Comrade Stalin, exposed the
capitulation of the rights before difficulties, overcoming all narrow spots,
all difficulties on the paths of the socialist
offensive.
Bukharin's fellow thinker Frumkin invented the thoroughly
right-opportunist theory of "needs and possibilities", the essence of
which is that we supposedly cannot reckon with the needs of fast paces of
industrialization, that we must reckon with possibilities, i.e., be guided by
narrow spots.
This theory of Bukharin, defended by Frumkin, in practice resulted in the desire to slash the control figures of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) from 825 million capital investments to 650 million. Comrade Stalin at the November plenum of the CC in 1928 said: "Frumkin defends the figure 650 million rubles not out of stinginess, but on the basis of the newly minted 'theory of possibilities', asserting in his second letter and in a special article in the organ of Narkomfin that we will certainly worsen the condition of our economy if we let VSNKh have more than 650 million rubles for capital construction. And what does this mean? This means that t. Frumkin stands against preserving the current pace of development of industry"145.
Bukharin in his "Notes" wrote that we need to "mark
out the conditions for the correct combination of various spheres of production
and consumption and various spheres of production among themselves, in other
words, the conditions of mobile economic equilibrium. In essence, this is what
the task of drawing up a national economic plan consists of".
We see, therefore, that the capitulatory provisions of the rights on
the question of the paces of industrialization completely stem from Bukharin's
right-opportunist theory of equilibrium. This theory was not an invention of
Bukharin. It was borrowed by him from his teacher A. Bogdanov.
Lenin repeatedly uncovered the theoretical errors of Bukharin,
repeatedly pointed out that Bukharin is captive to Bogdanov, that Bukharin
combines human language with Bogdanov's organizational gibberish. Lenin wrote
that Bukharin "worsens Marx's theory with 'sociological'
scholastics", that Bukharin places the dialectical process "next to
(and in 2nd place) Bogdanov's Begriff-scholastik146"147. Next to it one cannot place it: either — or.
145 Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 375, 9th ed..
147 Lenin Miscellany XI, pp. 356, 361.
What did Bukharin's theory of "equilibrium" mean in practice? It meant that the proportions which then existed between various branches of production were eternal, immutable, and in no way should be disturbed. The socialist industrialization of the country is unfeasible if it disturbs existing proportions.
Thus, the theory of "equilibrium" is needed in order to
use it to cover up the principled disagreement of restorers of capitalism with
the party's policy on the questions of the country's industrialization. The
right-opportunist theory of "equilibrium" meant not only the
rejection of the industrialization of our country, but also the rejection of
the socialist restructuring of small peasant farming.
According to Bukharin's "equilibrium" theory, socialist
industry, the pace of which was to be lowered, had to be based on small, fragmented peasant farming. Bukharin's "equilibrium" theory is
anti-Marxist. Comrade Stalin teaches, and life brilliantly confirmed, that
socialist industry develops, expanding the scale of production on the basis of
socialist accumulation and expanded socialist reproduction. In our
small-commodity economy there did not even always take place simple
reproduction, besides, from this small-commodity economy grew capitalist
elements. Thus, Bukharin's theory of "equilibrium", as Comrade Stalin
showed, was directed against the Marxist-Leninist theory that expanded
reproduction of socialist industry can be based only on the expanded
reproduction of large socialist agriculture.
Comrade Stalin brilliantly uncovered and proved that "this theory has nothing in common with Leninism... that this theory has as its objective goal to defend the position of individual peasant economy, to arm kulak elements with 'new' theoretical weapons in their struggle against collective farms and to discredit the position of collective farms"148. Such is the class meaning of this theory.
Right capitulators defended the theory of "spontaneity",
which complemented the "equilibrium" theory. This theory of
"spontaneity", just like the "equilibrium" theory,
substantiated the uselessness of the socialist transformation of agriculture,
abandonment of the struggle against the kulak, abandonment of the construction
of state and collective farms. "The theory of spontaneity in the matter of
socialist construction," — said Comrade Stalin in his speech at the
conference of agrarian- Marxists, — "is a rotten, anti-Leninist theory"149. Developing such a theory, the rights moved to the
bourgeois standpoint of the stability of small peasant farming.
Bukharin in his "Notes" wrote about the regression of our
agriculture. Frumkin in November 1928 submitted a second letter to the CC, in
which he slanderously stated about the "degradation" of agriculture
and proposed "not to hinder the production of kulak farms". Comrade
Stalin exposed the kulak essence of this Bukharinite slogan. "What does it
mean not to hinder the kulak farm? This means giving the kulak freedom. And
what does giving him freedom mean? This means giving him power"150.
Bukharin did not agree with the Leninist provision that "the abolition of classes is a matter of long, difficult, stubborn class struggle, which after the overthrow of the power of capital, after the destruction of the bourgeois state, after the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat does not disappear... but
only changes its forms, becoming even more ferocious in relations"151.
Bukharin argued that in the process of socialist construction, the
class struggle will gradually soften and fade away. Refusing to recognize the
inevitability of the aggravation of class struggle as our socialist offensive
proceeds, Bukharin stated that if class struggle is aggravated anywhere, then
this is the direct result of the party's incorrect policy or shortcomings of
the grassroots Soviet apparatus. If, according to Lenin — under the dictatorship
of the proletariat only the forms of class struggle changed, then, according to
Bukharin — class struggle comes to naught.
The rights did not see in the kulak an implacable enemy of socialism
and denied the necessity of suppressing the kulak in the interests of the
collectivization of the countryside. "Kulaks," wrote Lenin, "are
a rabid enemy of Soviet power... There can be no peace with them: the kulak can
be easily and simply reconciled with the landowner, tsar and priest, even if
they quarreled, but with the working class never"152.
Bukharin, fighting against Lenin, wrote: "We give assistance to
him (the kulak. — Ed.), but he to us. In the end, perhaps, the grandson of the
kulak will say thank you to us for getting along with him".
151 Lenin, Greetings to Hungarian Workers, Works, vol. XXIV, p. 315.
152 Lenin, Comrades-workers! Let's go into the last, decisive battle, Works,
vol. XXIII, p. 206.
This bourgeois theory of Bukharin about "peaceful growing of
the kulak into socialism", about cooperative nests growing into the system
of socialist economy, directly stems from the denial of the dictatorship of the
working class and the denial of the fact that with the development of the
offensive of socialism the class struggle does not weaken, but on the contrary,
becomes more aggravated.
The harm of Bukharin's theory of the growing of capitalism into socialism consists in, as Comrade Stalin noted, "that it lulls the working class, undermines the mobilization readiness of the revolutionary forces of our country, demobilizes the working class and facilitates the offensive of capitalist elements against Soviet power"153.
At the November plenum of the CC 1928 Comrade Stalin in his speech
on the industrialization of the country and the right deviation in the VKP(b)
once again squarely posed the task of implementing high paces of socialist
industrialization, developing heavy industry as the leading principle of our
national economy, as the key to transforming backward and fragmented
agriculture on the basis of collectivization. The victory of the right
deviation, as well as Trotskyism, Comrade Stalin said, would inevitably lead to
the restoration of capitalism in our country.
Before the November CC plenum in 1928, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky submitted a statement to the Politburo on resignation, thinking by these methods would force the party to make concessions to them. But this maneuver of the rights was exposed. At the CC plenum, the rights voted for the resolution on the control figures of the national economy for 1928/29 and took back their resignation statement. This was hypocritical, two-faced behavior of the Rights, because at that time they formalized their group, prepared factional sallies against the party, in order to impose their restorationist platform.
The Rights deployed factional work, first of all widely using trade unions, where at the head of the leadership stood one of the leaders of the right restorers — Tomsky. Instead of mobilizing the working masses to overcome the difficulties of the reconstructive period, the Rights disarmed the proletariat, refused to fight to strengthen labor discipline, and defended idlers and truants. Comrade Stalin wrote: "It is hardly possible to doubt that one of the most important factors, if not the most important factor, of our construction at the present moment is the widely deployed emulation of the millions-strong masses of workers"154.
The rights, being opponents of deploying socialist emulation and
shock-work, entrenched in trade unions, braked the creative initiative of the
masses who deployed a powerful movement of socialist emulation and shock-work
in the country.
At the VIII Congress of Trade Unions (December 1928), Tomsky mobilized his supporters to fight the CC of the party. But the rights led by Tomsky suffered defeat. L. M. Kaganovich was introduced into the presidium of the AUCCTU. The struggle of L. M. Kaganovich against right opportunists played a huge role in restructuring trade unions and expelling right deviationists, assistants of Tomsky, from them. After the VIII Congress of Trade Unions, Tomsky was removed from work in the AUCCTU.
Having routed the Rights, the party highly raised the banner of
socialist emulation and shock-work. The historical words of Comrade Stalin,
that emulation "...turns labor from a shameful and heavy burden, as it was
considered before, into a matter of honor, into a matter of glory, into a
matter of valor and heroism"155,
became the slogan of millions of masses, selflessly fighting for the building
of socialist society.
155 Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 393, 10th ed..
1929 — the year of the great turning point. The working class, led
by the Leninist-Stalinist party, overcoming difficulties, more and more
deployed the struggle for the victory of the five-year plan. In the countryside, all the work of the party was directed towards the socialist restructuring of
peasant farms.
The middle peasant went into collective farms. In the second half of
1929, Comrade Stalin posed before the party the task — to move to a socialist
offensive along the whole front. In his historical speech at the conference of
agrarian-Marxists in December 1929, Comrade Stalin put forward a new slogan of
liquidating the kulak class as a class on the basis of total collectivization.
The liquidated kulak-dom stubbornly resisted, and its agency in the party — the
right restorers intensified the struggle against the socialist offensive along
the whole front.
Already in January 1929, the rights came out with their bourgeois platform of defending the liquidated kulak, in which they put forward the White Guard slogan of supposedly conducted by the party "military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry". The right restorers, following in the footsteps of counter-revolutionary Trotskyism, wrote about the "degeneration of the party". On January 30, 1929, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky, trying to "scare" the party, again submitted a resignation statement. In reality this statement served as a call for all right capitulators — kulak agents to unite to fight the party.
In this period the Central Committee of the party became aware of
the behind-the-scenes negotiations of the leader of the right restorers —
Bukharin with Trotskyist-Zinovievite restorers of capitalism about a joint bloc
to fight the general line of the party, against Comrade Stalin. Rykov and
Tomsky were aware of all these negotiations. The Politburo of the CC and the
Presidium of the CCC on February 9, 1929 sharply condemned this fractional step
of the rights, proposing that they disarm.
The right restorers did not submit to this decision and continued to
wage the struggle against the Leninist-Stalinist party.
Bukharin, speaking on January 21, 1929 at a mourning meeting dedicated to the fifth anniversary of Lenin's death, with the report "Lenin's Political Testament", gave an overtly opportunist interpretation of Lenin's latest articles. Bukharin did not mention Lenin's directive — "to catch up and surpass in technical and economic relation the advanced countries of the West", but instead tried to portray the party's line on the universal deployment of the pace of industrialization as a line contradicting Lenin's directive. In his report, Bukharin gave an anti-Leninist assessment of the driving forces and character of our revolution.
For Bukharin, the main moment characterizing the October
Revolution is the combination of the proletarian revolution with the peasant
war.
Bukharin therefore believes that in the October Socialist Revolution
all the peasantry participated. This point of view is connected with this
defender of the restoration of capitalism with the denial of the socialist
character of the October Revolution and with its assessment as a
bourgeois-democratic revolution. Meanwhile in the Great October Socialist
Revolution our party led the masses under the strategic slogan of the alliance
of the proletariat with the poorest peasantry against the bourgeoisie of city
and country with the neutralization of the middle peasant. The revolution of
October 1917, being socialist in its character, at the same time "in
passing", "incidentally" completed the unresolved tasks of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution. Bukharin assesses the October Revolution as bourgeois-democratic.
He, Bukharin, believed that in 1929 as well there remained the combination of
the proletarian revolution with the peasant war in a new form, but this time
"in a construction form". He, therefore, continued to assess all our
construction not as socialist, but as capitalist.
From the denial of the socialist character of the October Revolution flowed and Bukharin's distortion of the Leninist understanding of the alliance of the working class with the peasantry. Bukharin gave the assessment of the peasantry as a "solid middle-peasant mass", he did not want to see various social groupings in the village. Just like the Trotskyist restorers of capitalism, the rights denied the Leninist understanding of the hegemony of the proletariat and the alliance with the peasantry. The Trotskyists asserted that all peasantry is hostile to the proletariat, they led a line towards a rupture with the peasantry, mainly with the middle-peasant mass. The positions of the Trotskyists were directed towards the destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the triumph of capitalism. To this in practice amounted also the position of the rights. The rights spoke generally about an alliance with the peasantry, denying differentiation within the peasantry, denying the necessity of the struggle against the kulak, denying the leading role of the proletariat in this alliance. By alliance with the peasantry Bukharin understood the abandonment of the struggle against the kulak, he preached the non-abolition of classes, and the perpetuation of classes.
Thus, both Trotskyists and rights denied the Leninist understanding
of the hegemony of the proletariat and actually opposed the alliance with the
peasantry.
Exposing Bukharin, Comrade Stalin said: "Leninism
unconditionally stands for a solid alliance with the main masses of the
peasantry, for an alliance with the middle peasant, but not for any alliance,
but for such an alliance with the middle peasant, which ensures the leading
role of the working class, strengthens the dictatorship of the proletariat and
facilitates the matter of abolishing classes"156.
The Rights gave a liberal interpretation of the new economic policy, they regarded NEP as full freedom of trade; they refused to see such an important side of NEP, as the regulating role
of the Soviet state in relation to commodity turnover, market prices, etc. The
rights in practice slid to the position of counter-revolutionary Trotskyism,
which saw in NEP only the admission of capitalism, free trade. They denied,
said Comrade Stalin, that "NEP is a special policy of the proletarian
state, designed for the admission of capitalism, with commanding heights in the
hands of the proletarian state, designed to combat elements of capitalist and
socialist, designed to increase the role of socialist elements to the detriment
of capitalist elements, designed for the victory of socialist elements over
capitalist elements, designed for the abolition of classes, for building the
foundation of a socialist
economy"157.
The rights believed that it is necessary to unleash the market
spontaneous force, not to hinder the kulak and trader from robbing the working
people. Like the Trotskyists, the rights in assessing NEP defended an overtly
bourgeois-capitalist line.
Travestying the Leninist cooperative plan, Bukharin stated:
"Collective farms are not the main highway, not the trunk road, through
which the peasantry will come to socialism"; therefore the right restorers
were opponents of collectivization and new forms of the link — opponents of the
production link with the middle peasant.
Comrade Stalin
wrote:
"As long as it was a matter of restoring agriculture and the peasantry mastering former landowner and kulak lands, we could make do with old forms of the link. But now, when it comes to the reconstruction of agriculture, this is no longer enough. Now we must go further, helping peasants to restructure agricultural production on the basis of new technology and collective labor"158.
158 Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 264, 10th ed.
The rights fought against the five-year plan of socialist
construction. At the April Plenum of the CC 1929 Rykov instead of the five-year
plan proposed a two-year plan, which excluded the construction of new factories
and the growth of our heavy industry. Comrade Stalin said: "The two-year
plan was put forward by t. Rykov onto the scene in order then, in the course of
practical implementation of the five-year plan, to pit the five-year plan
against the two-year plan, to restructure the five-year plan and adapt it to
the two-year plan, cutting and lopping off allocations for the cause of
industrialization"159.
Thus, the right restorers were against industrialization, against an
economically powerful and independent Soviet country, against strengthening the
defense capability of the Soviet country, — this explained their struggle
against Stalin's five- year plan.
At the April Plenum of the CC 1929 in Comrade Stalin's speech "On the Right Deviation in the VKP(b)" it was underlined that the rights passed over to the side of enemies of the proletarian dictatorship, that the implementation of their capitulatory platform means the restoration of capitalism.
By decision of the plenum, Bukharin and Tomsky were removed from
their posts. The Plenum of the CC VKP(b) posed before the party the task by the
end to overcome and rout the right capitulators — the agency of the kulak in
the party.
The Plenum stigmatized the behind-the-scenes negotiations of
Bukharin with Kamenev on a joint bloc to fight the Leninist- Stalinist party.
The Plenum established that the right capitulators in the VKP(b) — Bukharin,
Rykov and Tomsky — more and more become the center of attraction for right-
opportunist and conciliatory elements in the sections of the Comintern.
In 1929 Bukharin again spoke in defense of the criticized by Lenin
social-democratic theory of "organized capitalism". In the article
"The Theory of Organized Un-management" he wrote: "The problem
of the market, prices, competition, crises becomes more and more a problem of
world economy, replacing within the country the problem of organization. Even
the problem of all problems, the so-called 'social question', the problem of
the correlation of classes and class struggle is a problem to the highest
degree connected with the position of one or another capitalist country on the
world market".
Bukharin's theory of "organized capitalism" coincides with Hilferding's theory of "organized capitalism". Proceeding from the bourgeois theory of "organized capitalism", the rights and conciliatory elements in the Comintern made the following conclusion, completely coinciding with the views of the II International: internal contradictions, they stated, class struggle inside capitalist countries recede into the background, and in the best case revolution can be born only as a result of international clashes.
Of course, in no way should one underestimate the significance of
war as a factor revolutionizing the masses, but it is completely wrong and
objectively harmful to reduce all contradictions of capitalism only to wars and
see in them the sole condition of the proletarian revolution. Lenin did not
connect revolution necessarily with wars. He wrote: "Socialist revolution
can break out not only because of a big strike or street demonstration or
hunger riot or military uprising or colonial mutiny, but also because of any
political crisis"160. In Bukharin's
formulation of the question, reducing to the assertion that class struggle
becomes a "problem connected with the position of one or another
capitalist country on the world market", internal contradictions are
ignored, the development of which inevitably leads to military clashes, to
revolutionary explosions.
160 Lenin, Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self- Determination, Works, vol. XIX, p. 39.
Bukharin's defended theory of "organized capitalism" coincided with Hilferding's theory of "organized capitalism" and Kautsky's Menshevik theory of ultra-imperialism. If for Bukharin, the creation of "organized capitalism" of state- capitalist trusts, the elimination of competition, and the destruction of anarchy of production within the country is possible, then what prevents the creation of a certain organization in the world economy? As was indicated above, Bukharin in his book "Economics of the Transition Period" (1920) admitted such a possibility. He considered that tendencies toward organization lead beyond the boundaries of an individual state, lead to the creation of "syndicates of state- capitalist trusts". This is precisely a direct slide into Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism. The theory of "organized capitalism" leads to the denial of the prospects of revolutionary struggle. The leaders of the II International, proceeding from the theory of "organized capitalism", drew the conclusion that capitalism has destroyed its inherent contradictions and can "peacefully grow into socialism". Bukharin and his group, proceeding from this theory of "organized capitalism", did not see the crisis of the world capitalist system, the colossal growth of unemployment and the indignation of the masses. They denied the aggravation of class struggle and the inevitability of the growth of the revolutionary upsurge. This theory lulls class vigilance, weakens the revolutionary will and energy of the proletariat in the struggle against capitalism.
The X Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (July 1929)
condemned the social-democratic theory of "organized capitalism" and
removed Bukharin from the composition of the Presidium of the ECCI.
The ECCI Plenum recognized the defense of the right deviation as
incompatible with staying in the Communist Party.
At the April Plenum of the CC VKP(b) in 1929 Comrade Stalin sharply underlined the huge significance of the party's struggle against right restorers. "The struggle against the right deviation is not a secondary task of our party. The struggle against the right deviation is one of the decisive tasks of our party". The goal of the Rights — "to demobilize the party, rout the working class, adapt our policy to the tastes of the 'soviet' bourgeoisie and save themselves in this way from the difficulties of our construction, — if we do all this," — asked Comrade Stalin, — "then what will this mean? Will it not mean to slow down the revolution, rout our socialist construction, flee from difficulties, surrender positions to capitalist elements? Does Bukharin's group understand that to abandon the struggle against the right deviation means to betray the working class, betray the revolution? Does Bukharin's group understand that without overcoming right deviation and conciliation it is impossible to overcome the difficulties facing us; without overcoming these difficulties it is impossible to achieve decisive successes of socialist construction"161.
The right leaders did not wish to hearken to this warning of the
party. They continued to fight against the party under the same banner of the
Bukharinite bourgeois platform. The Rights as before, insisted on slowing down
the pace of industrialization, on abandoning collective farms, on capitulation
to the kulak.
Comrade Stalin repeatedly warned about the possibility of a bloc of
right and "left" opportunists against the Leninist line. As early as
at the CC Plenum of the VKP(b) in November 1928 in his speech "On the
Industrialization of the Country and the Right Deviation in the VKP(b)"
Stalin said that the Trotskyists ("lefts") more than once blocked openly opportunist elements, since they have one program — against
socialism, for the restoration of capitalism.
"Right blocists will act henceforth precisely as rights, and 'lefts' will cover their rightness with 'left' phrases. But what is the guarantee that 'lefts' and rights will not find each other again? (Laughter.) It is clear that there is not and cannot be any guarantee"162. Comrade Stalin pointed out that rights and "lefts" have common social roots, a common opportunist nature, a common goal of struggle — the restoration of capitalism.
Comrade Stalin reminded that the Trotskyists more than once tried to
criticize the rights, but usually their squabbles ended in a bloc on the basis
of joint struggle against the party.
The common hope for the failure of Leninist-Stalinist policy, for
the disruption of victorious socialist construction, the common restoration
program brought closer together counter- revolutionary Trotskyist-Zinovievites
and kulak agency in the party — the right opportunists.
At the November Plenum of the CC VKP(b) in 1929, finding themselves
faced with the fact of the failure of all their "prophecies" and
seeing that they cannot knock together in the party any significant group of
supporters, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky submit a statement, in which they write
that their disagreements with the CC VKP(b) "are removed", however in
this statement they refused to condemn their bourgeois, kulak views.
This was a two-faced, hypocritical statement of the rights, similar to the statement of Trotskyites and Zinovievites on October 16, 1927 — a verbal refusal of factional work, in practice an order to their supporters for a temporary retreat, in order to preserve the already sparse cadres, in order to speak out again at a more favorable moment against the party and its leadership.
The November Plenum of the CC VKP(b) removed from the Politburo of
the CC VKP(b) Bukharin "as the instigator and leader of the right
deviationists" and issued a warning to Rykov and Tomsky. The Plenum
recognized the propaganda of the views of right opportunists as incompatible
with staying in the ranks of the VKP(b).
The program of right opportunists was a program of struggle against
the victory of socialism and led to the restoration of capitalism in our
country.
At the XVI Congress of the party, Comrade Stalin spoke about the right deviationists: "They do not want to recognize those ways and methods of struggle, without which it is impossible to build socialism. They do not want to recognize that the universal development of industry is the key to restructuring the entire national economy on socialist lines. They do not want to recognize the irreconcilable class struggle against capitalist elements and the launched socialist offensive against capitalism. They do not want to understand that all these ways and methods are a system of measures without which it is impossible to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat and build socialism in our country. They do not want to think that socialism can be built quietly, spontaneously, without class struggle, without an offensive against capitalist elements. They do not want to think that capitalist elements either themselves will die out quietly, or will grow into socialism. But since such miracles in history do not happen, it turns out that the right deviationists slide in practice to the point of denying the possibility of building socialism in our country"163.
In spring 1930, left distortions occurred during the implementation
of collectivization. The Rights immediately began to intensify their factional
struggle. They hoped that left excesses would lead to the failure of the
collective farm movement and to the triumph of their bourgeois platform.
But the party, stubbornly overcoming difficulties, routed the right
opportunists, these kulak agents. The XVI Congress of the party (1930) in the
resolution on Comrade Stalin's report, exposing opportunists, especially
underlined that "opportunists of all stripes, especially the rights, apply
a new maneuver, expressed in formal recognition of their errors and in formal
agreement with the general line of the party, without confirming their
recognition of work and struggle for the general line, which in practice means
only the transition from open struggle against the party to secret or biding
time for a more favorable moment to resume the attack on the party".
The party must declare the most ruthless war against this kind of
two-facedness and deception and demand from everyone recognizing their errors
through active defense of the general line of the party to prove the sincerity
of their recognitions.
Non-fulfillment of this requirement must entail the most decisive
organizational measures164.
The XVI Congress declared the views of the right opposition
incompatible with membership in the VKP(b).
And even after the rout of the rights at the XVI Congress of the
party, before the face of the greatest victories of socialism and the triumph
of the Leninist-Stalinist line of the party, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky still
continued two-facedly deceiving the party, stating that they honestly served,
while in practice helping enemies. In late 1930, the right-left bloc of Syrtsov-
Lominadze was exposed. These two-facers, enemies of the party, combined in
themselves the counter-revolutionary views of Trotskyist restorers on the
impossibility of the victory of socialism with the views of right restorers. In
their "platform" the right-leftists repeated all the slanderous
accusations of the right capitulators against the party.
In October 1932, the counter-revolutionary group of Ryutin- Uglanov was exposed and routed, in which Bukharin's students — Slepkov and Maretsky took an active part. The counter- revolutionary Ryutin-Slepkov group, connected with Zinoviev and Kamenev, set as its task the violent overthrow of Soviet power, restoration of the smashed kulak-dom, restoration of capitalism, and found full support in Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. Ryutin's restoration platform, as it turned out, was the program of the entire group of the rights. Only for conspiratorial considerations was the Ryutin platform issued by the leaders of the rights — Bukharin, Rykov, and others as the platform of a separate group. Bukharin and Rykov were inspirers of the counter-revolutionary Ryutin-Slepkov platform. The counter-revolutionary Slepkov, being in exile, sent through a Trotskyist-friendly greeting to the right restorer Tomsky.
In early 1933, the counter-revolutionary group of Eismont- Tolmachev was uncovered, which, just like the Ryutin-Slepkov group, set as its task the overthrow of Soviet power and restoration of capitalism in our country. The Joint Plenum of the CC and CCC VKP(b) in January 1933, at which party leader Comrade Stalin delivered a report on the world-historic victories of the first five-year plan, also discussed the question of the Eismont-Tolmachev-A. P. Smirnov group.
Enemies of the party were expelled from our ranks. About Rykov,
Bukharin and Tomsky, the Joint Plenum of the CC and CCC VKP(b) said that instead
of active struggle against enemies of the party, they stood aside and even
maintained contact with Eismont and Smirnov, which in practice meant
encouraging their counter-revolutionary activity.
These counter-revolutionaries, kulak mouthpieces, agreed on terror
against leaders of the party and government. Rykov, Bukharin, Tomsky and others
maintained contact with this group and encouraged their counter-revolutionary
activity.
On the eve of the XVII Congress of the party, characterizing all
groupings of 1932–1933, which consisted of remnants and remains of the right
opposition, L. M. Kaganovich said: "Their ideology was in the full sense a
wrecking ideology, counter- revolutionary, conspiratorial"165.
Former leaders of the Rights did not lay down the arms of their anti-party "theory", did not abandon the struggle against the party. In recent years sorties were undertaken from time to time on one or another question, testifying to the unwillingness to abandon the struggle against the party, abandon the promotion of restorationist ideas.
Bukharin in January 1936 published an article in Izvestia with a reactionary statement
that the Russian people in the past represented a solid mass of idlers, were
the embodiment of universal Oblomovism, savagery, etc. "The Nation of
Oblomovs," — slanderously stated Bukharin about the great Russian people,
who put forward giants of artistic creativity and scientific thought, who gave
the great party of Bolsheviks and Stalin. Our great people gave brilliant
examples of liberating mankind from the shackles of capitalism, victorious
struggle for communism. The reactionary theory about the Russian people as a
"nation of Oblomovs", having nothing in common with Leninism,
Bukharin defended back in the years of war, speaking against Lenin's article
"On the National Pride of Great Russians".
New facts, uncovered recently, showed that Trotskyist- Zinovievite
monsters, agents of fascist secret services, murderers of the group of Kemerovo
workers, murderers of Red Army soldiers, enjoyed the abetment of the rights —
Bukharin, Rykov and others. They knew about the prepared Trotskyist-Zinovievite
terrorist acts, wrecking, espionage, and treason to the homeland.
In January 1937 the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union
passed its verdict on the German-Japanese-Trotskyist gang of restorers of
capitalism from the parallel anti-Soviet center.
As emerged at the trial from the testimony of Radek and Sokolnikov, the right counter-revolutionaries also had their anti-Soviet center. Together with the Trotskyists, the right counter-revolutionaries prepared a coup d'état for the restoration of capitalism.
Sokolnikov testified at the trial: "As for programmatic
provisions, that is, in 1932 both Trotskyists, Zinovievites, and rights
converged in the main on a program which earlier was characterized as the
program of the rights. This is the so-called Ryutin platform; but to a
significant extent it expressed precisely this, common to all three groups,
programmatic provisions back in 1932".
As for the further development of this program, the leading members
of the center believed that as an isolated revolution, our revolution cannot
hold out as socialist, and that the theory of Kautskian ultra-imperialism and
Bukharin's theory of "organized capitalism", akin to it, turned out
to be correct. We believed that fascism is the most organized capitalism; it
wins, seizes Europe, strangles us. Therefore, it is better to come to terms with
it; better to make some compromise in the sense of retreating from socialism to
capitalism.
Thus, in the struggle against socialism, on a common platform of
restoring capitalism, united counter-revolutionaries — Trotskyists and Rights,
who became a gang of criminals, a gang of hired agents of international
capital.
Trotskyism has long ceased to be a political current in the ranks of the working class. The roots of Trotskyism are not in our country, but in the capitalist environment; Trotskyism, as a political current, turned into a rabid gang of bloody murderers, spies, and saboteurs who do not dare to speak openly about their program even to closest accomplices. Trotskyists are a "direct find for intelligence agencies of foreign states" (Stalin).
The rights were aware of the transition of the Trotskyist-
Zinovievite fascist gang to the methods of espionage, sabotage, and wrecking,
and they, the rights, shared this platform.
Right counter-revolutionaries, just like Trotskyist scoundrels,
engaged in espionage and wrecking, fulfilling the vile tasks of their fascist
masters. Bukharinites, Rykovites and other right counter-revolutionaries were
in the same gang of Japanese- German-Trotskyist agents.
The rights, just like Trotskyists, ceased to be a political current in
the working movement; they too turned into a rabid gang of enemies of the
people.
Such is the vile finale of the history of the rights, their struggle
against the party and socialism, their shameful feats in the name of and for
the glory of bourgeois restoration in our country.
Comrade Stalin
said at the CC Plenum in March 1937:
"Now, I think, it is clear to everyone that the present-day leaders and saboteurs, under whatever flags they were masking themselves, Trotskyist or Bukharinite, long ago ceased to be a political current in the working movement, that they turned into an unscrupulous and unprincipled gang of professional saboteurs, spies, murderers. It is clear that these gentlemen will have to be smashed and weeded out mercilessly, as enemies of the working class, as traitors to our homeland"166.
166 Stalin, On Shortcomings of Party Work and Measures to Liquidate Trotskyist and Other Two-Facers, Partizdat, 1937.
For the rights as a political current, there are no longer roots in
the economy of our country, since capitalist elements have been liquidated, first of
all the kulak-dom. Those remnants of capitalist elements, which still exist,
are supported by the capitalist environment, which will feed the right counter-revolutionaries not as a political party, but as a gang of fascist mercenaries.
Capitalist encirclement is the soil for the activity of Trotskyist
and right counter-revolutionaries. Socialism triumphed on only one-sixth of the
world. Our country is surrounded by enemies. As long as capitalist encirclement
exists, fascist intelligence services will send saboteurs, spies, saboteurs and
murderers into our country. Capitalist encirclement in the future as well will
use mercenaries, counter-revolutionaries — Trotskyists and Rights as its
agents.
Trotskyist and right counter-revolutionaries are faithful flunkeys of fascist instigators of war, fascist monsters, who shot the peaceful population and try to strangle democratic Spain. This gang of criminals, who sold themselves to fascism, who became its direct agents, who sold our homeland to fascism, preparing in case of fascist attack on the Soviet Union, the defeat of the Red Army, contributed to the dismemberment of the USSR and the restoration of the power of landowners and capitalists. In June 1937, in the name of the great Soviet people, was routed another gang of traitors, spies and saboteurs, murderers, hirelings of fascist intelligence services, who ensconced themselves in the ranks of the Red Army — Tukhachevsky and Co.
It should not be forgotten that class struggle continues. It is
necessary to smash and cast aside the rotten and dangerous theory that with
our further advance class struggle will fade away. "This is not a rotten
theory, but a dangerous theory, because it lulls our people, leads them into a
trap, gives the class enemy the opportunity to recover for the fight against
Soviet power".
On the contrary, the more we will advance, the more we will have successes, the more the remnants of beaten exploitative classes will become embittered, the faster they will go to more acute forms of struggle, the more they will muck up the Soviet state, the more they will cling to the most desperate means of struggle, as the latest means of the doomed ones167.
It is necessary to master Bolshevism, to finish with complacency,
with smugness.
It is necessary to remember the capitalist encirclement. The struggle against all forces of counter-revolution and its vile agents must be intensified. In order to uncover these machinations of enemies, under whatever mask they did not hide, in order to destroy all Trotskyist-Zinovievite and right bandits, all these despicable scoundrels — agents of fascism,
— the
greatest revolutionary vigilance of the party and the entire Soviet people is necessary.
