Leninism

Volume Two

Joseph Stalin, Eden Paul, Cedar Paul

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351777810
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

Translated from the Russian in 1933, this and the first volume of the same title give an invaluable picture of what the Russian leader Joseph Stalin understood by Leninism. Building on the pamphlet Foundations of Leninism, (which forms the first part of this book) the work presents a unified and complete work on the problems of Leninism and socialist construction as they were manifested in the 1920s, as well as discussion of the October Revolution and the relationship of the USSR and the West in the years following the First World War.

POLITICAL REPORT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TO THE SIXTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

(Report delivered June 27, 1930, and speech in reply to debate delivered July 2, 1930)

I. THE GROWING CRISIS OF WORLD CAPITALISM AND THE EXTERNAL SITUATION OF THE U.S.S.R.

COMRADES:

Two and a half years have passed since the Fifteenth Congress. This is not a very long period of time, I think. Yet during this period most important changes in the life of peoples and States have taken place. To characterise this period in a few words, we might call it the turn of the tide. The tide turned not only for us in the U.S.S.R., but also for the capitalist countries of the whole world. But there is a radical difference between these two turns. While the turn for the U.S.S.R. meant a turn toward a new and more important economic advance, for the capitalist countries it meant a turn toward economic decline. In the U.S.S.R. there is increasing progress in Socialist construction, both in industry and in agriculture. In the capitalist countries there is a growing economic crisis, both in industry and in agriculture.

That is the picture of the present position in few words.

Recall the state of affairs in the capitalist countries two and a half years ago. A growth in industrial output and trade in nearly all the countries of capitalism. A growth in output of raw materials and foodstuffs in nearly all agrarian countries. The U.S.A. surrounded by the glamour of the country of the most full-blooded capitalism. Pæans of victory about “prosperity.” The whole world bowing low before the dollar. Exalted speeches in honour of the new technique and of capitalist rationalisation. The proclamation of the era of “recovery” of capitalism, and of unshakeable firmness of capitalist stabilisation. “Universal” noise and din about the “inevitable doom” of the land of the Soviets, the “inevitable collapse” of the U.S.S.R.

That was the state of affairs yesterday. And what is the picture to-day?

To-day: an economic crisis in nearly all the industrial countries of capitalism. To-day: an agricultural crisis in nearly all agrarian countries. Instead of “prosperity,” mass poverty and colossal growth of unemployment. Instead of a boom in agriculture, the ruin of millions of peasants. The collapse of illusions about the omnipotence of capitalism generally, and United States capitalism in particular. The strains of triumph in honour of the dollar and of capitalist rationalisation grow feebler and feebler. Louder and louder and the pessimistic groans about the “mistakes” of capitalism. And the “universal” din about the “inevitable doom” of the U.S.S.R. is being replaced by “universal” malevolent hissing, about the necessity of punishing “this country,” which dares to develop economically while crisis reigns around.

That is the picture to-day.

Things have happened just as the Bolsheviks said they would happen two or three years ago.

The Bolsheviks said that the growth of technique in the capitalist countries, the growth of productive forces and capitalist rationalisation, in view of the restricted limits of the standard of living of millions of workers and peasants, must inevitably lead to a severe economic crisis. The bourgeoisie Press jeered at the “queer prophecies” of the Bolsheviks. The Right deviators dissociated the Bolshevik forecast, replacing Marxist analysis by Liberal chatter about “organised capitalism.” And what happened in reality? What the Bolsheviks said would happen.

These are the facts.

Let us now examine the data on the economic crisis in the capitalist countries.

1. THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

(a) In studying the crisis we are struck first of all by the following facts:

(i) The present economic crisis is a crisis of over-production. This means that more commodities have been produced than the market can absorb. It means that more textiles, fuel, manufactured articles, foodstuffs have been produced than can be bought for cash by the main consumer—the mass of the people—whose income remains at a low level. And as the purchasing capacity of the mass of the people in conditions of capitalism remains at the lowest possible level, the capitalists leave the “surplus” commodities—textiles, grain, etc.—in store or even destroy them, in order to maintain high prices. They reduce production, dismiss their workers, and the mass of the people are forced to suffer privation because too many commodities have been produced.

(ii) The present crisis is the first world economic crisis since the war. It is a world crisis not only in the sense that it embraces all, or nearly all, industrial countries of the world—so that even France, which systematically injects into its organism the milliards of marks paid by Germany as reparations, has not been able to avoid a certain depression which, according to all appearances, must become a crisis: it is a world crisis also in the sense that the industrial crisis has coincided with an agricultural crisis, embracing the production of all forms of raw material and foodstuffs in the principal agrarian countries of the world.

(iii) The present world crisis is developing unevenly in spite of its general character, striking various countries at various times and with various degrees of force. The industrial crisis began first of all in Poland, Roumania, and the Balkans. It developed there during the whole of last year. Obvious signs of an approaching agricultural crisis could already be seen in Canada, the U.S.A., Argentine, Brazil, and Australia by the end of 1928. All this time the industry of the U.S.A. was climbing up and up. By the middle of 1929 industrial production in the U.S.A. had achieved an almost record level. The turn of the tide commenced in the second half of 1929, after which there developed a headlong industrial crisis which threw the U.S.A. back to the level of 1927. In its train came the industrial crisis in Canada and Japan. Then followed bankruptcies and crises in China and the colonial countries, where the crisis is aggravated by the fall in the price of silver, and where the crisis of over-production is combined with the destruction of peasant economy, reduced by feudal exploitation and overwhelming taxes to a state of complete exhaustion. As for Western Europe, the crisis there begins to develop only at the beginning of the present year, and not everywhere with equal force; while France, even in this period, continues to show an increase in industrial output.

I do not think it is necessary to quote a lot of statistics to prove that there is a crisis. There is no longer any argument is to whether a crisis exists or not. I shall confine myself, therefore, to quoting one small but characteristic table published recently by the German “Institute of Economic Research.” The table illustrates the development of the mining industry and the main branches of large-scale manufacturing industry in the U.S.A., Great Britain, Germany, France, Poland, and the U.S.S.R. from 1927 onwards, taking the level of output in 1928 as 100.

Here is the table:

What does this table show?

It shows, first of all, that the U.S.A., Germany, and Poland are going through a sharply marked crisis of large-scale industrial production. During the first quarter of 1930 in the U.S.A., after; a rise in the first half of 1929, the level of output fell by 10.8 per cent in comparison with 1929, coming down to the level of 1927. In Germany, after three years’ stagnation, the level of production fell in comparison with last year by 8.4 per cent, and in comparison with 1927 by 6.7 per cent. In Poland, after last year’ crisis, the level of production fell in comparison with last year by 15.2 per cent, or 3.9 per cent lower than 1927.

Secondly, it shows that Great Britain has been marking time for three years around the level of 1927, and in a state of a severe economic stagnation. In the first quarter of 1930, however, production dropped by 0.05 per cent as compared with last year thus entering into the primary phase of crisis.

Thirdly, it shows that, among the large capitalist countries only in France is there a certain growth of large-scale industry But the percentage of increase in 1928 was 13.4 per cent, in 1929 by 9.4 per cent, and in the first quarter of 1930 only 3.7 per cent in comparison with 1929, thus presenting a picture of a declining curve of growth year by year.

Finally, it shows that of all the countries in the world only the U.S.S.R. has an enormous increase in large-scale industry; the level of output in the first quarter of 1930 being more than double the level of 1927, while the percentage increase rises from 17.6 per cent in 1928 to 23.5 per cent in 1929, and 32 per cent in the first quarter of 1930, thus presenting a picture of a rising curve of growth year by year.

It might be said that, even though this was the state of affairs up to the end of the first quarter of the present year, a change for the better is not out of the question in the second quarter. But the facts of the second quarter definitely refute such a suggestion. On the contrary, they show that the position is becoming even worse in the second quarter. They show a new fall in shares on the New York Stock Exchange and a new wave of bankruptcy in the U.S.A.; a new reduction of output, lowering of wages, and growth of unemployment in the U.S.A., Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, South America, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, etc.; a number of branches of French industry entering a period of stagnation, which in the present international economic circumstances is a sign of commencing crisis. There are now over six million unemployed in the U.S.A., about five million in Germany, over two million in Great Britain, a million each in Italy, South America, Japan, 500,000 each in Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria. This is apart from the further intensification of the agricultural crisis, which is ruining millions of farmers and working peasants. The crisis of over-production in agriculture has gone so far that, in order to maintain high prices and profits, the bourgeoisie in Brazil threw two million sacks of coffee into the sea, maize has been used as fuel in America instead of coal, in Germany millions of poods of rye have been used as pig fodder, while as for cotton and wheat, every possible step is being taken to reduce the area sown by 10 to 15 per cent.

Such is the general picture of the developing world economic crisis.

(b) To-day, when the destructive effects of the world economic crisis are spreading, sending to the bottom whole layers of middle and petty capitalists, ruining whole groups of the labour aristocracy and farmers, and condemning to starvation millions of workers, all are asking: What is the reason for the crisis; where is its basis; how can it be fought, how can it be wiped out? The most varied “theories” of the crisis are being invented. Elaborate schemes for “mitigating,” “preventing,” and “liquidating” the crisis are being brought forward. The bourgeois oppositions point to the bourgeois Governments, and accuse them of not having taken “all possible steps” to prevent the crisis. “Democrats” accuse “Republicans,” “Republicans” accuse “Democrats,” and both together accuse the Hoover group, with its “Federal Reserve System,” of having failed to keep the crisis “in check.” There are even wise men who see the cause of the world economic crisis in “Bolshevik plots.” I have in mind the well-known “industrialist,” Rechberg, who, as a matter of fact, is very little like an industrialist: he looks like an “industrialist” among literary men and like a “literary man” among industrialists. (Laughter.)

Of course all these theories and schemes have nothing in common with science. It must be confessed that the bourgeois economists have proved their utter bankruptcy in face of the crisis. More than that, they have turned out to be lacking even in that minimum contact with real life which cannot always be denied their predecessors. These gentlemen forget that crises cannot be considered an accidental event in the system of capitalist economy. They forget that economic crises are the inevitable result of capitalism. They forget that crises were born with the birth of capitalist supremacy. For over one hundred years periodic economic crises have been taking place, repeated at intervals of twelve, ten, and eight years or less. During this whole period bourgeois Governments of all ranks and colours, bourgeois politicians of all degrees and capacities, have all, without exception tried their hand at “preventing” and “abolishing” crises. But they all suffered defeat. They suffered defeat because you cannot prevent or abolish economic crises while remaining within the framework of capitalism. Is there anything surprising, therefore in the fact that the present bourgeois politicians also suffer defeat. Is there anything surprising in the fact that the measures taken by the bourgeois Governments lead in practice, not to the relaxation of the crisis or the improvement of the position of millions of toilers, but to new waves of bankruptcy, a new wave of unemployment, the absorption of weaker capitalist amalgamations by stronger capitalist amalgamations?

The basis and cause of economic crises of over-production like in the very system of capitalist economy. The basis of the crislies in the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production. This basic contradiction of capitalism is expressed in the contradiction between the colossal growth in the productive capacity of capitalism, calculated to secure the maximum of capitalist profit, and the relative reduction of purchasing power of millions of toilers whose standard of living the capitalists are all the time trying to keep within the limits of the lowest possible minimum. In order to win in the game of competition and squeeze out more profits, the capitalists are forced to develop technique, to apply ...