Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 15:54:10 +0000
From: Jim heartfield <jim-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: AUT: Stalin/Trotsky






In message <Pine.GSO.3.96.981115093303.16643A-100000-AT-acnet>, Gerald Levy
<glevy-AT-pratt.edu> writes
>George Pennefather wrote:
>> George: But this all so trivial and and an expression of your stubborn
>> refusal to face harsh reality. The point is that both Stalin nd Trotsky
>> supported  alternatively NEP and forced collectivisation.
>
>In all probability, this post will be my last response to you since you
>again make wild assertions without any attempt whatsoever to provide
>sources. WHEN did Trotsky support forced collectivization? Put up or shut
>up, comrade.

I can appreciate Jerry's irritation, but on strictly formal grounds
George is right, Trotsky did support NEP, and, though he objected to the
manenr in which forced collectivisation was undertaken, he did
(mistakenly in my view) see it as an indication of the underlying,
progressive character of the Soviet system.

The point in all of this is that the principles involved do not attach
to the tactical considerations of economic policy. NEP was unavoidable
at a point when agricultural production was largely uncentralised,
scattered, and underdeveloped. In those conditions it is sheer
utopianism to imagine that you could impose a rational eonomic plan onto
material conditions that simply would not support it. The lesson of War
Communism was that you could not force the peasants to produce for
socialism. The market mechanism was adopted pragmatically by Lenin under
NEP as the only means for a voluntary economic relationship with a
geographically scattered peasantry - the alternative was starvation.

However, the point of principle arises in the attitude to NEP. Lenin,
Preobrazhensky and Trotsky all knew that the compromise with the market
principle would introduce disruptive forces into soviet society. The
market was more than a means of exchanging produce between town and
market, it was the basis of another social class of capitalists, whose
interests would be hostile to the soviet system. In time the emergence
of traders in the towns and the class differentiation of the peasantry
did present a problem. In particular the peasants' threat to trade grain
direct with foreign capitalists for agiricultural machinery would have
isolated the soviet controlled cities from their means of subsistence.

Bukharin and (originally) Stalin failed to understand the tactical
adoption of the market mechanism. They simply adapted to the superficial
advantages of the NEP. It seemed to bring wealth, so they thought that
it was a good idea. Their thinking began to adapt to the outlook of the
capitalistically minded peasant. Bukharin especially proposed that
socialism could be postponed for a hundred years, by taking a 'wager on
the peasantry' and crawling towards socialism at a snail's pace. Of
course this was utterly utopian - market relations allowed to flourish
unhindered would quickly mount a challenge to the socialist system.

By contrast Preobrazhensky and Trotsky adopted a quite different
attitude towards NEP. P.'s book The NEw Economics proposes that the
market mechanism be seen as an unpleasant necessity, to be overcome as
quickly as possible. To that end P. proposes a system of price riging
and tacation to redirect resources from the countryside to the towns,
thus accelerating industrial (and socialist) production. By this method,
the socialist factories would build up the industry to trade
agricultural goods with the coutnryside, and would develop at the
expense of the capitalist, rural sector.

Bukharin was scandalised by P.'s proposal objecting moralisticially that
is would make the socialists exploiters. P. replied that it was a
question of which system you supported, capitalism or socialism. The
advantage of P.'s approach was that it was oriented to the victory of
socialism over capitalism, but using the market mechanism, and
therefore, the voluntary support of the peasants. It remained conscious
at all times.

By contrast the reaction of the Stalin group to the self-enrichment of
the peasants was reactive and hysterical. Having allowed the peasant-
capitalists to develop into a direct challenge to the socialist system
(something which P.'s approach would have prevented), Stalin lurched
reactively to the opposite extreme: he liquidated the kulaks and engaged
in forced collectivisation. The effect was grotesque. Mass slaughter in
the countryside followed by terrible famine in the towns, as grain
production slumped.

Stalin's approach was so destructive, because it adapted to the
spontaneous movements in Russian society. It adapted to the market,
allowing it to develop to the point where it became a bager, and then it
reacted to the danger with repressive measures. The whole point of
socialism, that unconscnous anarchy give way to planned production was
undermined by Stalin's adaptation to spontaneous developments in the
economy.

By contrast P. and Trotsky's approach was at all times a deliberate and
planned eonomic policy. If it had been adopted it would heve been the
best chance for the gradual development of capitalism to socialism in
the coutnryside, and the best way to guarantee the development of
socialism in Russia. The point of principle was not any one tactic,
whether NEP or collectivisation, but the attitude that lay behind it and
the intentions with which it was undertaken. Trotsky's attitude was
socialist, Stalin's merely a reaction to spontaneity.
-- 
Jim heartfield


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