The political aspect of the transition is perhaps the most important as it clearly conceives how the transition would actually take place. The way in which Marx predicted the fall of capitalism would be the overthrowing of it by a proletarian revolution. This revolution would not be a political one, where by governing bodies are removed and the machine of the state stopped, yet a social revolution which would establish newer means of production and rationing that production to what Engels would say:
“FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED”
In turn the revolution and newly allocating of resources would then slowly shift to communism; the difference being that in Socialism the full aspects of power and state control would be utilized, whilst in Communism the state would start to wither away.
Furthermore the revolution would take place in the most capitalist of countries, Marx giving examples to Great Britain, Germany, and Belgium [the most industrialized countries at the time].
For the reasons mentioned above Marx believed that the transition could not be as smooth as to shift directly from Capitalism to Communism. The socialist stage would therefore come in between for as long as class antagonism continued. The period of socialism as Marx would describe would be the dictatorship of the proletariat, which would ensure that counter-revolution did not take place, and would remain as such until class antagonism died out.
Finally when the antagonism would start to diminish, the state in itself would also start to diminish in doing so the communist society would be pure as it would be stateless as well as classless.
In conclusion, there are some aspects of the transition, which must be criticized. Firstly the fact that it did not contain any time period, in that Marx did not specify when the revolution would take place. In addition to this, as time has shown, the capitalist system is more flexible than Marx conceived it to be. The most important fact is that after Russia’s attempts to install communism did not succeed, as they could not by-pass the stage of socialism, the difficulties of which will be mentioned below.
- How closely did the Soviet experience of “building socialism” conform to Marx’s theories?
To a great extent the Soviet Union did experience a build of Socialism, which conformed to Marx’s theories; these mainly being through the periods of the 1917 revolution, and the period of Leninism. To a great extent however this “building of socialsm” was and is still considered as a charade for historians as it contradicted many aspects of Marx’s theories. I will mainly concentrate on Lenin and Stalin*, and on how close they came to building socialism according to Marx.
Lenin has been known both for his harsh line when it came to doing work, as well as a major political thinker; characterized often as a man of great intellect.
After supervising a successful revolution in 1917, Lenin began building socialism. Lenin tweaked the communist theory before the revolution in order for it to attract the common people; he made use of slogans such as “Peace, Bread and Land”, and published “State and Revolution”. For this reason he has been portrayed as the father of soviet communism, but was he?
To a great extent Lenin persisted, and made it known that the revolution and setting up of socialism was a transitional dictatorship of the workers, until true communism could be achieved. Lenin had to make the theory popular in order for it to gain support from the people. In that respect Lenin did not achieve to build socialism as he shifted from the main theme of communism, however given the circumstances it may be considered that this was the most optimum choice. After pulling Russia from the war in 1917 Lenin faced many social, economic and political problems. The ways in which he tackled social problems (mentioned above) may be considered to have conformed to Marx’s theories for the reason that the ideology was merely tweaked and proved successful in building Socialism. The means in which Lenin tackled the economical problems proved to be extremely successful, but when it comes to conforming with Marx’s theories it actually proved to be quite contradictory. In 1922 Lenin introduced the famous NEP (New Economic Policy); in broad, this policy allowed some doses of Capitalism by allowing farmers to sell surpluses for a minor profit. The policy proved to be extremely successful, it did not however conform to Marx’s theories because the whole point of the Socialism stage was to act as an antithesis to capitalism. The use of democratic centralism in his economic policies although contradictory to the theory, to some extent still conformed to the Marx’s theory in that the antithesis (Socialism) was being combined with the thesis (Capitalism), tweaked in certain aspects and levels in order to propose the synthesis, Communism
Lenin believed in spreading socialism throughout the world, he wanted countries to learn from Russia, for this reason the Communist party was composed as a hierarchy combined with democratic centralism. Centralization however within the party meant that minorities were subject to the majority of the party. In this sense building socialism did not conform to Marx’s theories, because socialism was to merely be a transitional stage of party unity, Lenin however started building on socialism rather than concentrating on the next step… achieving communism. Lenin also concentrated on a strong monopolizing party with the power to articulate the interests of the proletariat. Given the economic and social conditions this was not sufficiently done in accordance to Marx’s theories, where by some groups benefited more than others i.e. Doctors, Scientists etc. however the case of society classing was more so done under Stalin.
Stalin came to power after the death of Lenin in 1924. Stalin wasn’t so much the intellectual person, who Lenin was, but he was the ruthless tyrant who got the work done. It is debated to what level Stalin actually had an ideology, it is clear however that Stalin shifted from Lenin’s ideology of popular socialism and proposed a more pragmatic approach fitting the situation – Socialism in one country.
In 1928 Stalin introduced his five-year plans which consisted of industrial targets, which if not met were dealt with harshly. Stalin thereafter achieved rapid industrialization and total eradication of private enterprise. This building of socialism conformed more closely to Marx’s theories as the did not contained any centralized or mixed economics as in Lenin’s period. In 1929 agriculture was collectivized, and farmers had to work on collectivized, or common, land. In theory I believe this conformed greatly to Marx’s theories as the proletariat started to become classless between themselves. In practice however collectivization proved to be unsuccessful, where farmers would burn their livestock due to the poor feedback they got from their work. To that extent therefore the plan did not conform to Marx’s theories, especially on those which dealt with fair pay for an honest day’s work.
Stalin preferred to take a hard line when he came to power, executing millions of people and sending thousands to the gulags. We can therefore see the rift of Stalinism in accordance to Marx’s theories, in the late 1930’s when tension surfaced between Germany. Stalin started building upon the foundations of Lenin in completely different manners, making the party more centralized and eliminating even the smallest of enterprises. The rule of Stalin became more totalitarian at the time when it shouldn’t have; since socialism was supposed to be a transitional stage inorder to fight off counter-revolutions, since this threat had been almost completely eliminated by Lenin, Stalin still continued with a ruthless approach of building arms, and forming a more high secured secret police.
Finally Stalin insisted on state involvement, in many affairs including social, and economical. This building of socialism did not conform to Marx’s theories because state involvement was supposed to gradually diminish, whilst under Stalin it was strengthened.
In conclusion as time passed and Soviet leaders changed, the building of Socialism started rifting even more and more from Marx’s theories. Khrushchev concentrated on the second world war and built the Berlin War, instead of concentrating on building socialism. Whilst Brezhnov and Gorbachov seemed to lose their grip on solidarity within the USSR. Perhaps Lenin must be considered to be the closest in conforming the building of socialism in accordance to Marx; to a great extent Stalin also achieved this, although mainly due to the solidarity he built within the USSR.
Word Count: 1,951
Louis Skoutellas 7A
Bibliography:
Political Ideologies, Third Edition by Andrew Heywood – Palgrave Macmillan
http://home.att.net/russianleaders
http://www.projectgcse.com
Socialist Party of Great Britain
Pinecrest School – Library Archives online
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/1350/index.html
Article in Pine Crest Library – *
Quote of Engels found in the website of The Socialist Party of Great Britain
* I concentrated on Lenin and Stalin for the reasons that they are the most known, and affiliate more directly to the question. Furthermore I think that under exam conditions I would be most able to concentrate on Lenin and Stalin rather than other Soviet leaders.
