Chapter 7: Trotsky’s analysis of problems of socialism: a comment

1. Trotsky and Mao on Problems of Socialism

Till now, I believed that one of the major theoretical contributions of Mao was his analysis of the contradictions in a socialist society: that in a socialist society, the material basis for the birth of a capitalist class and bourgeois values remains for a very long, long time, even after the means of production have been nationalised. That is because the law of value continues to operate, the socialist law of distribution – to each according to his work – is basically a capitalist law, bourgeois rights still exist, commodity production continues. This continuously gives rise to a bourgeoisie, and hence class struggle continues in a socialist society, is in a way more vicious and acute than before the revolution.

It is clear from Trotsky’s book The Revolution Betrayed that he had made this analysis much before Mao. Trotsky makes this analysis with reference to Russia to explain the material basis for the rise of a bureaucratic ruling stratum to power in Russia after Lenin’s death.

Trotsky writes: The proletarian dictatorship is just a bridge between the bourgeois and the socialist society. In its very essence, therefore, it bears a temporary character. An incidental but very essential task of the state which realizes the dictatorship consists in preparing for its own dissolution. In his famous polemic against Duhring, Engels wrote:

“When, together with class domination and the struggle for individual existence created by the present anarchy in production, those conflicts and excesses which result from this struggle disappear, from that time on there will be nothing to suppress, and there will be no need for a special instrument of suppression, the state.”

Explaining these lines, Trotsky says: “In order that the state shall disappear, “class domination and the struggle for individual existence” must disappear. Engels joins these two conditions together...” He continues, “but the trouble is that a socialization of the means of production does not yet automatically remove the “struggle for individual existence.” That is the nub of the question!” And that is why, Trotsky adds, “A socialized state even in America, on the basis of the most advanced capitalism, could not immediately provide everyone with as much as he needs, and would therefore be compelled to spur everyone to produce as much as possible.”

In these circumstances, concludes Trotsky, the duty of the stimulator “naturally falls to the state, which in its turn cannot but resort, with various changes and mitigations, to the method of labor payment worked out by capitalism.” He quotes Marx (1875): “Bourgeois law... is inevitable in the first phase of the communist society, in that form in which it issues after long labor pains from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure and the cultural development of society conditioned by that structure.”

Lenin had explained these remarkable lines in the following words: “Bourgeois law in relation to the distribution of the objects of consumption assumes, of course, inevitably a bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of compelling observance of its norms. It follows (we are still quoting Lenin) that under Communism not only will bourgeois law survive for a certain time, but also even a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie!”

Trotsky goes on to say that this highly significant conclusion has a decisive significance for the understanding of the nature of the Soviet state: “Insofar as the state which assumes the task of socialist transformation is compelled to defend inequality—that is, the material privileges of a minority—by methods of compulsion, insofar does it also remain a “bourgeois” state, even though without a bourgeoisie ... The state assumes directly and from the very beginning a dual character: socialistic, insofar as it defends social property in the means of production; bourgeois, insofar as the distribution of life’s goods is carried out with a capitalistic measure of value and all the consequences ensuing therefrom.”

Trotsky points out that while Lenin had given an extremely sharpened expression to the conception of Marx, he did not himself succeed in carrying his analysis through to the end. He brilliantly explains the implications of Lenin’s analysis for the workers’ state: “A bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie” proved inconsistent with genuine Soviet democracy. The dual function of the state could not but affect its structure. Experience revealed what theory was unable clearly to foresee. If for the defense of socialized property against bourgeois counterrevolution a “state of armed workers” was fully adequate, it was a very different matter to regulate inequalities in the sphere of consumption. Those deprived of property are not inclined to create and defend it. The majority cannot concern itself with the privileges of the minority. For the defense of “bourgeois law” the workers’ state was compelled to create a “bourgeois” type of instrument—that is, the same old gendarme, although in a new uniform.”

This is the fundamental contradiction between the Bolshevik program and Soviet reality, says Trotsky. So long as inequalities in the sphere of consumption continue, so long as “bourgeois law” continues to dominate, a bureaucracy is bound to rise in the workers’ state, and the state is bound to grow more and more despotic. In Trotsky’s own words, “If the state does not die away, but grows more and more despotic, if the plenipotentiaries of the working class become bureaucratized, and the bureaucracy rises above the new society, this is not for some secondary reasons like the psychological relics of the past, etc., but is a result of the iron necessity to give birth to and support a privileged minority so long as it is impossible to guarantee genuine equality.”

He further adds that while the “tendencies of bureaucratism... would everywhere show themselves even after a proletarian revolution, ... it is perfectly obvious that the poorer the society which issues after a revolution, the sterner and more naked would be the expression of this “law”, the more crude would be the forms assumed by bureaucratism, and the more dangerous would it become for socialist development.” [1]

Trotsky thus brilliantly explains the material basis for the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Mao makes exactly the same analysis while explaining the reasons for the birth and growth of a bourgeoisie in a socialist society. The only difference is that what Trotsky calls as a “bureaucracy” (he says it cannot be called a class) is described by Mao as a “bourgeoisie”.

2. The Answer to the Problem?

Trotsky gives no answer to the problem posed by him – that since bourgeois law is inevitably operates in socialist society, what should be the program of the Communist Party to tackle this situation? He mentions that this problem was first posed by Marx; and Lenin “gave an extremely sharpened expression to the conception of Marx ...although he did not himself succeed in carrying his analysis through to the end ... either in his chief work dedicated to this question (State and Revolution), or in the program of the party.” [2] Trotsky adds:

“Explaining the revival of bureaucratism by the unfamiliarity of the masses with administration and by the special difficulties resulting from the war, the program (of the Bolshevik Party) prescribes merely political measures for the overcoming of 'bureaucratic distortions': election and recall at any time of plenipotentiaries, abolition of material privileges, active control by the masses, etc. It was assumed that along this road the bureaucrat, from being a boss, would turn into a simple and moreover temporary technical agent, and the state would gradually and imperceptibly disappear from the scene.” [3]

3. Trotsky on: Defeat of International Revolution and Problems of Socialism in USSR

While on the one hand Trotsky gives the above theory, on the other hand, he also says:

“The post-war revolutionary crisis did not lead to the victory of socialism in Europe. ....The contradictory social structure of the Soviet Union, and the ultra-bureaucratic character of its state, are the direct consequences of this unique and “unforeseen” historical pause...” [4]

Trotsky writes that Lenin did not draw all the necessary conclusions from his analysis regarding the “bureaucratic distortions” in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution because he did not foresee so prolonged an isolation of the Soviet State. [5] The party program (of 1919) also underestimated the impending difficulties because the program was based wholly upon an international perspective. He quotes from the program: “The October Revolution in Russia has realized the dictatorship of the proletariat ... the era of world proletarian communist revolution has begun.” [6]

It is true that the Bolsheviks and Lenin had expected an early victory of the revolution in the west, which would then have provided Soviet Russia with food, raw materials, machines, and not only that, tens of thousands of skilled workers, engineers and organizers, enabling the Soviet Union to advance with gigantic strides. But even then, the Soviet state and the party leadership would have had to resort to bourgeois norms of distribution. (Trotsky himself admits that a socialist state even in America would have had to resort to this in the early stages after the revolution.) The continuation of bourgeois law would inevitably result in growth of inequality, and the birth and growth of a bureaucracy (or, in the words of Mao, a bourgeoisie).

Hence, it appears to me that Trotsky is not entirely correct in saying that the strengthening of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and its gradual consolidation as a new ruling stratum is the direct consequence of the failure of revolution in Europe. The proletarian defeats in Europe and elsewhere, by leading to a prolonged isolation of the Soviet Union, undoubtedly created favourable conditions for the strengthening of the bureaucracy; these defeats also led to a spread of a “cold wave of disappointment...over the masses of the Soviet Union” [7], enabling the Soviet bureaucracy to straightaway open a campaign against the theory of permanent revolution, carry out mass arrests of the Left Opposition, and thus consolidate its hold over state power. But the basic reason for the birth and growth of a new bureaucracy in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution is that “bourgeois law... is inevitable in the first phase of the Communist society” (Marx), and hence in this phase the state is in essence “a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie” (Lenin).

Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolshevik Party, while recognizing this contradiction, were not able to develop a theory and program to resolve this contradiction gripping socialist society. Thus, Lenin had pointed out that the entire historical stage of socialism “inevitably is a period of unprecedentedly violent class struggles in unprecedentedly acute forms.”(The State and Revolution). As Trotsky too writes, Lenin was very aware and in fact horrified at the threatening growth of bureaucratism in the Soviet Union right unto his death. [8] While recognizing and grappling with this problem, Lenin was however unable to work out a solution to this problem of how to advance the class struggle and carry forward the revolution in a socialist society.

4. Mao’s Answer to Problems of Socialism: The Cultural Revolution

Mao worked out a theory of how to advance the class struggle and thus continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and also attempted to implement it in China through the Cultural Revolution. Mao spelt out clearly that in socialist society too, the basic contradictions are the contradiction between the productive forces and production relations, and the contradiction between the base and the superstructure. He presented a clear understanding about the presence of bourgeois rights, the continuation of the law of value and commodity economy, the disparities between towns and villages, peasants and workers, mental and manual labour; about the presence of classes as their fundamental source; and about the newer forms of bourgeois social relations, institutions, ideas, values, and culture that were born out of this situation.

Mao pointed out that the only way to advance socialism was to continually revolutionise the superstructure, thereby transforming the base and eliminating the material basis for capitalist restoration. The proletarian dictatorship progressively limits and controls bourgeois rights, gradually eliminates bourgeois incentives and disparities in consumption, and continuously wages struggle against bourgeois tendencies in the fields of art, literature and culture and seeks to develop a new socialist culture.

He stated that in this process, the bourgeois elements present in the Party and the state would create obstacles; arousing the masses against these elements, a political struggle would necessarily have to be conducted. From time to time, this struggle would take an open and sharp form.

Mao sought to put this theory into practice through the Cultural Revolution. Mao pointed out that only one Cultural Revolution is not enough to eliminate the danger of capitalist restoration; it would need several Cultural Revolutions, it demanded a protracted struggle lasting several generations.

Another important contribution of the Cultural Revolution was that it gave simultaneous stress upon both the leading role of the party and upon learning from the masses; it called both these aspects mutually complementary; it thus presented a developed and concrete conception of the dialectical interrelationship between the Party and the masses.

5. Mao’s Assessment of Stalin and Trotsky: A Comment

Mao was a undoubtedly a great Marxist-Leninist, a great proletarian leader. The path of socialist construction adopted in China was a tremendous socialist experiment. One such creative example was the gradual steps from land reforms to mutual aid to cooperatives and communes taken in China (see William Hinton, “Mao, Rural Development and Two-Line Struggle”, Monthly Review, February 1994). And, as mentioned earlier, Mao’s greatest contribution to revolutionary theory and practice was the Cultural Revolution. The correctness of the basic principles of the Cultural Revolution (despite all the excesses that occurred during its implementation) is more than proven by the reversal that has occurred in China after Mao’s death and the consolidation in power of the opponents of the Cultural Revolution. The new rulers now encouraged a blossoming of private industry via domestic and foreign investment, a turn to so-called market socialism was proclaimed. Whereas during the Mao years, China had become a highly egalitarian society, in the years after 1976, the capitalist reforms have led to a growing polarization of Chinese society.

Nevertheless, I disagree with his assessment of Stalin and Trotsky. While penetratingly analyzing the problems of socialism, and while making a very thorough criticism of Khrushchev’s theoretical positions and policies, Mao makes no attempt to do a similar analysis for the Stalin period. His analysis of Stalin’s mistakes is very superficial. On many of the questions raised by Trotsky (given above), there is not even a comment (such as the changes in the Red Army, on the dissolution of the Comintern, etc.). While Mao was critical of the path of socialist construction adopted in the Soviet Union during the Stalin period, about which he has written in his work, Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems, there is no comment on important mistakes like calling the Stakhanovite movement a socialist advance, there is no analysis of the zigzags in economic policy, etc.; and on other issues, the comments are very cursory. On many issues, Khrushchev was only advancing Stalin’s policies to their logical end. For instance, Khrushchev’s declaration of the “state of the whole people” was only an extension of Stalin’s declaration of the abolition of classes in the Soviet Union followed by the decision to abolish the Soviet system of election according to class and industrial groups, and replacing it by the system of bourgeois democracy based on the so-called “universal, equal and direct” vote of the entire population. While Mao rightly criticizes Khrushchev’s “state of the whole people” as revisionism, he is silent on the policy changes made in the Soviet Union in the 1930s under Stalin’s leadership which too meant juridically liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat. Likewise, to the best of my knowledge, Mao and the CPC did not make any sum-up of the great proletarian struggles during the decades 1920s to 1950s, and the strategy and tactics of the Comintern during these struggles. In its Second Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU on September 13, 1963, On the Question of Stalin, all that the CPC says is: “In handling relations with fraternal parties and countries he (Stalin) made some mistakes. He also gave some bad counsel in the international communist movement. These mistakes caused some losses to the Soviet Union and the international communist movement.” But nowhere has the CPC given details of these mistakes and discussed them. Therefore no conclusion can be drawn as to the seriousness of these mistakes and the reasons why they were made. The CPC writes, “When Stalin did something wrong, he was capable of criticizing himself.” But it is silent on the numerous instances when Stalin made a 180-degree about-turn in his position without giving any explanation for it, as, for example, when he changed his position on ‘socialism in one country’ or when he changed his opinion on giving concessions to kulaks and instead ordered their ‘liquidation as a class’.

To the best of my knowledge, Mao has made no comment on Trotsky’s theoretical writings. However, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Mao have called the Trotskyites as “enemies of Leninism”, as bourgeois agents and as opportunists. In his pamphlet On Contradiction, Mao makes a passing comment that Trotsky’s thinking was “fallacious.” The CPC had criticized Khrushchev for making “demagogic personal attacks on Stalin in order to poison people’s minds”; in contrast, Trotsky had made a principled criticism of Stalin, without any personal abuse whatsoever, parts of which have been given above. Mao and the CPC had thus adopted the very same approach towards Trotsky that Khrushchev had adopted towards Stalin and for which Mao and the CPC had denounced Khrushchev.

References

[1] Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Pathfinder Press, New York , 1972, pp. 52-55

[2] Ibid., pp. 54, 58

[3] Ibid., p. 58

[4] Ibid., p.59

[5] Ibid., p. 56

[6] Ibid., p. 58

[7] Ibid., p. 91

[8] Ibid., p. 97

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