Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part C

Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part C

B. The reactionary anticommunist bourgeois theory of "developed socialism" of the Khrushchevite social-democracy

Cont.

3. Transition period "from capitalism to socialism" or "from capitalism to communism"?

The question of exact, but firstly proper delimitation of the ‘’Transition period’’ is one of the most significant and central matters of Marxist Theory, because with this, in theoretical level are connected directly, closely and (without separation) the questions of:

1) The Marxist perception of socialism-communism that, in addition to others, has as a basis and recognizes only two phases of the unified communist society and

2) The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, more accurately the necessity of its preservation till the communist classless society, which at the political-practical level is connected to the fate of socialism, and its preservation, establishment and development or its destruction, like it occurred on Soviet Union, after 1953: a) with the violent overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat that at the same time, abolished socialism at the political level (there is no socialism without the Dictatorship of the Proletariat), and b) to the economic sector, it launched the gradual restoration of capitalism, with the application of financial reforms of capitalistic character, restoration that was completed in the mid 1960s.

Exactly in that central and key importance question, theoretical and political-practical, the treasonous revisionist social-democratic group of Khrushchev-Brezhnev devised, after 1953, a counter-revolutionary NEW antimarxist position as the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" - replacing the known Marxist position for the "Transition period from capitalism to communism" -restoring a blatant rank and altogether failed attempt to falsify Lenin. To give, apparently, "persuasion" to their conscious falsification they quote ONLY a part of an excerpt of Lenin, that is contained in the "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers" (27.5.1919), concluding, with its "help", in the distortion of Marx: "therefore, according to Marx and Lenin, the state of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the state of the Transition period from capitalism to socialism" (N. Khrushchev: "The 22th Congress of CPSU", page 206, Athens 1961).

The distorted-crippled, from Khrushchevite anticommunism, expert of Lenin from "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers" was used, in later decades, extensively in reports of international Khrushchevite revisionism, among which we report only case: In the "Political economy of Socialism" (Moscow 1971) German: "Politische Oekonomie des Sozialismus" page 51, Berlin-DDR 1973.

First, before reporting the distortion of Lenin i.e. the amputation-clipping of his extract, lets underline that there is no reference to the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" anywhere in the work of Marx-Engels. It was the Khrushchevite social-democrat falsely claim in that infamous Congress and that is exactly the reason they don't quote any, not even one, relevant extract from their work.

Ever since, after the counterrevolutionary 22nd Congress (1961) the antimarxist "theory"-position of the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" dominated the reports of the capitalist Soviet Union of the era and those of the countries of the restored capitalism in eastern Europe, was proclaimed the official position and became the dominant bourgeois theory in those countries and at the same time consisted the position of every antistalinist Khrushchevite revisionist social democratic party in the planet (including the "K"KE as well).

From the hundreds of publications (articles, books, brochures, comments, etc. ) lets mention as an indication just four feature experts. According to the Khrushchevite revisionist academic P. Fedoseyev “ the period of transition from capitalism to socialism starts with the victory of socialist revolution and the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and ends with the elimination of capitalistic property (“Voprosy Ekonomiki” Nr 5/1975, page 27) and: the “transition period from capitalism to socialism” starts “with the seizure of political power by the working class and ends with the establishment of socialism” (“Politische Oekonomie des Sozialismus”, page 51, Berlin-DDR 1973, Moscow 1971), and: “The Transition period starts in every country the moment the political power of working class will be established, and ends with the completion of socialist transformations, with the establishment of socialist productive relations” (“Political Economy Manual”, page 8-9, Moscow 1979), and finally, according to Prof. Anatoli Butenko , economist: “Transition period from capitalism to socialism is a historical period of growth, which starts with the political revolution and the establishment of the working class's power and ends with the total elimination of the exploitation of man by man, with the victory of socialist productive relations, with the creation of the bases of socialism” (“SOZIALIZM THEORIE UND PRAXIS, Monatliches Sowjetisches Digest”, 3/1979, page 55, APN-Verlag, Moscow 1979).

In contrast to the above intentional distortion, in the antimarxist direction, that “allowed” the Khrushchevite social-democrats to use the so called “Transition period from capitalism to socialism” of Marx-Lenin, Lenin in the famous “Greetings to the Hungarian Workers” (27.5.1919), points amongst others in addition “The chief feature of proletarian dictatorship is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man. This object cannot be achieved at one stroke. It requires a fairly long period of transition from capitalism to socialism, because the reorganisation of production is a difficult matter, because radical changes in all spheres of life need time, and because the enormous force of habit of running things in a petty-bourgeois and bourgeois way can only be overcome by a long and stubborn struggle. That is why Marx spoke of an entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the period of transition from capitalism to socialism (note 87)" (V.I. Lenin: "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers". German: Lenin: Werke, Bd. 29, p. 377, Berlin-DDR 1965)

A simple comparison between this extract of Lenin, and that of the Khrushchevites in the 22th Congress of CPSU (1961) shows that they have skipped-clipped intentionally the first part of Lenin's extract in order to submit their new antimarxist position-myth of the "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" attributing it to Marx-Lenin.

And now some remarks, that contradict-show the blunt and international distortion of Marx-Lenin form soviet Khrushchevite social democrats of the defending team of Khrushchev-Brezhnev, etc., that at the same constitute defense of the Marxist perception of the Transition period from capitalism to communism:

First, from the above complete Lenin's extract with the addition of the "forgotten" on purpose from the Khrushchevite social democrats: "The chief feature of proletarian dictatorship is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man." - they did not quote that part to "document" their

distortion and make it more persuasive is apparent that Lenin in this text uses the term "Socialism" meaning "Communism", because ONLY in "communism" division of the society in classes is eliminated and not in "socialism" where classes still exist even after the establishment-construction of its economic base with its two forms of socialist property (of state-cooperative) "working class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia" remain (Stalin: "Concerning Questions of Leninism", p. 676, 1950, Greek version) which is furthermore confirmed from Lenin's reference in the end of the paragraph to Marx.

Second, furthermore : The note 87 that refers to Marx work: “Critique of the Gotha Programme” confirms the position of revolutionary Marxism for “International period of capitalism to communism”, in which is noted: “Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." (K. Marx: "Critique of the Gotha Program", written in April-start of May 1875 and published in 1891. Taken from K.MARX/F.ENGELS: Ausgewaehlte Schriften, Bd.II, σελ. 25, Verlag fuer fremdsprachige Literatur Moskau 1950)

And from this Marx’s clear extract which is not open "to many" interpretations, is apparent that when Lenin in the text above talks of "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" means from "capitalism to communism", since Marx in his famous extract does NOT speak of "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" but opposite of "Transition period from capitalism to communism" i.e. the complete classless communist society (See also: K.MARX/F.ENGELS: Werke, Bd.19, p. 28, Dietz Verlag Berlin-DDR 1969))

Third, it would not be possible for Lenin to talk of "Transition period from capitalism to socialism" because:

a) he would distort Marx-Engels and revolutionary Marxism in general,

b) he would reject the Marxist perception of "Transition period from capitalism to communism", if he delimited this Transition period only until socialism, i.e. the first phase of communist classless society,

c) he would reject the necessity of existence of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat until communism, like the Khrushchevite social-democrats traitors did (they had already violently overthrown it after the elimination of Stalin) without which Socialism-Communism could never be built, but neither, finally, the complete classless communist society, in which the state, according to the classics Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, "wither away" when similar domestic and international conditions are created "For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary". (V.I. Lenin: "The State and Revolution", Selected works, vol. 2, p. 265, ed. of the CC of KKE, "Nea Ellada", 1951)

Fourth, Lenin already in "State and Revolution", one of its latest works (written in August-September 1917, printed in 1918), refers extensively to the issue of the transition period, the two phases of communist society and the "withering away" of the state while in "CHAPTER V" entitled " The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State" and the section "2" and immediately below the characteristic subtitle "The transition from capitalism to communism" lists the known above quote of Marx by the "Critique of the Gotha Programme", setting the 'transition period', like Marx, "transition period from capitalism to communism" (V.LENIN: Selected works, Volume II, p. 256, ed. of the CC of KKE "Nea Ellada", 1951).

Fifth, a few months after "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers" (27.5.1919), Lenin again deals with this issue in his article entitle "Economics And Politics In The Era Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat" (10.30.1919) and defines the "transition period" as the "transition period from capitalism to communism": "Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble." (Lenin: Volume 39, page 271, 5th ed., Athens 1982). And so this passage, although in this is clearly to "transitional period from capitalism to communism", the Khrushchevite social-democrats humiliating themselves, write "intelligently" - replacing the word "communism" with the word "socialism" - that in this text: "the V. I. Lenin based the necessity of transition from capitalism to socialism" (!!!) («Lehrbuch Politische Oekonomie Sozialismus», p.28, Berlin-DDR 1972, Moscow 1970). Here the distortion of Lenin is grosser and even more ridiculous from the first case i.e. Conscious omission of part of the passage, but also completely blatant by replacing the word "communism" of Lenin, arbitrarily and deliberately, with the word "socialism".

Finally, equally coarse and quite glaring is the distortion of Marx, similar absurdity with the second indent of Lenin, when the Khrushchevite Social Democrats argue that "the necessity of transition from capitalism to socialism hint for the first time Marx, in 1875, in his work "Critique of the Gotha Programme"", and this despite the fact that they themselves cite and part of the famous passage of Marx, which instead read: "between capitalist and communist society ..." and NOT "socialist" as they claim ("Political Economy" (N. A. Tsagolov) Volume IV, pp. 13-14, ed. " Gutenberg", Athens 1980).

Of course, the anti-stalinist, Khrushchevite anti-communists were utterly ridiculous to distort the Marx’s “Critique of the Ghota program” and Lenin’s “Economy and policy in the era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” by replacing the word “communism” with “socialism”. However, what is of primary interest to the revolutionary communists and the international communist movement is that the anti-Marxist concept of the “transition period from capitalism to socialism” is one of the main parts of the reactionary, bourgeois, anti-communist theory of “developed socialism” conceived by the Khrushchevites in order to “justify”: the revisionist counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, the dismissal of the necessity of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat until communism, the violent overthrow and replacement of the latter with the dictatorship of the new bourgeoisie (i.e. the bourgeois “all people’s state”), the dismissal of the competitive contradictions and the class struggles during socialism, the whitewash of the elimination of socialism and the gradual restoration of capitalism. This process was presented by the propaganda of the Khrushchevite social-democratic parties – including the reformist “K”KE – as a “progressive” one that, in fact, was going to lead to the “classless communist society” (!!) despite the fact that the “developed” or “actually existing socialism” of the Krushchev – Brezhnev – Gorbachev was nothing more than a actually existing capitalism which inevitably collapsed following its transformation to the traditional type of capitalism of the western capitalism countries at the end of the 1980’s.

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Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part B

Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part B

B. The reactionary anticommunist bourgeois theory of "developed socialism" of the Khrushchevit social-democracy

After the violent overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the victory-triumph of the Khrushchevian revisionist counter-revolution in the Soviet Union in 1952, while pursuing the scheduled and systematic policy of gradual restoration of capitalism facilitated by the implementation of capitalist economic reforms, the leading anti-communist group of Khrushchev-Brezhnev of, what is by now, the bourgeois social-democratic Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), sought to formulate a suitable theory to conceal this reactionary process from socialism-communism to capitalism.

In their attempt to formulate a new and suitable “theory” concealing this reactionary process and the emerging society of restored capitalism euphemistically called “developed socialism” (!), the Khrushchevian-Brezhnevite revisionists came up with the well-known theory of “advanced socialism”

Both the theory of “developed socialism” promoted by the Khrushchevian traitors and the theory of “convergence” promoted by the western bourgeois reaction are anti-communist reactionary bourgeois theories because during the period of their dominance (1955-1990) were directed against the communist perspective of the Proletariat, obscured the Proletariat’s communist prospect presenting the restored capitalism of the Soviet Union as “the communist” future while, at the same time, they were in total breach with the objective historic progress of society toward socialism-communism. The class character and content of the two theories was based on the defence of capitalism: the theory of “convergence” defended was traditional capitalism of the Western countries, while the theory of “developed socialism” defended the restored capitalism of the Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries (Details can be found at “Anasintaxi”, no. 373, August 2012, p. 3).

Since the treacherous, renegade Khrushchev-Brezhnev group “managed”, in the 20^th Congress of CPSPU in 1956, to present arbitrarily and provocatively the capitalist-fascist Yugoslavia of Tito as “socialist”(!) – a view imposed on the international communist movement (N.S. Khrushchev: “Report in 20^th Party Congress, 1956: “Yugoslavia has not small successes in the socialist construction”, a clear proof that the Khrushchevian clicque had decided to follow Tito’s counter-revolutionary, capitalist path – and promoted a kind of “socialism”(!) that would result “peacefully” without the need of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, this group officially confessed and publicly admitted, during the 22^nd of Congress of CPSU (1961), that there was neither Dictatorship of the Proletariat nor revolutionary communist party in the Soviet Union of that period and that these had been replaced by the “state of all people” and “party of all people” and mentioned, for the first time, the “transition period from capitalism to socialism” to which the Dictatorship of the Proletariat “corresponded”. At the same time, they formulated the theory of “developed socialism” without using yet the terms that became well known later: “developed socialism” and “advanced socialist society”.

The theory of “developed socialism” promoted by the Khrushchevian renegades constitutes, as it will be shown below, a complete revision and a blatant, crude rejection of revolutionary Marxism.

As a theory, the so-called “developed socialism” has nothing in common with the revolutionary theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, it amounts to its negation and it is an anti-communist bourgeois theory. The so much advertised, but non-existent “advanced socialist society” was nothing more than the restored capitalism of the Khrushchevian-Brezhnevite period as shown in previous articles. According to the anti-communist Brezhnev, this type of society had already been in November of 1967, that is to say, when capitalism had been fully restored (on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the October Revolution, he had declared that “In the USSR a developed socialist society has been built”).

The theory of “developed socialism” dominated later the new bourgeois constitution (i.e. the constitution of the restored capitalism) of the Brezhnevite period while the euphemistically called “advanced socialist society” found its full expression in this – a constitution which, for the first time, officially legalized and confirmed not only the state-capitalist (articles 10-11) and collective-capitalist ownership (article 12) but also the individual capitalist ownership (articles 13-17) in the Soviet Union’s society of that time. It also legalized the capitalist competition between the autonomous enterprises, the “socialist commodity producers”, and the capitalist profit (article 16). In this constitution, the content of the “advanced socialist society”, that is, of the Soviet Union’s restored capitalism is generally described.

The elements-views from which the theory of “developed socialism” was made are the following: “the party of all people”, “the state of all people”, “transition period from capitalism to socialism”, “three phases of the communist society”, “socialism: a new autonomous mode of production”. Concerning the theory of “advanced socialism” and the euphemistically called “advanced socialist society” there is a vast literature of many articles and books. However, we will make a limited use of them and cite only those extracts that highlight the counter-revolutionary essence of this bourgeois reactionary theory.

1. “Party of all people” or revolutionary communist party?

In the 22^nd Congress of CPSU (1961) it is mentioned: “our Marxist-Leninist Party that was born as a party of the working class, has become the party of all people”, an anti-Marxist view which later passed to the new Brezhnevite bourgeois constitution (1977) where it was formulated as: “CPSU exists for the people and to serve the people”. (Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, 1977)

Some quick comments on the anti-Marxist view “party of all people”:

1. The adoption of this view meant the abandonment of the Marxist theory not only about the revolutionary, new type of party but also about all political parties considered as separate organisations that defend the different interests of particular classes.

2. The Khrushchevian social democrats promoted the well known bourgeois view according to which parties stand above classes and they are, therefore, defenders of the interests of “most” or “all classes”.

3. As known, according to revolutionary Marxism there are no organisations and parties that belong to “all people”, that is parties of all classes. Since, the Khrushchevian revisionists themselves admitted that there was not any more a revolutionary communist party in the Soviet Union of that period, because, according to them, the Marxist-Leninist party had been replaced with the party of “all people”, then the new CPSU, that is the so-called party of “all people” could not be nothing else but a bourgeois, social-democratic party. Consequently, the revolutionary, until the beginning of the 1950’s, CPSU changed its class character: from a Marxist-Leninist party of the working class, it became a bourgeois party: a defender of the class interests of the emerging soviet bourgeoisie.

The character of a party, according to Marxism, is determined first of all by the its ideology and, among others by its programme. The new CPSU, that is, the so-called “party of all people”, was not guided any more by the ideology of the revolutionary Marxism, that is, Leninism-Stalinism, but by the counter-revolutionary ideology of Khrushchevian revisionism (which is a version of bourgeois ideology).

The new CPSU of Khrushchev-Brezhnev as well as the Khrushchevian parties of all countries in the following decades were (and still are) bourgeois, social-democratic parties because: a) they were not guided revolutionary Marxism, b) they had reformist programmes that cannot lead to the overthrow of capitalism, c) they adopted a anti-Marxist view of socialism-communism since they advertised the restored capitalism of the Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Gorbachev period as “socialism”(!), in other words they claimed that there was allegedly “socialism” in the Soviet Union during 1953-1991.

4. Neither socialism can exist nor the construction of socialism can continue without a revolutionary communist party of a new type, that is, of Leninist-Stalinist type. Therefore, after 1953, it was inevitable that the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union finally stopped and the new CPSU, that is, the “party of all people”, was at the forefront of the capitalism economic reforms that completely eliminated socialism and resulted in the full restoration of capitalism by the mid 1960’s.

5. Socialism-communism cannot to constructed without a marxist-leninst-stalinist party, precisely because this party “has always as a primary task the class, political organisation of the proletariat as an autonomous political party and sets the next goal to be the struggle for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (MARX-ENGELS: Bd.18, pp.267-268, Berlin 1969) and also it is the party that : first, is the organiser and the leader of the giant work of socialist-communist construction and second, without this party the Dictatorship of the Proletariat possible cannot exist. That’s why Stalin is very right to point out that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is exercised through the Party, that without a united and cohesive party the Dictatorship of the Proletariat cannot exist”, that “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is possible only through the party that is its guiding force” and that “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is complete only if it is led by one party, the Communist Party, which does not and cannot share power with other parties” (Stalin, Collected Works vol. 10)

2. “State of all people” or Dictatorship of the Proletariat

In relation to the state of the Soviet Union of that period, it is mentioned in the 22^nd Congress that the state of the working class had been transformed to the “all people’s state”: “The state of all people is the new state in the development of the socialist state, the most important landmark in the path of development of the socialist state to a communist self-governing society” (22^nd Congress of CPSU, p. 205, Athens 1961) and that “the dictatorship of the proletariat was not any more necessary …” (ibid, p. 208) for the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union. Later, this anti-Marxist view passed to the new Constitution (1977) – from which the term Dictatorship of the Proletariat had been deleted (justifiably so since it had been already been overthrown in 1953) – and which confirms that the Soviet Union was not any more the state of Dictatorship of the Proletariat as it was in the era of Lenin-Stalin but the “state of all people” (“Constitution 1977”, p. 42: “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of the whole people”).

The anti-marxist view of the Khrushchevian about the “state of all people” is raising some important questions worth of special consideration:

First, by denying the necessity of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat during an important phase of development of socialism-communism, the soviet revisionists-social democrats and in such an important and central question the reformist Khrushchevian parties abandoned Marxism and it known that nobody can be regarded as Marxist without the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat as Lenin noted: “Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested” (Lenin, “State and revolution”)

Second, it is important to note the open confession and the official admission made by the Khrushchevians that there was no Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the Soviet Union of that period and, it was exactly for this reason why there was no socialism any more. Moreover, the construction of socialism had stopped in 1953 after the death-murder of Joseph Stalin. The continuation of socialist construction in a country without the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is totally impossible and inconceivable. Also, the maintenance of socialism is unimaginable without the Dictatorship of the Proletariat since, for Marx, the concepts of socialism and Dictatorship of the Proletariat are inseparable. As early as 1850, Marx noted that socialism: “the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations” (MARX-ENGELS: vol.7, p. 89-90, Berlin 1969).

Third, the Khrushchevian concept of the “state of all people” not only meant a rejection of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat but it constituted a complete revision of the Marxist theory on the state of Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and the state in general, and this is why Lenin emphasized that “the essence of Marx's theory of the state has been mastered only by those who realize that the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for every class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from "classless society", from communism” (Lenin, State and Revolution.”)

Fourth, the Khrushchevian concept of the “state of all people” bears no relation to Marxism. It is alien to Marxism because according to the Marxist theory there is no state standing above classes, that is to say, “state of all classes” of a society; this is a bourgeois view. On the contrary, the state has always a class character: either it is the state of the bourgeoisie or it is the state of the proletariat. In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism-communism, there can be either the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This is why the famous English Marxist George Thomson, in 1971, very rightly emphasized that the “state of all people” declared by the treacherous Khrushchevian clique was in reality “a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”, or to be more exact, a dictatorship of the new soviet bourgeoisie.

Fifth, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, according to the teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, is established right after the victory of the armed Proletarian Revolution and the complete annihilation of the state machinery, is preserved and strengthened and it is absolutely necessary for the whole transitional period from capitalism to socialism. The state of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is never transformed to the “state of all people” (it is also known that Max and Engels rejected with irony the so-called “free state” in the Critique of the Gotha Program. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat exists until it withers away in the higher stage of communist, in the communist classless society: “For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary” and that The state will be able to wither away completely when society adopts the rule: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". (Lenin, “State and Revolution”)

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Restoration of capitalism in USSR

We wrote a series of articles on the Restoration of the capitalism in USSR. We translated 8 parts in English and there is one more under preparation.

• 1: The working class in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period was no longer the owner of the means of production
• 2: In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, labor power had been anew converted to commodity
• 3: The commodity economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period: a complete and permanent capitalist economy
• 4: The capitalist economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period in prolonged stagnation and deep crisis
• 5: The capitalist reforms in the Soviet Union and the bourgeois theories of “socialism”
• 6: Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part A: The reactionary anticommunist bourgeois theory of "convergence" capitalism-socialism
• 7: Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Union (1953-1990) Part B:  The reactionary anticommunist bourgeois theory of "developed socialism" of the Khrushchevit social-democracy
  • 1. “Party of all people” or revolutionary communist party?
  • 2. “State of all people” or Dictatorship of the Proletariat
  • 3. Transition period “from capitalism to socialism” or from socialism to capitalism”?
  • 4. “Three” or two stages of the communist society?
  • 5. “Socialism” a “new, autonomous way of production” or communist way of production?

The complete contents in Greek can be found in: Η ΠΑΛΙΝΟΡΘΩΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΠΙΤΑΛΙΣΜΟΥ ΣΤΗ ΣΟΒΙΕΤΙΚΗ ΕΝΩΣΗ (1953-1990) (περιεχόμενα)
The complete references of the articles in Greek can be found in: Η παλινόρθωση του καπιταλισμού στη Σοβιετική Ένωση (1953-1990) (σειρά άρθρων)

The book, written in Greek, which is under preparation, contains an introduction and 15 chapters.
Part 1 of the English articles corresponds to chapter 11a
Part 2 corresponds to chapter 11b
Part 3 corresponds to chapter 12
Part 4 corresponds to chapter 13
Part 5 corresponds to chapter 14
Part 6 corresponds to chapter 15.A
Part 7 corresponds to chapter 15.B 1-2
Part 8 corresponds to chapter 15.B 3

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Reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories that conceal the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union (1953-1990)

The violent overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat from the traitorous clique of Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Mikoyan-Suslov, etc. in 1953 after the death-murder of Joseph Stalin (on 5^th March 1953), ushered in a completely new period in the history of the Soviet Union: the period of the reactionary process of destruction of socialism-communism and the progressive restoration of capitalism completed in the mid-60s - when the most comprehensive capitalist economic reform was implemented (Plenum in September 1965) – with the complete elimination of socialism in that country.

In the period after 1953, when the economic reforms of capitalist character were gradually introduced in, the still socialist, economy of the Soviet Union under the direct guidance of Khrushchev-Brezhnev bourgeois social-democratic CPSU, two reactionary anti-communist bourgeois theories were developed on international scale that attempted to disguise this regressive process i.e. the gradual but, in due course, the complete all-round restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union: the one was proposed by the traditional bourgeois anti-communist defenders of capitalism-imperialism. The theory of "convergence" of the two opposite economic-social systems in general and more particularly those seen during the historical period after 1953, claiming, in other words, that the "socialism" of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of the western countries were mutually approaching to each other. The second theory was put forward by the anti-communist Khrushchev-Brezhnev revisionist social democrats representing the new bourgeoisie of the Soviet Union (originally under development and subsequently fully shaped bourgeoisie): the theory of the so-called "developed socialism".

Both of these theories concealed for decades the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union because they presented the objective historical social-economic reality in the Soviet Union and other revisionist countries at that time (1953-1990), primarily in the field of state power and the ideology as "Socialism" (!) showcasing the reactionary bourgeois-fascist power (prohibition of works of Stalin, etc.) of Khrushchev -Brezhnev-Gorbachev period 1953-1990 as the "power of the working class"(!) and claiming that the dominant ideology was "Marxism-Leninism", although it had already been replaced from Khrushchevian revisionism (a variant of bourgeois ideology) and number of other traditional bourgeois trends, including the ultra-reactionary philosophy of Nietzsche, German Romanticism, etc. In field of economics, they presented any "changes" in the Soviet economy as an indication that the two allegedly "different" economic-social systems come close to one another. From these views flows directly and explicitly hide the regressive process of restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union - a phenomenon that was discovered and denounced from the outset only by the revolutionary Marxists who analyzed it, not completely, but at least in its basic aspects*

Moreover, the theory of "convergence" put forward by the western bourgeois reaction, and had supporters even in the revisionist countries of the reinstated capitalism, as admitted by revisionist theorists**, and the theory of "developed socialism" put forward by the Khrushchevians were both anti-communist reactionary bourgeois theories because, during the period of their dominance (1955-1990), they were directed against the communist perspective of the Proletariat, obscured the communist prospect, presenting the restored capitalism of the Soviet Union as 'the communist' future, but at the same time they were in total breach with the objective historic progress of society toward socialism-communism.

Both of these reactionary, anti-communist theories dominated for decades the ideological "pseudo"-conflicts and controversies inside the ranks of imperialism, between the Western capitalist camp led by the imperialist U.S. and the eastern camp of reinstated capitalism during the Khruschev-Brezhnev-Gorbachev period led by the capitalist-imperialist Soviet Union (1953-1990). Having disoriented the international workers' and communist movement for many decades under the appearance - from both sides - of a conflict between "capitalism" - "socialism", these theories were buried under the ruins of the collapse of the revisionist capitalist camp and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union***.

The class character and content of the two theories is based on the defence of capitalism: for the theory of “convergence” it was traditional capitalism of the Western countries, while for the theory of “developed socialism” it was the restored capitalism of the Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries.

A. The reactionary anticommunist bourgeois theory of "convergence" capitalism-socialism

From the mid-1950s, among the bourgeois defenders of capitalism began to emerge various views suggesting a "new phase", a "new stage", in the development of the society. These views gave rise subsequently to the theories of the so-called "industrial society", or the theory of "convergence" of the two economic-social systems (capitalism-socialism). Initially, the main representatives of these theories were Raymond Aron (French), Jan Tinbergen (Dutch) and later John Kenneth Galbraith (U.S.) with his work: "The New industrial State" (Boston 1967), etc.

First, let us note that the term "convergence", in addition to being deceptive, has been transferred from the natural sciences (geometry, biology, medicine, etc.) to the field of social sciences to describe a kind of "synthesis" between capitalism-socialism and a supposedly "inevitable process of amalgamation of the two economic-social systems in general. Yet, we should note that the theory of "convergence" is not identical with the theory of "industrial society", whose core position is also the denial of the deterministic replacement of capitalism from socialism-communism, but it results from it.

Raymond Aron formally expressed these views in his work: "die Entwicklung der Industriegesellschaft und der sozialen Stratification" (1957), although it followed his earlier book "L'Opium des intellectuels" (The Opium of The Intellectuals) (Paris 1955), in which he declared that "In the West, the controversy between capitalism and socialism loses its actual intensity" and his Sorbonne lectures (1955-1956), later included in his work: «Dixhuit lecons sur la societe industrielle» (Paris 1962), in which he attempted for the first time to formulate the key features of 'industrial society' and present "socialism" and "capitalism" "as two versions of the same kind of industrial society ... the Soviet and capitalist societies are only two species of the same genus, or two versions of the same social type, namely, the progressive industrial society "(Greek 1972: p.46-47), emphasizing, at the same time, the main purpose of this "theoretical", reactionary, bourgeois and anti-communist approach i.e. "to avoid ahead of the opposition socialism-capitalism "(!)

Among the most important representatives of the theory of "convergence" in the economic and sociological field were Jan Tinbergen (economist), Pitirin A. Sorokin (Russian-born American sociologist) and Walter Buckingham (American economist).

Since most of, if not all, subsequent versions of the theory of "convergence" have incorporated the anti-scientific views of Walt Whitman Rostow’s famous anti-communist work: «The Stages of Economic Growth - A Non communist Manifesto» (1960, German 1961), we need to make a very brief reference to it. Rostow was had an ultra-reactionary adviser of the most aggressive militaristic circles of the American imperialism during the John F. Kennedy-Lyndon Johnson period, (within a very short time, his book was translated in 17 languages, and Rostow himself was hailed as the theorist -savior" of capitalism).

Rostow’s infamous “five stages of development” (= "traditional society", "preconditions for take-off", "take-off", "drive to maturity", and "high mass consumption. In German: "traditionelle Gesellschaft", "Anlaufperiode", "Aufstiegperiode", "Reifestadium" ,"Zeitalter des Massenkonsums", German p.18-27) – that were distinguished from one another according to the different level of development of production and consumption (!) - represent a pseudoscientific construction, because firstly, they have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual historical evolution of society, and secondly, because this completely arbitrary construction has completely omitted the "productive forces-productive relationship" and the dialectical relationship between them, the "property relations" and the corresponding "class relations", class interests, class conflicts, etc., that would allow a scientific approach to the historical progress of society as successive economic-social formations. Of course, the term "class struggle" is also not mentioned, because, as known, it is the driving force of historical development and all revolutionary changes in society.

The omission of all these does not mean at all that Rostow makes no attempt to provide a scientific-like form to his pseudoscientific construction by creating the misleading impression that he supposedly "accepts" the Marxist concept of "productive forces". However, the theory of "five stages" is based only on "technique" and it is, thu, in contrast with Marx who notes regarding this question: "Social relations are closely linked to the productive forces. By attaining new productive forces, people change their mode of production and by changing the mode of production, how to earn their living, they change all their social relations. The hand mill yields a society with the feudal ruler, the steam mill yields a society featuring the industrial capitalist… The production relations of every society form a whole” (MARX / ENGELS: Bd. 4, p.130).

In the description of the last "stage", i.e. the "era of mass consumption", the main PURPOSE of production in capitalism is completely transformed to its opposite: instead of a production system for PROFIT (especially for maximum profit), capitalism is presented as production system for consumption, i.e. for the alleged "satisfaction" of the needs of “all” classes in a bourgeois society. The maximization of profits is not related of course to the "nature" - "substance" of a nonexistent, abstract "man," not even with the "psychology" of the bourgeoisie as a social class in general (anti-Marxist approaches) but it is connected, instead, to the objective economic laws underlying capitalism, in particular the Law of SURPLUS VALUE and the law of capitalist accumulation.

In this essay-manifesto, Rostow calls Marx "a 19th century romantic" (p. 186). When he "evaluates" the contribution of Marx, he argues that supposedly "nothing really important in Marx can be found after the year 1848" (p. 187), while "communism" is characterized as "a transition disease" (p.193). In this formulation, we see, in embryonic form, Rostow’s first attempt to “biologise” social life, socio-economic-political phenomena and social sciences that is promoted later in his work: «Politics and the Stages of Growth», Cambridge 1971, p 410). In this book, a failed effort is made to revive certain old views on "biologisation" of social life, in other words Rostow searches for a "biological science of politics", promotes a "fusion" of "political science with psychiatry," and proclaims that "political science may be, at best, only a variant of biological science and art."

Besides the subjective-idealistic approach, the "scientific" value of Rostow's is such that he achieves the impossible: he includes in the concept of «traditional society» three (3) modes of production: the primitive communism, slavery and feudalism, while the two others, "capitalism" and "socialism-communism", are presented as variations of a "single industrial society". These are completely unfounded and unsubstantiated claims on a theoretical level. Worse still: they have no connection whatsoever with the actual historical development of society.

Nevertheless, Rostow’s book, bearing the characteristic subtitle “A non communist manifesto”, has been widely used by the international bourgeois-imperialist reaction to invalidate Marxism – it was showcased as a “counterweight” to the “Communist Manifesto” - and more specifically the Marxist theory of the development of social-economic formations. Even Rostow himself does not deny this fact when he writes that that the “stages” theory is “an alternative account to the Marxian theory of modern history”: “Alternative zu der Marxschen Theorie der modernen Geschichte” (p. 16), a view presented in the last chapter (p. 174-198). Needless to note that, despite the bourgeois reaction’s boasting that the theory of Rostow succeeds in "refuting" revolutionary Marxism, this extremely naïve and unreasonably ambitious endeavour is a grand fiasco and expresses the profound crisis of bourgeois "thought" in that historical period.

One of the earliest representatives of the theory of "convergence", the American economist Walter Buckingham: «theoretical economic system» (New York 1958), argues that the capitalist system has radically changed, the “non-capitalist systems are still present”, "and that in the future a "single economic system" will emerge through the mutual convergence of capitalism and socialism. In relation to the ongoing capitalist economic reforms in the Soviet Union, there was an article from the Executive-Director of the U.S. Congressional «Joint Economic Committee» Dr. Grover W. Ensley in 1957 – after coming back from Moscow where he met Soviet economists – with the feature title "The revolution in the economic thought of the Soviet Union" in which, among other things, he wrote that, according to Soviet economists, productivity growth will be achieved through the " Profit motiv" (in: «Nation's Business» 1/1957 and German: «Die Revolution im wirtschaftlichen Denken der Sowjetunion» in: «Konjunkturpolitik» 5-6/1957, pp. 301-314).

Pitirin A. Sorokin developed his views on the US-Soviet Union convergence in the sociological and cultural sector in his article «Soziologische und kulturelle Annaeherung zwischen den Verinigten Staaten und der Sowjetunion» (Zeitschrift fuer Politik » 4/1960, p.341)

Jan Tinbergen wrote his famous article in 1960 entitled: «Do Communist and Free Economies Show a Converging Pattern» (in: Soviet Studies, Vol. 12, Oxford 1960/61, p.333 and in German: «Kommt es zu einer Annaeherung zwischen den kommunistischen und den freiheitlichen Wirtschaftsordnungen?» in «Hamburger Jahrbuch fuer Wirtschafts-und Gesellschaftspolitik » (1963) pp. 11-20), where he put forward the view that both systems “change”, that “there are certain trends of convergent development”, and that “these changes involve, in certain respects, a convergent development”, “changes” that lead to a desired "optimal, mixed economic system". He had already published in 1959 his work entitled: «The Theory of the Optimum Regime» (in Jan Tinbergen: «Selected Papers», Amsterdam 1959) in which thoughts about a "perfect economic status" were developed for the first time. This was also argued in other articles later, including:: «Die Rolle der Planungstechniken bei einer Annaeherung der Strukturen in Ost und West», 1966, etc. Taking into account all the capitalist economic reforms implemented in the Soviet Union, Tibergen says in this article: "Since the objectives of social and economic policy of the West and the East - in my opinion – come ever closer to each other, and among many structures only one is excellent, the two structures will gradually fuse into this Optimum. This kind of convergence will be achieved through a better knowledge of the social forces and the application of planning techniques respectively". A year later, he wrote: "the systems of West and East are dynamic: they are undergoing constant changes ... generally these changes are converging, thus the differences between the two systems are reducing” (Jan Tinbergen: "Roads to the Ideal Socio-Economic System» in:« The Oriental Economist», February 1967, p.94).

The reactionary anti-communist theory of “convergence” presents three basic claims: a) a general claim according to which the two social-economic systems, “capitalism” and “socialism-communism” will “converge” in the future to form an alleged “unified” industrial system, b) one specific claim according to which Soviet Union’s “socialism” in the 1950’s and 1960’s borrows certain “elements” from capitalism (“profit”, “interest”, “capitalist price of production” etc) while the capitalism of the western countries borrows from “socialism” “elements” like “planning” leading to the convergence of the two systems towards each other that will result in the formation of a “joint” “capitalist-socialist” system(!) c) a second specific claim according to which this “unified-” economic system will constitute the future “ideal economic formation”(!).

A few short but essential comments that rebut the totally unfounded and unscientific claim of the reactionary bourgeois theory of “convergence” from the viewpoint of revolutionary Marxism, i.e. Leninism-Stalinism.

1. The theory of “convergence” is based on a subjective-idealist approach to the study of social-economic formations and on various unscientific views of vulgar bourgeois political economy that has lost its scientific character long time ago: i.e. “Thenceforth, the class struggle, practically as well as theoretically, took on more and more outspoken and threatening forms. It sounded the knell of scientific bourgeois economy. It was thenceforth no longer a question, whether this theorem or that was true, but whether it was useful to capital or harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically dangerous or not. In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic… It is a declaration of bankruptcy by bourgeois economy (Marx). And elsewhere: “vulgar bourgeois economy becomes more and more openly apologetic… Its last form is the professorial form… Such essays appear only when the course of political economy as a science has reached an end ,representing at the same time the grave of this science” (Marx).

These scientific evaluation from Marx allowed Rudolf Hilferding, when he was still a Marxist in the beginning of the 20^th century, to conclude his very important polemical article «Boehm-Bawerks Marx-Kritik» (Marx-Studien, Wien 1904) with the famous sentence: “the last word of the bourgeois political economy is its self-annulment”: «diese oekonomische Theorie bedeutet die Leugnung der Oekonomie; das letzte Wort, das die buergerliche Nationaloekonomie dem wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus antwortet, ist die Selbstaufhebung der Nationaloekonomie».

2. The general claim about the “convergence” of the two social-economic systems, “capitalism” and “socialism-communism”, was a completely unfounded and arbitrary one – it can never be proved – because they are diametrically opposite systems. Each one has its own fundamental attributes in all sectors (economic, political and ideological) and develops according to its own objective laws both conforming to the inevitable general historical course of the replacement of capitalism from the classless communist society by means of a violent Proletarian Revolution. Moreover the assertion made by this reactionary theory regarding the “convergence” of the two diametrically opposite systems has also been refuted by the objective historical fact of the simultaneous presence of capitalism and socialism (the first stage of communism), during the existence of the latter for more than 35 years in the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin without being any sort of “convergence” between the two social-economic formations.

3. The first specific claim about the “convergence” between the “socialism” of the Soviet Union and the other eastern countries, during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Gorbachev period, with the capitalism of the western countries towards a “joint” unified system which would combine the positive features of “socialism” and “capitalism” was from the very beginning completely unfounded because what happened in reality was not the “exchange” of elements between one system and the other but, on the contrary, something totally different. And this was the restoration of capitalism, as confirmed by the subsequent historical course of the Soviet Union, with the introduction of capitalist features (“profit”, “interest”, “capitalist price of production”) in the socialist economy of the Soviet Union by means of the capitalist economic reforms that were implemented – after the death-murder of Stalin and the triumph of the Khrushchev’s revisionist counter-revolution – under the direct guidance of the bourgeois CPSU. The goal of these reforms was the elimination of socialism in the sphere of economy and the gradual restoration of capitalism that was completed in the middle 1960’s with the more comprehensive capitalist reforms approved by the Central Committee Plenum of CPSU in September of 1965. In the political level, the Proletarian Dictatorship had already been overthrown while in the ideological level, the bourgeois counter-revolutionary ideology of Krsushchevism was dominant. It was this restored capitalism that collapsed at the end of 1980’s (1990-1991) bringing about the complete and final dissolution of the imperialist Soviet Union.

4. In addition, the second specific claim made by the “convergence” theory about the formation of a “unified system” which would evolve to an “excellent economic system” was not only unfounded and unproved but it was consciously misleading because what happened was NOT the mutual approach between the economies of the capitalist countries and those of the revisionist countries to form a supposed “unified”, let alone “optimal”, economic system but, on the contrary, the inevitable regression of the Soviet Union to the capitalist exploitative system after the overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in 1953.

5. Because the reactionary and anti-communist “convergence” theory misleadingly regarded the restored capitalism of the Soviet Union of the Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Gorbachev period as “socialism”, it discredited the socialism-communism built in that country during the period of Lenin-Stalin – according to the Marxist conception of communism. Socialism-communism was thus presented as a system, which, not being able allegedly to work on its own basis and with its own economic laws, was compelled to “borrow” capitalist elements (“profit”, “interest”, “capitalist price of production”). In other words, it was presented as an allegedly “failed” and “bankrupt” economic system in an attempt to “prove” the nonexistent superiority of capitalism over socialism-communism.

6. By presenting the Soviet Union’s regression to capitalism as “socialism”, the “convergence” theory deliberately confused the communist viewpoint of the proletariat for many decades. Instead of communism, the proletariat was made to envision the exact opposite: the reactionary process of capitalist restoration as this was going on in the Soviet Union during that period (1953-1990).

7. The “convergence” theory denied the inevitable replacement of capitalism by socialism-communism and the laws underlying this change by attacking the Marxist theory of social development seen as a necessary succession of social-economic formations.

8. The “convergence” theory rejected the character of the 20^th century as the historical era of transition from capitalism to socialism-communism. Instead, it adopted the unfounded claim that the 20^th century was the era of the “unified industrial society” and the alleged “capitalism-socialism fusion”. Both had absolutely nothing to do with the reality of that historical period because the only thing that happened then – that was confirmed historically – was the return of the Soviet Union to capitalism.

Finally, by supporting the view that the two diametrically opposed social-economic systems were “approaching each other” and converged towards an “optimal economic system”, the “convergence” theory denied the irreconcilable contradiction between capitalism and socialism-communism and attempted without success to corroborate this arbitrary claim also made by the theory of “unified industrial society”, as formulated by one of its chief representatives, Raymon Aron, namely: to get around in advance the socialism-capitalism contradiction.

Closing, it is necessary to point out that the aim of this very short and incomplete article was not to shed light on all, or even most of, sides of the reactionary, anti-communist “convergence” theory but to show what is relevant to our main discussion, i.e. the concealment of the regressive process of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union and the other eastern countries.

* The initial scientific prediction and the later evaluation made by the revolutionary Marxists, i.e. of Leninists-Stalinists regarding the return of the Soviet Union to capitalism from the time when the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was overthrown, after the death-murder of Stalin, was confirmed by: a) the complete restoration of capitalism in the middle of 1960’s and b) the subsequent overall historical course of the Soviet Union until the total collapse of the restored capitalism at the end of 1980’s and the final breakup of the Soviet Union (1990-1991).

** Like, for example, the Soviet L. Leontiev, (Moscow, 1972) who mentions: “an unprecedented exaltation of the convergence theory”, the East-German H. Meissner (Berlin-DDR, 1969): "It is not surprising that these views (he means concepts of the theory of "convergence") were endorsed by some socialist theorists whose Marxist foundation was not so stable ...", the Czechoslovak J. Filipec in: Freyer/Bossle/Filipec (Mainz 1966) and another Soviet, Lew Alter, who admits that the theory of “convergence” is based on new phenomena («Pr. d. Fr. u. d. S.», 9/1968).

*** The true historical course of the Soviet Union during the period 1953-1990 did not confirm any of the two bourgeois anti-communist theories, i.e. the theories of “convergence” and of “developed socialism” but, on the contrary, refuted both. Not only the claim that “socialism” was built in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev -Brezhnev-Gorbachev period (1953-1990) but also the other claim that the soviet economy was “approaching” the economy of the Western capitalist countries both converging at an “optimal economic system”, collapsed “overnight” simultaneously with the fall and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991 exactly because none of the two claims was realized. As mentioned before, what did happen was the return of the Soviet Union to capitalism, as predicted, albeit incompletely and along general lines, right from the beginning (since the middle 1950’s) by the revolutionary communists.

However, despite the complete refutation of these two reactionary anti-communist theories, the discussion about the causes that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union – especially the discussion about the character of the post-1953 reforms, without which is obviously impossible to determine the nature of the soviet economy of that period – does not have only historical interest but it is entirely timely and of great importance for the correct orientation of the working and communist movement, i.e. for its socialist-communist prospect because it is directly related to the Marxist (or anti-Marxist) conception of socialism.

To be continued

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The capitalist reforms in the Soviet Union and the bourgeois theories of “socialism”

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 23 (November 2011) we published an article with the title The working class in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period was no longer the owner of the means of production

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 24 (May 2012) we published the second part with the title In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, labor power had been anew converted to commodity

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 25 (October 2012) we published the third part with the title The commodity economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period: a complete and permanent capitalist economy / The capitalist economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period in prolonged stagnation and deep crisis

Here is the fourth part:

The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union (1953-1990).

The capitalist reforms in the Soviet Union and the bourgeois theories of “socialism”

The character of capitalist economic reforms in the Soviet Union and the other Eastern countries during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period (1953-1965) - that completely restored by mid-late 60's, capitalism in these countries - were based on the theories of "socialism" promulgated by the reactionary vulgar bourgeois economists but also on those of the internationally renowned Polish revisionist economist Oskar Lange, the successor of 'socialism' theories of bourgeois economists, as appears from the following very brief reference.

This very short and incomplete note - for such a big issue - is mostly informative in nature (for motivating younger preoccupation with the theme), and is not intended to refute the bourgeois theories of 'socialism'.

In the years immediately after the publication of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (1848) by Marx-Engels, the bourgeois economists, who, as we know, regarded the individual capitalist ownership as "natural" and "eternal" economic category, began to fight the dangerous, for the power of the bourgeoisie, revolutionary communist beliefs while simultaneously worked on their own theories of "socialism" according to which “socialism-communism” was essentially identical with capitalism with some of them claiming that socialism-communism could not be allegedly applied and operate "rationally" as an economic and social system. Since then, a host of bourgeois economists* worked on the question of socialism-communism worked.

In the field of various schools of vulgar bourgeois political economy – which, let it be noted, has no scientific knowledge to offer – there were developed and formed two main directions: one which identified socialism with capitalism (this only is of interest here), and another that supported the impossibility of socialism-communism with leading and best-known case the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1919) that caused the subsequent discussions during the decades 1920, 1930 and 1940, to which there will be no reference because is irrelevant to the question of capitalist character reforms in the Soviet Union.

One of the first of these, as early as 1854, was German Hermann Heinrich von Gossen, founder of the subjective theory of marginal utility, who suggested in his work «Entwicklung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs und der daraus flievenden Regeln fuer menschliches Handeln» (Braunschweig 1854 and 1889, 1927: pp. 228-231) that a central planning of the economy is impossible because "the solution of this task goes far beyond the powers of individual people."

In 1874 there followed the Swiss economist Leon Walras who addressed with his book «Elemente der reinen politischen Oekonomie», among other things, the questions of prices and general economic balance admitting that the latter can be more easily achieved in a system of organized economy, thereby accepting the possibility of application and operation of socialism, a theme which was further developed by his students. In the same year, 1874, the small pamphlet: «Die Quintessenz des Sozialismus» on the subject of socialism was published by Albert Schaeffle.

Later, in 1889, the Austrian Friedrich von Wieser, in his «Der natuerliche Werth» (Wien 1889, pp. 59-66) for the first time expressed the view that the economic categories Price, Interest, rent, etc., are common to both to capitalism and socialism-communism, thus effectively equating the two diametrically opposed ways of production. It is no coincidence - and it should be particularly emphasized - that Wieser’s view was openly applauded and accepted by the Soviet revisionist economists as correct, including SR Kirillov: "Wieser rightly pointed out that such categories as Price, Interest, Rent, etc., may be present in the socialist economy" (Moscow 1974).

A student of L. Walras, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, was the one who contributed significantly to the development of bourgeois theory of"socialism", based on the views of his teacher and Friedrich von Wieser. Pareto was a known and avowed enemy of socialism and in his «Cours d 'economie politique, 2. BD., Pp. 363-364, Lausanne-Paris 1897), after noting that "inequality of income distribution ... is much more dependent on the nature of people despite the economic organization of society" (p. 363), he says, referring to socialism, that "economic goods are distributed according to the rules, found when we investigated a free competition system " (p. 364) i.e. the capitalist system.

Subsequently, there came the great contribution to the development of the bourgeois theory of "socialism" from Italian Enrico Barone in his work «Il ministro della produzione nello stato collectivista» («Giornale degli economisti», September-October 1908), who adopted and developed further the views of Pareto, writing: "... it is obvious, how unreal are those teachings, creating the impression that the production in a collectivist regime could effectively be managed differently than in "anarchic production" echoing Friedrich von Wieser for the necessity of economic categories of capitalism in "socialism": "... all economic categories of the old regime must still occur, though perhaps with other names: Prices, wages, interest, Ground-Rent, profit, savings, etc. " (p. 289, English 1935, p. 297 French).

Finally, Enrico Barone, in agreement with Walras, but mainly with Wieser-Pareto and others, argued: "... that it is not impossible to solve the equations of Equilibrium on paper. It would be a huge, gigantic task (a task that should be removed from the productive agencies), but not impossible" (p. 287, English 1935).

Concerning Wieser-Pareto-Barone and for the sake of some completion of the above, it is worth noting the correct opinion of the Austrian economist Josef A. Schumpeter according to which «Wieser, Pareto and Barone, not due to any sympathy towards socialism, created what basically constitutes the pure theory of socialist economy» (Josef A. Schumpeter: «Geschichte der oekonomischen Analyse», 2. Halbband, p. 1083-1084 and p. 1190, Goettingen 1965), i.e. the bourgeois theory of "socialist economy".

In 1919, two years after the October proletarian revolution, the Austrian economist, anti-marxist and avowed enemy of socialism-communism, Ludwig von Mises wrote his famous article of «Die Wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen Gemeinwesen» published in April 1920 («Archiv fuer Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik », Bd. 47, No. 1, April 1920), which supported the view that "without prices there is economic calculation" and that "socialism is tantamount to the end (the elimination) of the rational economy" (p. 104) and, thus, because there is no economic calculation, socialism is unfeasible - a view that has no scientific basis and that was refuted by the existence and construction of socialism in the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin (1917-1953) but which also caused the notorious long international debates during the decades of 1920-1930-1940 that still continue today and in which dozens of economists participated, including the Polish Oskar Lange**. Mises's view concludes with the preposterous claim: socialism can not exist and act rationally because it is not capitalism.

Oskar Lange answered to Mises with the famous article «On the Economic Theory of Socialism» (in: «Review of Economic Studies, Bd. IV, No 1 and 2, Ochtovris 1936 and February 1937, German: «Zur oekonomischen Theorie des Sozialismus» in: O. Lange:« Oekonomisch-theoretische Studien », Frankfurt am Main-Koeln 1977, greek: Oskar Lange-Fred Taylor:« the economic theory of socialism», Athens 1976).

The answer given by Oskar Lange to Mises is based on the bourgeois views of "socialism" of Walras-Pareto-Barone – something that himself did not hide in the above-mentioned work and also, 30 years later, in his last short article Electronic computer and market "(1965) (in: O.Lange: «Financial planning and political relations», pp. 76-77, Athens, 1974) - written from social democratic perspective i.e. that of «Konkurrenzsozialismus» and has as a starting point the bourgeois subjective theory of marginal utility. And is precisely on this basis that he points out in his work: "the definition of equilibrium prices in a socialist economy is entirely analogous to that of a competitive market" (p. 91), and elsewhere, " the Central Council for Planning has to set such a price for the capital and natural resources so that resources are directed to areas that can "pay" ... " (p. 88).

It is obvious, therefore, that the mechanisms operating in capitalism and socialism are considered identical, or more precisely: the same common mechanism operating in both economic systems.

It is known that O. Lange was the principal founder of the theory of so-called «Konkurrenzsozialismus» (= «competitive socialism") or later «Marktsozialismus» (= «market socialism»), i.e. a bourgeois conception of "socialism" with the known connection "Plan- Market ", or more precisely: the replacement of the Plan from the capitalist market.

Bourgeois and revisionist economists admit that the economic reforms implemented in the Soviet Union and other Eastern countries rely on the opinions of Oskar Lange. The Soviet N.P. Fedorenko writes: "The theory and practice showed that the optimal operation mechanism of the socialist economy involves an organic combination of the central state Plan and the business financial independence of the production units in socialist society and that a planned socialist economy involves inherently the use of Value relations and Value categories" (NP Fedorenko: «Problemi obtimalnowo funkzionyirowanyija sozialistscheskoj ekonomiki», pp. 565, Moscow 1972). The Hungarian Csikos-Nagy correctly points out the connection of Fedorenko's bourgeois views with those of Enrico Barone: «…thus, the scientific facts lead back to the line, that E. Barone had already described in the early 20th century. Barone was the first who dealt with questions concerning the rational operation of the socialist economy. Barone considered this possible based on the general equilibrium theory of Walras» (Bela Csikos-Nagy: «Sozialistische Marktwirtschaft», page 45, Wien 1988). However, in this case, it is not about "scientific knowledge" but, instead, the connection of the anti-marxist views on socialism of the Khrushchevian Fedorenko with those of the bourgeois economist Enrico Barone. And elsewhere: "Mr O. Lange was one of the first who tried to link socialist planning with the market operation and stressed the importance of price equilibrium with the objective of efficient allocation of resources in socialist production. His greatest contribution consists in placing at the centre issues related to the structure of production taking into account the existence of products replacement in the sphere of production and consumption. He emphasized the role of prices ​​in creating financial solutions" (p. 47).

Regarding Fedorenko’s anti-marxist assertion that "theory and practice verified" supposedly the correctness of the Khrushchevian bourgeois views on the question of building socialism-communism, this was completely refuted by the subsequent restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. What actually happened was that the traitors Khrushchevian revisionists abandoned Marxist views, adopting at theoretical level, and putting into practice the views of vulgar bourgeois political economy in order to achieve the gradual restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, about which nobody doubts today.

Finally, Polish Adam Zwass is right to extol Oskar Lange as great reformer in the revisionist countries: "the basic ideas of the democratic reform movement were expressed most clearly by the great thinker and reformer Oskar Lange" (A.Zwass: «Planwirtschafr im Wandel der Zeit» , pp. 386, Wien 1982).

From the newer cases of bourgeois economists we mention only Joseph E. Stiglitz. Referring to the reforms in the Soviet Union and other countries writes: "Many of the reforms were based on the idea of socialist market economy, which meant to combine the advantages of market mechanisms with the ownership of the means of production by the state. Oskar Lange, who was a professor of economy at the University of Chicago before returning after the 2nd World War to Poland and becoming vice president of the communist government, was a leading figure and representative of this direction. In socialist market economy, the Prices have the same function in the distribution of resources, as in capitalism. The prices must be determined so as to match supply with demand. Firms accept the prices and compete with each other. They maximize their profits at given prices, by producing (Output) at a price that meets the marginal cost" (Joseph E. Stiglitz: «Volkswirtschaftslehre », pp. 1099, Muenchen, Wien, Oldenburg 1999).

From this very brief and incomplete reference, it becomes obvious that, in their reforms, the Khrushchevian revisionists adopted both the capitalist market-price mechanism and the capitalist economic categories, that is, the well-known theories of bourgeois economists of "socialism".

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The capitalist economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period in prolonged stagnation and deep crisis

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 23 (November 2011) we published an article with the title The working class in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period was no longer the owner of the means of production

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 24 (May 2012) we published the second  of this article with the title In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, labor power had been anew converted to commodity

The third part published in our blog has the title The commodity economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period: a complete and permanent capitalist economy

Here is the fourth part:

The capitalist economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period in prolonged stagnation and deep crisis

The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union did not only bring about the emergence of all the characteristic features of capitalism in the country’s economy but it paved the way for a prolonged economic stagnation, especially during the Brezhnev period, and led the whole society to an unprecedented bourgeois degeneration and in a deep and all-sided crisis that included all the known scourges of the old decadent, rotten and superseded bourgeois society.

During this period, not only was there a long-term, general economic stagnation but also a decrease of the national income, a drop in the industrial production and productivity. These were facts that even the then Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin had already admitted as early as 1965. In his speech during the Plenum of CC of CPSU (September 1965), he pointed out: “it must be concluded that during the last years there has been a certain decrease in the national Income and the industrial Production…The increase rate of productivity in industry, an additional important index measuring the efficiency of the social production, has been in decline over the last years” (Α.Ν.Kossygin: Die Verbesserung der Leitung der Industrie, die Vervollkommenung der Planung und die Verstaerkung der wirtschaftlichen Stimulierung der Industrieproduktion. In: «Die Presse der Sowjetunion», 1965, Nr.113, S.6).

A note from the Tirana Radio Station, under the title “The soviet economy in the whirlpool of crisis”, mentions about this: “Over the last years, the soviet economy is going through a severe crisis. The decrease in the growth rate of the production and labor productivity in many branches of the economy, the long-term phenomenon of incomplete utilization of the productive capacities, the failures in the capital investments, the tendency of technical progress to slow down, the militarization of the economy, the inflation, etc are facts that clearly demonstrate that the economy situation is constantly deteriorating. All this shows the disastrous consequences on the country’s economy stemming from the counter-revolutionary policy implemented by the dominant revisionist clique. A general feature of the soviet economy is the irregularity in the fulfillment of plans. In many Republics the general industrial plan of the previous year and the first semester of 1975 has not been fulfilled” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 5/11/1975).

To show the catastrophic results of the capitalist restoration and the difference with the period of socialism-communism in the Soviet Union, the author of the Marxist editorial compares parts of the two periods: “to get a more clear picture of the catastrophic consequences of capitalist restoration in the soviet economy, we present a comparison with the period during which there was still socialist economy: the annual growth rate of the industrial production in the years 1966-1970 was 33% lower than in the years 1946-1955, in fact it was 58% lower in 1974” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 5/11/1975).

The international economic crisis, that started at the end of 1973, affected also the economy of the Soviet Union for which the author mentions: “the decrease in production, an important characteristic of the current economic and financial crisis, into which the whole capitalist-revisionist world has plunged, has seriously impinged on many branches of the soviet industry and especially the branch of machine-building, the chemical industry, the manufacturing industry, the light industry and the production of goods of wider consumption” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 5/11/1975).

Militarization of economy. The restoration of capitalism did not transform Soviet Union only into a capitalist country but, also, into an imperialist super-power which competed the other imperialist super-power of that period, the United States of America, for spheres of influence, having made all sorts of interventions in different countries that included the military occupation of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. The reactionary, anti-communist and anti-stalinist socialdemocratic leadership of Khrushchev-Brezhnev very soon oriented the development of the capitalist economy of the Soviet Union towards militarization. The militarization of the economy was, and still is, one of the main and fundamental features of economy of the all imperialist countries. A note from the Tirana Radio Station, in 1976, rightly points out: “the militarization is determined by the nature of the soviet social-imperialism which collaborates and competes with the US imperialism for global domination”. And: “in order to implement their hegemonic and expansionist policy, the soviet social-imperialists employ the most incredible methods but, mainly, rely on the power of arms. This led to a full and mass militarization of the Soviet Union. The soviet economy is oriented towards war. According to data published from scientific organizations of various countries, the military spending of the soviet social-imperialists is about 100 billion rubles that constitutes 44% of total spending in the state budget in the current year. More then 60% of all enterprises in the Soviet Union work, today, directly or indirectly for the war” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 20/10/1976).

In relation to the arms trade: “The soviet social-imperialists expanded the arms trade outside their borders. Along with the US imperialists, they have become the greatest arms dealers. Since 1955, when the Soviet Union emerged in the arms market, it has sold to other countries arms worth of some dozens of billion dollars. Only in 1974, it sold arms worth of 5,5 billion dollars and surpassed even USA in selling war aircrafts securing huge profits from trading with such lethal tools. This is because such a plane can bring as much profit as the retail of 1000 private cars. According to some data from various news agencies, until the middle of the previous year, the Soviet Union sold more than 14,500 tanks, more than 8,000 surface-to-air missiles and more than 1,900 Ming-21 aircrafts. All these arms were sold to satellite countries and to some developing countries bringing extremely large profits. In this way, the Soviet Union tries to transfer part of the load of the militarization and the arms race to the back of less powerful countries and other peoples. At the same time, the Soviet Union is supplying arms to many reactionary governments…Moreover, it must be mentioned that the soviet social-imperialists have become the main suppliers of the most important strategic raw materials such as oil, natural gas, enriched uranium, titanium and various others of the imperialist and militarist circles of West Germany, USA, Japan etc (“Tirana Radio Station”, 20/10/1976).

Wages – degree of exploitation of the proletariat – class differentiation. After the overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the victory of the Khrushchevian revisionist counter-revolution, the loss of the political power and the control of the means of production, transformed the working class of the Soviet Union to proletariat, which is forced to sell its labor power in order to survive.

The exploitation of the proletariat through the extraction of surplus value, primarily, in the sphere of production and, secondarily, in the sphere of distribution and through the income redistribution at the level taxes and inflation, is secured, besides the capitalist production relations, by the bourgeois “all people’s” state: “the exploitation and the oppression of workers in the Soviet Union is organized and managed by the state. This is expressed, most and foremost, in the rights of enterprise and kolkhoz directors, in the management and selling of means of production as well as in the corresponding jobs. According to soviet revisionist press acknowledgments, in 5 large cities of the Soviet Union and in two industrial centers of the Republic of Lithuania, there are agencies that sell and buy job vacancies. The revisionist directors decide themselves about the amount of salaries and premiums, the hirings and firings or measures against the workers etc. In Kharkov, an enterprise manager launched 233 discipline measures against 125 workers and imposed money sentences to 350 workers. In 292 soviet enterprises, 70,000 workers were fired because they could not withstand the oppression” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/1/1976).

In the Soviet Union, “the degree of exploitation of workers in material production increased by 23% during the 1960-1971 period” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 18/8/1976).

During the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period, the differences between the workers-farmers salaries and those of the new bourgeoisie members were huge: “the capitalist exploitation and oppression of the working class and the wider masses by the new soviet bourgeoisie that is in power is expressed in the income distribution that shows a sharp contrast between working people and the capitalist enterprise directors. While the average wage for a worker reaches 70 rubles and for a farmer reaches 35 rubles, the wage of an enterprise director is about 15 times larges without taking into account other kinds of income they receive in the form of bonuses, privileges and other extras. The director of an enterprise that makes electric lamps in Moscow receives 1,000 rubles as a month salary whereas the wage of a worker is between 60 and 80 rubles… The enterprise directors have the right to determine, according to their wishes, the workers’ wages. Using various pretexts, they push wages downwards or they do not give workers any bonus at all. According to statistics, the 82% of the money sums given to the first 704 enterprises that adopted the new “Schtekino system” of labor rate increase, that is, they introduced the cruel oppression of workers, was shared by the directors, engineers and the technicians and only 12% of these sums was utilized as a “material motive” for the workers. It is, thus, self-evident that the high salaries and the large bonuses of the directors of the soviet capitalist enterprises come from the surplus value created by the workers” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/1/1976). “Depending on the position they occupy in the bureaucratic soviet revisionist state and party system, the party cadres, the higher clerks, the technocrats, the enterprise directors and others are getting 10-fold to 25-fold of the average worker’s wage. This is also true for the kolkhozes where the wage differences are about 1:30” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 4/2/1976).

“The new bourgeoisie members have secured high salaries, which are 10-fold to 15-fold larger than the wages of workers and farmers. Hence, the salary of an enterprise director is 1,000 rubles, the salaries of professors, doctors of science and others are as high as 2,000 to 3,000 rubles; all of them lead a luxurious life with cars, villas etc” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/2/1976).

While, the living standards of the proletariat and the wider masses were constantly deteriorating not only due to the increased degree of exploitation and the raising prices and taxes, but also due to the under-fulfillment of the plans, the decline in production and the continuous, of unprecedented scale, shortages wide consumption goods (meat, butter, pasta, vegetables, potatoes etc), the new bourgeoisie lived in provoking luxury: “although the necessary commodities for the people are in want, the new bourgeoisie invests large sums for the construction of super deluxe hotels in the Black Sea coast for the rich coming from inside and outside of the country, for the construction of factories that produce Pepsi-Cola and luxury items, super luxury limos and yachts. The production plans for these goods and for the contruction of similar works are always fulfilled on time” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/2/1976).

During the Khrushchev-Brezhnev, there was an evident a quick class differentiation in the bourgeois society of the Soviet Union: “the soviet capitalist economy that has been established on the basis of capitalist economic laws and operates according to them, serves as the ground of a continuous class differentiation. The course of class differentiation in the Soviet Union proceeds quickly. On one side, there are all the elements that constitute the new soviet bourgeoisie like the higher cadres of the revisionist party and state, the bureaucratic-military caste, the technocrats and others who receive high salaries and large premiums, and lead a degenerate and luxurious life and on the other side there are the working masses of the town and the countryside. Millions of soviet people, mainly in the countryside, live under the poverty line. In the Soviet Union there are 25,000,000 people that enjoy high living standards, 68,000,000 who live under the poverty line determined by the soviet revisionists themselves. A whole system of taxes introduced by the new soviet bourgeoisie in power, burdens the soviet working people from whom it extracts 11% of their income” (“Tirana Radio Station”, 13/1/1976).

In the 1980’s, the prolonged stagnation of the economy, the obsolete equipment of the capitalist enterprises, the large growth of the black market, the false “fulfillment” of the production plans in industry and agriculture, the systematic legal and illegal appropriation, theft, of the state property, the severe financial bleeding caused by the imperialist war in Afghanistan, etc deepened the all-sided crisis that the capitalist-imperialist Soviet Union was going through and led its capitalist economy to total collapse and bankruptcy.

This catastrophic, dead-end made the new anti-communist group of the bourgeois CPSU headed by the traitor Gorbachev, the “favorite child” of the anti-stalinst, social-democatic Brezhnevite clique, to embark on new capitalist reforms collectively known as “Perestroika” which was not “revolution within the revolution” as claimed by the Krushchevian social-democrats but counter-revolution within the revisionist counter-revolution. The implementation of these new reforms ushered, at the economic level, the transition from the state-monopoly capitalism to the classic capitalism of individual property of the Western capitalist countries and, at the political level, the transition from the bourgeois one-party to the bourgeois many-party system of the Western capitalist countries.

Thus, the Soviet Union, instead of entering “communism” in the 1980’s as promised by the consciously lying anti-communist clique of Khrushchev-Brezhnev – that was demolishing at the same time socialism – experienced, as expected by the revolutionary Marxists, i.e. the Leninists-Stalinists, the total collapse of the restored capitalism, that the same social-democatic leading group had established and demagogically presented, in order to mislead the working class and the peoples, as “real socialism” and reached, its demise as a state at the end of the same decade.

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The commodity economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period: a complete and permanent capitalist economy

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 23 (November 2011) we published an article with the title The working class in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period was no longer the owner of the means of production

At "Unity and Struggle" issue 24 (May 2012) we published the second  of this article with the title In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, labor power had been anew converted to commodity

Here is the third part.

The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union (1953-1990)

The commodity economy of the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period: a complete and permanent capitalist economy

The reactionary process of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union that commenced, right after the death-murder of Joseph Stalin, with the overthrow of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat from the renegade social-democratic clique of Khrushchev-Brezhnev, was a very complicated development based on the capitalist economic reforms and a series of inter-connected measures which had as a central and only goal: the total elimination of socialism-communism and the complete re-establishment of the exploitive capitalist system.

The analysis of these reforms in the soviet economy, implemented by the counter-revolutionary Khrushchev-Brezhnev leadership of Communist Party of Soviet Union [CPSU] – and after taking into account Lenin’s extremely important teaching according to which “it is necessary to consider the fundamental economic features of the existing relations and not their legal forms” in order to determine the nature of an economy – proves that these capitalist economic reforms led to the total elimination of socialist-communist relations and the gradual restoration of capitalism that was completed at the end of the 1960’s.

In particular, the preceding analysis of the economy during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period demonstrates:

The economy of the Soviet Union was dominated by commodity production that took full and comprehensive form at the end of 1960’s after the extension of the commodity-money relations. However, when, in a given period, the economy of a country is dominated by commodity production, then its economic system cannot be any other than the capitalist mode of production – resulted from the gradual but complete restoration of capitalism that replaced socialism-communism. This is the case because capitalism is “commodity production at its highest stage of development, when human labour power itself becomes a commodity” (Lenin: "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism", chapter IV)

1) Moreover, there were two additional features of commodity production that emerged in the fully developed commodity economy of the Soviet Union: i) The conversion of all means of production into commodities and ii) the conversion of the working power into commodity. These were the two of the fundamental characteristics of the capitalist mode of production and precisely for this reason the economy of the Soviet Union at that time was capitalist as “according to Marx’s teaching the two essential attributes of capitalism are: 1) the commodity production as the universal form of production. The social product takes the form of commodity in the most diverse productive units but, in the capitalist production, this form of the labour product is not isolated, incidental but universal and 2) the commodity form is taken not only by the labour product but by labour itself, that is, by the human working power. The degree to which the working power has become a commodity characterises the degree of capitalist development” (Lenin)

2) In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, the sphere of operation of the law of Value – a law that characterizes commodity production – was extended to include all of the economy and, thus, regulated the production as in capitalism

3) In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, the goal of the production - at the level of individual enterprises and at the level of the economy as a whole – was the maximum profit. This is one of the three (the other two are mentioned by Lenin in the above extract) essential attributes of capitalism according to Marx: “the second attribute that sets apart capitalism is the production of surplus value that becomes the immediate aim and the decisive motive of the production” (Marx).

4) In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, all the laws of capitalism re-emerged and acted: the law of Value as the regulator of the production, the law of surplus value, the law of the exploitation of wage labour from capital, the law of competition and anarchy in the production, the law of the mean rate of profit etc.

5) In the commodity economy of the Soviet Union, all the capitalist economic categories were re-introduced: Profit, Interest, capitalist Price of Production and others.

All the above features that dominated the commodity economy of the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period constitute the clearest expression of the capitalist character of the production relations of the country’s economy and the capitalist character of the state-cooperative property that was collectively owned and controlled by the new bourgeoisie through the new bourgeois state, that is, “the state of all people”. At the same time, they prove scientifically the complete capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union of Khrushchev-Brezhnev that was concluded by the end of the 1960’s despite the chatter of the Khrushchevian social-democracy (both international and local: “C”PG-SYN) about the alleged presence of socialism until 1990; a totally baseless claim that is disapproved by the capitalist reality of the Soviet Union during that period, that is, the existence of commodity economy with all the essential features of capitalism, the fundamental laws of capitalism and the capitalist economic categories.

The capitalism that was restored in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev period was state-monopoly capitalism of a peculiar type – as far as the content is concerned it was the same with the capitalism in Western countries – and this peculiarity had to do with: first, the dominance of the state and the cooperative capitalist property in economy during of the Soviet Union and the very limited presence of the private capitalist property, initially in agriculture and then in all sectors of the economy and second the emergence-development of a state-monopoly capitalism that originated from the elimination of socialism-communism whereas in the economy of the Western capitalist countries the private capitalist property dominates along with a limited state-capitalist property.

In the capitalist economy of the Soviet Union, the private capitalist sector wasn’t limited to agriculture with the emergence of the new kulaks but expanded in services, commerce, workshops and even industry. As mentioned above, private capitalist property was officially instituted in the bourgeois Constitution of 1977.

In 1978, “in the Soviet Union, the private holders own about 3.6 million hectares of arable land. They supply the market with the 28% of the total agricultural production and with 32% of animal products. The private sector in the Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries has significantly expanded in the sphere of industry where it has infiltrated services as well as the production of industrial commodities complementing to a large extent the activity of the state-capitalist enterprises. Thus, it is not about only small private artisans engaged in small-scale services and repair works that have little profit but a whole network of capitalists whose activities compete with the state-capitalist enterprises. The private capitalists have the gained the right to establish their own workshops, factories that are protected by the state. They are supplied with the necessary resources and the owners can today hire waged workers, that is to say, exploit cheap working Power. The emergence and the development of the private capitalist sector in the capitalist Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries is a reflection of the capitalist degeneration of their economy in which the laws of the capitalist mode of production hold full sway. This sector enjoys the many-sided support – legal as well as material – of the revisionist state and it has become, next to the state-capitalist sector, dominant sector of the economic life” (Tirana Radio Station, 5/4/1978). In 1977, the private capitalist sector supplied the market with the “18% of total number of sheep, 18% of pigs and 32% of beef. The private capitalists sold 31% of the meat and milk in prices that were favourable to them. Moreover, they supply the market with the 34% of vegetables, 30% of eggs, 58% of potatoes and other foodstuff in increased prices” (Tirana Radio Station, 2/8/1977). “In the Soviet Union the private producer controls 65% of vegetable trade, about 40% of meat and milk trade and up to 80% of the fruit trade” (Tirana Radio Station, 7/4/1976).

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