Leslie Goonewardene

Rise And Fall Of The Comintern

The Five Year Plan

Chapter Six

Owing to the fog which the Comintern has shed over the controversies of the years 1923-27, and the one-sided flood of publicity bestowed on the truly great achievements of construction in the Soviet Union, it is popularly but wrongly believed that Stalin and his faction were the originators of the ideas of planning and industrialisation. The truth is, however, quite otherwise. The idea of industrialisation with a long term plan was one of the main planks in the agitation of the Left Opposition since 1923, and was vehemently opposed by the bureaucrats. It was only in 1926 that the bureaucracy were forced by economic and social forces more powerful than themselves to put into effect the main proposals of the Opposition which had been expelled only a few months before, but of course, with all the mistakes inherent in bureaucratic inefficiency mid theoretical bankruptcy.

THE STALINIST OPPOSITION TO INDUSTRIALISATION PLAN

As early as April 1923 Trotsky laid before the 4th Congress of the Party his theses for the elaboration of a single economic plan to industrialise the country and to pave the way for the collectivisation of agriculture. He pointed out that the greatest weakness in Russian economy was the preponderance of a backward and individualist agriculture. This weakness could progressively be decreased only to the extent that it was possible to develop industry and especially heavy industry. For this a State plan of industry was necessary. Industrialisation was absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. “Trotskyism” being at that time not yet discovered, the theses were passed unanimously. But nothing was done and after the death of Lenin they were openly opposed by Stalin and the bureaucrats in power.

But from 1923 onwards, the Left Opposition continued to point out that Russia’s backwardness made speedy industrialisation imperative especially in view of the retardation of the international revolution. In addition, among the peasantry, the rich peasant (kulak) was growing stronger and constituting a real danger. This could be countered only by the systematic organisation of the poor peasants in the collectives. A comprehensive plan of industrial progress that could reorganise agriculture, supply cheap goods to the peasantry and provide the basis for the abolition of the petty bourgeois strata of the village population was imperative.

In 1925, in his book “Whither Russia” Trotsky made a detailed analysis of the tremendous possibilities for progress which the concentration of power in the hands of the proletarian dictatorship offered, even on the basis of an isolated workers’ state; He pointed out that on the basis of Socialist accumulation the Soviet republic could show a speed of industrial progress unknown to capitalism. Such a rate of progress was possible on account of firstly, the practical absence of parasitic social classes;[1] secondly the abolition of the principle of private property, placing all productive forces at the disposal of the state; thirdly the technical improvements made possible by a State plan; and fourthly, the ability by means of a plan to reduce the effect of crises. “These four advantages”, he wrote, “correctly utilised, will provide us with the opportunity, in the coming years of increasing the rate of our industrial expansion not merely to double the pre-war 6 per-cent but to three times that figure and perhaps even more”. (Trotsky—Whither Russia ).

But Trotsky’s ideas were ridiculed by the bureaucracy. This did not however prevent them from levelling against Trotsky at the same time, the two contradictory charges, that he was opposed to the building of Socialism in Russia and that his proposals for industrialisation were too extreme. Devoid of incentive and persisting in their philistine ignorance, the bureaucracy opposed the idea of planning. Leaning more and more on the growing class of kulaks, they opposed industrialisation, but the kulak class, was growing in strength in the countryside as well as permeating a section of the party with its ideology. The kulak danger, which the Opposition had warned against was to be demonstrated in a spectacular manner before long.

THE PLATFORM OF THE OPPOSITION

At last, in 1926, a 5-year plan drawn up by Rykov and adopted by the party leaders, was produced. This meagre plan proposed a rate of increase of 9 per cent for the first year and a decreasing percentage each year till a 4 per cent increase was to be reached at the end of the period.

The 1927 Platform of the Opposition categorically rejected this worthless plan which did not recognise the tremendous possibilities of advance inherent in the gains of October revolution. It pointed out that the means for a greater rate of growth could be found by a forced loan from the kulaks, a cutting down of overhead charges and expenses of the bureaucratic apparatus, and by a correct utilisation of the foreign trade monopoly. “To bring forward on the anniversary of the October revolution such a parsimonious, through and through pessimistic plan really means that you are working against Socialism” stated the Platform.

The Platform embodied an elaborate series of proposals to the party, including a warning against the kulak danger and the necessity of a resolute curbing of his ability to exploit, an exposure of the theory of Socialism in one country, how this theory prevented a full utilisation of the benefits of world trade in the period of peace, a demand for adequate preparations for the defence of the Soviet Union, a, call for the re-introduction of internal democracy in the party and its regeneration, and finally stating that it stood for the unity of the party.

We have recounted what earlier was the fate of the Platform and of the Oppositionists who put it forward.[2] In January 1928, one month after the 15th Congress that had ratified the expulsion of the Oppositionists, a rising of the kulaks occurred. Emboldened by the expulsion of the Oppositionists, the kulaks refused to deliver their stocks of grain, demanding higher prices than those fixed by the State. They threatened to keep their stocks and starve the cities into submission if their demands were not met with. So effective was their opposition, that armed force had to be employed to requisition grain. Thus in dramatic fashion the correctness of the warning of the Opposition with regard to the kulak danger was demonstrated. It was clear that NEP would no longer work and that the Opposition criticisms had been correct. Faced now with the danger of being crushed by the kulak and urban petty-bourgeois strata, the bureaucracy was compelled to make an about-face turn. Stalin was compelled to alter his First Five Year Plan, to embark on a bolder and more far-reaching plan, and to initiate a drive against the kulak.

Stalin now saw the necessity of breaking with his Rightist friends. At first cutting the ground under their feet by attacking their supporters, in 1929, he embarked on a frontal attack on the real leaders, Rykov, Bukharin and Tomsky. Before a confounded public the three leaders of the Right were accused of attempting to introduce capitalism into Russia. The President of the Comintern, the head of the Soviet Government, and the leader of the Soviet Trade Unions were now denounced and disgraced as the agents of the counter-revolution. In Siberia, some of the Left Oppositionist exiles, hearing that Stalin had adopted the main proposals of the Opposition Platform on industrialisation, capitulated, confessed their sins, abjured Trotsky and came back. The more resolute of them who refused to abandon their principles, if they have not died, they are in exile to this day. Trotsky himself, who had been exiled to Alma Ata, was deported in February 1929 from Russia and found asylum in Turkey.

THE FIVE YEAR PLAN THAT CAME SIX YEARS LATE

The amended Five Year Plan, put into practice six years after it had been proposed by Trotsky and the Opposition, saved the Soviet Union from collapse. A plan for a large increase of industry (particularly heavy industry) and of collectivisation of one fifth of the peasant holdings was proposed.

In the first year of the operation of the plan the successes and the rate of expansion surprised the bureaucrats themselves. In 1925 when Trotsky stated that a rate of growth of 18 per cent. or even more was possible he had been derided. Now, stated Stalin, the reactionary character of Trotsky’s 18 per cent. was proved by the figures of 1929-30 which he claimed were 32 per cent. The bureaucracy which had been mistrustful of industrialisation, now went to the other extreme. The successes that they had never anticipated went to their heads. The world economic crisis which commenced at the end of 1929 meant a catastrophic fall in the prices of raw materials. And it was by the export mainly of these that Russia hoped to pay for her imports of machinery from abroad. Consequently the world economic crisis was a blow to the smooth prosecution of the Five Year Plan. But Stalin now set out to accomplish the Five Year Plan in four years.

The theory of Socialism in one country had hitherto been an instrument against Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Now the Stalinists actually began to believe that this was achievable through the Plan. Trotsky and the Opposition, while foretelling the tremendous advantages of construction in a workers’ state as compared with what was possible under capitalism, had never exaggerated the possibilities. They had never claimed anything more than that by planned industrialisation the position of the working class in the Soviet Union could be strengthened and that the workers’ state could be much more stronger. But the bureaucracy now claimed that at the end of the Second Five Year Plan a Socialist system would be created surpassing the capitalism of Britain, America and Germany!

Trotsky from his exile now warned against the exaggerated tempo and expectations. Stalin replied accusing Trotsky of Rightism, and set 47 per cent. as the rate of increase for the next year! This placed a tremendous burden on the backs of the working class. The resistance of the workers was met by terror. Workers were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for indiscipline, and every instrument of repression was utilised to keep up the inhuman tempo.

THE PEASANTRY AND COLLECTIVISATION

Marx and Engels had even in their time pointed out that the drawing of the peasants into the socialist economy should be done by stages, commencing with co-operative farms, and that the method utilised should be persuasion and not compulsion. This too had always been the attitude of Lenin to the peasantry. The Opposition had pointed out that the rate at which collectivisation could proceed depended upon the growth of industry. For, large scale collective farming could be more economic than peasant cultivation only if industry was able to supply the requisite quantity of technical equipment. Whatever may be the rapidity of growth of Russian industry under planning, it was absurd to imagine that Russia unaided by the more advanced countries would be able for a long time to supply the technical means to collectivise more than a fraction of her predominantly peasant population.

But what did the Stalinist bureaucracy do? The kulaks were deported to Siberia or other regions and the peasants forced into not co-operative farms, but communes[3]. In little over a year over fifteen million peasants had been organised in collectives. Stalin however was soon forced to call a temporary halt and to abandon his policy of drawing the peasant straight into the commune, and to organise them instead in the ‘artel’ form of collective where only land and cattle are collectivised. The forcible collectivisation of peasants, however, was recommenced. The original proposal to collectivise 20 per cent. of the peasantry by the end of the plan was surpassed in two years. The whole Soviet Press triumphantly announced that the peasants had turned to Socialism and that the classless society was approaching. And so Stalin set out to accomplish by administrative decree what Russian industry was incapable of achieving. By the end of 1931 over 60 per cent. of the farms had been collectivised.

What was the result of this mad policy? The peasants refused to produce; they slaughtered their cattle rather than take it to the collectives. There were mass shootings and deportations of peasants. Agricultural production slumped catastrophically. In 1932 a widespread famine set in. In the end the Stalinists were forced to permit the peasant to carry on his private trade.

For the past so many years it has been announced to the world by the Stalinist press that the collectivisation of the peasants is complete and the classless society established. But nevertheless Stalin and Molotov found it necessary to issue a decree in 1939 threatening the peasants with dire punishment unless they worked 80 to 100 days a year on the collective farms. What does this mean if not that the peasants find it more profitable to work on their own plots rather than to work on the collective? The forced collectivisation of the peasantry has by no means disproved the forecast of the Opposition based on the scientific theory of Marxism. It has only proved more forcibly the inability of one country to attain Socialism in isolation from world economy and confirmed the dependence of the Soviet State on international revolution.

ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY

The enormous advances made under the five year plans are a living testimony to the superiority of socialist methods of production over capitalist. But it is important to realise that these advances were made not because of the bureaucracy but in spite of it. The successes were made possible by the chief gains of the October revolution: nationalisation of the means of production and monopoly of foreign trade. The part played by the bureaucracy the obstinate scepticism they displayed for six years and then the dizzy excesses that led not only to imposing untold burdens on the workers and peasants but also to a disastrous famine—constitute not an asset but a heavy liability. But unfortunately even this does not describe the sum total of the cost of bureaucratic leadership. For in addition to the bureaucratic methods of carrying out the plan was the bureaucratic conception of the plan itself.

Stubbornly striving to make Socialism in one country an economic reality, economic self-sufficiency became the goal of the plan. Even with the vastness of Russia and the variety of its natural resources—which alone made even the posing of such a question possible—the aim of economic self-sufficiency was bound to exact its price in the lowering of productivity. Not to take full advantage of the benefits of world trade so long as such trade was possible, not to realise the advantages of directing efforts towards production of those commodities in whose production Russia possessed a relative advantage internationally and not a relative disadvantage, and instead to aim at producing all internal needs whatever the labour cost involved was bound to impose unnecessary burdens on the working class and to lower the possible rate of expansion.

That the building of the industry (and specially of heavy industry) was a necessity was obvious. The building of those industries supplying necessaries the import of which would not be possible in time of war, was equally necessary. If the supply of vital and necessary commodities were in this manner provided for, in the event of war, a policy of judicious organisation of the production of substitutes for other less necessary commodities, as capitalist governments do in time of war, is certainly not beyond the capacity of a workers’ state. But as for the rest of the economy, to have pursued a policy of producing those commodities most favourable for the purpose of international trade, and consequently to have derived the fullest advantages of world trade at least cost to Russia herself, would indubitably have imposed the least strain on the economy, have contributed vastly more to the raising of the standard of living, and considerably accelerated the rate of expansion. But the Stalinist bureaucracy blind to these elementary truths, intent only on proving the correctness of their theory of Socialism in one country, stubbornly embarked on a plan of economic self-sufficiency and to that extent impeded the success of the economic advance of the country.

Finally it remains to be said that such a plan can achieve its proper results only in co-operation with the masses. The bureaucratic control of the Soviets and trade unions, which meant the substitution of compulsion for co-operation, of orders from above for mass initiative, of face-saving for genuine criticism, was another liability that the plan had to face. The frequent breakdowns and disorganisations—punished by the bureaucracy as “wrecking” and “sabotage”—of which we hear so much, are the inevitable result of the bureaucratic attempt to substitute itself for the masses. The bureaucracy attempts to solve the problems it has created in its own bureaucratic manner by terror. But no solution is possible on those lines. The solution can only come through the revival of workers’ democracy and the utilisation of those now latent forces liberated by the revolution of October 1917.

When one considers the numerous liabilities from which the plan has had to suffer through bureaucratic stubbornness, inefficiency, short-sightedness and callousness, what is surprising is that so great advances have been made despite them. That the Russian workers were able to achieve so much in spite of the follies and brutalities of the bureaucrat is but added proof of the greatness of the social transformation effected by the October revolution, and can only reinforce the faith of the revolutionist and strengthen his resolve.

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A disproportionate amount of space may appear to have been devoted to international developments in the Soviet Union in a work that claims to be an account and a brief one at that of the international revolutionary movement. But the changing policies of the Comintern cannot be understood except in the context of the internal developments of the Soviet Union, with which they have a close and organic connection. The pro-kulak policy till 1928 of the bureaucracy found its reflection in the international field in a Rightist policy of unity with the Social Democrats and “revolutionary” bourgeois leaders in the colonies. With the anti-kulak drive and industrialisation plans from 1929 onwards we find a corresponding ‘about turn’ to ultra-leftism in the international field. The rise of bureaucracy, we have attempted to show had the most profound implications for the Comintern, which was progressively converted from an organisation for international. revolution into a passive instrument of the bureaucracy. Hitherto the policies of the Comintern had but reflected the shifting and vacillating policies of the bureaucracy. But from now on they take a more sinister character. In the succeeding chapters we shall see the Comintern in its final stage of degeneration, in which it proves itself to be the abject instrument of the foreign policy of the Soviet bureaucrats.


Endnotes

[1] Trotsky of course, at that time had not yet perceived the growth of a parasitic bureaucratic caste with special privileges and a standard of living becoming more and more widely separated from that of the masses, which was destined to consume an ever increasing proportion of the national income.

[2] The expulsion of the Opposition at the end of 1927 was followed up by a series of expulsions in the International. Treint in France, Van Overstraten in Belgium, Bordiga in Italy, Cannon and Shachtmann in America, Maurice Spector in Canada, are some of the more prominent people who were expelled as Trotskyists.

[3] The Opposition had only proposed stern measures for limitation of the kulak’s power to exploit. They realised that measures for liquidation of the kulak before the collective farms were in a position to compensate for the loss in kulak production would have adverse effects on total agricultural output.