[This issue of Peking Review is from massline.org. Massline.org has kindly given us permission to to place these documents on the MIA. We made only some formatting changes to make them congruent with our style sheets.]
[This unsigned article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 11, #44, Nov. 1, 1968, pp. 23-25.]
THE Soviet revisionist renegade clique recently has stepped up the implementation of the “new economic system.” It is making a big noise about applying the capitalist principle embodied in this “system” to every aspect of economic life. Modelling it after the economic system of the Western capitalist countries, this clique is carrying out a drastic top-to-bottom reorganization of the entire managerial system in the national economy so as to intensify the exploitation and enslavement of the Soviet labouring people.
The Soviet revisionist renegade clique started to implement on a large scale the “new economic system” centred around the capitalist principle of profit seeking at the beginning of 1966. This “system” now has been put into operation in 13,000 industrial enterprises, 9,000 transport, agricultural and service trades enterprises, hundreds of thousands of business establishments, and numerous building enterprises.
To further promote the “new system,” the Soviet revisionists recently made a big fanfare about it in the press, saying that “the first stage of economic reform, the stage of exploration, is over” and from now on a “new stage of reform” will begin. For this, they held a 4-day “All-Soviet Economic Conference” in Moscow in mid May this year, which was attended by 5,000 persons. The conference decided to “apply the new system to the entire sphere of the national economy” in 1969 and adopt a series of corresponding measures for a new and more drastic reorganization in the managerial system of Soviet industry and the entire national economy so as to form a complete capitalist managerial system from top to bottom.
The Soviet revisionist renegade clique decided that with the so-called “new stage of economic reform” now in operation, the “new system,” first of all, is to be further implemented in different enterprises and the main principles of this “system” — “profit in command” and “material incentives” — are to be promoted all along the line in the enterprises, from workshops, shifts and work teams down to individuals.
The Soviet revisionists not only advocated the “transfer of marketing and profit indexes of products to all production workshops”; they also set out to introduce “business accounting” in auxiliary workshops and even in some work sections and teams and various offices of an enterprise. Even more absurd is that they also want to introduce “business accounting in shifts and work teams and with individuals”; in other words, they want to use rubles as a bait to make the broad masses of Soviet workers and employees create greater profits for the new capitalists in the Soviet Union.
To increase the interest of the leading members of the enterprises in drafting “stringent” plans for making super-profits, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique decided to change the innumerable bonuses and “economic incentive funds” promoted in enterprises in the past into a unified measure for drawing “fixed” shares from profits. It also decided to turn the original practice of drawing shares from planned profits into drawing shares from actual profits. That is to say, the leaders of enterprises are guaranteed a certain proportion of profit shares no matter how the profits are made. Prompted by such “material incentives,” the leaders of enterprises, like vampires, will naturally exploit and fleece the working class in the most brutal way.
Meanwhile, under the pretext of “making the methods of leadership in various enterprises and departments completely suit the demands of the new system,” the Soviet revisionist renegade clique decided to effect a drastic reorganization of the national economy, primarily the system of leadership in industrial departments, according to the blueprints of monopoly capitalism during the so-called “new stage of economic reform.”
This renegade clique recently has been frantically publicizing the setting up of large-scale regional and departmental “joint enterprises” as the first step in this drastic reorganization. Waving the signboard of “socialism,” these new-type capitalists shamelessly publicized the idea that, while drafting plans for establishing such “joint enterprises,” they “should utilize” the “organizational chart” of U.S. monopoly capital. In reorganizing the Soviet economic system and establishing large-scale “joint enterprises,” they say, “the experiences of the development of management in the capitalist countries should not be overlooked.”
It is no accident that this renegade clique set up so-called “joint enterprises” in the Soviet Union by following the example of Western monopoly organizations. In the Soviet Union today, profit is the main yardstick for measuring an enterprise’s “contribution” and the decisive factor in determining the fate of an enterprise. The capitalist law of free competition under which the strong survives and the weak perishes is operating in the fierce scramble for profits. This will naturally lead to the phenomenon of big enterprises swallowing up small ones which is inherent in the capitalist system. At the “All-Soviet Economic Conference” in May, N.K. Baibakov, Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and others openly encouraged the big enterprises with huge profits and favourable conditions to incorporate medium and small-scale enterprises and, on this basis, to set up what they called large-scale “joint enterprises.”
According to the plan of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, the “joint enterprises” to be set up in the Soviet Union now will be something like a combination of trusts and concerns in the capitalist countries in Europe and the United States. These “joint enterprises” will have considerable power in the allocation of financial resources and in the management of the enterprises under their control. Apart from managing the production of the affiliated enterprises, they will conduct many other activities such as sales, supplies, scientific research and designing, and so on. The Soviet revisionist press reported that the “joint enterprises” in general will include all the enterprises set up by a certain economic department in a region, or in a union republic, or in a large economic area. Later, with experience accumulated, the “joint enterprise” will be enlarged to cover the whole country. The establishment of an all-Soviet “joint enterprise” will, in effect, assume the functions hitherto exercised by the general bureaux administering various industrial departments. The ministries of industry in the Soviet Union will exercise control over the enterprises through the medium of the “joint enterprises.”
When the general management bureaux under a ministry is gradually reduced to the status of a “departmental joint enterprise,” every industrial ministry, as a state administrative organ set up by the Soviet revisionists, will undergo further changes in nature and functions. Thus, a three-stage economic system — ministry, joint enterprise and enterprises — based on the blueprints of Western monopoly capital will form a new administrative system of state monopoly capital in the Soviet Union.
In this drastic reorganization, the Soviet revisionists will make further changes in relations between the state and the enterprises, turning such relations into something for undisguised distribution of profits. Baibakov pointed out at the “All-Soviet Economic Conference” that it was necessary to set up a “new form of financial relations between the enterprises and the state.” According to this so-called new form, the state controlled by the Soviet revisionists will concern itself less and less with production in the enterprises. They will simply allot money in the form of appropriations or loans to the monopoly capitalist groups at all levels and to their affiliated enterprises. In return, the monopoly groups and their enterprises will hand over part of their profits as “payment to the fund,” or as interest. Thus, the state controlled by the Soviet revisionists will degenerate into a big capitalist boss pure and simple. It will earmark large sums of money for an enterprise and give it a free hand to make money. The state will receive interest in proportion to its capital investment. The enterprise will thus be turned into a “company” jointly run by the state and the heads of monopoly capital groups at all levels. The parties concerned will divide the profits among themselves and jointly exploit the working class.
In the “new stage of economic reform,” the Soviet revisionist renegade clique has also decided to vigorously institute a system of free sale and purchase of the means of production, making this practice one of the basic measures for reforming the national economy and bringing about all-round capitalist restoration.
The so-called “new economic system” proposed by the notorious arch-renegade Khrushchov and implemented by his faithful followers Brezhnev and Kosygin and their gang in the past two years has enormously strengthened the bourgeois dictatorship over the broad masses of labouring people by a handful of the privileged stratum represented by the Soviet revisionist renegade clique. It widens the gap between the rich and the poor and aggravates class differentiation with every passing day.
Stimulated by the principle of management in which profit dominates everything, such phenomena as benefiting oneself at the expense of others, profit hunting, free competition and anarchy in production, all of which characterize the capitalist system, prevail in all branches of the Soviet national economy even more seriously than before. The chaos in the national economy which started in Khrushchov’s time has become more aggravated. Even the Soviet revisionist renegade clique itself had to admit that “a series of extremely complicated and acute problems have emerged” in the national economy since the implementation of the “new economic system.” Now that the clique wants to further develop the “new system” in every aspect, such outrageous action will only make the Soviet people and the people of the world see the real features of these diehard renegades in the Kremlin more clearly.
Our great leader Chairman Mao has pointed out: “The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man’s will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, sooner or later revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph.” The broad masses of the Soviet people who are suffering under the restoration of capitalism will certainly rise up to smash the rule of the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, re-establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and bring the Soviet Union back into the orbit of socialism.
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