Trotsky's struggle against Bureaucracy

[p026] TROTSKY’S STRUGGLE AGAINST BUREAUCRACY many years of war and civil war had imposed great hardships on the population and created conditions of general penury with near or actual famine over large areas. At the same time, the capitalist gov- ernments did their best to isolate and destroy the new regime by political and economic means when they had failed to do so by armed force. This com- bination of circumstances could not fail to have profound effects on the ruling party and created the conditions for the appearance of trends which, if not consciously exposed and rooted out, could only destroy it. These trends were discerned and warned against by Lenin in the last years of his life, but it was left to Trotsky to demonstrate and explain their existence before the Communist Party and the Communist International, to show the malignant consequences which they were having for the movement and to call for a fight against those personalities and policies in which they were represented. down of industry and the needs of the Red Army had drawn off many of the most class-conscious workers, so the state apparatus, and, indeed, the growth of the Communist Party itself, operated in the same way. The officials of the party and the state appointed in the early years included many who were late adherents to Bolshevism, those who had joined the bandwagon when the success of the revolu- tion had been assured: careerism and opportunism were therefore prevalent. But under the circum- stances of the time there was a tendency for the communists of long standing also to use their positions to bolster their power or prestige or to lapse into a routine view of their duties, seeking a little peace and quiet after the years of upheaval and civil war. Such tendencies were to be expected and it was clearly the duty of the party leader- ship to recognize and wage a struggle against them. After the warnings given by Lenin at various times it was Trotsky who raised the alarm in a letter to the Central Committee dated Decem- ber 8, 1923. In this letter Trotsky drew attention to the growing power of the party apparatus and its growing use to stifle criticism, kill initiative and act as a brake upon the revolutionary enthusi- asm of the youth. He also demanded, in line with all the best traditions of Bolshevism and of Marxism, the maintenance of the right of the in- dividual party member to form his own opinion and to defend it inside the party. The Bolshevik Party had not been, as some like to suggest, a 89

[p027] monolithic instrument in the hands of a few leaders. Rather had it always seethed with discus- sion, permitting differences as long as they did not prevent the making of firm decisions binding on minorities. What Trotsky attacked then and later was not centralism, which he recognized as indispensable for a revolutionary party both when fighting for power and after its attainment. What he opposed was that centralism which had petrified into bureaucratism and routine because it was above criticism and merely operated an administrative machine: ‘Leadership takes on a purely organizational character and frequently degenerates into order-giving and meddling.’ It is necessary to study all the articles and letters which are collected in the book entitled The New Course to estimate Trotsky’s thought at this time. But it is also essential to place them firmly in their time, that is to say 1923, and not to read them solely in the light of what happened subsequently with the appearance of Stalin as the master of the party. Already, however, Trotsky points out that what he calls bureaucratism had definite social roots in the conditions prevailing in Russia. But the value of his work lies principally in what it says about the nature of the party and the standards which it should maintain. Trotsky had not, as yet, any need to discuss ‘the bureau- cracy’ as a social stratum because it had not yet emerged as a definite force. Nor did he yet suggest that the party could be strangled by such a development.’ At the same time Trotsky had to parry the attacks which were already being made upon his political past and current policy which were shortly to be rolled together and designated ‘Trotskyism’. ‘Bureaucratism of the apparatus is precisely one of the principal sources of factionalism’, Trotsky had warned. How soon was his warning to be justified! After Lenin’s death in January, 1924 Stalin used his post as General Secretary to install his own factional supporters and allies in positions of power throughout the party and the state apparatus by every form of administrative abuse. To consolidate itself the Stalin faction threw itself against their main conscious opponent, Trotsky himself, who on one issue after another defended the traditions and policies of Marxism against the new school of revisionists. The axis of the new revision was Stalin’s theory of ‘Social- ism in One Country’ propounded in 1924: a precise confirmation of the Marxist theory of ideology, so much did the new teaching suit the needs of the new bureaucracy which was arising. Just as the original revisionism, that of Bernstein, had been taken up by the apparatus men of the German Social Democratic Party to cover their reformist practice, so now did Stalin require a theoretical justification for his own practice. In the second half of the twenties, then, the internal party struggle passed through its decisive phase. All the great issues raised by the events in Germany, the Chinese Revolution, the British General Strike, as well as by the course of develop- ment in the Soviet Union itself, especially the economic questions, were debated before the CPSU and, indeed, the whole International.? The formation of the Left Opposition as a result of 90 the alliance with Zinoviev, Kamenev and their followers, and the drawing up of its platform, were the concrete expression of the struggle against the bureaucracy at this stage. The emphasis is therefore upon political questions, not upon the nature of the bureaucracy; Trotsky’s later analysis naturally grew out of the experience acquired during these years. Moreover, his diagnosis of what was happening in the Soviet party and state, and his tactics, changed as the situation developed. No more than anyone else engaged in these events did Trotsky possess any miraculous gift of foresight but he quickly and readily grasped the changes in the situation, which he subjected to constant review. The present-day historian is apt, in his superior wisdom, to nod over some of Trotsky’s actions or statements, claiming that he should have done this or that and not what he actually did. These is no point here in entering into a detailed examination of Trotsky’s tactics, but a general point can be made. For Trotsky there was nothing inevitable about the destruction of the Bolshevik Party, the degeneration of the Soviet State and the victory of the Stalinist bureau- cracy. At every stage there was always the possibi- lity that if the struggle was maintained there would be a break in the situation either because of some development in Russia or through the revolution- ary success of the proletariat in some other part 2 The documents referred to in this paragraph are available in The New Course, New Park Publica- _tions (London, 1956). 3 See, eg., Critique of the Draft Programme, The Third International After Lenin, The Stalin School of Falsification and other writings and speeches of Trotsky of this period. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, NOVEMBER, 1967

[p028] of the world. And in Trotsky’s lifetime this was confirmed by the events in France and especially in Spain even after the victory of Hitler. The tide of defeats for the working class might have been arrested not on one but on a number of occasions after the Left Opposition began its struggles. There is no reason, then, to look back and see the defeat of the Left Opposition as a foregone conclusion and Trotsky’s efforts in the last decade of exile as hopeless. Indeed, Trotsky waged his struggle with unquenchable revolutionary optimism because he understood that beneath the apparent omnipotence of the bureaucracy, and its represen- tative Stalin, lay fundamental weaknesses which arose from the contradictions of its position. It is this fundamental point which the open or shame- faced apologists for Stalinism, those who grant it some historical validity or see Trotsky as the advocate of a lost cause, doomed by history, com- pletely fail to understand. This failure is linked up, in turn, with their acceptance of the phenomenon of bureaucracy or a misunderstanding of its nature. IV It should be emphasised that until 1933 the Left Opposition was committed to an inner-party struggle based on the premise that the party, the Comintern and the Russian state could be re- formed. This perspective corresponded to the stage of development reached by Stalinism at this time. While seeking to protect its positions, con- solidating its hold on these organs by every trick in the book and covering its position by a cam- paign of vilification and falsification, the Stalin leadership was not yet openly counter-revolution- ary. The conspicuous political failures which attended its policies in China, Britain and else- where were not deliberately intended. They did, of course, flow directly from the theory of ‘Socialism in One Country’ and the line laid down in the Comintern Programme of 1928. And that theory represented a necessity for the bureaucracy. The consequences, however, were independent of its Trotsky, his wife Natalia, and his son Leon Sedov in’ exile, Alma Ata, 1929, TROTSKY’S STRUGGLE AGAINST BUREAUCRACY will; they had the result of underlining the isola- tion and danger of the Soviet regime and thus the bureaucracy opposed all the more vehemently the Platform of the Left Opposition. Under Stalin’s direction, therefore, it slid with increasing speed towards a complete break with Bolshevism, extending its control over the party, driving out the oppositionists and finally exterminating them physically. Trotsky struggled for a number of years through his exile in Alma Ata and then in Turkey and France to redress the international commun- ist movement, to bring it back to the Leninist road. Even when his supporters had been ‘ex- pelled from the Communist Parties they did not form new parties but re-grouped still as an opposition faction, albeit one which was obliged to have a separate existence. Through this period, which extends from 1928 to 1933, Trotsky’s struggle was based on the continued possibility of redeeming the Communist Parties by an appeal to the healthy elements within them. It was, more- over, aS an opposition faction that Trotsky de- veloped the tactical positions of the time. But both during the struggle in Russia and -after his exile his position was always complicated by his desire to conserve the party and not to provide ammunition for those who wished to destroy it for their own reasons and were enemies of central- ism—something quite different from bureaucrat- ism, as he had pointed out in 1923. At the same time it was necessary to deal with those, mostly ultra-lefts, who took the defeats suffered by the opposition and the policies pursued by Stalin to signify that the Soviet Union had become a new form of exploiting society. For Trotsky the fact that the means of production remained in the hands of the Soviet state, that the land was nationalized and the monopoly of foreign trade 4 See The Platform of the Left Opposition, New Park Publications (London 1963) 91

[p029] scshliey: 4 Natalia, and his son Leon Sedov in exile, Alma Ata, 1929,

[p030] Standing I. to r.: B. M. Eltsin, Maliuta, V. A. Ter-Vaganyan. Trotskyist Opposition leaders of 1928 Seated |. to r.: Ischenko, I. N. Smirnov, L. D. Trotsky, I. T. Smilga, Alsky. ManNevelson, Rafail, Sokrat, remained in force meant that the basic social and economic conquests of the October Revolution had been preserved. It was, therefore, of first importance to defend these gains both against the bourgeoisie and against the Stalin faction, which was incapable of defending them by its own policies. In the polemics against the German ultra- left Urbahns Trotsky’s characterization of the development of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union began to take on a more definite form and was to provide the basis for the more fully worked out approach to be found in The Revolution Be- trayed and In Defence of Marxism.’ It should be born in mind, however, that at this stage Trotsky still regarded Stalinism as a centrist trend and the reform of the Communist Parties as possible. Care has therefore to be taken in transposing the tactical positions which Trotsky took up at this time to a later period when the Stalinist bureaucracy had become com- pletely counter-revolutionary and the need for a political revolution became an essential part of his programme.® The years of Trotsky’s exile in Turkey saw the Opposition inside Russian hounded and destroyed at the same time as Stalin’s adoption of a policy of rapid industrialization and forced collectiviza- tion disoriented many of his followers. It also saw the rise of Nazism in Germany and the imposition of a policy on the Communist Party by Stalin which led to the crushing defeat of the working class which Trotsky had tried to avert in a series of brilliant pamphlets and articles. In the first weeks after Hitler had taken power Trotsky be- 92 Seated 1. to r.: L. P. Serebriakov, K. B. Radek, L. D. Trotsky, M. S. Boguslavsky, E. A. Preobrazhensky. Standing |. to r.: G. C. Rakovsky, Y. N. Drobnis, A. A. G. Beloborodov, L. S. Sosnovsky. lieved that the Communists and Socialists could rally the working class for a struggle which could lead the way for the overthrow of capitalism. Within a short time, however, the decisive nature of the defeat, and thus the deep guilt of the Stalin- ists, became apparent. The destruction of the great organizations of the most advanced proletariat in Europe after their defeat without a struggle posed the need for a deep re-thinking of the position of the Left Opposition. The policy pur- sued in the previous years could not long be per- sisted in. The counter-revolutionary character of the Stalinist bureaucracy had now been revealed. It had consciously and deliberately prevented the German communists from waging an_ effective fight against fascism. It had now come to fear the extension of revolution to other countries at the same time as its position as a ruling caste in the USSR had become consolidated. 5 For reasons of space an examination of the retro- spective analysis of the rise of the bureaucracy and the degeneration of the Soviet state made by Trotsky has not been made in this article. Readers will find The Revolution Betrayed the most acces- sible source; see also Trotsky’s Stalin. 6 For instance, Pabloite revisionism found its theoretical justification, as far as it had any, in Trotsky’s position at this time. It was significant, therefore, that when the Pabloites began to pub- lish Trotsky’s writings in French the first volume consisted predominantly of material from this period. Although they have subsequently pub- lished Trotsky’s articles on Germany and Spain and The Revolution Betrayed they have still not published the documents relating to this change of line and its application to the bureaucracy. and to the political revolution. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, NOVEMBER, 1967

[p031] To make the shift to a new policy was no easy matter. As an American supporter of the time put it: ‘when one’s memory turns to the month of March, 1933, it cannot be denied that the new policy was a surprise to the members of the Left Opposition. The daily activity of each of the sec- tions was centred exclusively around the Com- munist Party; and to develop a new line, even if it were only for one of our sections, was to break with a tradition of ten years’ standing. The great authority of Trotsky made it possible to bring about the change in line rapidly and with cohesion. Without him the lessons of the events in Ger- many would have surely been learned in our ranks, but after how many months of discussion?” This then was a pivotal date. The lessons of the German disaster made it imperative, firstly, to set out to build new parties and consequently a new international. Secondly, it meant abandoning the policy of reform in relation to the organs controlled by the bureaucracy and raising the demand for a new revolution, a political revolu- tion, in the Soviet Union. Much of the old theor- etical analysis and programme became inade- quate as it stood, though a good deal could be incorporated into the fuller analysis which now had to be made of the processes at work in the - Soviet Union and in the international communist movement. The urgency of these tasks was empha- sized by the realization that the triumph of Hitler raised the threat of yet more defeats for the work- ing class, especially in Europe, and would be fol- lowed inevitably by a war on the Soviet Union which the bourgeoisie of the other capitalist states would support or perhaps join. On the theoretical front, meanwhile, much confusion had been caused by the German debdcle and the events in the Soviet Union. This, in turn, reflected what Trotsky was later to make the starting point of his call for the Fourth International: the crisis of leadership in the working-class movement. The crisis of Social Democracy associated with the rise of bureaucracy in the old leadership was now paralleled by the crisis of Stalinism in the parties of the Third International. In the wake of this — new situation, compounded of the apostasy of the reformists and the bankruptcy of the self-styled revolutionaries of the Third International, centrist trends affiliated to neither enjoyed a brief heyday. Attracted for a time to the Left Opposition, few of those associated with the centrists proved able to make a clear break with reformism or Stalinism and support the call for a new international in TROTSKY’S STRUGGLE AGAINST BUREAUCRACY deeds as well as words. In the main, therefore, the sections of the future Fourth International had to be assembled slowly, piece by piece, from a few dissident Com- munist Party members, the best of the centrists, youth repelled by the old leaderships, intellectuals attracted to Trotsky often on a basis of personal esteem. In few cases was there available an ex- perienced cadre with roots in the working class; in most no more than a few individuals to trans- late and circulate Trotsky’s writings and begin from scratch, against the hostility of Social Demo- crats and Stalinists, the difficult and lengthy pro- cess of building new parties. Very definitely, then, Trotsky’s followers—he preferred the term ‘co- thinkers’—were swimming against the current. Very little in the objective situation favoured their efforts, however real the need for new parties was. The old leaderships remained strongly entrenched with large and well-financed organizations at their command and the traditional loyalty of the work- ing class to fall back upon even in times of defeat and betrayal. Workers were naturally reluctant to try new leaders whom they did not know, who lacked experience and who were frequently of petty-bourgeois origin. Moreover, the anti- Trotskyist campaign was both virulent and telling, coupled as it was with the subtle appeals of the Popular Front. It is not difficult, therefore, to explain why the progress of the Trotskyist movement during the 1930s was slow and difficult. There could be no ‘spontaneous’ resolution of the crisis of leader- ship, nor was the movement, as it gathered shape, free from the weaknesses which flowed from its social composition and from the theoretical con- fusion which prevailed outside its ranks. Pressures came from various sources: from petty bourgeois public opinion alarmed by the course of events in the Soviet Union and from the Communist Parties which, in a number of countries, grew rapidly in size and prestige at the end of the thirties. Trotsky’s last years were devoted to a many- sided struggle against the bureaucracy. Practic- ally, this meant building the national sections of the new international movement as the legitimate continuators of Leninism and Bolshevism and finally launching the Fourth International itself. Closely associated with this went the constant 7 Anne Vincent, How the Fourth International Was Conceived, Fourth International (USA), Vol. 5, No. 8, August, 1944. 93

[p032] development of theory both as straightforward analysis and as polemic. It was necessary to ex- amine and explain the course of events in the Soviet Union: how had the bureaucracy arisen? Why had it succeeded? What was its social Vi In defining the nature of the Soviet state Trotsky insisted upon its revolutionary origins and on the preservation of the essential conquests of October. From this derived the basic position of defence of the Soviet Union as an unconditional duty. At the same time, the political rule of the working class had been usurped by the bureau-_ cratic caste which took over the Party and the State, with Stalin as its representative, in the 1920s and had then moved on to a counter- revolutionary path. This process was designated by Trotsky as one of ‘degeneration’ and the Soviet Union was consequently defined as a degenerated workers’ state. By this he meant that no new property relations had taken the place of those established by the successful revolution of 1917 but that the rise of the bureaucracy represented a parasitic growth on the healthy base of national- ized property and the planned economy. Only the overthrow of this bureaucracy could guarantee the workers’ state against the restoration of bour- geois rule; but its fate would clearly be decided aS part of the international class struggle. Re- quired in Russia, therefore, was a political revolu- tion carried out by the working class to enter into the full heritage of October. Trotsky vigor- ously opposed all those who argued that the bureaucracy had become a class ruling over a new form of exploiting society. He refused to accept that it had a legitimate claim to rule based upon a given set of property relations, as such a view implied. On the other hand, from 1933, he had definitely abandoned any possibility that the bureaucracy could reform itself and would be re- absorbed into revolutionary organs of working- class power. His call for a political revolution was addressed to the working class, not a plea to the bureaucracy to return to Lenin. The whole history and nature of the bureaucracy made any such outcome inconceivable: having destroyed the Bolshevik Party and wiped out all those faithful to its traditions, the bureaucracy had drawn a veritable river of blood between itself and the true heirs of Bolshevism who would arise in Russia. In this fiftieth year of the Russian Revolution, twenty seven years after the assassination of Leon Trotsky by one of the bureaucracy’s agents, the 94 nature? What position should revolutionaries adopt towards it? In answering questions such as these Trotsky worked out a position which, sub- stantially, remains that of Trotskyism, of the Fourth International, to this day. significance of his struggle becomes more appar- ent than ever. The events since the death of Stalin have revealed the growing crisis of the bureau- cracy and shown in outline the shape of the political revolution to come. The disastrous poli- tical consequences of the policies of Stalin and his successors are now being brought home more forcefully than at any previous time. The Com- munist Parties have assumed the role of peaceable proponents of social reform and co-existence with capitalism ever ready to do a deal with bourgeois — politicians when it suits the interests of the Soviet Union. By and large they do not have to be told to act in this way, their social base in their own countries provides sufficient pressure for such policies. The more openly counter-revolu- tionary policies of the Communist Parties, the compromises with capitalism and the restoration- ist tendencies in the countries ruled by the bureau- cracy and the declining credibility of the reformist bureaucracy in its Western European strongholds provide all the confirmation which one could wish for the Transitional Programme which Trot- sky drew up for the Founding Conference of the Fourth International in 1938. It is fitting, therefore, to conclude this brief survey of Trotsky’s struggle against the Stalinist degeneration with an extract from that document which retains all its validity today. The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers’ state. State ownership of the means of production, a necessary pre-requisite to socialist development, opened up the possibility of rapid growth of the productive forces. But the apparatus of the workers’ state underwent a com- plete degeneration at the same time: it was trans- formed from a weapon of the working class into a weapon of bureaucratic violence against the working class and more and more a weapon for the sabotage of the country’s economy. The bureaucratization of a backward and_ isolated workers’ state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste constitutes the most convincing refutation—not only theoretically but this time practically—of the _ theory of socialism in one country. The USSR thus embodies terrific contradictions. But it still remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such is still the social diagnosis. The political prog- FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, NOVEMBER, 1967

[p033] nosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, becoming ever more an organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will over- throw the new forms of property and plunge the country back into capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.® Fifty years after October, the question of whether the Soviet Union will move backward to capitalism or some unique form of exploiting society or forward to socialism still remains to be decided.® The vast changes which have taken place since Trotsky’s death have not decided the ques- tion. The betrayals of the bureaucracy, despite what is thought in Pekin, have not led to the restoration of bourgeois rule; if it had there would be not much to celebrate or to anticipate on this fiftieth anniversary, only an episode of no greater current political importance than the Paris Commune. In fact, of course, the option of the political revolution not only remains open but has been made more real by the crisis of the bureaucracy and the growing confidence of the striking confirmation of Trotsky’s prognosis and a harbinger of the shape of things to come. It de- serves, therefore, to be firmly linked with the commemoration of the Bolshevik victory of 1917. working class in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The. Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was both a 8 The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (Socialist Labour League, London), pp. 43-4. 9 See Trotsky’s definition in The Revolution Be- trayed, pp. 254-6. 10 Thus, according to an article in The Pekin Review, No. 27, June 9, 1967, p. 23: ‘In the Soviet Union, the first socialist state in the world, set up by Lenin, the dictatorship of the proletariat has today become the dictatorship of the bour- geoisie, capitalism has been restored and the socialist state has changed colour.’ This has allegedly been the result of what the writer calls ‘an historical retrogression’ (unwinding the film of reformism backwards, Trotsky would have said) in which ‘the bourgeoisie has effected counter- revolutionary restoration through its agents’. A long line of ultra-lefts and other critics of the bureaucracy have—like the Yugoslavs in their time—argued similarly. But what about the role of the working class? And the Marxist-Leninist theory of the state and revolution? THE AGE OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION TROTSKY’S STRUGGLE AGAINST BUREAUCRACY A TROTSKY ANTHOLOGY Edited with an introduction by Isaac Deutscher (with the assistance of George Novak). Published by Dell Publish- ing Co. Inc. Distributed in Britain by New Park Publica- tions Ltd. Price 9s. 6d. A concise and invaluable collection of Trotsky’s writings. The theoretical genius of one of the world’s great Marxists and co-leader of the first successful socialist revolution is brilliantly revealed in this book. It is an indispensable addition to the library of all communists who are serious about studying, understanding and grasping the method and programme of contemporary Marxism. Orders to: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, S.W.4 95

[p034] RMANENT REVOLUTIO A TROTSKY ANTHOLO Edited with an introduction by Isaac Deutscher (with the assistance of George Novak). Published by Dell Publish- ing Co. Inc. Distributed in Britain by New Park Publica- tions Ltd. Price 9s. 6d. A concise and invaluable collection of Trotsky’s writings. The theoretical genius of one of the world’s great Marxists and co-leader of the first successful socialist revolution is brilliantly revealed in this book. It is an indispensable addition to the library of all communists who are serious about studying, understanding and grasping the method and programme of contemporary Marxism. Orders to: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, S.W.4 TROTSKY’S STRUGGLE AGAINST BUREAUCRACY 95

[p035] Kugenii A. Preobrazhensky MANY ECONOMISTS AND other writers are agreed that the present Soviet economy, despite all its ‘progress’ since 1917, faces many serious and deep- seated problems which are no nearer to solution than they were 50 years ago. These problems of an isolated Soviet economy take many forms, not least of all a tendency operating throughout all the recent plans for the rate of growth of the social product to slow down. Despite its rapid advances in certain fields, the Soviet Union lags seriously behind the capitalist West in many key areas of the economy, producing distortion and unbalance between the various branches of in- dustry and especially in the relations between industry and agriculture. These problems are not the result of ‘accident’ or ‘chance’. They stem essentially from the iso- lation of the Soviet economy and its separation from the international division of labour and trade as well as distortions arising from the planning system, which, while resting on a nation- alized property base, is under the control of a parasitic bureaucracy and not of the working class as a whole. The 1920s witnessed a fierce debate inside Russia which was intimately linked with many of these questions. The discussion centred on the problem of how and under what national and in- ternational conditions industrialization could take place in a country which, from an economic and cultural point of view, fell considerably behind the levels achieved in the leading metropolitan 96 countries. In particular, acute problems were created by the existence of a massive and con- servative peasantry constituting over 80 per cent of the total population. It was with these problems that members of the Left Opposition, centred around Trotsky, among whom Preobrazhensky was prominent, grappled from the mid-1920s onwards—coming into sharper and sharper conflict with the leaders of the Party and in particular with Stalin. But the dispute between the leadership and the Left Oppo- sition was never a purely economic debate. It was part of a more general struggle against the emergence of a conservative and parasitic bureau- cracy in Party and State. In order to set the controversies of the period in correct perspective it is necessary briefly to trace in outline the main stages in the evolution of Soviet economic policy in the years after 1917. The enormous problems which confronted the successful revolution after 1917—the backward- ness of the economy, the predominance of the peasantry, the havoc created by the First World War, etc.—were enormously intensified as a result of the Civil War which the Bolsheviks were forced to wage in order to preserve the revolution from its external and internal enemies. During the period of the Civil War and its immediate after- math the whole of economic life had to be geared and organized to meet the needs of the front and the armaments industries. All efforts had to be concentrated on suplying the war industries and FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, NOVEMBER, 1967

[p036] keeping the city population alive. This period—the period of War Communism— had disastrous consequences for the long term productive power and capacity of the economy, which by 1921 had fallen to one fifth of its pre- war capacity. This phase of economic policy, in- volving as it did the systematic regimentation of production at the expense of immediate consump- tion, was of course forced upon the leaders of the revolution. But it is also necessary to stress that it was a policy which was based upon the firm assumption, later to be abandoned by Stalin and his supporters, that socialism could be established in the Soviet Union only with the assistance, in terms of skilled manpower, techni- cal knowledge and equipment, of a socialist Europe. It was in response to the great problems which resulted from the period of War Communism that a strategic and temporary retreat had to be made. The retreat took the form of the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in March 1921. The basic aim of NEP was to use the forces of the market on a limitéd and con- trolled basis as a means of re-establishing rela- tions between the town and the -countryside. Industry was to supply the rural areas with the necessary goods at such prices as would allow the State to dispense with forcible collection of the products of peasant labour, as was the case under War Communism. Secondly it was a policy designed to raise production by bringing into play all the under-utilized plant and equipment which had existed during the period of the Civil War. In purely economic terms the policy met with considerable success. By 1926 industrial pro- duction was back to its pre-war level and had expanded five-fold in the period since 1921. Even from the economic point of view there were limits to the results which could be achieved through this turn in economic policy. Once all the spare industrial capacity had been brought into play, the only increase in the social product pos- sible was one achieved through additional amounts of investment, that is by means of accumulation. From the political point of view, the adoption and retention of NEP involved not merely limita- tions but positive dangers. NEP had represented a necessary concession to the forces of the mar- ket and of capitalism. Lenin, in arguing for the need to make these retreats, was also very con- scious of the dangers involved. On the one hand the development of the forces of production which was made possible through NEP gave greater strength and homogeneity to the working