N.I. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky: The ABC of Communism
THE November revolution [October 25th, old style; November 7th, new style, 1917] in Russia, realised the dictatorship of the proletariat, which began to build the foundations of communist society, with the aid of the poor peasants or the semi-proletariat. The development of the revolution in Germany and Austria-Hungary, the growth of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in all advanced lands, the spread of the soviet form of that movement (the form which aimed directly at realising the dictatorship of the proletariat) — these things combined to show that the era of the world-wide proletarian communist revolution had begun.
This revolution was the inevitable result of the development of capitalism, which had hitherto been dominant in the majority of civilised countries. If we ignore the misleading designation of the party as “social democratic,” and use instead the word “communist,” our old program accurately characterised in the following theses the nature of capitalism and of bourgeois society:[§1-5.]
“As the chief characteristic of this society, we have commodity production upon the foundation of capitalist productive relationships, in accordance with which the most important and significant part of the means of the production and distribution of commodities is owned by a comparatively small class of persons, whereas the great Majority of the population consists of proletarians and semi-proletarians compelled by their economic position to sell their labour power permanently or from time to time, compelled, that is to say, to become wage workers in the service of the capitalists, and to create by their labour the income of the higher classes of society.[§6-13.]
“The domain of capitalist productive relationships continually extends in proportion to the continued improvement of technique, which increases the economic importance of large-scale enterprises, and leads to the crushing out of petty independent producers, converting some of them into proletarians, restricting the role of the remainder in social and economic life, and in many places making them more or less completely, more or less obviously, more or less miserably — the dependents of capital.[§14.]
“Moreover, this technical progress enables the entrepreneurs, to an increasing extent, to apply the labour of women and children to the process of producing and distributing commodities. In like measure, on the other hand, it leads to a comparative restriction of the demand on the part of the entrepreneurs for the living labour of the workers, so that the demand for labour power is necessarily inferior to the supply. Hence arise, first, an increase in the dependence of wage labour upon capital, and, secondly, a rise in the rate of exploitation.[§15.]
“This state of affairs in capitalist countries, and the continued intensification of their competition in the world market, give rise to more and more difficulty in disposing of the commodities which are produced in continually increasing quantities. Over-production, manifesting itself in more or less acute crises of production which are followed by more or less prolonged periods of stagnation, is the inevitable outcome of the development of productive strength in bourgeois society. Crises, and periods in which production is stagnant, lead, in their turn, to the more and more widespread ruin of the small producers, increase the dependence of wage labour upon capital, and give rise all the more speedily to a comparative or absolute worsening of the position of the working class.[§16.]
“In this manner, the improvement in technique, leading to an increase in the productivity of labour and to an increase in social wealth, entails in bourgeois society an increase in social inequality, a widening of the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, an increase in the insecurity of life, in unemployment, and in various kinds of deprivation for wider and wider circles among the labouring masses.
“In proportion as the contradictions peculiar to bourgeois society grow and develop, so also does there increase the discontent of the toiling and exploited masses with the existing order of things, and so also do there increase the number and the solidarity of the proletarians and the intensity of their struggle with the exploiters.[§17.] At the same time the advance of technique, concentrating the means of production and distribution and socialising the labour process in capitalist undertakings, creates with greater and greater speed the material possibilities for the transformation of capitalist into communist productive relationships; it creates, that is to say, the social revolution, which takes as its final aim all the activities of the international communist parties, regarded as conscious expressions of the class movement.[§18.]
“Transforming private ownership of the means of production and distribution into social ownership, and leading to the purposive organisation of the social productive process for the safeguarding of the prosperity and the many-sided development of all the members of society, the social revolution of the proletariat puts an end to the division of society into classes, and thereby liberates the whole of oppressed mankind, thus abolishing all forms of exploitation of one section of society by another.[§19-22.]
“A necessary condition for this social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat, this meaning the conquest by the proletariat of such a degree of political power as will enable it to crush the resistance of the exploiters.[§23 & 24.] Determining to make the proletariat capable of fulfilling its great historic mission, the international Communist Party organises the proletariat into an independent political party, opposed to all the bourgeois parties; leads the workers in all the manifestations of the class struggle; reveals to the exploited the irreconcilable conflict of interests between themselves and the exploiters; and explains to the proletariat the historical significance and the necessary conditions of the imminent social revolution. At the same time, the party reveals to the other sections of the toiling and exploited masses the hopelessness of their condition in capitalist society, and shows them that the social revolution is indispensable in order that they may secure their own deliverance from the yoke of capital. The party of the working class, the Communist Party, summons to its ranks all strata of the toiling and exploited population in so far as they have accepted the proletarian outlook.”[§25]
The process of the concentration and centralisation of capital, destroying free competition, led in the beginning of the twentieth century to the creation of powerful, monopolist, capitalist combines — syndicates, cartels, and trusts — which acquired a decisive significance in economic life; it led also to the amalgamation of banking capital with highly concentrated industrial capital, and to the vigorous export of capital into foreign lands. Trusts comprising whole groups of capitalist Powers began the economic partition of the world which had already been partitioned territorially among the richer countries. This epoch of financial capital, inevitably intensifying the struggle between the capitalist States, is the epoch of imperialism.[§26-28.]
Hence inevitably arise imperialist wars, wars for markets, for spheres for the investment of capital, for raw materials, and for labour power, that is to say, wars for world dominion and for power over small and weak nations. Such was the first great imperialist war of 1914 to 1918.[§29 & 30.]
The vast development of world capitalism; the change from a system of free competition to a system in which monopolist capitalism was dominant; the creation by the banks, and also by the capitalist combines, of an apparatus for the joint regulation of the process of the production and distribution of commodities; the rise in the cost of living, the oppression of the workers by the employers’ syndicates, the enslavement of the working class by the imperialist State, the colossal difficulties facing the proletariat in its economic and political struggle (phenomena inevitably associated with the growth of capitalist monopoly); the miseries, the poverty, and the ruin which issued from the imperialist war — all these things have inevitably contributed to the collapse of capitalism and to the transition to a higher type of social economy.[§31.]
The imperialist war could not end in a just peace or even in any sort of stable peace between the bourgeois governments. At the stage of development which capitalism has now reached this war must inevitably be transformed, and is being transformed under our very eyes, into a civil war between the exploited and toiling masses (led by the proletariat) and the bourgeoisie.[§32.]
The vigorous onslaught made by the proletariat, and the victories secured by the workers in various lands, have intensified the resistance of the exploiters, and have led to the creation of new forms of international union among the capitalists (the League of Nations, etc.); these, organising upon a world scale, by the systematic exploitation of all the peoples of the globe, and concentrating their forces, aim at the direct crushing of the proletarian movement in all lands.
All this inevitably leads to the conjuncture of civil wars within the individual States, with revolutionary wars, waged in part by the proletarian States that are defending themselves against capitalist attack, and in part by the oppressed peoples that are endeavouring to throw off the yoke of the imperialist Powers.[§33 & 34.]
In these circumstances the watchwords of pacifism, international disarmament under capitalism, the founding of courts of arbitration, etc., are something worse than reactionary utopism; they are a direct fraud upon the workers, aiming at the disarmament of the proletariat and at diverting it from the task of disarming the exploiters.
Nothing but the proletarian, the communist revolution can lead humanity out of the blind alley in which it has been placed by imperialism and imperialist wars. However great the difficulties in the way of the revolution, whatever temporary defeats it may sustain, however high the waves of the counter-revolution, the ultimate victory of the proletariat is assured.[The latter part of §37.]
To bring about the victory of the world-wide proletarian revolution it is essential that there should be absolute and mutual trust, the most intimate brotherly alliance, and the highest possible cohesion of the revolutionary activities of the working class in the more advanced lands.
These conditions cannot be realised without making it a matter of principle to break off relations with and to wage a pitiless struggle against that bourgeois perversion of socialism which is dominant in the leading official social democratic and socialist parties.[§35.]
In this perversion there is displayed, on the one hand, the trend of opportunism and jingo socialism, of that which calls itself socialism but is in fact jingoism, the mask of those who defend the predatory interests of their own national bourgeoisie under colour of the false watchword of the defence of the fatherland — a watchword applied both generally, and specifically to the imperialist war of 1914 to 1918. This trend originated because the seizure of colonies and the oppression of weak nations by the advanced capitalist States has enabled the bourgeoisies of these countries, out of the vast gains which have accrued from such plunderings, to offer a privileged position to the more highly skilled members of the proletariat, and thus in effect to buy them in peace time by giving them an advantageous petty-bourgeois status; at the same time the bourgeoisie takes into its service the leaders of this stratum. The opportunists and the jingo socialists, having become the servants of the bourgeoisie, are the direct class enemies of the proletariat, especially to-day, when in alliance with the capitalists they are endeavouring by force of arms to crush the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in their own and in other lands.[§36-38.]
On the other hand, concurrently with the growth of this bourgeois perversion of socialism, there appears the centrist trend, which manifests itself in like manner in all capitalist countries. The centre see-saws between the jingo socialists and the communists, maintaining its union with the former, and endeavouring to reconstruct the bankrupt Second International.[§39.] As leader in the struggle of the proletariat for emancipation, there is only the new, the Third, the Communist International, to the ranks of which belongs the Russian Communist Party. This International has in fact been created by the organisation of communist parties out of the genuinely proletarian elements among the socialist parties in various countries, and especially Germany; it was formally constituted in March, 1919, and its first session was held in Moscow. The Communist International, receiving more and more support from the proletarian masses in all lands, has returned to Marxism not merely in the name it has adopted, but also in its ideological and political tenets; and in all its activities it realises the revolutionary teaching of Marx, cleansed of bourgeois-opportunist perversions.[§40.]
Concretely realising the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship as applied to Russia, a land whose most notable peculiarity is the numerical predominance of the petty-bourgeois stratum of the population, the Russian Communist Party has defined these tasks in the following manner:[§41-45.]
A bourgeois republic, however democratic, hallowed by the watchwords of the will of the people, the will of the whole nation, the will of all classes, inevitably expresses — through the very fact that it is based upon the private ownership of the land and other means of production — the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, of a machine for the exploitation and oppression of the immense majority of the workers by the capitalist clique. In contrast with this, proletarian or soviet democracy transforms the mass organisations of those who are oppressed by the capitalist class, of the proletarians and the semi-proletarians (the poor peasants), that is to say, of the immense majority of the population, into the permanent and unified foundation of the entire State apparatus, local and central, from the bottom to the top. Thereby the Soviet State realises, among other things, in an immeasurably wider form than ever before, local self-government, without any sort of authority imposed from above. It is the task of our party to work indefatigably on behalf of the complete inauguration of that higher type of democracy which needs for its right functioning the continuous uplifting of the level of culture, organisation, and initiative power of the masses.[§46 & 47.]
In contrast with bourgeois democracy, which conceals the class character of the capitalist State, the Soviet Power openly recognises that every State will inevitably have a class character until the division of society into classes shall have completely disappeared, and therewith all State authority shall have vanished. The Soviet State, which by its very nature has led to the crushing of the resistance of the exploiters, and the Soviet Constitution, which is based upon the idea that all freedom is a fraud in so far as it conflicts with the deliverance of labour from the yoke of capital, does not shrink from depriving the exploiters of political rights. Our party, the party of the proletariat, while inexorably crushing the resistance of the exploiters, and while fighting in the field of ideas against the deep-rooted prejudices in accordance with which bourgeois rights and freedoms are regarded as inviolable, must at the same time make it perfectly clear that the forfeiture of political rights, and whatever limitations may be imposed upon freedom, are necessary only as temporary measures to cope with the attempts of the exploiters to regain their privileges. Concurrently with the disappearance of the objective possibility of the exploitation of man by man, there will likewise disappear the need for these temporary measures, and our party will aim at their restriction and ultimately at their complete abolition.[§48.]
Bourgeois democracy is organised upon the basis of the formal diffusion of political rights and freedoms: for instance, the right of public meeting, the right of combination, the freedom of the press; all citizens being regarded as equal in these respects. But in actual fact, as concerns administrative practice, and above all in view of their economic slavery, under bourgeois democracy the workers have always stood in the rear ranks, and have been unable to any notable extent to realise these rights and freedoms.
On the contrary, proletarian democracy, instead of formally proclaiming rights and freedoms, does in actual fact realise these rights and freedoms first of all and more than all for that very class of the population which was oppressed by capitalism, namely, for the proletariat and the peasantry. For this reason, the Soviet Power confiscates the possessions of the bourgeoisie, i.e. its printing presses, stores of paper, etc., in order to place them entirely at the disposal of the workers and their organisations.
The Russian Communist Party must induce wider and yet wider masses of the working population to avail themselves of democratic rights and freedoms, and it must enlarge the material possibilities in this direction.[§49.]
Bourgeois democracy has repeatedly proclaimed the equality of individuals independently of sex, race, religion, and nationality: but capitalism has nowhere been able to realise this equality of rights in practice, and in its imperialistic phase it has brought about an extreme intensification of racial and national oppression. Simply for the reason that the Soviet Power is the workers’ Power, it has been able completely and in all spheres of life to effect for the first time in the world the entire abolition of the last traces of the inequality of women in the spheres of conjugal and family rights. At the present moment, it is the task of our party to labour in the field of ideas and in the field of education preeminently to this end, that it may effect the final destruction of all traces of former inequality and prejudice, especially among the backward strata of the proletariat and the peasantry.
Not content to proclaim a formal equality of rights for women, the party endeavours to free them from the material burdens of the old domestic economy by substituting for that economy communal housing, communal dining rooms, central wash houses, creches, etc.[§50.]
The Soviet Power secures for the working masses, to an incomparably greater extent than was secured for them under bourgeois democracy and parliamentarism, the power of carrying on the election and recall of delegates; this is made easy and accessible for the benefit of the workers and the peasants. Thus the Soviet Power compensates the defects of the parliamentary system — especially the separation of the legislative and executive spheres characteristic of that system, the withdrawal of representative institutions from the masses, etc.
The Soviet State likewise approximates the State apparatus to the masses in this way, that the electoral units of the State, the fundamental cells out of which it is constructed, no longer consist of territorial constituencies, but are now productive units (factories and workshops).
Our party must concentrate its energies upon the task of bringing about a closer approximation between the instruments of power and the working masses, upon the basis of a clearer and fuller realisation by these masses of democracy in practice, especially by promoting the responsibility and accountability of the persons chiefly concerned.[§51.]
Whereas bourgeois democracy, in spite of its professions to the contrary, made of the army a tool of the well-to-do classes, detaching it from the working masses and setting it up against them, making it impossible or difficult for the soldier to exercise his political rights, the Soviet State brings the workers and the soldiers together in its organs, the soviets, in which they have equal rights and identical interests. It is the task of our party to safeguard and promote this union of the workers and the soldiers in the soviets, and to strengthen the indissoluble unity of the armed forces with the organisations of the proletariat and semi-proletariat.[§52.]
The industrial urban proletariat, comprising that portion of the toiling masses which is most highly concentrated, most united, most enlightened, and most perfectly tempered for the struggle, must be the leader in all revolutions. From the first, the proletariat assumed this role in the soviets, and has continued to play the leading part throughout their development into organs of power. Our Soviet Constitution reflects this, by assigning certain preferential rights to the industrial proletariat, as compared with the comparatively disunited petty-bourgeois masses in the villages.
Recognising the temporary character of these privileges, which are historically dependent upon the difficulty of effecting the socialist organisation of the villages, the Russian Communist Party must do its utmost, unerringly and systematically, to make a good use of this situation of the industrial proletariat. As a counterpoise to the narrow trade and craft interests which capitalism promoted among the workers, our party must effect a closer union between the vanguard of the workers, on the one hand, and the comparatively backward and disintegrated masses of the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat, together with the middle peasants, on the other.[§53.]
Only thanks to the soviet organisation of the State was it possible for the proletarian revolution at a single blow to overthrow and raze to the ground the old State apparatus of the bourgeoisie, with its officialdom and its judicial machinery. However, the comparatively low cultural level of the masses, the lack of the requisite experience of administrative work in those who have been summoned by the masses to fill responsible posts, the need for providing exceptional inducements to experts of the old school whose services are needed in difficult matters, in conjunction with the withdrawal of the most advanced stratum of the urban workers (who had to undertake war service), have led to a partial revival of bureaucracy within the soviet system.
Engaged in a decisive struggle with bureaucracy, the Russian Communist Party advocates the following measures for the complete eradication of this evil:
1. Every member of a soviet must undertake some definite work in the administrative service.
2. There must be a continuous rotation among those who engage in such duties, so that each member shall in turn gain experience in every branch of administration.
3. By degrees, the whole working population must be induced to take turns in the administrative service.
The complete and many-sided application of all these measures (which represent further steps along the road which the Paris Commune entered as a pioneer), in conjunction with a simplification of the function of administration when the workers shall have attained a higher cultural level, will lead to the disappearance of the State authority.[§54.]
Upon the question of nationality the Russian Communist Party adopts the following theses:
1. Of primary importance is the policy of uniting the proletarians and semi-proletarians of various nationalities in a joint revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the landlords and the bourgeoisie.[§55-77 & 60.]
2. In order to overcome the feelings of suspicion which the working masses in any oppressed land entertain towards the proletariat of the oppressor State, it is essential to annul any and every privilege on the part of any national group, to secure complete national equality, and to recognise that colonies and oppressed nationalities have a full right to secede.[§58.]
3. To secure these ends, the party recommends (as a transitional step towards complete union) a federative union of all the States which are organised on a soviet basis.
4. With regard to the question, Who is entitled to express the will of a nation to secede, the Russian Communist Party adopts the historical class point of view, taking into account the stage of historical development which any particular nation happens to have reached — whether, for instance, it is passing from medievalism to bourgeois democracy, from bourgeois democracy to soviet or proletarian democracy, etc.[§59.]
In each case, on the part of the proletariat of those nations which are or have been oppressor nations, it is necessary that there should be extreme discretion, and that the utmost consideration should be paid to the survival of national sentiments among the working masses of nations which have been oppressed or have been deprived of equal rights. Only by such a policy will it be possible to create conditions for the realisation of a durable and amicable union between the diverse national elements of the international proletariat. This has been proved by the experience of the union with the various national soviet republics adjacent to Soviet Russia.
As regards military affairs, the aims of the party are summed up in the following theses:
1. During the epoch when imperialism is breaking up and when the civil war rages, it is impossible to preserve the old army, and it is equally impossible to construct a new army upon a so-called non-class or whole-nation basis. The Red Army as the instrument of proletarian dictatorship must necessarily have a declared class character; that is to say, it must be exclusively composed of the proletariat and of the kindred semi-proletarian strata of the peasantry. Only when class has completely disappeared, can such an army be transformed into a socialist militia comprising the whole people.[§61,62 & 69.]
2. It is essential that all members of the proletariat and semi-proletariat should receive military training, and that suitable military instruction should be given in the schools.[§63.]
3. The work of military training and instruction of the Red Army is effected upon a basis of class solidarity and socialist enlightenment. For this reason there must be political commissars, appointed from among trusty and self-denying communists, to cooperate with the military staff; and all the communist groups must be inspired with ideas of unity and self-imposed discipline.[§64 & 65.]
4. To counteract the system of the old army, the following measures are requisite: the period of barrack life must be reduced to the utmost; the barracks must be assimilated to the type of military and politico-military schools; there must be the closest possible association between the military units and the factories, workshops, trade unions, and poor peasants’ organisations.[§66.]
5. The requisite solidarity and stability can only be supplied to the young revolutionary army by means of an officers’ staff composed of class-conscious workers and peasants, appointed only as subalterns at the outset. Obviously, therefore, one of the most important tasks in the creation of the Red Army is to prepare for the duties of commanding officers those soldiers who are peculiarly capable and energetic and whose devotion to the cause of socialism is exceptionally ardent.[§67.]
6. We must make the widest possible practical use of the operative and technical experience gained during the world war. In the fulfilment of this aim we must attract to the work of organising the army and to its effective leadership the military experts who were trained in the schools of the old army. But a necessary condition of the employment of such experts is that the political leadership of the army and the effective control of the military staff shall be concentrated in the hands of the working class.
7. The demand for the election of officers, which had great importance as a matter of principle in relation to the bourgeois army whose commanders were especially trained as an apparatus for the class subjugation of the common soldiers (and, through the instrumentality of the common soldiers, the subjugation of the toiling masses), ceases to have any significance as a matter of principle in relation to the class army of the workers and peasants. A possible combination of election with appointment from above may be expedient for the revolutionary class army simply on practical grounds. Whether this is so or not depends upon the cultural level of the military units, upon the degree of solidarity among the sections of the army, upon the efficiency of the commanding cadres, and upon similar considerations.[§68.]
Taking into its hands all the powers of the bourgeois State, and sweeping away the instruments of that State without leaving any vestiges, sweeping away the law-courts of the old order together with the bourgeois-democratic formula “election of the judges by the people,” proletarian democracy issued the class watchword “election of judges from among the workers and by the workers alone.” It applied this watchword throughout the administration of justice, and at the same time equalised the rights of the two sexes both in the matter of the election of judges and in the matter of compulsory jury service.
In order to enrol for the administration of justice the widest possible masses of the proletariat and the poor peasantry, it was arranged that there should participate in the courts judge-assessors [jurors], continually changed at brief intervals, and it was stipulated that jury lists should be drawn up, showing the membership of the mass organisations of the workers, the trade unions, etc.[§70 & 71.]
Having created a unified popular law-court in place of the unending series of former courts in the social order which had been swept away (the system of-higher and lower courts in various grades), the Soviet Power constructed its own judicial system, making it easily accessible to the population, and putting an end to all delays in the administration of justice.
Having annulled the laws of the overthrown administration, the Soviet Power left to the elected soviet courts the realisation of the will of the proletariat and the practical enforcement of its decrees. In cases which are not provided for by the decrees, or to which the decrees are not wholly applicable, the courts are to be guided by a socialist sense of equity.[§72 & 73.]
In the domain of penal justice, courts organised in this fashion have already effected a radical change in the character of punishment, realising in a large measure the conditional sentence, introducing social censure as a penal method, substituting compulsory labour while the offender remains at large for the deprivation of liberty, substituting educational establishments for prisons, and making it possible to realise as a practical measure the institution of comradely courts of law.[§74.]
The Russian Communist Party, looking forward to the further development of justice along this road, must endeavour to secure that the whole working population shall participate by turns in the discharge of judicial duties, and that the penal system shall ultimately be transformed into a system of measures of an educative character.[§75.]
In the domain of popular education the Russian Communist Party has accepted as its task the completion of the work begun by the November revolution of 1917, the transformation of the school so that from being an organ for maintaining the class dominion of the bourgeoisie, it shall become an organ for the complete abolition of the division of society into classes, an organ for the communist regeneration of society.[§76 & 77.]
In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is to say, in the period when the conditions are being prepared which shall make it possible to achieve the complete realisation of communism, the school must be not merely a means for the conveyance of the principles of communism generally, but a means for the conveyance of the ideology and of the organisational and educational influence of the proletariat to the semi-proletarian and the non-proletarian strata of the working masses, to the end that there shall ultimately be educated a new generation capable of establishing communism. At the present time the first step along this road would appear to be the further development of the below-mentioned fundamental scholastic and cultural changes already introduced by the Soviet Power:[§78.]
1. The introduction of gratuitous, compulsory, general and technical instruction for all children of both sexes up to the age of 17. (The technical education will supply an acquaintance with the theory and practice of the principal branches of production.)[§80.]
2. The creation of a network of institutions preparatory to school life; creches, kindergartens, children’s homes, etc.; for the improvement of social education and for the freeing of women.[§79.]
3. The complete realisation of the principles of the unified labour school, with instruction in the native tongue, co-education, absolutely secular instruction (that is to say, education entirely free from any kind of religious influence), an instruction in which theory shall be closely linked with socially productive labour, an instruction which shall produce a many-sided development of the members of communist society.[§80.]
4. The supply to all pupils, at the cost of the State, of food, clothing, foot gear, and scholastic requisites.
5. The creation of fresh relays of educational workers permeated with the ideas of communism.[§85.]
6. The inducing of all the working population to participate actively in the spread of enlightenment (the development of soviets of public instruction, the mobilisation of all who can read and write, etc.).[§84.]
7. Many-sided State aid for the self-education of workers and peasants (the creation of a network of institutions for extra-scholastic instruction: libraries; adult schools; popular homes and universities; courses; lectures; cinemas; etc.).[§84 & 83.]
8. The extensive development of professional training for pupils above the age of 17, in association with general polytechnic learning.[§81.]
9. Easy access to the lecture halls of the universities for all who may desire it, and especially for workers; the throwing open of the universities as a field for the teaching activities of all competent persons; the removal of all artificial obstacles that may now prevent the access of fresh teaching strength into the professorial chairs; attention to the material welfare of the pupils, so that it may become practically possible for proletarians and peasants to attend the universities.[§82.]
10. In like manner it is essential to provide easy access for the workers to all art treasures, which have been created upon the basis of the exploitation of their labour, and which have hitherto been at the exclusive disposal of the exploiters.[§88.]
11. The development of an extensive propaganda of communist ideas, and the utilisation to that end of all the apparatus and means of the State Power.[§87.]
With regard to religion, the Russian Communist Party is not content with having already decreed the separation of the church from the State and of the school from the church, that is, with having taken measures which bourgeois democracy includes in its programs but has nowhere carried out owing to the manifold associations that actually obtain between capital and religious propaganda.
The Russian Communist Party is guided by the conviction that nothing but the fulfilment of purposiveness and full awareness in all the social and economic activities of the masses can lead to the complete disappearance of religious prejudices. The party endeavours to secure the complete break-up of the union between the exploiting classes and the organisations for religious propaganda, thus cooperating in the actual deliverance of the working masses from religious prejudices, and organising the most extensive propaganda of scientific enlightenment and anti-religious conceptions. While doing this, we must carefully avoid anything that can wound the feelings of believers, for such a method can only lead to the strengthening of religious fanaticism.[§89-92.]
The party must inexorably complete the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, which has already been begun, and which in the main and in essentials has been accomplished. As a result of this expropriation, the means of production and exchange pass into the ownership of the Soviet Republic, become, that is to say, the common property of all the workers.[§93.]
It is an essential part of the economic policy of the Soviet Power to secure a universal increase in the productive forces of the country. In view of the widespread disorganisation, for the preservation of the country all other considerations must be subordinated to one practical aim — a rapid increase, by all available means, in the quantity of goods urgently needed by the population. The success in the working of every soviet institution concerned with economic life, must be measured by the practical results that are secured in this matter of increased production.[§94.]
In this connexion, the most important considerations are the following.
The break-up of the imperialist economy bequeathed as a legacy to the opening period of soviet reconstruction an utterly chaotic condition in respect both of the organisation and of the administration of production. Hence, one of our fundamental tasks, one of our most urgent needs, is to secure the greatest possible cohesion in all the economic activities of the country, which must be unified in accordance with a general governmental design. We must effect the maximum centralisation of production in the sense of uniting it into individual branches and groups of branches; in the sense of concentrating it into the best possible productive units; and in the sense of the speediest fulfilment of economic tasks. We must secure the maximum solidarisation of the whole economic apparatus, rationally and economically utilising all the material resources of the country.[§95.]
To this end we must promote a close economic collaboration and a political alliance with other peoples, simultaneously striving to establish a unified economic plan in conjunction with those among them which have already established a soviet system.[§96.]
With regard to small-scale production and home industry, we must make the widest possible use of it by giving government orders to the home workers. Home industry and small-scale production must be included within the general plan for the supply of raw materials and fuel; and they must receive financial support on condition that the various home workers, home-workers’ artels, productive cooperatives, and other petty undertakings may combine to form larger productive and industrial units. We must encourage such unions, while endeavouring by these and a series of other measures to counteract the endeavours of the home workers to become small independent manufacturers. We must thus promote the painless transition of this obsolete form of production into the higher form of large-scale machinofacture.[§97.]
The organised apparatus of social production must primarily depend upon the trade unions. These unions must to an increasing extent free themselves from craft bonds. They must be transformed into huge productive unities, enrolling the majority of the workers, and in due time all the workers, in the respective branches of production.
Inasmuch as the trade unions are already (as specified in the laws of the Soviet Republic and as realised in practice) participants in all the local and central organs administering industry, they must proceed to the practical concentration into their own hands of the work of administration in the whole economic life of the country, making this their unified economic aim. Thus protecting the indissoluble union between the central State authority, the national economy, and the broad masses of the workers, the trade unions must in the fullest possible measure induce the workers to participate directly in the work of economic administration. The participation of the trade unions in the conduct of economic life, and the involvement by them of the broad masses of the people in this work, would appear at the same time to be our chief aid in the campaign against the bureaucratisation of the economic apparatus of the Soviet Power. This will also facilitate the establishment of an effective popular control over the results of production.[§98.]
For the purposive development of economic life, it is essential to utilise to the utmost all the labour power at the disposal of the State. Its correct assignment and reassignment as between the various territorial areas and as between the various branches of economic life is the main task of the economic policy of the Soviet Power. It can be fulfilled in no other way than by an intimate association between the Soviet Power and the trade unions. The general mobilisation by the Soviet Power of all members of the population who are physically and mentally fit for work (a mobilisation to be effected through the instrumentality of the trade unions), for the discharge of definite social duties, must be achieved far more widely and systematically than has hitherto been the case.[§99.]
Despite the disintegration of the capitalist organisations of labour, the productive energies of the country can be renovated and developed; but the socialist method of production can be consolidated in no other way than through the establishment of a comradely discipline among the workers, through their achieving the utmost independence, through their acquiring a sense of responsibility, and through the strictest mutual control over productive work.
For the attainment of this end there is requisite persevering and systematic work for the education of the masses, which will now be facilitated by the fact that they are actually witnessing the overthrow of the capitalist, the landlord, and the trader, and by the fact that their own practical experience is convincing them that their wellbeing exclusively depends upon the disciplining of their own labour.
In this work of creating a new socialist discipline, the leading role is assigned to the trade unions. These latter, quitting the old rut, must for the realisation of the new aim put into practice various measures, such as the following: the introduction of account keeping; the establishment of a normal working day and of a normal intensity of labour; the inauguration of responsibility to comradely labour courts; etc.[§100.]
This task of developing the forces of production requires for its performance the immediate, widespread, and manysided utilisation of the experts (scientists and technicians) bequeathed to us as a legacy by capitalism. We must use them despite the fact that inevitably in most cases they have been nourished upon capitalist philosophy and have been trained in bourgeois habits. The party considers that the period of acute struggle with those belonging to this stratum — a struggle which originated in the sabotage they organised — has now come to an end, inasmuch as the strength of the sabotaging movement has been broken. The party, therefore, must pursue its policy in close alliance with the trade unions. On the one hand, it must avoid making any political concession to the members of the bourgeois stratum, and must ruthlessly suppress any leanings they may exhibit in the direction of the counter-revolution. On the other hand, it must no less ruthlessly wage war against the so-called radicalism (in fact, an ignorant form of self-conceit) of those who believe that the workers can overcome capitalism and the bourgeois system without learning from bourgeois experts, without making use of these experts, and without going to school with them for a considerable period.
While striving to secure equal remuneration for all labour, and while aiming at the establishment of complete communism, the Soviet Power cannot endeavour to effect the full realisation of this equality at the present moment, when hardly the first steps have been taken towards the transformation of capitalism into communism. Hence it will be necessary to maintain for a certain time the system of specially high remuneration for experts, so that they may work better than before and not worse. To this end, we must not shrink from the payment of premiums for exceptionally successful work and for work done in a managerial capacity.
In like manner we must place the bourgeois experts in an environment of comradely social labour where they will rub shoulders with the rank and file of the workers and also with the most advanced among the class-conscious communists. In this way a mutual understanding will be secured, and the chasm bridged which existed under capitalism between mental workers and manual workers.[§101.]
The Soviet Power has already adopted a whole series of measures aiming at the development of science and at its wedding to production. It has created a network of new institutes of applied science, laboratories, experimental stations, experimental works for the trial of new technical methods; it has made improvements and inventions; it has scheduled and organised the moral and material means at our disposal for scientific purposes; etc. The Russian Communist Party supports all these measures; it strives to further their development, and to assist in the creation of more favourable conditions for scientific study, and for the utilisation of science for the increase of the productive energy of the country.[§102.]
The Soviet Power, having completely abolished private property in land, has already instituted a whole series of measures to promote the organisation of large-scale socialist agriculture. The most important of these measures are the following: (1) the founding of soviet farms, that is to say, of large-scale socialist economies; (2) the support of artels or cooperatives for the communal cultivation of the land; (3) the organisation of the State cultivation of all kinds of uncultivated land; (4) the State mobilisation of all agricultural experts, so that energetic measures may be taken for the improvement of agricultural methods; (5) the support of agricultural communes, as purely voluntary associations of agriculturists for the cooperative conduct of large-scale farming.[§103-109.]
Regarding all these measures as integrally tending to favour the absolutely essential increase in the productivity of agricultural labour, the Russian Communist Party endeavours to make them as fully effective as possible, to diffuse them widely throughout the more backward regions of the country, and to encourage further advances of the same character.
In especial the Russian Communist Party advocates:
1. Extensive State support for the agricultural cooperatives engaged in the elaboration of agricultural products.
2. The extensive introduction of methods for the improvement of the land.
3. The widespread and purposive supply of farming implements to the poor peasants and the middle peasants. This is to be effected by means of lending stations.[§110 & 111.]
Having to reckon with the fact that small-scale peasant farming will continue to exist for many years to come, the Russian Communist Party endeavours to promote a series of measures tending to increase the productivity of peasant agriculture. Among such measures may be enumerated: (1) the regularisation of peasant tillage (the abolition of the strip system of culture, etc.); (2) the supply of better seed and of artificial manures to the peasants; (3) the improvement of the breed of the peasants’ live stock; (4) the general diffusion of expert agricultural knowledge; (5) expert agricultural assistance to the peasants; (6) repair of the peasants’ agricultural implements at the soviet repairing shops; (7) the foundation of lending stations, experimental stations, demonstration fields, etc.; (8) the improvement of peasant lands.[§112.]
The chasm between town and country is at all times one of the main causes of the backwardness of the rural districts, both as regards farming methods and as regards mental culture. But, in a profoundly critical epoch like the present, this cleavage involves for town and country alike the imminent danger of absolute ruin. The Russian Communist Party therefore regards the putting an end to this separation as one of the fundamental tasks of communist constructive policy. In addition to the general measures it advocates, it considers essential: the widespread and purposive attraction of industrial workers to communally conducted agricultural occupations; the development of the activity of the Workers’ Committee of Collaboration (a branch of State activity already instituted by the Soviet Power); and similar measures.[§113.]
In all its work in the rural districts, the Russian Communist Party primarily relies for support upon the proletarian and semi-proletarian strata of these regions. It organises them, first of all, as an independent force, forming branches of the party in the villages, organisations of the poor peasants, a peculiar type of trade unions for the rural proletarians and semi-proletarians, etc. bringing these rural workers everywhere into close relations with the urban proletariat, and enfranchising them from the influence of the rural bourgeoisie and of the petty-proprietary interests.
As far as concerns the rich peasants — the rural bourgeoisie — the policy of the Russian Communist Party takes the form of a decisive struggle against their exploitative inclinations, and of measures to crush their resistance to the soviet policy.
In the case of the middle peasantry, the policy of the Russian Communist Party is, by degrees and of set purpose, to attract them to the work of socialist construction. The party aims at detaching them from the rich peasants, at bringing them over to the side of the working class by paying special attention to their needs. It attempts to overcome their backwardness in cultural matters by measures of an ideological character, carefully avoiding any coercive steps. On all occasions upon which their vital interests are touched, it endeavours to come to a practical agreement with them, making to them such concessions as will promote socialist reorganisation.[§114.]
In the sphere of distribution, the task of the Soviet Power at the present time is unerringly to continue the replacement of trade by a purposive distribution of goods, by a system of distribution organised by the State upon a national scale. The aim is to achieve the organisation of the whole population into an integral network of consumers’ communes, which shall be able with the utmost speed, purposiveness, economy, and a minimal expenditure of labour, to distribute all the necessary goods, while strictly centralising the whole distributive apparatus.
Upon the foundation of consumers’ communes and upon their unification there must be built up a genuine, all-embracing, and working cooperation, taking the form of an immense organisation of consumers, which shall become an apparatus for mass distribution more perfect than any known to the history of capitalism.
As a matter of principle, the Russian Communist Party holds that the proper course in connexion with this problem of distribution is, not to scrap the cooperative apparatus, but to develop it on communist lines. The party will pursue this policy systematically. It enjoins upon all the members of the party that they shall work in the cooperatives, and (with the assistance of the trade unions) shall administer them in the communist spirit; that they shall promote independence and discipline throughout the working population united to form cooperatives; that they shall endeavour to ensure that the entire population shall enter the cooperatives, and that these cooperatives shall merge into a single great cooperative comprising the whole Soviet Republic from top to bottom; last of all, and above all, that the dominance of the proletariat over the other strata of the workers shall be continually maintained, and that everywhere there shall be put into practice various measures to facilitate and achieve the transition from petty-bourgeois cooperatives of the old capitalist type to consumers’ communes led by the proletarians and the semi-proletarians.[§115-119.]
Avoiding the mistakes made by the Commune of Paris, the Soviet Power in Russia first seized the State Bank, and then nationalised the private commercial banks, and formed a union of nationalised banks, and of their accumulated funds, merging them in the State Bank. In this way was created the framework of the People’s Bank of the Soviet Republic. Thus, from being a centre for the economic dominion of financial capital and an instrument for the political rule of the exploiters, the bank became an instrument of the workers’ power and a lever to promote economic transformation. In order to carry to its logical conclusion the work begun by the Soviet Power, the Russian Communist Party lays especial stress upon the following principles:
1. The monopolisation of all banking business in the hands of the Soviet State.
2. The radical transformation and simplification of banking operations, so that the whole banking system shall become an apparatus for the unified book-keeping of the Soviet Republic. In proportion as the organisation of a purposive social economy is achieved, this will lead to the disappearance of banks, and to their conversion into the central book-keeping establishment of communist society.
In the opening stage of the transition from capitalism to communism, and prior to the organisation of a fully developed system for the communist production and distribution of goods, the abolition of money is impossible. In these circumstances, the bourgeois elements of the population continue to use for speculation, profit-making, and the plundering of the workers, the monetary tokens that still remain in private ownership. Upon the basis of the nationalisation of banking, the Russian Communist Party endeavours to promote a series of measures favouring a moneyless system of account keeping, and paving the way for the abolition of money. These are: the compulsory deposit of money in the People’s Bank; the introduction of budget-books; the replacement of money by written or printed tokens, by tickets giving the right to the receipt of goods but available for short periods only ; etc.[§120-121.]
During the epoch in which the socialisation of the means of production confiscated from the capitalists has begun the State Power ceases to be a parasitic apparatus nourished upon the productive process. There now begins its transformation into an organisation directly fulfilling the function of administering the economic life of the country. To this extent the State budget will be a budget of the whole of the national economy. Under these conditions, the balancing of revenue and expenditure can only be effected by means of an accurate record of the production and distribution of goods systematically carried out by the State. As far as concerns the defraying of extraordinary State expenditure during the transitional period, the Russian Communist Party advocates that the system of levies upon the capitalists which was historically necessary and legitimate in the opening phase of the revolution, shall be replaced by a graduated income and property tax. But in so far as this tax ceases to be lucrative in view of the widely effected expropriation of the possessing classes, the State expenditure must be met by the direct conversion to this purpose of part of the income from various State monopolies.[§122-124.]
The housing problem became extremely acute during the war period. To assist in its solution, the Soviet Power completely expropriated all the houses belonging to capitalist landlords and handed them over to the urban soviets. It effected mass settlements of workers from the suburbs in the bourgeois dwellings. It handed over the best of these dwellings to the workers’ organisations, arranging for the upkeep of the houses at the cost of the State; it undertook to provide the workers’ families with furniture, etc.
The Russian Communist Party, without doing anything contrary to the interests of non-capitalist house-owners, must use its utmost endeavours to discover and apply the best means for the improvement of the housing conditions of the working masses; for putting an end to the over-crowding and the unsanitary condition of the older quarters of the cities; for the destruction of dwellings unfit for habitation, the renovation of old houses, and the building of new houses suitable to the new conditions of working-class life; in general for the rational rehousing of the workers.[§125 & 126.]
The establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat made possible for the first time the full realisation of the minimum program of the socialist parties in the domain of labour protection. In its Code of Labour Laws, the Soviet Power has formally decreed: an eight-hour working day for all workers as the maximum working time — but for persons not exceeding eighteen years of age, and also in especially injurious branches of production, and also for miners, the working day must not exceed six hours; a forty-two-hour period each week of uninterrupted rest for all workers; overtime is as a rule prohibited; the employment of the labour of children and of young persons under sixteen is prohibited; night work, and work in injurious trades and also overtime, are prohibited in the case of all women and also in the case of young men under the age of eighteen; for eight weeks before and eight weeks after childbirth women do no work, but continue to receive full pay, together with gratuitous medical attendance and medicine, and working women with children at the breast receive during working hours half-an-hour’s leave every three hours; the inspection of labour and sanitary inspection by soviets elected by the trade unions.[§127-129.]
For all workers who do not exploit others’ labour the legislation of the Soviet Power provides full social insurance against any kind of loss of capacity for labour, and also (for the first time in history) against unemployment at the sole expense of employers and the State, with complete independence on the part of the insured, together with the intimate participation of the trade unions.[§130-132.]
More than this, in certain respects the Soviet Power has gone beyond the minimum program, and in the before mentioned Code of Labour Laws has arranged for the participation of the labour organisations in the decision of matters relating to the engagement and discharge of workers. For all workers who have worked continuously for not less than one year, a month’s holiday on full pay is decreed. The Code provides for the State regulation of wages upon the basis of scales drawn up by the trade unions. The Code further arranges for the formation of special bodies or departments for the assignment and scheduling of labour power by the soviets and trade unions, making it compulsory to provide work for the unemployed.[§133.]
But the extreme disorganisation resulting from the war and the attack made by world imperialism, have compelled the Soviet Power to take certain steps backwards: to have recourse, in exceptional circumstances to overtime work, limiting this to fifty days in the year; to permit the employment of young persons from fourteen to sixteen years of age limiting their working day to four hours; temporarily to arrange that the month’s holiday shall be reduced to a fortnight; to increase the duration of night work to seven hours.[§129.]
The Russian Communist Party must conduct extensive propaganda on behalf of the active participation of all workers in the energetic enforcement of the measures for labour protection. To this end the following measures are necessary:
1. The work of organising and extending labour inspection must be actively taken in hand. For this purpose, active workers, drawn from among the ranks of the manual workers, must be selected and trained, and this method of inspection must be extended to small-scale production and to home industry.
2. Labour protection must be extended to all branches of work, including the building trade, land and water transport, domestic service, and agriculture.
3. Industrial and agricultural labour must be absolutely prohibited during childhood, and there must be a further reduction of the working day in the case of young persons.
In addition, the Russian Communist Party must undertake the following tasks:
1. When there occurs a general increase in the productivity of labour there must be a maximum working day of six hours without any diminution in the rate of pay, and in addition to the six hours there shall be two hours’ compulsory work without special pay, during which instruction shall be given in craftsmanship and the theory of production, practical instruction in the technique of State administrative work, and military training.
2. The introduction of a system of premiums which shall promote emulation, in order to increase the productivity of labour.
In the sphere of social welfare work, the Russian Communist Party endeavours to organise an extensive system of State aid, not only for the victims of the war and of misfortune arising from elemental causes, but also for the victims of abnormal social conditions; it conducts a vigorous struggle against all forms of parasitism and idleness; and it makes it its business to guide back to a working life all those whom circumstances have forced out of the ranks of the workers.[§134.]
As the foundation of its activities in the domain of safeguarding public health, the Russian Communist Party proposes, first of all, the introduction of hygienic and sanitary measures aiming at the prevention of disease. The dictatorship of the proletariat has already made it possible to introduce quite a number of hygienic and curative measures which were impracticable within the framework of bourgeois society: for instance, the nationalisation of the business of the retail chemists, of large-scale curative institutions founded and run by private enterprise, of health resorts; the establishment of labour duty for all medical workers; etc.
In conformity with this, the Russian Communist Party regards the following as its immediate tasks:
1. The vigorous pursuance of extensive sanitary measures undertaken in the interests of the workers, such as:
(a) improvement of the sanitary condition of all places of public resort; the protection of earth, water, and air;
(b) the organisation of communal kitchens and of the food supply generally upon a scientific and hygienic foundation;
(c) measures to prevent the spread of diseases of a contagious character;
(d) sanitary legislation.
2. A campaign against social discases (tuberculosis, venereal disease, alcoholism, etc.).
3. The gratuitous provision of medical advice and treatment for the whole population.[§135-138.]