The Latest Deception by Gabriel Miasnikov 1930
At the right time or the wrong time, with or without excuses, the bureaucratic leaders of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) express their love for the proletariat and denounce the bureaucratic plague. They always promise to put an end to the inefficiency of the bureaucratic State apparatus by introducing workers and peasants into the State machinery, and what this amounts to is that some peasant and intellectual bureaucrats are dismissed and replaced with new worker bureaucrats, who can offer the experience of their working class origins. Just as the President of the German Republic, the former saddler Ebert, his Prime Minister, the former carpenter Scheidemann, and his Minister of War, the former metal worker Noske, etc., changed nothing in the bureaucratic nature of the German State, nothing about the bureaucratic nature of the social-bureaucratic State Capitalist system will be changed by promoting workers to posts as desk-jockeys. Just as it is necessary, in order to transform the bourgeois State into a proletarian State, “to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class”, so, too, in order to transform the social bureaucratic State from a State Capitalist system into a Workers State, it is necessary for the proletariat to play the role of the ruling class. The difference lies in the fact that in a society of private capitalism the proletariat expels the bourgeoisie from its commanding position over production and distribution, placing the management of all of industry in the hands of the Councils of Workers Delegates in the workplaces and all of exchange into the hands of the cooperatives in order to thus ensure distribution, and transforming the trade unions into organs of State control over the Councils of Workers Delegates in the workplaces and over their cooperatives. In a State Capitalist system, the working class expels the bureaucracy from the leadership over production and distribution, replacing the bureaucrats, the directors and their assistants, etc., with the Councils of Workers Delegates in the workplaces, which control production, and with the cooperatives that assume responsibility for distribution, and the trade unions that will be responsible for overseeing those institutions. In a society of private capitalism, the proletariat overthrows the bourgeoisie from its ruling position, as the ruling class, but in a system of State Capitalism the ruling class is the bureaucracy. In a society of private capitalism the apparatus of the bourgeois State is destroyed, while here we have to destroy the bureaucratic State apparatus. The bourgeoisie combats the attempts of the proletariat to become the ruling class, and the bureaucracy combats and will continue to combat the attempts of the proletariat oriented towards that same goal. The bourgeoisie defends its class rule and so does the bureaucracy. The social-traitors of the Second International and of the Amsterdam International, while defending bourgeois rule, proclaim as loudly as possible that they are fighting for socialism, just as the social-bureaucrats of the Politburo defend State Capitalism while appealing to the defense of socialism and the Workers State.
What is it that the bourgeoisie does not want? The transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, the transformation of the Councils of Workers Delegates in the workplaces into the administrative organs of production and into the “foundation of State power” (Program of the CPSU) and of the cooperatives into the administrative organs of distribution. And the bourgeoisie does not want this to happen because this would mean the end of its own existence. And what is it that Stalin & Co. do not want, either, even if they proclaim as loudly as possible that they are defending the participation of the workers in the affairs of the State and communism? As soon as one asks this question, everything becomes clear, all the beautiful words and noble phrases about communism, about the dictatorship of the proletariat, instantly become obvious swindles for all the workers, lies woven with the white thread of the most absolute hypocrisy. The Stalins, the Bukharins, etc., do not want Councils of Workers Delegates to be formed in the workplaces, nor do they want them to take control over production, nor do they want the cooperatives to assume responsibility for exchange and for the rights, the duties and the capital of the of the People’s Commissariat for Commerce and of the State agencies for trade, nor do they want all the functions of the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate to be transferred to the trade unions. And they do not want these things to happen for the same reasons the bourgeoisie does not want them to happen. Both defend their respective States and their egoistic class interests, while they dissimulate this defense with noble phrases. If the Councils of Workers Delegates in the workplaces are the institutions that are supposed to administer the industries of the State according to a general plan that embraces every sector of industry, thus becoming the “foundation of State power”, as set forth in the Program of the CPSU(b), and if the cooperatives are supposed to take control of all the commerce of the State, and of all the rights and duties of the commercial agencies of the State, and if the trade unions are supposed to take control of the rights and duties of the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate, then what kind of party will have to guide the organized proletariat towards these goals? A workers party or a bourgeois party? A workers party, of course.
And what kind of party is it, on the other hand, that fights with every possible means against the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, situated at the controlling center of production, distribution, overall supervision and the State? It is an anti-worker and anti-proletarian party. If it were a party that defends the private capitalist system, it would be a bourgeois party. But this party defends the State Capitalist system, it is a bureaucratic party. And those who try to prevent the proletariat from becoming the ruling class are standing in the way of the struggle against the bureaucracy, and by trying to cut short any criticism, self-criticism and the struggle against bureaucratism, they reveal their class nature. One part of the bureaucrats manages production, one part commerce, and a third is engaged in both while a fourth exercises its draconian rule over the bureaucracy, criticism and self-criticism. This division of labor of the bureaucrats is obvious, and of course contributes to the reinforcement of their economic and political power, which entails the physical and spiritual slavery of the proletariat.