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CHAPTER FOUR Soviet Communism: The Transformation under Stalin, 1929-1953 The Communist movement, despite the impersonal sociology embodied in its doctrine, bore a unique impress of dominant individual personalities— specifically, Lenin and Stalin. Lenin launched the movement and gave it the qualities necessary for seizing and holding power; Stalin accomplished the permanent adaptation of the movement to the circumstances of its time and setting. The insane purging and self-glorification in which Stalin indulged were perhaps transitory , but the other changes for which he was responsible were deeply assimilated into the Communist system in Soviet Russia—the priority of the industrialization effort and national power, the shift to conservative social and intellectual norms, and the monolithic control of all communication to enforce the pseudo-Marxist rationalization of the system. So constituted, the Soviet dictatorship proved itself in Stalin's eyes by emerging victorious from World War II, and he made every effort to keep it unchanged until his death in 1953. Stalin's Revolution Wielding the unchallenged personal control over the Communist Party and the Soviet state which he had attained with the defeat of the Right Opposition, Stalin commenced the drastic reconstruction of the economic foundations of Soviet society. The two cardinal lines of effort, as he set them forth in his final attack on the Bukharin group in April, 1929, were collectivization of the peasantry and intensive development of heavy industry. Shortly afterward the First Five-Year Plan was formally approved by the Sixteenth Party Conference, with its commencement set retroactively back to October , 1928. . . . What is the theoretical basis for the blindness and bewilderment of Bukharin 's group? I think that the theoretical basis for this blindness and bewilderment is Bukharin 's incorrect, non-Marxian approach to the question of the class struggle in our country. I have in mind Bukharin's non-Marxian theory that the kulaks will grow into socialism, his failure to understand the mechanism of the class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat. . . . Hitherto, we Marxist-Leninists thought that between the capitalists of town and country, on the one hand, and the working class, on the other, there is an irreconcilable antagonism of interest. This is exactly what the Marxian theory of the class struggle rests on. But now, according to Bukharin's theory that the capitalists will peacefully grow into socialism, all this is turned topsy-turvy; the irreconcilable anFROM : Stalin, "The Right Deviation in the CPSU(B)" (Speech to the Central Committee, April, 1929; Problems ofLeninism, pp. 309-13, 326-27, 331, 336-37, 371-72). Soviet Communism: Transformation under Stalin, 1929-1953 171 tagonism of class interests between the exploiters and the exploited disappears, the exploiters grow into socialism. . . . Either one thing or the other; either there is an irreconcilable antagonism of interests between the capitalist class and the class of the workers who have assumed power and have organized their dictatorship, or there is no such antagonism of interests , in which case only one thing remains: to proclaim the harmony of class interests. . . . What can there be in common between Bukharin's theory that the kulaks will grow into socialism and Lenin's theory of the dictatorship as a fierce class struggle? Obviously, there is not, nor can there be, anything in common between them. Bukharin thinks that under the dictatorship of the proletariat the class struggle must subside and pass away so that the abolition of classes may be brought about. Lenin, on the contrary, teaches us that classes can be abolished only by means of a stubborn class struggle, which under the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes everfiercerthan it was before the dictatorship of the proletariat. . . . . . . In addition to the ordinary taxes, direct and indirect, which the peasantry is paying to the state, it also pays a certain supertax in the form of an overcharge on consumer goods, and in the form of low prices received for agricultural produce . . . . . . . We also call it "the scissors," "drainage" of resources from agriculture into industry for the purpose of speeding up industrial development. Is this "drainage" really necessary? Everybody agrees that it is, as a temporary measure, if we really wish to maintain a speedy rate of industrial development. Indeed , we must at all cost maintain a rapid growth of our industry, for this growth is necessary not solely for our industrial production, but primarily for our agriculture , for our peasantry, which at the present time needs most of all tractors, agricultural machinery and fertilizers. Can we abolish this...

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