Building Up Socialism/Chapter 2
Chapter II.
THE MATURITY OF CAPITALISM
It is a fact that is fairly well known that the historical prognoses and tactics of the Bolsheviks always rest upon a definite and absolutely objective analysis of the given state of affairs. Three kinds of phenomena, connected with each other and determined by each other, were taken into consideration by the Bolsheviks in determining the question of the maturity of world capitalism. Firstly, its technico-economic basis and its organisational forms. Secondly, the inter-relations of classes: the relative strength of the working class, the petty bourgeoisie and the big capitalist bourgeoisie. Thirdly, the cultural-ideological maturity of the proletariat. It goes without saying that orthodox Marxists presented the question of the cultural-ideological maturity of the proletariat not from the point of view that the proletariat can seize power only when it has developed it own culture and has produced the necessary administrative forces required to manage the State. This is the manner in which A. A. Bogdanov presented the question. According to his theory the proletariat cannot seize power unless it has learned the principles of the "science of general organisation" and has become thoroughly imbued with the all-embracing doctrines of proletarian culture. Of course, Bogdanov's manner of approach would never result in a positive solution to the question of the maturity of capitalism being found. However, the approach of the Bolsheviks to the question was quite different andfrom the point of view of their approach the general maturity of capitalist relations for their transformation into Socialist relations was not doubted in the least. The Bolsheviks advanced the postulate of the last, imperialist phase of capitalism, of the centralisation and concentration of capital having reached a sufficient stage, of the special organisational forms of capitalism (finance capital, capitalist monopoly, banking consortiums, etc.), and regard the very fact of the world imperialist war as evidence of the ripeness of capitalist relations—for the imperialist war in itself was nothing more or less than an expression of the gigantic conflict between the growth of the forces of production and their capitalist shell which has already become too tight to permit the further normal development of these forces of production.
Of course, in appraising world capitalism, the Bolsheviks did not start out with the assertion that capitalism was wholly and thoroughly ripe and they did not assume that at every point of the globe, the degree of concentration and centralisation of capitalism and the concentration of the working class, etc., was the same and equally adequate for the transition to Socialism. On the contrary, in the person of Lenin the Bolsheviks advanced the postulate of the so-called "law of unequal capitalist development." The law has its foundation, in the differences in the structure of capitalism in the various countries. This law draws a strict distinction between the centres of capitalist economy and the colonial periphery of capitalist economy. It lays down that the maturity of capitalism as a whole, as world capitalism, by no means pre-supposes an absolutely equal degree of capitalist development, or an equal rate of development in all countries. Lenin's law of unequal capitalist development was the theoretical basis of the Bolshevik approach to the question of the maturity of world capitalist economy, of the degree of its readiness for transition to Socialist economy, for their approach to the question of world revolution as a complex and prolonged process, which may commence even in a single country.
This is how the Bolsheviks presented the question. The opponents of the Bolsheviks approached the question quite differently. In this connection it should be mentioned that the arguments advanced by the opponents of the Bolsheviks to "prove" the immaturity of capitalist relations had quite a number of variations. There are a number of critical positions directed against the Bolsheviks which claim to refute the Bolshevik thesis on the maturity of capitalist relations in modern world economy. Some say that capitalism has not matured economically; others say that capitalism has matured economically, but that owing to the world war and the impoverishment that has spread during the war it has ceased to serve as a sufficient basis for the transition to the Socialist revolution. Others again put forward a number of quite "original" arguments concerning the cultural immaturity of the proletariat, which as a consequence cannot solve the problem of world revolution.
The first type of criticism of Bolshevism, the criticism from the point of view of the economic immaturity of capitalist relations, is most clearly expressed in the work of Heinrich Cunow. In one of his pamphlets, written in defence of the voting in the German Reichstag on August 4th, 1914, he developed approximately the following positions: He said that to think about the transition to a Socialist system at the present time means merely to harbour empty illusions and utopias. Marx said that not a single economic form ceases to exist until it has utilised all its possibilities and exhausted itself to the very bottom. Take those countries, said Cunow, where capitalism is not yet sufficiently developed; take the markets which are not yet completely capitalist commodity markets; take those countries where capitalism is only at the beginning of its development and it will be perfectly clear that capitalism still has an enormous scope for development. And after the war—so asserted Cunow—owing to the partial destruction of forces of production further scope for development of capitalist relations was created for the reason that to the extent that forces of capitalist production were destroyed during the war to that extent the markets which even prior to the destruction caused by the war were too big to absorb capitalist output will now have become relatively larger; for that reason it is absurd and utopian, anti-Marxian to think that society in the near future will transfer to Socialist lines.
The argument here is so clear and unambiguous that it would be superfluous to refer to other critics who follow the same line of reasoning. It will be sufficient to refer to another critic, a Russian this time, the Marxian or semi-Marxian writer, A. A. Bogdanov. In one of his works, "Questions of Socialism," he says:
By quoting the figures two to two and a half per cent, of the production of cast iron and coal, A. A. Bogdanov thinks he has proved his postulate that the present phase of development of capitalist relations makes it futile even to think of raising the question of transition to the lines of Socialist revolution and to the lines of direct Socialist construction.
Such criticism can hardly be taken for serious Marxian criticism; it is nothing more than a caricature of Marxism.[1]
For the "critics" start out on an extremely vulgarised and certainly undialectical presentation of the pre-requisites for the collapse of capitalism. In their opinion the capitalist form of production will be destroyed only when it has been completely supplanted (or almost completely supplanted) by other forms of production. As a matter of fact the capitalist system of production will be destroyed very much earlier than that, for long before that stage is reached it develops its inherent contradictions, making its further existence intolerable and objectively impossible (cf. for example world wars, "The Epoch of Wars and Revolutions"). Similarly the "critics" start out from the postulate that the material ripeness of capitalism must be such that after the conquest of power Socialism must be already established embracing wholly and immediately the whole of society. As a matter of fact there can only be talk of the starting points of the movement, of the possibilities of further construction. From the arguments of the "critics" there disappears almost the whole of the transition period which is the period of development of Socialist economic forms among the non-Socialistic forms. Their (the "critics") seeming radicalism is but the reverse side of their profound opportunism. It is hardly necessary to dwell further upon this kind of critic. Enough has been said already, and we can now take up another group of objections.
- ↑ As a curiosity we may mention also the "Marxian" criticism of the Bolsheviks by a certain Rudolph Schneider, the secretary of the Imperial Union of German Industry, who, in his pamphlet, "The Soviet System, Socialisation and Compulsory Economy," refutes, not only the Bolsheviks, but Socialists generally by references to Marx. "Fifty years ago," says this learned counsel for the German capitalist industrialists, "the great theoretician of Socialism, Karl Marx, brilliantly refuted all these Utopians and reformers of the world by a single remark" (p. 20). When people speak of practical realisation of Socialism they drop into "Utopianism: 'Socialism has gone back from science to Utopia'" (p. 20), (Rudolph Schneider: "Gescheftsfuhrer des Reichsverbandes der deutschen Industrie: Ratesystem Sozialisierung und Zwangswirtschaft," Dresden, 1919).