Did Lenin Consider the Soviet Union State Capitalist?

Introduction

A persistent claim I see going around is that Lenin himself declared that the Soviet Union was Capitalist. Now I don’t want this video to be a discussion on what the Soviet Union was, but purely a look at what Lenin himself considered it, and not a question on if it is accurate or not.

So let us dive into the question, what did Lenin consider the Soviet Union.

How Did Lenin Describe it?

I think this quote from a speech of his given at the Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers’, Soldiers’ And Peasants’ Deputies makes it fairly clear.

"I have no illusions about our having only just entered the period of transition to socialism, about not yet having reached socialism... We are far from having completed even the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat. We never had any illusions on that score, and we know how difficult is the road that leads from capitalism to socialism. But it is our duty to say that our Soviet Republic is a socialist republic because we have taken this road, and our words will not be empty words."

I think this might confusing to some people, those who think because it was not Socialism then it must be Capitalism, you might think of it this way, but it is certainly not in line with Marx, Engels, Lenin or many other Bolsheviks thought of it. They thought there was a transitional period which I will show with later quotes.

Lenin also talks about the economic features of this transition.

From Lenin’s Economics And Politics In The Era Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat

"Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble.

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Socialism means the abolition of classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat has done all it could to abolish classes. But classes cannot be abolished at one stroke.

And classes still remain and will remain in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship will become unnecessary when classes disappear. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat they will not disappear.

Classes have remained, but in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat every class has undergone a change, and the relations between the classes have also changed. The class struggle does not disappear under the dictatorship of the proletariat; it merely assumes different forms. "

We will also take a look at Lenin’s State and Revolution.

"Furthermore, during the transition from capitalism to communism suppression is still necessary, but it is now the suppression of the exploiting minority by the exploited majority. A special apparatus, a special machine for suppression, the “state”, is still necessary, but this is now a transitional state. "

Lenin talk of this transitional state needed between Capitalism, and Communist Society both the lower and higher phase. He also talks of this transitional period having features of both capitalism and socialism. The title of the work "Economics And Politics In The Era Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat" is no accident, Lenin is talking of the features found under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Now I want to show from the works of other Bolsheviks and from Marx that they too agreed with Lenin on this formulation.

From Bukharin and Preobrazhensky’s ABC of Communism.

"Under the dictatorship of the proletariat (a temporary institution) the means of production will from the nature of the case belong, not to society as a whole, but only to the proletariat, to its State organization. For the time being, the working class, that is the majority of the population, monopolizes the means of production. Consequently there does not yet exist communist production in all its completeness. There still exists the division of society into classes"

We can see this connection to Karl Marx

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

To summarize, once the Proletariat has seized power it will establish a transitional state, or a workers state. This is the era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Important to emphasize that when Marx and others use the term "dictatorship" it does not mean a literal dictator over society, but that the state represents an interest of a particular class, and its property relations, in the case of a workers state the proletariat, in the case of the bourgeois state the capitalist class. During this era there is going to be a period of transition, and there is going to be features of both the growing Socialism, and the remaining aspects of Capitalism.

Another important aspect of Lenin’s thought on this is the aspect of how Russian Empires development was uneven. Lets take a look at another quote from the Third All-Russia Congress.

"Comrades, no socialist would refuse to admit the obvious truth that between socialism and capitalism there lies a long, more or less difficult transitional period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and that the forms this period will take will be determined to a large extent by whether small or big ownership, small or large-scale farming, predominates. It goes without saying that the transition to socialism in Estland, that small country in which the whole population is literate, and which consists of large-scale farms, cannot be the same as the transition to socialism in Russia, which is mainly a petty-bourgeois country. This must be taken into account."

Lenin focusing specifically due to agriculture that the development of Socialism in Russia would be different, that much of it remained petty-bourgeois, Russia had not developed the large farms with lots of hired labor as other nations did. This means it’s transition period is longer and will have aspect of capitalism in its economy for longer.

So we have a foundation of what Lenin thought, lets now take a look at a few of the quotes people often cite as being proof Lenin thought the Soviet Union was State Capitalist.

The Claims of Lenin Calling it State Capitalist

I am pulling two of the quotes from a post on Libcom titled "Lenin acknowledging the intentional implementation of State Capitalism in the USSR" So I am not strawmanning or anything these are quotes people cite for this argument.

Let us start with this quote from "To the Russian Colony in North America"

"The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.

Those to whom the question of our New Economic Policy—the only correct policy—is not quite clear, I would refer to the speeches of Comrade Trotsky and my own speech at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International[1] devoted to this question."

So Lenin talks about it as an aspect of the New Economic Policy, and this leads us well into the other quote from that post from libcom. They are pulling a single two paragraph line in the Tax in Kind where Lenin is quoting himself, from an earlier work.

Let us look at the quote they are talking about.

"State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country."

They argue see Lenin is saying State Capitalism is better and the Soviet Republic must be State Capitalist, but this is really not want Lenin is saying at all. Let us look at when Lenin says further.

"No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Soviet Socialist Republic implies the determination of the Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the existing economic system is recognised as a socialist order.

But what does the word “transition” mean? Does it not mean, as applied to an economy, that the present system contains elements, particles, fragments of both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all who admit this take the trouble to consider what elements actually constitute the various socio-economic structures that exist in Russia at the present time. And this is the crux of the question.

Let us enumerate these elements:

(1)patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;

(2)small commodity production (this includcs the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);

(3)private capitalism;

(4)state capitalism;

(5)socialism.

Russia is so vast and so varied that all these different types of socio-economic structures are intermingled. This is what constitutes the specific feature of the situation.

The question arises: What elements predominate? Clearly, in a small-peasant country, the petty-bourgeois element predominates and it must predominate, for the great majority—those working the land—are small commodity producers. The shell of state capitalism (grain monopoly, state-controlled entrepreneurs and traders, bourgeois co-operators) is pierced now in one place, now in another by profiteers, the chief object of profiteering being grain."

So this ties back to what was talked about earlier, Lenin is talking about the ways that they are going though this and that it has a transitional character, that Russia at this time had aspects of capitalism, and of socialism.

It becomes even more clear later

"It is because Russia cannot advance from the economic situation now existing-here without traversing the ground which is common to state capitalism and to socialism (national accounting and control) that the attempt to frighten others as well as themselves with “evolution towards state capitalism” is utter theoretical nonsense. This is letting one’s thoughts wander away from the true road of “evolution”, and failing to understand what this road is. In practice, it is equivalent to pulling us back to small proprietary capitalism."

Lenin talks of the specific aspects of state capitalism on which they are walking on, it is the ground which is common to state capitalism and to socialism. But you still might say why walk this road at all why not just build Socialism. Well Lenin talks about this in relation to Germany and other countries where things are more developed.

"A victorious proletarian revolution in Germany would immediately and very easily smash any shell of imperialism (which unfortunately is made of the best steel, and hence cannot be broken by the efforts of any chicken) and would bring about the victory of world socialism for certain, without any difficulty, or with only slight difficulty—if, of course, by “difficulty” we mean difficulty on a world historical scale, and not in the parochial philistine sense.

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At present petty-bourgeois capitalism prevails in Russia, and it is one and the same road that leads from it to both large-scale state capitalism and to socialism, through one and the same intermediary station called “national accounting and control of production and distribution”. Those who fail to understand this are committing an un pardonable mistake in economics. Either they do not know the facts of life, do not see what actually exists and are unable to look the truth in the face, or they confine themselves to abstractly comparing “socialism” with “capitalism” and fail to study the concrete forms and stages of the transition that is taking place in our country."

Russia as it was then petty-bourgeois capitalism dominated, and as part of the transitional to socialism it is going to walk ground common to state capitalism. A big part of the NEP is the idea of peasants selling grain, but they sell to the state not to international markets, this is the state monopoly on trade which is a key aspect of the state capitalism which is but one aspect of the wider economy as Lenin says.

In the "To the Russian Colony in North America" Lenin says "I would refer to the speeches of Comrade Trotsky and my own speech at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International" So let us listen to Lenin and go look at these speeches, sense these are dedicated to explaining why this is the path that must be walked.

Let us look at two paragraphs from Trotsky’s The Economic Situation of Soviet Russia from the Standpoint of the Socialist Revolution

"The assertion of the Social Democrats to the effect that the soviet state has “capitulated” to capitalism is thus an obvious and crass distortion of the reality. As a matter of fact the Soviet government is following an economic path which it would doubtless have pursued in 1918-19 had not the implacable demands of the civil war obliged it to expropriate the bourgeoisie at one blow, to destroy the bourgeois economic apparatus and to replace the latter hastily by the apparatus of War Communism.

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The inclusion of the peasantry in planned state economy, that is, socialist economy, is a task far more complicated and tedious. Organizationally the way is being paved for this by the state-controlled and state-directed co-operatives, which satisfy the most pressing needs of the peasant and his individual enterprise. Economically this process will be speeded up all the more, the greater is the volume of products which the state industry will be able to supply to the village through the medium of co-operative societies. But the socialist principle can gain complete victory in agriculture only through the electrification of agriculture which will put a salutary end to the barbaric disjunction of peasant production. The electrification plan is therefore an important component part of the overall state economic plan; and because its importance will doubtless increase in proportion to the growing productive forces of Soviet economy it is bound to gain in ascendancy in the future, until it becomes the basis for the overall socialist economic plan as a whole."

Here Trotsky engages directly with the accusation that the soviet state was turning to capitalism, turns out this criticism is not new. I don’t want to turn this video into a why the NEP was good and a history of it which I plan to do someday, just not today. But we can see these economic policy this aspect of the economy that is capitalist is with the peasantry, and why well because integrating the peasantry into the socialist economy is complicated and slow. Trotsky points to the development of the cooperatives and electrification being vital in the efforts to integrate them into it.

We should also take a look at Lenin’s speed from the Fourth Congress of the Comintern.

"Now that I have emphasised the fact that as early as 1918 we regarded state capitalism as a possible line of retreat, I shall deal with the results of our New Economic Policy. I repeat: at that time it was still a very vague idea, but in 1921, after we had passed through the most important stage of the Civil War—and passed through it victoriously—we felt the impact of a grave—I think it was the gravest—internal political crisis in Soviet Russia. This internal crisis brought to light discontent not only among a considerable section of the peasantry but also among the workers. This was the first and, I hope, the last time in the history of Soviet Russia that feeling ran against us among large masses of peasants, not consciously but instinctively. What gave rise to this peculiar, and for us, of course, very unpleasant, situation? The reason for it was that in our economic offensive we had run too far ahead, that we had not provided ourselves with adequate resources, that the masses sensed what we ourselves were not then able to formulate consciously but what we admitted soon after, a few weeks later, namely, that the direct transition to purely socialist forms, to purely socialist distribution, was beyond our available strength, and that if we were unable to effect a retreat so as to confine ourselves to easier tasks, we would face disaster."

Lenin I think gets to the heart of the manner, transitioning directly to a socialist economy was not possible in Russia, in other documents Lenin talks of other countries like Germany might be able to make that leap, but not Russia.

What Other Option?

This ties well into a point made in my video on Rosa where she is critical of the Bolsheviks for giving the peasants land which was a capitalist policy. But as Lenin points out attempts to push forward towards socialism in the country side caused a crisis. So I have always been curious what is the other option that could have been taken, what should have been done rather then a compromise with the peasantry? Should it have been forced on the peasantry, I think anyone looking at the historical facts any attempt to force all of the peasants into collective farms would have drown the young Soviet Republic in the blood of millions of peasants.

Conclusion

So to reiterate the main points, Lenin and the Bolsheviks saw the Soviet Republic as a state in transition from capitalism to socialism, that it was a workers state, which is qualitatively different from a bourgeois state you have under capitalism. That the Soviet Economy had many different and diverse elements, some of which are in common with Capitalism and some with Socialism. That this republic would retain planning and control over the factories, and there would be a state capitalism over the petty-bourgeois capitalism of the country side, handling accounting, and retaining a monopoly on foreign trade to insulate the internal capitalists from external capitalism. No where do they argue the state is capitalist, that it is a bourgeois state, Lenin and others are firm in this being a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This is consistent point among Lenin’s writings and speeches. This is all very clear if you actually read his writings, rather then hunting through Lenin’s writings to grab a few quotes that might look to agree with your point at first glance.