By Hekuran Mara – Professor, member of the Academy of Sciences of the PSR of Albania
The deep and all-round counterrevolutionary and aggressive process which has taken place in all the countries ruled by the revisionists has already led to the elimination of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the complete restoration of capitalism in these countries. Now the question on the agenda for the traitor revisionist ruling cliques and their ideologists and apologists is to invent, elaborate and publicize "theories”, as demagogical and disguised as possible, in order to strengthen the restored capitalism, to present it as “mature socialism”, etc.
All this is intended to disorientate the working class and the other masses of the working people ideologically and politically, to prevent the emergence of doubts in their ranks about what has happened and is happening in these countries, to benumb their vigilance, and revolutionary thinking and action, to avert their blows and, finally, to suppress the proletarian revolution when it breaks out. This is a tactic to gain time, to prolong the existence of the restored capitalism.
Revisionism, like all other kinds of opportunism, is a great evil for the Marxist-Leninist ideology, socialism and the world proletarian revolution. The restoration of capitalism in the countries which were building socialism was prepared and accompanied by the spread of the opportunist ideological trend of modern revisionism. At the head of the modern revisionist front stands Khrushchevite revisionism. "Soviet revisionism,” stressed comrade Enver Hoxha at the 7th Congress of the PLA, “represents the most completely elaborated theory and practice of the revisionist counter-revolution which has revised the Marxist-Leninist theory in all fields and on all questions” (Enver Hoxha, Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, Tirana 1976, p. 234, Engl. ed.).
The frontal attack of Soviet revisionism on the fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism could not leave the theory and practice of scientific socialism untouched. First, doubts were raised about the truth and scientific value of the fundamental theses of socialism formulated by the classics of Marxism-Leninism, then the revisionists went over openly to abandonment of them and struggle to overturn them, while today they have been replaced with all kinds of “new” revisionist theories, always veiled in the smokescreen of eclecticism and demagogy about "creative” Marxism, in order to conceal the true face of the capitalism they have restored. The Soviet revisionists dress themselves in the cloak of Marxism-Leninism precisely to cover up their betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, socialism and the proletarian revolution, just as the bourgeoisie and the criminals in bourgeois society do when, in order to cover up their crimes, they don the robe of the “guardian of public order” or the "law-abiding person”.
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In the system of "theories” and views of the Soviet revisionists which serve to cover the restored capitalism with a false lustre of socialism, the question of the historical limits of the period of transition from capitalism to communism occupies an important place. On the correct solution of this question depends the stand towards a series of fundamental theses of the theory and practice of scientific socialism, the implementation of which is decisive for the preservation and strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the continuous advance of the revolution and the construction of socialism and communism, the impossibility of the turn back and the restoration of capitalism.
The Soviet revisionists maintain the view that the period of transition does not extend right up the construction of the classless society, but is a separate period of the transition from capitalism to socialism, which ends with the construction of the economic base of socialism. “The period of transition from capitalism to socialism,” writes the academician Pyotr Fedoseyev, "begins with the triumph of the socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and ends with the elimination of capitalist private property” (Voprosy Ekonomiki, N° 5, 1975, p. 27). In connection with the same question, the text of political economy of Moscow University says: “In every country the period of transition begins from the moment of the establishment of socialist relations in production” (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, Izdatelstvo Ekonomika, Moskva, 1974, pp. 8-9).
It is evident that this view is not a chance aberration or simply an "isolated ideological distortion”, but a consciously chosen prevailing official view. The reduction by the Soviet revisionists of the period of transition from capitalism to communism to a period that ends with the construction of the economic base of socialism is done for the purpose of justifying the revisionist counter-revolution “theoretically” and denying the class struggle, of justifying the elimination of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its replacement with the dictatorship of the new bourgeoisie, and disguising the restoration of capitalism.
And in fact, they assert that after the completion of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism “the main problem” of “who will win?” is solved, “socialism achieves its complete triumph over capitalism”, in the socialist economy the struggle between the two roads of development no longer exists, “in the developed socialist society classes disappear and only occupational or social-psychological distinctions between the intelligentsia, the workers and collective farmers remain”, etc. etc. (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, pp. 10, 50, 79). Likewise, according to them, after the establishment of socialist relations of production the class struggle ceases and, therefore, the ideo-political or socio-economic soil for the possibility of the degeneration of socialism and the restoration of capitalism cannot be created. After this period, according to the Soviet revisionists, “the tendencies of private ownership cease to operate”, “the forms of small-scale private production cannot serve as a breeding ground for the emergence of the new capitalist elements in the economy”, “the contradictions between socialist production and small-scale production no longer have an antagonistic character”, "within the country, any cause for political struggle is eliminated, and the possibility of antagonistic class conflicts and political counter-revolution disappears” (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, tom. II, Moskva, 1974, pp. 33, 60). As a consequence of all these false, anti-scientific and anti-Marxist argumentations they arrive at the conclusion that "socialism is not a temporary co-existence of immature communism and vestiges of capitalism, but a new, independent, mode of production” (Voprosi Ekonomii, N° 6, 1975, p. 27). And finally, the eclectic circle of the revisionist betrayal is completed with the thesis that in the conditions of the so-called developed socialist society, the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary, therefore it is transformed into a state of the entire people.
We need only confront the views of the Soviet revisionists on the period of transition from capitalism to communism with the theses of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, the teachings of our Party and comrade Enver Hoxha to disclose their anti-scientific and anti-Marxist character and their bourgeois capitalist content.
The classics of Marxism-Leninism always treated the period of transition as a very long historical period which extends throughout the whole period of the construction of socialism up to communism, as a whole epoch of the transition from capitalism to communism. Likewise, in broad outline, they also defined the fundamental socio-economic characteristics of this period. Between capitalist and communist society, wrote K. Marx, “lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other” (K. Marx, "Criticism of the Gotha Program”, p. 30). On another occasion he writes that the period of transition from capitalism to communism is "that indispensable step to go on to the elimination of class distinctions in general, to the elimination of all relations of production on which these distinctions are based, to the elimination of all social relations which correspond to these relations of production, to the overthrow of all ideas that stem from these social relations" (K. Marx – F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 226, Alb. ed.).
When he speaks about the society of the period of transition from capitalism to communism, Marx is speaking not about a communist society which is developing on its own communist base, but about a society which has just emerged from capitalist society, a society which, for this reason, still preserves in all directions traces of the old society from the womb of which it has just been born.
Lenin, too, maintained the same stand whenever he dealt with the question of the period of transition from capitalism to communism or individual problems connected with this period. “The transition from capitalist society which, in its development, is moving towards communism, to communist society, cannot be made without a political transition period" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 540, Alb. ed.). When he deals with this period, Lenin especially stresses that it combines in itself features and qualities of two socio-economic orders, that it is a period of the struggle between capitalism which is dying and communism which is in the process of its birth. Finally, Lenin, like Marx, links the period of transition with the disappearance of classes, and class distinctions in society, and all the relations of production on which these distinctions are based.
The Soviet revisionists maintain the view that the period of transition does not extend right up the construction of the classless society, but is a separate period of the transition from capitalism to socialism, which ends with the construction of the economic base of socialism. “The period of transition from capitalism to socialism,” writes the academician Pyotr Fedoseyev, "begins with the triumph of the socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and ends with the elimination of capitalist private property” (Voprosy Ekonomiki, N° 5, 1975, p. 27). In connection with the same question, the text of political economy of Moscow University says: “In every country the period of transition begins from the moment of the establishment of socialist relations in production” (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, Izdatelstvo Ekonomika, Moskva, 1974, pp. 8-9).
It is evident that this view is not a chance aberration or simply an "isolated ideological distortion”, but a consciously chosen prevailing official view. The reduction by the Soviet revisionists of the period of transition from capitalism to communism to a period that ends with the construction of the economic base of socialism is done for the purpose of justifying the revisionist counter-revolution “theoretically” and denying the class struggle, of justifying the elimination of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its replacement with the dictatorship of the new bourgeoisie, and disguising the restoration of capitalism.
And in fact, they assert that after the completion of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism “the main problem” of “who will win?” is solved, “socialism achieves its complete triumph over capitalism”, in the socialist economy the struggle between the two roads of development no longer exists, “in the developed socialist society classes disappear and only occupational or social-psychological distinctions between the intelligentsia, the workers and collective farmers remain”, etc. etc. (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, pp. 10, 50, 79). Likewise, according to them, after the establishment of socialist relations of production the class struggle ceases and, therefore, the ideo-political or socio-economic soil for the possibility of the degeneration of socialism and the restoration of capitalism cannot be created. After this period, according to the Soviet revisionists, “the tendencies of private ownership cease to operate”, “the forms of small-scale private production cannot serve as a breeding ground for the emergence of the new capitalist elements in the economy”, “the contradictions between socialist production and small-scale production no longer have an antagonistic character”, "within the country, any cause for political struggle is eliminated, and the possibility of antagonistic class conflicts and political counter-revolution disappears” (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, tom. II, Moskva, 1974, pp. 33, 60). As a consequence of all these false, anti-scientific and anti-Marxist argumentations they arrive at the conclusion that "socialism is not a temporary co-existence of immature communism and vestiges of capitalism, but a new, independent, mode of production” (Voprosi Ekonomii, N° 6, 1975, p. 27). And finally, the eclectic circle of the revisionist betrayal is completed with the thesis that in the conditions of the so-called developed socialist society, the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary, therefore it is transformed into a state of the entire people.
We need only confront the views of the Soviet revisionists on the period of transition from capitalism to communism with the theses of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, the teachings of our Party and comrade Enver Hoxha to disclose their anti-scientific and anti-Marxist character and their bourgeois capitalist content.
The classics of Marxism-Leninism always treated the period of transition as a very long historical period which extends throughout the whole period of the construction of socialism up to communism, as a whole epoch of the transition from capitalism to communism. Likewise, in broad outline, they also defined the fundamental socio-economic characteristics of this period. Between capitalist and communist society, wrote K. Marx, “lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other” (K. Marx, "Criticism of the Gotha Program”, p. 30). On another occasion he writes that the period of transition from capitalism to communism is "that indispensable step to go on to the elimination of class distinctions in general, to the elimination of all relations of production on which these distinctions are based, to the elimination of all social relations which correspond to these relations of production, to the overthrow of all ideas that stem from these social relations" (K. Marx – F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 226, Alb. ed.).
When he speaks about the society of the period of transition from capitalism to communism, Marx is speaking not about a communist society which is developing on its own communist base, but about a society which has just emerged from capitalist society, a society which, for this reason, still preserves in all directions traces of the old society from the womb of which it has just been born.
Lenin, too, maintained the same stand whenever he dealt with the question of the period of transition from capitalism to communism or individual problems connected with this period. “The transition from capitalist society which, in its development, is moving towards communism, to communist society, cannot be made without a political transition period" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 540, Alb. ed.). When he deals with this period, Lenin especially stresses that it combines in itself features and qualities of two socio-economic orders, that it is a period of the struggle between capitalism which is dying and communism which is in the process of its birth. Finally, Lenin, like Marx, links the period of transition with the disappearance of classes, and class distinctions in society, and all the relations of production on which these distinctions are based.
Proceeding from the notion of the socio-economic formation as a separate social organism which has its objective laws of birth and development, in which a given mode of production corresponds to a given social class structure and a given superstructure, the classics of Marxism-Leninism have laid it down that communism is a single socio-economic formation with two phases: with a lower phase – socialism, and a higher phase – full communism.
Hence the anti-Marxist character of the revisionist view, which considers and proclaims socialism as a mode of production in itself and communism as another mode of production, emerges very clearly. Within one economic-social formation there have never been and cannot be two different modes of production. The arbitrary declaration of socialism as a mode of production in itself was necessary to the Soviet revisionists as a "theoretical argument” in order to negate the existence of classes and class struggle in socialism.
The revolutionary experience of the construction of socialism in our country is more and more confirming the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist view that the transition period is the whole historical period of the transition from capitalism to communism. It starts with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and continues up to the achievement of full communism, until classes are eliminated, until all class distinctions disappear, and classless society is achieved.
In accord with this concept, socialism represents a stage in the transition to communism in which the new socialist relations of production have been established, the exploitation of man by man has been wiped out, antagonistic classes have been eliminated, but non-antagonistic classes exist, class distinctions and contradictions exist, the class struggle exists as the principal motive force, and the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road of development continues according to Lenin's formula “Which will win?” in the base and the superstructure. As long as all these problems have not been resolved, socialism cannot be considered as completely built, and consequently, its triumph cannot be considered as final. For these reasons the socialist revolution must continue uninterruptedly during the whole period of the transition from capitalism to communism. In regard to the final triumph of socialism, this question has to do with the development of the world proletarian revolution, with the ratio of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie on a world scale. When this ratio has been definitively solved in favour of the proletariat, that is to say, when the proletarian revolution has triumphed and socialism is built completely in all the countries of the world, then its complete victory is turned into a final victory. Under these conditions, there is no longer any danger threatening socialism either within the country or from outside.
The true Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism as the first stage of communism brings to light the sheer falsity of the revisionist view which treats it as a social order of social homogeneity in which class interests and class struggle allegedly no longer exist, in which the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road is no longer waged because the question of “who will win?” has allegedly been finally solved.
During the whole period while socialism is being built and friendly classes exist within it, along with elements of the overthrown classes and the capitalist encirclement, there still remains the possibility of the birth of new bourgeois elements, the possibility of degeneration of socialism, hence also the possibility of the restoration of capitalism. This possibility is not an inevitability. It can be totally averted when the socialist revolution continues uninterruptedly, when the Party of the working class, which leads the entire process of the construction of socialism, bases itself firmly on, and remains loyal to, the triumphant and ever young ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The great historical merit of our Party with comrade Enver Hoxha at the head is that it not only brought our country into the brilliant epoch of the transition from capitalism to communism, but is also leading it with determination and wisdom in the consistent construction of true socialism. It is self-evident that in the scheme of the Soviet revisionists about socialism or “the developed socialist society”, the question of the possibility of degeneration of socialism and the restoration of capitalism is left completely unmentioned, because to speak of it would be like speaking of the noose in the home of the hanged.
Until the final victory of communism is achieved, the historical period of the construction of socialism is characterized by the preservation of the political organization of society in the form of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this period, the dictatorship of the proletariat and its economic, organizational, educational and repressive functions go through a dialectical process of growing stronger and more perfect, which goes on right up until the internal and external conditions for the withering away of the state are created universally.
Hence the anti-Marxist character of the revisionist view, which considers and proclaims socialism as a mode of production in itself and communism as another mode of production, emerges very clearly. Within one economic-social formation there have never been and cannot be two different modes of production. The arbitrary declaration of socialism as a mode of production in itself was necessary to the Soviet revisionists as a "theoretical argument” in order to negate the existence of classes and class struggle in socialism.
The revolutionary experience of the construction of socialism in our country is more and more confirming the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist view that the transition period is the whole historical period of the transition from capitalism to communism. It starts with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and continues up to the achievement of full communism, until classes are eliminated, until all class distinctions disappear, and classless society is achieved.
In accord with this concept, socialism represents a stage in the transition to communism in which the new socialist relations of production have been established, the exploitation of man by man has been wiped out, antagonistic classes have been eliminated, but non-antagonistic classes exist, class distinctions and contradictions exist, the class struggle exists as the principal motive force, and the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road of development continues according to Lenin's formula “Which will win?” in the base and the superstructure. As long as all these problems have not been resolved, socialism cannot be considered as completely built, and consequently, its triumph cannot be considered as final. For these reasons the socialist revolution must continue uninterruptedly during the whole period of the transition from capitalism to communism. In regard to the final triumph of socialism, this question has to do with the development of the world proletarian revolution, with the ratio of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie on a world scale. When this ratio has been definitively solved in favour of the proletariat, that is to say, when the proletarian revolution has triumphed and socialism is built completely in all the countries of the world, then its complete victory is turned into a final victory. Under these conditions, there is no longer any danger threatening socialism either within the country or from outside.
The true Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism as the first stage of communism brings to light the sheer falsity of the revisionist view which treats it as a social order of social homogeneity in which class interests and class struggle allegedly no longer exist, in which the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road is no longer waged because the question of “who will win?” has allegedly been finally solved.
During the whole period while socialism is being built and friendly classes exist within it, along with elements of the overthrown classes and the capitalist encirclement, there still remains the possibility of the birth of new bourgeois elements, the possibility of degeneration of socialism, hence also the possibility of the restoration of capitalism. This possibility is not an inevitability. It can be totally averted when the socialist revolution continues uninterruptedly, when the Party of the working class, which leads the entire process of the construction of socialism, bases itself firmly on, and remains loyal to, the triumphant and ever young ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The great historical merit of our Party with comrade Enver Hoxha at the head is that it not only brought our country into the brilliant epoch of the transition from capitalism to communism, but is also leading it with determination and wisdom in the consistent construction of true socialism. It is self-evident that in the scheme of the Soviet revisionists about socialism or “the developed socialist society”, the question of the possibility of degeneration of socialism and the restoration of capitalism is left completely unmentioned, because to speak of it would be like speaking of the noose in the home of the hanged.
Until the final victory of communism is achieved, the historical period of the construction of socialism is characterized by the preservation of the political organization of society in the form of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this period, the dictatorship of the proletariat and its economic, organizational, educational and repressive functions go through a dialectical process of growing stronger and more perfect, which goes on right up until the internal and external conditions for the withering away of the state are created universally.
The view of the Soviet revisionists on the transformation of the dictatorship of the proletariat into the so-called state of the entire people after the construction of the economic base of socialism, when classes still exist, is an anti-Marxist, counter-revolutionary view, to disguise the social-fascist dictatorship established by the revisionist bourgeoisie. In reality, the so-called “state of the entire people”, which has been established today in the Soviet Union, is a state without the working class at the head, without the leadership of its party and without the Marxist-Leninist ideology. This type of state represents the political domination of the new bourgeoisie, its dictatorship, which oppresses, enslaves and exploits the working class and the other masses of the working people, which protects the restored capitalist order by force of arms and other means of coercion.
The open abandonment by the Soviet revisionists of the scientific Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism comes out clearly, also, when they proclaim the development of the productive forces as the only decisive factor of its construction. “In the conditions of developed socialism,” write the ideologists of Soviet revisionism, “the problem of the economic efficiency of social production emerges as primary. Raising this efficiency constitutes the decisive condition for the construction of socialism” (Voprosi Ekonomiki, N° 5, 1975, p. 77). This, too, is a very dangerous anti-Marxist view which opens the way to the revisionist counter-revolution. It is aimed at creating and spreading the erroneous idea that such factors as the leadership of the working class and the Marxist-Leninist party, keeping the dictatorship of the proletariat in the hands of the working class to ensure that it is not usurped by new bourgeois elements, the strengthening and perfecting of the socialist relations of production, the waging of the class struggle on all fronts and in all fields at the same time, are allegedly not factors just as decisive as the development of the productive forces for the fate of the socialist revolution and the construction of socialism.
The negative experience of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union shows unequivocally that the fatal damage did not come from any low level of the development of the productive forces but from the degeneration of the economic base and superstructure, from the replacement of the proletarian political line of the party with a revisionist line. And this same evil may threaten the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in any country that builds socialism if the emphasis is placed one-sidedly on the development of the productive forces alone, and revisionism is allowed to spread in the superstructure, especially in ideology, and in the base.
The Marxist-Leninist theory and revolutionary practice teach us that true socialism can be built consistently and can advance successfully towards communism when the revolution and the class struggle are developed ceaselessly in all fields of social life, when they include not only the development of productive forces, but also the strengthening and perfecting, in the correct revolutionary Marxist-Leninist course, of socialist relations of production, when they also include the defence and strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat and, above all, when they include the preservation of the revolutionary proletarian line, the defence of the purity of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Otherwise, if the revisionist counter-revolution is allowed to spread, no level of development of the productive forces, however high, can save socialism from the danger of degeneration and the restoration of capitalism. Any illusion created about the role of the productive forces alone in the construction of socialism is fatalistic determinism, a vulgar metaphysical concept of materialism, which history has punished severely.
The open abandonment by the Soviet revisionists of the scientific Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism comes out clearly, also, when they proclaim the development of the productive forces as the only decisive factor of its construction. “In the conditions of developed socialism,” write the ideologists of Soviet revisionism, “the problem of the economic efficiency of social production emerges as primary. Raising this efficiency constitutes the decisive condition for the construction of socialism” (Voprosi Ekonomiki, N° 5, 1975, p. 77). This, too, is a very dangerous anti-Marxist view which opens the way to the revisionist counter-revolution. It is aimed at creating and spreading the erroneous idea that such factors as the leadership of the working class and the Marxist-Leninist party, keeping the dictatorship of the proletariat in the hands of the working class to ensure that it is not usurped by new bourgeois elements, the strengthening and perfecting of the socialist relations of production, the waging of the class struggle on all fronts and in all fields at the same time, are allegedly not factors just as decisive as the development of the productive forces for the fate of the socialist revolution and the construction of socialism.
The negative experience of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union shows unequivocally that the fatal damage did not come from any low level of the development of the productive forces but from the degeneration of the economic base and superstructure, from the replacement of the proletarian political line of the party with a revisionist line. And this same evil may threaten the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in any country that builds socialism if the emphasis is placed one-sidedly on the development of the productive forces alone, and revisionism is allowed to spread in the superstructure, especially in ideology, and in the base.
The Marxist-Leninist theory and revolutionary practice teach us that true socialism can be built consistently and can advance successfully towards communism when the revolution and the class struggle are developed ceaselessly in all fields of social life, when they include not only the development of productive forces, but also the strengthening and perfecting, in the correct revolutionary Marxist-Leninist course, of socialist relations of production, when they also include the defence and strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat and, above all, when they include the preservation of the revolutionary proletarian line, the defence of the purity of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Otherwise, if the revisionist counter-revolution is allowed to spread, no level of development of the productive forces, however high, can save socialism from the danger of degeneration and the restoration of capitalism. Any illusion created about the role of the productive forces alone in the construction of socialism is fatalistic determinism, a vulgar metaphysical concept of materialism, which history has punished severely.
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Another field of the revision of the theory and practice of scientific socialism on the part of the Soviet revisionists is their elimination of the dividing line, their confusing of the economic laws of socialism with their methods, forms and practices of management of the economy. As a result, their analysis of socialism is not based on the relations of production but on their so-called theories and practices of planning, of the total social product and the factors of its growth, of the necessary product and the surplus product, of the criteria for measuring the efficiency of production, etc. The “theories” and views of the Soviet revisionists, which replace the economic laws of socialism with their forms and practices of the management of the economy, represent an entire ideological and political mechanism specially selected to provide "theoretical" justification for the restoration of capitalist practices in the organization and management of the economy in the Soviet Union.
In the text-book of the political economy of socialism published by the University of Moscow, the analysis of the so-called developed socialist society begins with the planning of production, which is considered as the fundamental relation of socialism, its foundation. Here it is quite obvious that the Soviet revisionists have gone over completely to bourgeois idealist positions, in open opposition to the well-known thesis of historical materialism which says that the most profound secret, the invisible foundation of the whole social structure, should be sought in the relations of production which arise from the type of ownership over the means of production.
The anti-Marxist position of the Soviet revisionists becomes even more clear when they affirm that “the necessity of planning springs from the high level of development of the material and technical base” (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, p. 110) and that “the technical-scientific revolution, and the utilization of mathematical economic models should be made the foundation of planning" (Voprosi Ekonomiki, N° 5, 1976, p. 30). That these statements are a negation of the law of the planned and proportional development of the economy, is clear from the "arguments” that the revisionists themselves employ on this question.
The Soviet revisionists claim that the law of the proportional development of the economy is a universal law that operates in all socio-economic formations, therefore there can be no special law for socialism. In this connection they usually refer to the known thesis of Marx to the effect that the need for the social division of labour in definite proportions cannot be eliminated from social production in any instance, that only the form of its expression can alter. But with this thesis Marx means that every nation is obliged to expend part of its labour on the production of material blessings and divide the labour in certain proportions. This need Marx considered as similar to the “laws of nature” which cannot be eliminated.
But can it be claimed on this basis, as the Soviet revisionist do, that Marx was of the opinion that the law of the proportional development of the national economy has operated and continues to operate in all the socio-economic formations? Certainly not! In fact, Marx does speak of the need for the division of social labour in certain proportions for any nation, regardless of its economic-social order, but not of the possibility of this. As is known, the economic law does not comprise only the need, but also the objective possibility through which the need is realized. It is also known that as long as social ownership over the means of production and the dictatorship of the proletariat have not been established, the objective possibility for social labour to be divided in a planned manner and in regulated proportions among the various branches of material production is not created either.
The anti-Marxist position of the Soviet revisionists becomes even more clear when they affirm that “the necessity of planning springs from the high level of development of the material and technical base” (Kurs Politicheskoj Ekonomii, p. 110) and that “the technical-scientific revolution, and the utilization of mathematical economic models should be made the foundation of planning" (Voprosi Ekonomiki, N° 5, 1976, p. 30). That these statements are a negation of the law of the planned and proportional development of the economy, is clear from the "arguments” that the revisionists themselves employ on this question.
The Soviet revisionists claim that the law of the proportional development of the economy is a universal law that operates in all socio-economic formations, therefore there can be no special law for socialism. In this connection they usually refer to the known thesis of Marx to the effect that the need for the social division of labour in definite proportions cannot be eliminated from social production in any instance, that only the form of its expression can alter. But with this thesis Marx means that every nation is obliged to expend part of its labour on the production of material blessings and divide the labour in certain proportions. This need Marx considered as similar to the “laws of nature” which cannot be eliminated.
But can it be claimed on this basis, as the Soviet revisionist do, that Marx was of the opinion that the law of the proportional development of the national economy has operated and continues to operate in all the socio-economic formations? Certainly not! In fact, Marx does speak of the need for the division of social labour in certain proportions for any nation, regardless of its economic-social order, but not of the possibility of this. As is known, the economic law does not comprise only the need, but also the objective possibility through which the need is realized. It is also known that as long as social ownership over the means of production and the dictatorship of the proletariat have not been established, the objective possibility for social labour to be divided in a planned manner and in regulated proportions among the various branches of material production is not created either.
That the law of the proportional development of the economy is a law peculiar to socialism and, therefore, had no possibility of existing, and in fact did not exist prior to socialism, emerges without any doubt also in the case of capitalist production. For this reason, Marx never claimed that the law of the proportional development has operated in the capitalist economy. Let us recall that as early as his work “The Poverty of Philosophy”, Marx described the efforts of Proudhon and the other ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie to achieve proportional production, to ensure a correct ratio between supply and demand in the conditions when private ownership of the means of production prevailed, as a reactionary Utopia. Consistently pursuing the same line of thought, in the first volume of the "Capital” Marx proved that, in capitalism, the distribution of labour and the means of production among the various branches of social production is regulated only by the interplay of the momentary and arbitrary forces that operate in the market. Of course, here, too, there is a permanent trend towards the establishment of a balance among the different branches of social production, but this tendency manifests itself only as a reaction against the permanent and continuous upsetting of this balance.
It is known also that Lenin, too, in his time, categorically refuted Struve's attempt to interpret Marx's theory on the realization of social product as a theory of the proportional distribution of labour and means of production in capitalism. In this instance Lenin stresses that, in his theory of the realization of the social product in capitalism, Marx, by means of scientific abstraction, deals with the conditions that must exist for extended reproduction, including the proportional distribution of the product among the different branches of the production, although this in no way means that Marx's theory on the realization of social product presupposes and affirms that the products are, or can be, always distributed in a proportional manner in capitalist society. The proportional distribution of the product is the ideal of capitalist production, but by no means the reality of it. Therefore, the proportions in capitalist production are not established and realized except as an accidental occurrence in the permanent state of disproportion. And when these disproportions reach their ultimate critical point, then the economic crisis breaks out which, through its destructive force, re-establishes some sort of new equilibrium, to open the way for a new cycle of disproportions.
The law of the planned and proportional development of the national economy is born, exists and operates only in the conditions when socialist social ownership over the means of production and the dictatorship of the proletariat prevail. It is exclusively an economic law specific to socialism. Its operation necessarily requires the management of the national economy by the socialist state, that is to say, from a single centre, on the basis of democratic centralism, requires the drawing up and implementation of a unified over-all state plan, based on all the other economic laws of socialism, in order to attain the objective of socialist production – the fulfilment of the material and cultural needs of the members of society.
The endeavours of the Soviet revisionists to present the law of the planned, proportional development as a universal law that operates in other socio-economic formations, too, is an opportunist view which coincides with the view of the bourgeois apologists of capitalism, who claim that the capitalist economy, too, can be developed and planned in a proportional manner. They need this in order to conceal their going over to methods and practices of “planning” of the capitalist type with demagogy. If we add to this the creation of branch and inter-branch combines of the monopoly type, with complete economic independence, as well as the going over of enterprises to full economic freedom (to a completely self-supporting basis), we can see the decentralization of the Soviet revisionist economy, which has been turned into a market economy in which the law of profit and the other laws of capitalist production prevail.
The question of the use of commodity and money relations represents a whole system in the "theories” and views of the Soviet revisionists. One of the directions of the revisionist onslaught that was launched following the 20th Congress of the revisionist Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the Marxist-Leninist theoretical legacy in the field of economic science began with the question of commodity production and the law of value, until, step by step, it reached the point of the elaboration of the so-called theory of “market socialism” which serves today as the basis to proclaim profit as “the fundamental criterion of the efficiency of production” in the Soviet economy.
In attacking the Marxist-Leninist view in regard to commodity production in socialism, the Soviet revisionists claim that history knows only two types of social production: the natural economy and the market economy. Therefore, they assert, either socialism and an economy without the system of commodity and money relations, or socialism and a market economy with commodity, value, money, economic spontaneity, competition, prices, profits, credits, interest, taxes on the fundamental means, rent, etc, which extend over the whole people's economy. According to the revisionists, any commodity production in socialism is identical with capitalist commodity production. According to them, to assert the existence of commodity production of a special type in socialism means, allegedly, to decide “arbitrarily”, contrary to the objective reality.
This view of the Soviet revisionists is refuted, first of all, by the history of the birth and development of commodity production itself and of all the other economic categories related to it. Commodity, money, market are economic categories which do not belong to only one socio-economic formation; they extend beyond the bounds of capitalism and capitalist private ownership in general, they have their beginnings before the emergence of capitalism and capitalist private property. Following the thread of the history of the birth and development of commodity relations shows that in different economic-social formations, they have expressed and still express different relations of production, in accordance with the prevailing form of ownership over the means of production. On the other hand, according to the type of ownership over the means of production, the sphere of operation of commodity and money relations has changed, too. Some of their features have disappeared and others have emerged in their place. For example, in the pre-capitalist formations, commodity relations did not extend over labour power. Later labour power was turned into a commodity and, finally, socialism totally precludes the existence of the labour power as a commodity, along with some other things, such as the means of production.
As emerges from the study of the history of commodity production and the economic categories related to it, there is no ground whatsoever to take commodity production separately from the social formation in which it exists, and, what is more, there is no reason to assert that every kind of commodity production is identical with capitalist commodity production, as the modern revisionists do.
It is known also that Lenin, too, in his time, categorically refuted Struve's attempt to interpret Marx's theory on the realization of social product as a theory of the proportional distribution of labour and means of production in capitalism. In this instance Lenin stresses that, in his theory of the realization of the social product in capitalism, Marx, by means of scientific abstraction, deals with the conditions that must exist for extended reproduction, including the proportional distribution of the product among the different branches of the production, although this in no way means that Marx's theory on the realization of social product presupposes and affirms that the products are, or can be, always distributed in a proportional manner in capitalist society. The proportional distribution of the product is the ideal of capitalist production, but by no means the reality of it. Therefore, the proportions in capitalist production are not established and realized except as an accidental occurrence in the permanent state of disproportion. And when these disproportions reach their ultimate critical point, then the economic crisis breaks out which, through its destructive force, re-establishes some sort of new equilibrium, to open the way for a new cycle of disproportions.
The law of the planned and proportional development of the national economy is born, exists and operates only in the conditions when socialist social ownership over the means of production and the dictatorship of the proletariat prevail. It is exclusively an economic law specific to socialism. Its operation necessarily requires the management of the national economy by the socialist state, that is to say, from a single centre, on the basis of democratic centralism, requires the drawing up and implementation of a unified over-all state plan, based on all the other economic laws of socialism, in order to attain the objective of socialist production – the fulfilment of the material and cultural needs of the members of society.
The endeavours of the Soviet revisionists to present the law of the planned, proportional development as a universal law that operates in other socio-economic formations, too, is an opportunist view which coincides with the view of the bourgeois apologists of capitalism, who claim that the capitalist economy, too, can be developed and planned in a proportional manner. They need this in order to conceal their going over to methods and practices of “planning” of the capitalist type with demagogy. If we add to this the creation of branch and inter-branch combines of the monopoly type, with complete economic independence, as well as the going over of enterprises to full economic freedom (to a completely self-supporting basis), we can see the decentralization of the Soviet revisionist economy, which has been turned into a market economy in which the law of profit and the other laws of capitalist production prevail.
The question of the use of commodity and money relations represents a whole system in the "theories” and views of the Soviet revisionists. One of the directions of the revisionist onslaught that was launched following the 20th Congress of the revisionist Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the Marxist-Leninist theoretical legacy in the field of economic science began with the question of commodity production and the law of value, until, step by step, it reached the point of the elaboration of the so-called theory of “market socialism” which serves today as the basis to proclaim profit as “the fundamental criterion of the efficiency of production” in the Soviet economy.
In attacking the Marxist-Leninist view in regard to commodity production in socialism, the Soviet revisionists claim that history knows only two types of social production: the natural economy and the market economy. Therefore, they assert, either socialism and an economy without the system of commodity and money relations, or socialism and a market economy with commodity, value, money, economic spontaneity, competition, prices, profits, credits, interest, taxes on the fundamental means, rent, etc, which extend over the whole people's economy. According to the revisionists, any commodity production in socialism is identical with capitalist commodity production. According to them, to assert the existence of commodity production of a special type in socialism means, allegedly, to decide “arbitrarily”, contrary to the objective reality.
This view of the Soviet revisionists is refuted, first of all, by the history of the birth and development of commodity production itself and of all the other economic categories related to it. Commodity, money, market are economic categories which do not belong to only one socio-economic formation; they extend beyond the bounds of capitalism and capitalist private ownership in general, they have their beginnings before the emergence of capitalism and capitalist private property. Following the thread of the history of the birth and development of commodity relations shows that in different economic-social formations, they have expressed and still express different relations of production, in accordance with the prevailing form of ownership over the means of production. On the other hand, according to the type of ownership over the means of production, the sphere of operation of commodity and money relations has changed, too. Some of their features have disappeared and others have emerged in their place. For example, in the pre-capitalist formations, commodity relations did not extend over labour power. Later labour power was turned into a commodity and, finally, socialism totally precludes the existence of the labour power as a commodity, along with some other things, such as the means of production.
As emerges from the study of the history of commodity production and the economic categories related to it, there is no ground whatsoever to take commodity production separately from the social formation in which it exists, and, what is more, there is no reason to assert that every kind of commodity production is identical with capitalist commodity production, as the modern revisionists do.
Both in theory and in the practice of our socialist construction it has been proven that commodity production, the relations of commodity production and money relations do not present themselves in the socialist economy with the same nature and the same features as in the conditions of dominance of capitalist private ownership over the means of production, but undergo a radical alteration. In order to make this difference clear, Stalin proved that in socialism there is commodity production of a special type. Precisely this thesis of Stalin's the Soviet revisionists do not accept, in order to give “the right of citizenship” to their bourgeois thesis to the effect that the socialist economy is allegedly a commodity production economy, a market economy. However it is known that the whole essence of the analysis Stalin makes in connection with commodity production in socialism in his work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” is summed up in the disclosure and explanation of the features that disappear or change radically and of those that are preserved in the conditions of the socialist economy.
What are the features of commodity production that are eliminated in the socialist economy? Of course, they are all those features which are connected with the capitalist relations of exploitation and express those relations, such as anarchy of production, spontaneity of the market, competition, the exploitation of man by man, the transformation of commodities and money into capital, surplus value and profit, the price of the product, inflation, crises of overproduction, etc.
Which are those features of commodity production which remain in socialism and continue to develop on a new basis and in new socio-economic conditions? Naturally, only those features that are used to express the economic form of social relations among people in some of the phases of the process of social reproduction, such as value, cost, price, etc.
It is self-evident that commodity and money relations in socialism do not include the base of socialist production. Here the means of production and labour power are not commodities. Therefore, the uniting of the means of production with labour power, as a fundamental economic relation, is not carried out through the act of buying, but directly through the organization of the centralized and planned management of the economy, in the interest of the working people themselves, who are owners of the means of production and direct producers of material blessings at the same time. In this sense, Stalin stressed that in socialism, the sphere of extension of commodity production, of commodity and money relations, is limited, that it does not include in its content either production in general or the means of production. This thesis marks the dividing line between the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint and the revisionist viewpoint on commodity production in socialism. According to this thesis, commodity production in socialism is production of a special type which history has never known before.
Marx and Engels did not envisage commodity production in socialism, so they did not take up this question to "solve it. On this basis, prior to the October Revolution opinions were expressed to the effect that socialism is incompatible with commodity production, and it was accepted as an axiom in socialism. In the period of war communism in the Soviet Union, efforts were made to do away with commodity and money relations. The expedience of that period provided convincing proof of the impossibility of the construction of socialism without using commodity production and the economic categories deriving from it. Basing himself on the experience of war communism, Lenin rejected the dogma of the incompatibility between socialism and commodity production. Lenin linked the elimination of commodity production and of gold as money with the triumph of communism on a world scale.
Proceeding from Lenin's teachings and the historical experience of the construction of socialism up to the end of the forties, Stalin summed up and formulated theoretically a series of questions related to the reasons for the preservation and necessity for the existence of commodity production in socialism, its new features as commodity production of a special type, and the use of commodity and money relations in the socialist economy. The experience of the construction and development of the socialist economy in our country, where Marxism-Leninism is implemented faithfully and in a creative spirit by our Party of Labour, show that Stalin's views on commodity production, which are based on Marxist-Leninist theory, were and still are correct.
What are the features of commodity production that are eliminated in the socialist economy? Of course, they are all those features which are connected with the capitalist relations of exploitation and express those relations, such as anarchy of production, spontaneity of the market, competition, the exploitation of man by man, the transformation of commodities and money into capital, surplus value and profit, the price of the product, inflation, crises of overproduction, etc.
Which are those features of commodity production which remain in socialism and continue to develop on a new basis and in new socio-economic conditions? Naturally, only those features that are used to express the economic form of social relations among people in some of the phases of the process of social reproduction, such as value, cost, price, etc.
It is self-evident that commodity and money relations in socialism do not include the base of socialist production. Here the means of production and labour power are not commodities. Therefore, the uniting of the means of production with labour power, as a fundamental economic relation, is not carried out through the act of buying, but directly through the organization of the centralized and planned management of the economy, in the interest of the working people themselves, who are owners of the means of production and direct producers of material blessings at the same time. In this sense, Stalin stressed that in socialism, the sphere of extension of commodity production, of commodity and money relations, is limited, that it does not include in its content either production in general or the means of production. This thesis marks the dividing line between the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint and the revisionist viewpoint on commodity production in socialism. According to this thesis, commodity production in socialism is production of a special type which history has never known before.
Marx and Engels did not envisage commodity production in socialism, so they did not take up this question to "solve it. On this basis, prior to the October Revolution opinions were expressed to the effect that socialism is incompatible with commodity production, and it was accepted as an axiom in socialism. In the period of war communism in the Soviet Union, efforts were made to do away with commodity and money relations. The expedience of that period provided convincing proof of the impossibility of the construction of socialism without using commodity production and the economic categories deriving from it. Basing himself on the experience of war communism, Lenin rejected the dogma of the incompatibility between socialism and commodity production. Lenin linked the elimination of commodity production and of gold as money with the triumph of communism on a world scale.
Proceeding from Lenin's teachings and the historical experience of the construction of socialism up to the end of the forties, Stalin summed up and formulated theoretically a series of questions related to the reasons for the preservation and necessity for the existence of commodity production in socialism, its new features as commodity production of a special type, and the use of commodity and money relations in the socialist economy. The experience of the construction and development of the socialist economy in our country, where Marxism-Leninism is implemented faithfully and in a creative spirit by our Party of Labour, show that Stalin's views on commodity production, which are based on Marxist-Leninist theory, were and still are correct.
* * *
The present-day process of world development as a whole is moving towards the overthrow of capitalism, towards the proletarian revolution and the triumph of communism. “The world is at a stage when the cause of the revolution and national liberation of the peoples is not just an aspiration and a future prospect, but a problem taken up for solution” (Enver Hoxha, Report at the 7th Congress of the PL A,, p. 159, Engl. ed.).
In the context of this general and unceasing trend towards the revolutionary transformation of the world, the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the other countries ruled by the revisionists represents a zigzag, a violation of the universal laws of development of human society, which cannot abolish the operation of these laws. Therefore, Marxism-Leninism sees it and describes it as a temporary, passing phenomenon, which will be wiped from the face of the earth with violence, by means of the proletarian revolution.
The revisionist "theories” of restored capitalism have to do not only with the economy, but with all fields of social life, with an offensive against the entire Marxist-Leninist theory and the practice of scientific socialism. Therefore, the task our Party has laid down before us of deepening our knowledge of the roots of Khrushchevite revisionism and its variants, and increasing our criticism and struggle against it and any kind of opportunism, new and old, is a many-sided task. It must include knowledge and criticism of, and struggle against, the fundamental theses which have to do with the ideological preparation for the restoration of capitalism, with the degeneration of the relations of production and the superstructure, with the new exploiting class that is emerging and the class struggle, with the political organization of society and the socio-economic relations which are established by the modern revisionists.
Now that the communists and all the working people of our country have in their hands the broad, thorough, general analyses that the Party and comrade Enver Hoxha have made of the causes and ways of the complete restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries, they are armed to fight even better and with greater success against the whole bourgeois-revisionist ideology and the pressures it exerts on our society and our socialist construction. It is only by means of thorough knowledge and criticism of, and struggle against, the bourgeois-revisionist ideology on all fronts that the purity of Marxism-Leninism can be defended on all the issues of the theory and practice of scientific socialism, that the construction of true socialism can be carried forward in all fields, and that the forms and practices of capitalism, no matter how specific and disguised, can be exposed and the road closed to them.
In the context of this general and unceasing trend towards the revolutionary transformation of the world, the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the other countries ruled by the revisionists represents a zigzag, a violation of the universal laws of development of human society, which cannot abolish the operation of these laws. Therefore, Marxism-Leninism sees it and describes it as a temporary, passing phenomenon, which will be wiped from the face of the earth with violence, by means of the proletarian revolution.
The revisionist "theories” of restored capitalism have to do not only with the economy, but with all fields of social life, with an offensive against the entire Marxist-Leninist theory and the practice of scientific socialism. Therefore, the task our Party has laid down before us of deepening our knowledge of the roots of Khrushchevite revisionism and its variants, and increasing our criticism and struggle against it and any kind of opportunism, new and old, is a many-sided task. It must include knowledge and criticism of, and struggle against, the fundamental theses which have to do with the ideological preparation for the restoration of capitalism, with the degeneration of the relations of production and the superstructure, with the new exploiting class that is emerging and the class struggle, with the political organization of society and the socio-economic relations which are established by the modern revisionists.
Now that the communists and all the working people of our country have in their hands the broad, thorough, general analyses that the Party and comrade Enver Hoxha have made of the causes and ways of the complete restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries, they are armed to fight even better and with greater success against the whole bourgeois-revisionist ideology and the pressures it exerts on our society and our socialist construction. It is only by means of thorough knowledge and criticism of, and struggle against, the bourgeois-revisionist ideology on all fronts that the purity of Marxism-Leninism can be defended on all the issues of the theory and practice of scientific socialism, that the construction of true socialism can be carried forward in all fields, and that the forms and practices of capitalism, no matter how specific and disguised, can be exposed and the road closed to them.
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