234

p The science of socialist construction, like the practice of building socialism, is indivisibly associated with Lenin’s name. Lenin mapped out the programme for the building of socialist society covering its economic, political, ideological and international aspects, and for more than six years guided the building of socialism in the USSR.

p In his work as Chairman of the first Soviet Government and of the Council for Labour and Defence he set a brilliant model for the leadership of the proletarian dictatorship. The experience of this work and the many articles and documents written by Lenin and his pronouncements in this period are of immense value to the development of the theory and practice of the transition period.

p Among the principles of statesmanship by which Lenin was guided mention must be made, first of all, of the party spirit, devotion to the interests of the working class and fidelity to the party’s policy; a profoundly scientific approach, loyalty to national roots, links with the broad masses; ability to concentrate on central tasks and determine the main line of activity; efficiency and intolerance of any signs of bureaucracy; strict control of the work of state organs by the party and the masses.

235

p A striking feature of Lenin’s work was his scientific approach to the leadership of the state. He was both a scientist and a statesman. All his plans were profoundly scientific. He sought to achieve broad contacts between scientific institutions and the state apparatus and to bring leading scientists into state activity. The scientific approach enabled Lenin to determine unerringly the principal guidelines of the development of Soviet society, correctly chart pressing and long-term tasks and ensure their timely fulfilment.

p In the functions of government Lenin did not reject methods of suppression but he stressed the importance of methods of state leadership and administration in carrying out the tasks of the transition period. In 1918 he wrote: “We achieved victory by methods of suppression; we shall be able to achieve victory also by methods of administration.”  [235•*  Underlying these methods were efficiency, responsibility and strict discipline. On this point Lenin wrote: ”. . . govern without the slightest hesitation; govern with a firmer hand than the capitalist governed before you. If you do not, you will not vanquish him. You must remember that government must be much stricter and much firmer than it was before.... Whoever now departs from order and discipline is permitting the enemy to penetrate our midst.”  [235•** 

p Lenin linked state discipline with intolerance of bureaucracy and red tape. As Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars he was uncompromising in his attitude to bureaucracy. He considered that executive control and the correct selection of cadres were the most effective means of combating bureaucracy. In February 1922 he wrote to A. D. Tsuryupa: “... check up on their work, get down to rock-bottom, school them, teach them, give them a proper trouncing. Study people, search for able workers. This is now the essence.”  [235•*** 

p Democratic centralism, which makes it possible to combine planned centralised leadership with broad democracy and stimulate activity by the masses, was regarded by Lenin as the fundamental principle of administration. He attached 236 great importance to the combination and precise delimitation of the functions of state, party and public organisations. In view of the fact that there was only one governing party, he insisted that it was necessary “to delimit much more precisely the functions of the party (and of its Central Committee) from those of the Soviet government; to increase the responsibility and independence of Soviet officials and of Soviet government institutions”.  [236•* 

p Lenin’s creative and practical work found expression in his plan for the building of socialism. Founded on the general laws of socio-economic and political development, this plan is of international importance for it takes into account not only the specifics of Russia but the general trends of socio-economic and political development throughout the world.

p It embraces four aspects: economic, political, ideological and international. Let us consider it in its economic aspect.

p Lenin’s point of departure was that during the transition period private ownership of the means of production is abolished, the leadership and planning of the economy pass to society as a whole, and the pattern and capacities of the national economy begin to change in such a way as to ensure socialist reproduction, the distribution of material blessings in accordance with the interests of society’s development arid remuneration according to work.

p The transitional nature of the relations of production in the period of socialist construction derives not only from the fact that for some time (a span that is different in each country on account of its historical, economic and other features) the economy remains multi-structural but also from the fact that survivals of preceding economic relations are to be found in the state sector of the economy. The law of the uneven development of social production is most strikingly seen during the socialist reorganisation of agriculture. These contradictions are gradually surmounted thanks to state assistance, above all, in the provision of machinery for agriculture, and to other important measures.

p Lenin considered that in view of the 20th-century scientific and technological revolution industrialisation was the only way to achieve the re-equipment of all branches of the 237 national economy, a rapid upswing of the productive forces and a steady rise of the living standard and cultural level of society as a whole. His argument was that only industrialisation could turn Russia, then destitute and weak, into a flourishing socialist republic.

p Lenin directed the compilation of the plan for the electrification of Russia (known as GOELRO), which ranged far beyond the set task of building a network of power stations, becoming in fact a plan for the comprehensive development of the entire national economy, a plan of industrialisation. He wrote: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” This formula combines the economic and political tasks of communist construction. Lenin worked out the problem of the material and technical basis of socialism and communism, showing that the pivotal tasks were electrification, mechanisation of production, and the promotion of technology and science. His approach to economic development thus combined economic and political considerations.

p He drew a clear distinction between the material and technical basis of socialism and the material and technical basis of communism, stressing that there was a considerable difference between them, that it would be much more difficult to build the latter.

p He considered that the second task in the economic building of socialism was the collectivisation of agriculture, i.e., the transfer of the individual isolated small peasant husbandry to large-scale socialised socialist farming. He worked out the problem of the principles, forms and methods of co-operation, of the principles of large-scale socialised farming, of the ways and methods of the socialist re- education and education of the peasants and the eradication of the contradictions between town and countryside. He showed that socialism had to be built and developed 6n the basis of an agriculture that kept abreast of the achievements of modern science and technology. In short, Lenin charted the ways and means of resolving the peasant problem during the building of socialism and during the subsequent transition to the building of communism.

p When we speak of Lenin’s plan for the economic building of socialism and communism we must bear in mind that the main conditions for building the new society were, in his 238 opinion, the implementation of the principle of distribution according to the quality and quantity of work and the principle of material incentives combined with moral incentives. He repeatedly made the point that socialism could not be built on enthusiasm alone even if this enthusiasm sprang from the great purpose of effecting the socialist revolution and building socialism. He stressed that in addition to a worker’s personal interest in the results of his work it was necessary to take moral incentives into account. This, he said, was the only way to build socialism and lead the people to communism. The practice of many socialist countries has shown that violation of these principles leads to errors in the leadership of society, to economic miscalculations, and so on.

p Lenin’s plan for political reorganisation embraced a wide range of problems linked with the building of socialist society’s political superstructure. Among these problems were the formation of society’s socio-political structure, the determination of the aims, functions and methods of state and party institutions and various public organisations (trade unions, youth, creative, sports, and others), the forms of expressing national interests in a multi-national state, the determination of the place occupied in this system by institutions which, by virtue of many circumstances, are preserved under socialism, notably, the Church. It goes without saying that in some countries it is possible to use individual institutions of the old system in the new political system, but, on the whole, a new structure arises. Its task is to ensure the functioning of socialist democracy and the implementation of the norms of socialist society through political and organisational measures.

p Lenin held that the successful building of socialism and communism required the party’s further organisational and ideological strengthening and the growth of its role as the leading force in the building of the new society. It was for this reason that he attached particularly great importance to the utmost promotion of inner-party democracy, the enhancement of the ideological and political level of Communists, the improvement of the party’s qualitative composition and the efficient functioning of its leading organs. The fundamental norms of party development under socialism, by which the CPSU and the fraternal parties of other 239 socialist countries are guided, were drawn up during the initial years of the transition period, when the party was headed by Lenin.

p Lenin showed that the administration of Soviet society and the structure of the state apparatus had to be attuned to the attainment of the economic and political objectives in the building of socialism and communism. He defined the socialist state’s principal tasks in economic development, in the organisation of social life and in the socialist and communist education of the people. He never hesitated to renounce those forms of state activity that had become obsolete and did not meet with the new requirements, and unconditionally rejected bureaucratic considerations. He insisted that in all its aspects the functions of government had to be economically and politically expedient and conform to the requirements of life, which dictated concrete forms of administration and concrete tasks in the work of the state apparatus. Here his point of departure was that economic development was the principal policy of a socialist state.

p Further, Lenin determined the ways of solving the national problem during the transition period. He attached immense importance to this problem and devoted much of his time to it.

p His teaching rested on the proposition, profoundly substantiated by him, that every nationality had the right to selfdetermination. Although for the proletariat, which is fighting to build a classless society, the national problem is of a secondary nature, Lenin considered that only the full and unconditional solution of this problem could facilitate the cause of the revolution. In this he differed with some theorists in his own party and in the international communist movement, one of whom was Rosa Luxemburg.

p From the principle of self-determination stemmed the question, raised by Lenin, of the forms of relations between nations after the triumph of socialism and of the state system of a multi-national country like Russia. In one of its very first acts, the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia published on November 16, 1917, the Soviet Government declared that the following principles of the programme of the Communist Party underlay its national policy: recognition of the right of nations to self- determination up to and including secession and the formation of an 240 independent state; recognition of the equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia; abolition of all national privileges and restrictions; free development of the national minorities and ethnical groups inhabiting the country.

p The Leninist line in the national question, embodied in the decisions of many party congresses, envisages a close alliance of the independent Soviet republics and an uncompromising struggle against great-power chauvinism and local nationalism. In this connection Lenin regarded as inacceptable the unification of the republics on the basis of “autonomisation” as proposed by Stalin, i.e., through the accession of independent Soviet republics to the RSFSR with the status of autonomous republics. Lenin insisted on-a higher form of federation—a union state in which each republic had the right freely to secede.

p He held that a correct national policy and its combination with the policy of socialist and communist construction had to be founded on the Communist Party’s leading role and authority exercised throughout the country.

p He showed that during the transition period an immense role was to be played by the trade unions as the media for drawing the masses into the building of socialism. In the struggle against all sorts of distortions of the role and place of the trade unions during the transition period and under socialism, Lenin determined their tasks in the economy and all other spheres of social life, making it clear that they were an organisation designed to train people, a school of economic management, a school of communism.  [240•*  He thus not only saw in the trade unions an element of socialist society but linked them with the communist future.

p The aim of the trade unions is to mobilise the people for the drive to promote economic development, to carry out the plans of socialist and communist construction. They are closely linked with the party and the government and actively participate in the decision of economic, political and cultural problems.

p They educate the people in the spirit of a communist attitude to work and draw the masses into active participation in the management of production. Moreover, they safeguard the labour rights and health of all factory and office 241 workers. They make sure labour legislation is observed and combat mismanagement and bureaucracy.

p Lenin established the norms governing the relations between the party and the trade unions. He considered that while being formally non-communist, the trade unions had to be, in effect, a communist organisation. In the resolution of the 9th Party Congress (1920) “On the Trade Unions and Their Organisation" it is stated: “It is only to the extent the trade unions, while formally remaining non-party organisations, become communist and in fact implement the policy of the Communist Party that the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist construction are ensured.”  [241•* 

p Society’s organisation during the transition period envisages the active enlistment of young people into the building of socialism. Work with young people thus becomes an important function of the party, and it is precisely this function that for its aims and methods goes far beyond the transition period. The work of the Young Communist League is likewise wholly directed towards moulding the man and the social relations of the future communist society.

p An independent youth mass organisation is an effective instrument for influencing young people and drawing them into social and political affairs. It brings young people into the building of socialism, helps the party to educate the rising generation in a spirit of devotion to communist ideals and trains them to work and defend their socialist motherland.

p Lenin’s postulates on the role and forms of youth organisation under socialism are attacked chiefly where they concern the functions of the youth league and its attitude to the Communist Party. The revisionists contend that the youth organisation must steer clear of politics and that it should be totally independent of the party. The idea of a united youth organisation is also frequently rejected. Young people are counterposed to the party. The experience of the socialist countries, of Czechoslovakia, in particular, has completely refuted these arguments and shown that attempts to translate them into life prejudice the interests of young people and hinder socialist construction.

242

p Lenin regarded ideology as the third aspect of the building of socialism and communism.

p After the power of the bourgeoisie is broken its ideology continues to influence many groups of working people for a long time. This is due to the existence of its direct proponents—remnants of the bourgeois class, the influence of the ideology of capitalist countries and the relative independence of ideology itself, which mirrors the economic basis mediatively. Hence the need for the Communist Party’s active and purposeful ideological re-education of the masses on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, which expresses the vital interests of the proletariat and all other working people. As Lenin put it: “We can only build communism out of the material created by capitalism, out of that refined apparatus which has been moulded under bourgeois conditions and which—as far as concerns the human material in the apparatus—is therefore inevitably imbued with the bourgeois mentality.”  [242•* 

p The victorious working class uses the economic possibilities and its own political power in the transition period to train and temper itself as a force capable of governing the country, and to re-educate wide strata of society, chiefly and particularly the petty-bourgeois strata in order to draw the masses, the lowest of the lower strata, as Lenin described them, into the building of socialism.

p During the transition period the central place in the party’s ideological work is occupied by the cultural revolution. Lenin regarded it as a sort of dual process. On the one hand, its purpose is to make all the values of world science and art, including those created by socialism, accessible to the people, and, on the other, to enable socialist science, technology, art and culture to move into a leading place in the world so that socialism becomes the greatest achievement of civilisation. The cultural revolution must abolish illiteracy and surmount cultural backwardness—a legacy of exploiting society. It must turn the school from a weapon of class rule into an instrument of socialist re-education and create a new, socialist culture and a socialist intelligentsia.

p Lenin worked out the principles and methods of working with intellectuals and showed the ways of re-educating the 243 old, bourgeois intellectuals whom socialism wins over and induces to serve the interests of the people. Moreover, Lenin charted the ways, methods and principles of creating the new, socialist intelligentsia recruited from among the workers, peasants and working intellectuals.

p Lenin linked the cultural revolution with society’s social organisation. He understood the concept of culture in the broad sense and stressed that it had to become part and parcel of social life and habits.  [243•*  “In matters of culture,” he wrote, “haste and sweeping measures are most harmful. Many of our young writers and Communists should get this well into their heads.”  [243•** 

p He devoted much attention to building up a knowledgeable and efficient administrative apparatus, condemning bureaucracy and working on problems of control over cadres and combining party and government work.

p It is sometimes forgotten that the cultural revolution has a class content aimed at the ideological re-education of the people and reorganising the way of life along socialist lines. The peoples who have achieved a high cultural level under capitalism are by no means sufficiently cultured from the standpoint of the requirements of socialism. An attempt was made to distort this tenet by the revisionists in Czechoslovakia who declared that the culture and maturity of the Czechoslovak people called for some special “European” form of socialism.

p On the other hand, the theory and practice of the recent “cultural revolution" in China have nothing in common with Lenin’s theory of cultural development or with the practice of carrying out a cultural revolution. In fact, the events in China were a drive against veteran proletarian revolutionaries devoted to the working class and socialism with the object of setting up a regime of personal power.

p Lenin worked out the problem of the international conditions for the building of socialism and communism. He regarded socialist construction in each country as part of the world revolution and saw in the foreign policy of the socialist states a means of ensuring the conditions needed 244 for the development of socialism in these countries and of helping the world revolutionary movement.

p He substantiated not only the principles of peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems but also the principles of inter-state relations between socialist countries, showing their basic difference from the international legal relations existing between capitalist countries. He indicated the principles that have regulated and continue to regulate socialist international relations and, at the same time, consolidate and promote economic, political, cultural and other links between socialist countries, links which actively influence the entire system of international relations. In effect he worked out socialist international law, which gives shape to and consolidates the relations between socialist countries.

Lenin’s conclusions about the principal tasks of socialist construction have been confirmed in the practice of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. They are recorded in the decisions of the 1957, 1960 and 1969 international communist forums. As L. I. Brezhnev said at the 1969 Meeting, “none of the difficulties arising during the building of socialism in one country or another have been able to or can cancel the general principles underlying socialist development. The practice of the socialist countries has reaffirmed the significance of the ideas of Marx and Lenin that the development of socialist society proceeds on the basis of general laws, that in one form or another the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., state leadership of the building of socialism by the working class, is inevitable during the entire period of transition from capitalism to socialism.”  [244•*