Now we are entitled to say that for us the mere growth of cooperation … is identical with the growth of socialism, and at the same time we have to admit that there has been a radical modification in our whole outlook on socialism. The radical modification is this; formerly we placed, and had to place, the main emphasis on the political struggle, on revolution, on winning political power, etc. Now the emphasis is changing and shifting to peaceful, organizational, “cultural” work. I should say that emphasis is shifting to educational work, were it not for our international relations, were it not for the fact that we have to fight for our position on a world scale.19
Of course he treated the outlook for real socialism very cautiously on account of the “ridiculously inadequate elements of knowledge, education and training.”
The most comprehensive modern theory of socialism has been published by István Mészáros, who ties his work on capital to the theoretical fundamentals of Marx and Lenin, and links his concept of socialism, not to the concepts of market production, but both looks for and defines these concepts beyond the market and the state – “beyond capital,” in short. The first generation of Soviet ideologues, including Lenin, defined the difference between the state capitalisms under the reign of capital and the dictatorship of the proletariat in that they wielded power in the name of a different class. They consolidated different modes of distribution and ownership, with a preference for different cultural values, marking out different political goals for society. Lenin limited the direct socialist exchange of goods (following war communism) to the state-socialist sector, its fate hanging by the market competition that connected to the capitalist sectors of the NEP and the “state-regulated buying and selling, to the money system”.20 Contrary to Lenin, Bukharin often defined this “state economy” as socialism, in both the ABC he wrote with Preobrazhensky, and in his Economics of the Transition Period (Ekonomika perekhodnogo perioda). This definition of socialism as state socialism transitioned directly – leaving Lenin out – to the ideological medium of the Stalinist period.
Lenin outlines four potential courses of development during the “state capitalist” phase of the transitional period, which also explains why such a wide variety of movements, both inside and outside of Russia, refer to his ideas. Three of these possibilities remained aligned with the conceptions of socialism (the fourth being the Ustryalov scenario of reversion to capitalism). In the course of time, the three basic trends could be observed not only in political thought and factional struggles, but also in historiography:
1. Intellectual groups, politicians, and thinkers who considered the multisector economy (defined by a state-regulated market and the state overseen by society) of the NEP as socialism – later identified as “market socialists” – who took their inspiration from the late work of Bukharin, although he never actually called a market economy “socialism” (despite counting on the market economy continuing for a long time, even if differently from Lenin).21
2. Stalin and his followers who were called, in this sense, “state socialists” – although it was Lenin who was proclaimed the progenitor of the market reforms of socialism in 1951. In the 1980s, this trend finally merged with the market socialists,22 who had earlier been designated “revisionists.” István Mészáros gives a generous summary of the characteristics of market socialism’s nature. Most importantly he unmasks the common motives of social democratic thinking and the Stalinist tradition in their similar “superstitious” way of relating to state and market. Both camps positioned themselves rigidly in opposition to the conversion of state property into communal property. Both the traditional forms of labor division and the power of disposing of surplus value remained within the scope of the detached apparatus. Every experiment that tried to reform this was undermined by the leaders of that party, even though Lenin had founded it with exactly the opposite aim. Though the later forms of market socialism were advertised as reformed state socialism, the first (market socialism) proved to be an evolved state of the second (state socialism), which in the end led to capitalism.23
3. The conception of socialism founded on autodynamic – self-generating – and needs-based production, direct democracy, cooperative ventures, and the “cooperative system” of producer and consumer collectives, traces back to Lenin’s way of thinking and has a rather extensive historiography to its credit.24
Революции 1917 г. в России – анализ и оценка качественных трансформаций общества
Аннотация. Понимание исторического места революций 1917 г. в России необходимо для формирования позитивного исторического самосознания нашего общества. Февраль 1917 г. – классическая буржуазная революция нового времени. Октябрь 1917 г. – новая социально-политическая революция, которая не завершает формирование нового общества, нового социально-экономического организма, а впервые в истории начинает создание такого общества с захвата политической власти в стране и создание нового общества на основе мировоззренческого, философского, экономического, культурного и социально-политического проекта. С Октября 1917 г. мы можем говорить о вариативности исторического процесса, о строительстве нового общества, создании и применении технологий социального управления.
Ключевые слова: революция, политическая революция, прогресс и регресс в развитии общества, историческое место советского общества, альтернативный тип буржуазному обществу, архаизация общества, естественно-исторические процессы, технологии управления социально-политическими процессами.
REVOLUTIONS OF 1917 IN RUSSIA – ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF THE QUALITATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE SOCIETY
Absrtact. Understanding the historical place of the revolution of 1917 in Russia is necessary for the formation of a positive historical identity of our society. February 1917 – the classic bourgeois revolution of the new time. October 1917 is a new socio-political revolution that does not complete the formation of a new society, a new socioeconomic organism, but for the first time in history begins the creation of a new society with the seizure of political power in the country and the creation of a new society based on ideological, philosophical, economic cultural and socio-political project of a new society. From October 1917 we can talk about the variability of the historical process, the construction of a new society, the creation and application of social management technologies.
Keywords: revolution, political revolution, progress and regress in the development of society, the historical place of Soviet society, an alternative type of bourgeois society, the archaization of society, natural history processes, technology management of socio-political processes.
Хочу поздравить всех со 100-летним юбилеем Октябрьской революции!
Хочу выразить искреннюю благодарность всем участникам и организаторам Международной научной конференции «Революции в России: теория и практика социальных преобразований».
