1. WHAT IS SOCIALISM?
The social system constructed
by the working people, led by the working class, after their seizure of
political power in a socialist revolution. It is a social system in which
the exploitation of man by man has been abolished and in which production
is centrally planned with the aim of maximising the welfare of the working
people.
2. HOW ARE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION
OWNED IN A SOCIALIST SOCIETY?
Collectively,
1) either by the state, representing the working
people as a whole, or;
2) by cooperatives, representing the working people of particular enterprises.
3. WHAT IS SOCIALISATION?
The taking over into the ownership
of the socialist state (i.e., the machinery of force by which the working
people rule over the rest of society) of an enterprise formerly owned by
a capitalist or a capitalist firm. It must be distinguished from nationalisation
in a capitalist society, where a formerly private enterprise is taken into
the ownership of the capitalist state, i.e., the machinery of rule of the
capitalist class as a whole).
4. WHAT IS COLLECTIVISATION?
The bringing together of a number
of small enterprises (which are economically inefficent individually) into
a single large cooperative of peasants or artisans. In order to retain
the
poor petty bourgeoisie as allies
of the working class during the building of socialism,
collectivisation
must always be
voluntary.
Collectivisation is a step on
the way to the socialisation of the enterprises of the peasants and artisans,
which transforms the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie into rural and urban
members of the working class.
5. HOW IS PRODUCTION REGULATED
UNDER SOCIALISM?
Since profit (the motive and
regulator of production under capitalism) has been abolished, production
is regulated under socialism by centralised state planning, based on maximum
democratic consultation with consumers so as to secure the maximum possible
satisfaction of the needs of the working people.
6. WHY IS IT NECESSARY, UNDER
SOCIALISM, FOR THE PRODUCTION OF MEANS OF PRODUCTION TO EXPAND MORE RAPIDLY
THAN THE PRODUCTION OF CONSUMER GOODS?
Because consumer goods (by which
the needs of the working people are directly satisfied) are produced with
the aid of means of production.
Consequently, a continuing expansion
of the production of consumer goods depends on the production of means
or production expanding more rapidly than the production of consumer goods.
7. ON WHAT BASIS ARE CONSUMER
GOODS DISTRIBUTED IN A SOCIALIST SOCIETY?
Since, at this stage of economic
development, the needs of the working people cannot be met in full, some
form of rationing is necessary. And since it is desired to bring about
the speediest possible development of production, this rationing system
must be one which stimulates productive effort on the part of the working
people. But the mass of the working people have entered have entered socialist
society with outlooks and attitudes inherited from capitalist society,
and one of the most significant of these is that increased productive effort
justifies increased personal material reward. For all these reasons, the
distribution of consumer goods under socialism is related to the quantity
and quality of work performed.
This principle is embodied
in the slogan of socialist society:
'FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS
ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS WORK!'.
8. IS THIS BASIS OF DISTRIBUTION
FAIR?
Not competely.
It is certainly fairer than
the basis of distribution under capitalist society, which is based on the
exploitation of the working people and on the amount of surplus-value-producing
property which happens to be owned (often as a result of inheritance).
But it is unfair to the extent that the quantity and quality of the work
performed by a worker may depend on factors outside his control (e.g.,
he may have more dependents than his neighbour, he may have some physical
disability).
Although this unfairness may
be mitigated by social services, it cannot be entirely eliminated as long
as the socialist principle of distribution is maintained.
9. HOW CAN THIS UNFAIRNESS BE
ELIMINATED?
Only by the replacement of socialism
(socialism being defined as 'the first stage of communism')
by true communism.
Under communism, this unfairness is eliminated
by the adoption of the principle of distribution according to need.
This principle is embodied in the slogan of communist society: 'FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS!'.
10.WHAT ARE THE ESSENTAL PREREQUISITES
FOR THE TRANSITION FROM SOCIALISM TO COMMUNISM?
Firstly,
a vast increase in the production of material wealth, sufficient to meet
all the essential needs of all the working people, without rationing; and;
Secondly,
a change in the outlook and attitudes of the mass of the working people,
in that they have come to accept work as a natural obligation, performed
according to ability without economic compulsion, and in that they have
come to take from distribution centres only what they need.
The adoption under socialism
of the principle of distribution according to work performed is necessary
in order that the first prerequisite of commmunism -- a vast increase in
the production of material wealth -- may be attained as soon as possible.
11. WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SOCIALIST STATE?
13. SINCE THE SOCIALIST STATE
IS A CLASS DICTATORSHIP, CAN IT BE REGARDED AS DEMOCRATIC?
In the sense that the socialist
state serves the interests only of the working people and suppresses the
interests of the former capitalist class, its democratic character may
be regarded as limited.
But in the original meaning of the term 'democracy' as 'the rule of the common people', 'the dictatorship of the working class' is democratic.
Certainly, since the capitalist class forms only a small minority of the population, it is infinitely more democratic than the capitalist state.
14. 'THE SOCIALIST STATE WILL
EVENTUALLY WITHER AWAY'-- FRIEDRICH ENGELS. EXPLAIN.
As the members of the overthrown
capitalist class die out and their descendants are assimilated into the
working people and acquire their outlook, there ceases to be any class
which must be suppressed for the security of socialism. Thus, the internal
repressive function of the socialist state is no longer necesary and dies
away.
And as the working people in other capitalist countries proceed to seize political power and construct socialism on a world scale, the danger of external military intervention also disappears.
Thus, the external defence function of the state also ceases to be necessary and dies away. Eventually, therefore, the socialist state -- as a machinery of rule -- ceases to exist, being transformed into a completely democratic apparatus for the administration of society.
15. IS A MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY
NECESSARY UNDER SOCIALISM?
It is essential.
Just as the working class cannot spontaneously
overthrow the political power of the capitalist class, but requires the
leadership of a vanguard party whose strategy and tactics are based upon
Marxism-Leninism, so it requires the leadership of this vanguard party
to maintain its political power and construct a socialist society.
Eventually, however, as the socialist state withers away and as the political consciousness of the whole working people has been raised to a high level, the need for such leadership no longer exists and the Party too withers away.
16. IS SOCIALISM, ONCE ESTABLISHED,
PERMANENT?
Only if the working people continue
to be led (A
minor amendment by Alliance: original wording by NCMLP was "are" instead
of "continue to be led") by
a Marxist-Leninist Party.
For this reason, the enemies of socialism strive in every way to pervert the Marxist-Leninist Party into a revisionist party -- a party which (at first) pays lip-service to arxism-Leninism but in fact adopts policies which, under the guise of 'modernisation' and 'democratisation' move the country towards the restoration of capitalism.
17. WHAT HAVE BEEN THE PRINCIPAL
EFFECTS OF THE TRIUMPH OF REVISIONISM IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT?
In all the countries where
socialism had been established, the capitalist system has been restored.
The restoration of capitalism
goes through a number of stages:
In developed capitalist countries, the triumph of revisionism in the international communist movement has transformed all the old communist parties into political instruments of monopoly capital, into social-democratic parties which have repudiated revolutionary socialism in favour of the illusory 'peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism'. Such parties may take their place within the parliamentary framework when needed by the capitalist class as instruments for the deception of working people.
These developments, tragic setbacks for the working people as they are, do not solve but, in the long run, accentuate the social problems of the working people. There is no solution for these problems but socialism.
THE HISTORIC TASK FACING THE
WORKING PEOPLE OF ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY AT THE PRESENT TIME, THEREFORE,
IS THE RECONSTITUTION OF MARXIST-LENINIST PARTIES, PURGED OF AND INSULATED
AGAINST EVERY REVISIONIST TREND, AND THE RECONSTITUTION OF A MARXIST-LENINIST
INTERNATIONAL AS THE VANGUARD OF THE WORKING PEOPLE OF THE WORLD.
2) Lenin: "State And Revolution";
(especially section V: "The Economic Basis of the Withering away of the
State";) Selected Works; pp 298-313; or in Volume 25 of Collected Works;
pp381-492;
OR:
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/SR17.html#c1s4
IMPLEMENTING SOCIALISM IN
THE USSR
3) Lenin V.I.: "The Tax in Kind":
written 1921; in Selected Works" Volume 3; Moscow; 1971; pp589-619; or
Volume 32; Collected Works, Moscow, 1965, pp. 329-65.
OR:
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/TXK21.html
4) Lenin's Report to the Third Congress
of Comitnern"; especially sections 4 ("The Proletariat and the Peasantry
in Russia") through to 9 ("The Material Basis of Socialism and the Plan
for the Electrification of Russia " Selected Works; Volume 3; pp 624-627;
or Collected Works, Volume 32; Moscow, 1965; pp. 451-96. OR:
from http://www.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/TCCI21.html#s1s5
TO: http://www.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/TCCI21.html#s1s9
5) Lenin: "How To Organise Competition?"; written 1917; Collected Works; Volume 26; pp 405-15; OR: http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/HOC17.html
6) ENSURING CONTINUATION OF
PROGRESS IN THE USSR TO SOCIALISM:
Stalin J.V: On Collectivization
& industrialisation; On Bukharinism and how the class struggle gets
more intense the closer one gets to establishing socialism – and not less
intense as the revisionists were arguing: "On Industrialisation of the
Country, & the Right Deviation in the CPSU(B)"; Volume 11; Moscow 1954;
pp 255-280. OR:
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Stalin/ICRD28.html
7) ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
THE HIGHER STAGES OF SOCIALISM IN THE USSR
Economics of Socialism and the
transformation into Communism: Stalin’s last work – a major attack upon
the hidden revisionists who had taken over the CPSU(B); :
"Economic Problems of Socialism
in the USSR"; Written 1952; published Moscow 1952;
OR:
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Stalin/EPS52.html
8) HOW SOCIALISM WAS SUBVERTED
IN THE USSR:
For a detailed examination of how
the USSR was subverted and how Capitalism was restored see the now classic,
and detailed book by W.B.Bland - that well before Yeltsin arrived into
pwoer - showed the inevitable consequences of the revisionist changes introduced
by Khruschev; who was working the revisionist plans as laid down by Vosnosensky:
Start at Index. (Originally put on web by Alliance; since when the NCMU
and the MIM (USA) have also placed it there. Since the original web-site
of Allaince was 'taken down' by geocities, we refer the reader to this
NCMLU-CLsite):
AT:
http://www.oneparty.co.uk/index.html
Also especially useful is Appendix
3 on the "Leningrad Clique" of revisionists including Khruschev.