PRINCIPLES OF MARXISM-LENINISM A STUDY COURSE
CLASS EIGHT : HOW SOCIALISM WORKS

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?

12. WHAT IS THE CLASS CHARACTER OF THE SOCIALIST STATE?
It is 'the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the working class', just as the capitalist state is 'the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie'.

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:

When the working people have become sufficiently hostile to these developments, the final stage is to mobilise the people to destroy the spurious 'socialism' which is causing them so much distress and restore a normal free-enterprise capitalist system.

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.



SOME ADDITIONAL READING SUGGESTIONS FROM ALLIANCE:
1) Karl Marx: "Critique of the Gotha Programme"; especially parts II and IV; pp24-30; Selected Works; Volume 3; Moscow; 1977; or "Collected Works"; Volume 24; pp. 91-100. OR:  http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/M&E/CGP75.html

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.



THIS WAS THE LAST SECTION OF THE COURSE
INTRODUCTION & OTHER SECTIONS OF COURSE VIA:
http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/CourseInt-CL.htm

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