: “From a logical point of view, this seems stupid to me, to say the least: why, when power and the state strengthens, should there be more “disguised opponents”? After all, their chances of undermining the system become less!”
This is not the first time I have encountered such bewilderment, so I will give Stalin’s original text, from which both the context and the exact meaning of Stalin’s words will become clearer.
"On this same line, on the issue of NEP and the class struggle under NEP, I would like to point out one more fact. I mean the statement of one of the comrades that the class struggle under the NEP in connection with grain procurements is supposedly of only tertiary importance, that it, this very class struggle, does not and cannot have any serious significance in about our difficulties regarding grain procurements.
I must say, comrades, that I cannot in any way agree with this statement. I think that we do not and cannot have, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, a single political or economic fact that would not reflect the presence of class struggle in the city or in the countryside. Does the NEP abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat? Of course not! On the contrary, the NEP is a unique expression and instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But isn’t the dictatorship of the proletariat a continuation of the class struggle? (Voices: “That’s right!”) How can one then say that the class struggle plays a secondary role in such important political and economic facts as the action of the kulaks against Soviet policy during grain procurements, the countermeasures and offensive actions of the Soviet government against the kulaks and speculators in connection with with grain supplies?
Isn’t it a fact that during the grain procurement crisis we had the first serious action under NEP by the capitalist elements of the countryside against Soviet policy?
Aren't there more classes and class struggles in the countryside?
Isn’t it true that Lenin’s slogan about relying on the poor peasants, an alliance with the middle peasants and the fight against the kulaks is, under current conditions, the main slogans of our work in the countryside? What is this slogan if not an expression of the class struggle in the countryside?
Of course, our policy cannot in any way be considered a policy of inciting class struggle. Why? Because inciting class struggle leads to civil war. Because, as long as we are in power, as long as we have consolidated this power and the commanding heights are concentrated in the hands of the working class, we are not interested in the class struggle taking the form of civil war. But this does not mean at all that the class struggle is thereby abolished or that it, this same class struggle, will not intensify. This all the more does not mean that the class struggle is not supposedly the decisive force in our advancement. No, that doesn't mean it.
We often say that we are developing socialist forms of economics in the field of trade. What does it mean? This means that we are thereby ousting thousands and thousands of small and medium-sized traders from trade. Is it possible to think that these traders, forced out of the sphere of circulation, will sit silently, without trying to organize resistance? It is clear that it is impossible.
We often say that we are developing socialist forms of economy in the industrial sector. What does it mean? This means that we are ousting and ruining, perhaps without noticing it ourselves, by our progress towards socialism thousands and thousands of small and medium-sized capitalist-industrialists. Is it possible to think that these ruined people will sit in silence without trying to organize resistance? Of course not.
We often say that it is necessary to limit the exploitative inclinations of the kulaks in the countryside, that it is necessary to impose high taxes on the kulaks, that it is necessary to limit the right to rent, to prevent the right to elect kulaks to the Soviets, etc., etc. What does it mean? This means that we are gradually putting pressure on the capitalist elements of the countryside, sometimes driving them to ruin. Can we assume that the kulaks will be grateful to us for this, and that they will not try to organize part of the poor or middle peasants against the policies of Soviet power? Of course not.
Isn’t it clear that all our progress, our every success in the field of socialist construction, is an expression and result of the class struggle in our country?
But from all this it follows that, As we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose forces will increase more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally a policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating the basis for the further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry.
It is impossible to imagine that socialist forms will develop, displacing the enemies of the working class, and the enemies will retreat silently, making way for our advancement, that then we will move forward again, and they will retreat back again, and then “unexpectedly” everyone without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves “suddenly,” “imperceptibly,” without struggle or worry, into the bosom of socialist society. Such fairy tales do not and cannot exist at all, especially in the context of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It has not happened and will not happen that moribund classes voluntarily surrendered their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has not happened and will not happen that the advancement of the working class towards socialism in a class society could do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, progress towards socialism cannot but lead to resistance from the exploiting elements to this advancement, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to an inevitable intensification of the class struggle.
That is why the working class cannot be lulled to sleep by talking about the secondary role of the class struggle.”
Stalin I.V. About industrialization and the grain problem. Speech on July 9, 1928 at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks // Stalin I.V. Essays. T.11.-M.: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1953. P.168-171.
Thus, Stalin's thesis was expressed in 1928 and concerned the period of liquidation of private trade, industry and kulaks, who, in response to such state policies, inevitably had to strengthen their resistance. And, as we now know, they intensified it to the point of organizing the “Holodomor” of 1932/33, underground anti-Soviet groups, terror, sabotage, etc.
Expressing his thesis, Stalin, of course, did not look beyond the next few years, however, later this thought of his revealed a very deep meaning, which the leader himself most likely did not put into it at that moment - after all, Soviet socialism was crushed from within the well-known us today as a social group that realized its unity, its special interests and led its struggle against socialism. Let modern Marxists think about calling this group a class, and its struggle a class struggle...
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s phrase is widely known that as the USSR moves towards socialism, the class struggle will intensify. Moreover, for the last fifty years this statement has been cited mainly in order to show the absurdity and absurdity of Stalin’s thinking: they say, this ruler was so incapable of the simplest analysis to understand that such a statement is pure nonsense. However, it is even more often believed that the oriental cunning of the “bloody tyrant” was manifested here, with the help of which he provided a theoretical basis for strengthening his tyranny. Despite the apparent insignificance of this fact (well, if someone considers the words of a long-dead historical character to be stupidity or deception, let him think so), it has a deep and very important meaning for us. Moreover, it is not associated exclusively with the personality of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, but, on the contrary, denoting the features of modern, post-Soviet consciousness that influence the modern world.
But first things first. In fact, an analysis of a specific situation with the phrase “about strengthening the class struggle” has been done more than once. And quite detailed. Many articles on Stalinist and communist resources are devoted to this. Therefore, I will limit myself to a brief summary of the situation. Firstly, such a statement was first made back in 1928. And it concerned a very specific situation. To understand this, I will give a statement (abbreviated, of course).
“Does the NEP abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat? Of course not! On the contrary, the NEP is a unique expression and instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But isn’t the dictatorship of the proletariat a continuation of the class struggle?
We often say that we are developing socialist forms of economics in the field of trade. What does it mean? This means that we are thereby ousting thousands and thousands of small and medium-sized traders from trade. Is it possible to think that these traders, forced out of the sphere of circulation, will sit silently, without trying to organize resistance? It is clear that it is impossible.
We often say that we are developing socialist forms of economy in the industrial sector. What does it mean? This means that we are ousting and ruining, perhaps without noticing it ourselves, by our progress towards socialism thousands and thousands of small and medium-sized capitalist-industrialists. Is it possible to think that these ruined people will sit in silence without trying to organize resistance? Of course not. ...
We often say that it is necessary to limit the exploitative inclinations of the kulaks in the countryside, that it is necessary to impose high taxes on the kulaks, that it is necessary to limit the right to rent, to prevent the right to elect kulaks to the Soviets, etc., etc. What does it mean? This means that we are gradually putting pressure on the capitalist elements of the countryside, sometimes driving them to ruin. Can we assume that the kulaks will be grateful to us for this, and that they will not try to organize part of the poor or middle peasants against the policies of Soviet power? Of course not. ...
But from all this it follows that, as we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose forces will grow more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class finally, the policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters..."
(Stalin I.V. On industrialization and the grain problem. Speech on July 9, 1928 at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks)
In this case, Lenin’s decision, which, in essence, transferred most of the country to “self-sufficiency”, leaving only a small, but most modernized part of the national economy in control, was the only possible one. Of course, now we can easily understand how right Vladimir Ilyich was - since otherwise the initially weak, and even war-exhausted “modern society” in Russia would literally have dissolved in the sea of post-war chaos. And so, it was possible not only to preserve the modernized core, but also to lead to its increased growth, in which it could pull active individuals out of the “private swamp.” However, the nature of the NEP must be considered separately, since it represents one of the non-trivial, but at the same time correct decisions taken by the Soviet leadership at the beginning of its existence. Now we can only note that, in addition to the undoubtedly positive aspects, this policy also had unfavorable consequences. This is an inevitable drop in the overall productivity of the national economy below the pre-revolutionary level (everywhere, with the exception of the core mentioned above). Why is clear, since before the Revolution there were large agricultural enterprises, such as landlord economies, using division of labor and modern technologies, and after the Revolution, the main branch of Russian production was divided between small-scale and non-commercial peasant farms.
And therefore, sooner or later, this problem should be solved. At this moment, we can take a good look at the peculiarities of the work of the early Bolsheviks, and above all, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who ultimately made it possible to lead the country out of a terrible crisis. Namely, the use of a dialectical method, in which each solution to a problem does not act as a final victory, but, on the contrary, is considered as a source of new problems that should also be solved at the next stage. Unwinding the dialectical spiral, turn by turn, the Bolsheviks confidently increased the negentropy of society, emerging from the complete catastrophe of 1917 to the sustainable development of 1920-1960. However, the flip side of this was the problem of “reverse engineering,” or, more simply, a lack of understanding of the essence of the victories that happened, which outwardly often looked like a miracle.
Hence the conversations about his genius that began during Lenin’s lifetime and the cult that was developing around his name. This cult is an extremely harmful phenomenon, since it interfered with the understanding and use of the above-mentioned dialectical mechanism, placing emphasis on the personality traits of Vladimir Ilyich himself (and not at all on the method of thinking he used). But it was inevitable - this dialectical method was too different from what is usually used in life, there was too much of a difference between it and the notorious common sense. Therefore, even for the highest leaders of the Soviet state, it remained a kind of magic. Especially because this “magic” ultimately turned out to be extremely effective.
Including for Comrade Stalin, who, as you know, was more of a practitioner of the revolutionary struggle than a person versed in theory. (To his credit, he understood the lack of his theoretical training, and spent the rest of his life educating himself.) Therefore, Joseph Vissarionovich at that time could hardly grasp the essence of this spiral ascent, remaining confident in the “magic” of Lenin’s policy. Faithfully believing in Ilyich’s genius, he was an active supporter of the NEP path he had chosen, opposing criticism of it from the “left opposition” (Trotsky, and then Zinoviev and Kamenev). It is now generally accepted that in this conflict it was exclusively about the issue of the struggle for power, that in this way the future “bloody tyrant” dealt with one group of opponents (“left deviationism”) with the help of another (“right deviationism”). But this is already an afterthought, a prescription for Stalin of some “cunning plan” that he supposedly carried out throughout his life. In fact, IMHO, everything is much simpler: namely, while the NEP was working perfectly, any person with a practical mindset (and Comrade Dzhugashvili, as stated above, was not a theorist) was simply obliged to speak out in support of it.
But, as already mentioned, the peculiarity of the Leninist system of development was its ascent along a dialectical spiral. That is, what was optimal today had to be replaced by something else tomorrow. Unfortunately, Vladimir Ilyich was given very little time - his health, which had been shaken after the assassination attempt in 1918, was never restored, and Lenin died in 1924. It is now difficult for us to imagine how events would have developed had Ilyich remained at the helm of the country in subsequent years. However, it can be assumed that he would inevitably come to eliminate the unfavorable consequences of the NEP. Those. - to the beginning of industrialization (especially since by adopting the GOELRO plan Lenin quite clearly outlined his commitment to this idea).
However, Lenin died, and the remaining members of the Politburo, to the greatest regret, turned out to be incapable of such filigree mastery of the dialectical method. Therefore, all of them (and not just Stalin) preferred to maintain the existing state of affairs. But the further we went, the clearer it became that this was a dead end. Bread production in the country - the main basis of both the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary economies - stabilized; it was impossible to increase it. For this, modernization of agriculture was necessary, but it was limited by the weak development of industry (and, first of all, the lack of industrial production of agricultural machinery). In turn, private small-scale farming, just like in 1917, produced too little surplus product to create a powerful production system on its basis. Of course, it would be possible to increase the tax in kind - however, this would definitely lead to a massive loss of loyalty of the peasantry, which was so hard to achieve. But the main thing is that this increase in the tax burden would inevitably lead to the degradation of peasant farms before industry was created.
As a result, the further it went, the clearer it became that the continuation of the NEP leads to an inevitable crisis. Now it’s hard to say when this reached the Soviet leadership, and in particular, Comrade Stalin. But it is obvious that by 1928 he understood this moment with all its clarity. The impossible had to be done: curtailing the NEP was fraught with a transition to disaster. And its continuation meant inevitable stagnation, and, ultimately, the same catastrophe, only postponed. In this case, one can only guess what it cost Stalin to decide to start a “new round” of the dialectical spiral - perhaps it really was what is called intuition. He acted as a student who does not really understand the subject, but is an intelligent and diligent student, does. Namely, I tried to copy the method of my teacher. In this situation, he launched a program of forced industrialization in conjunction with mass collectivization (i.e., an extremely problematic, but ultimately predictable path).
There is no point in dwelling on this issue in particular detail. It is enough just to note that such an application of Lenin’s methods in reality turned out to be exactly the key that made it possible to solve problems that had seemed insoluble before. Just as the NEP acted as a compensator for the problems created by war communism, industrialization acted as a compensator for the problems created by the NEP. Subsequently, the country managed to carry out another “round” of the development spiral, creating a system of highly organized production on the basis of the industrial system created in the 1930s. Which, in many ways, compensated for its problems (for example, the massive spread of education led to a significant negative impact of forced urbanization). But the fourth “turn” did not follow...
However, let's return to that very Stalinist saying of 1928. Based on the above, it can be seen that it is an attempt to apply the “dialectical operator” to the current situation. Namely, in it Stalin directly says that the NEP is good, but, nevertheless, it is necessary to abolish it. This means that we must prepare for extremely unpleasant problems, for example, the fight against a massive layer of small owners (NEPmen and kulaks), who have grown and strengthened thanks to this policy. That is, we must prepare to begin the fight against our own creation, created thanks to the activities of the Soviet government, as such, and Comrade Stalin, in particular. Moreover, the more effective this activity was at the previous stage, the stronger the resistance will be at the next...
That is, in this phrase the Soviet leader declares a transition to the dialectical method. Of course, not everything is as smooth as we would like. For example, Stalin believes that the main problem of the future stage will be the so-called. “class struggle”, i.e., open resistance of the petty-bourgeois classes. In reality, the main opposition to the new stage was not so much the conscious opposition of the kulaks and Nepmen, but what can be called “counteraction from the environment.” It was the small-proprietor environment that had developed in the countryside, and not the “counter-revolutionary elements” themselves, that became the main obstacle to the planned collectivization, since the peasants who were in its cultural field simply could not understand what the point was in unification (why the new is better than what was in the “everyday sense” ").
Moreover, even the Soviet government itself “on the ground” was affected by the same disease - its structure was optimized precisely for the current situation, when the leadership was not required to be able to work in conditions of “high tension.” (Why, if the minimum task was performed by the NEP economy automatically.) In connection with this, the well-known “NEP” style of bureaucracy, very well described by Ilf and Petrov or Zoshchenko, spread - when the focus of work was formed on improving the lives of the bureaucrats themselves, instead of solving problems tasks. (A good example is the Hercules trust described in The Golden Calf, which reduces all its activities to the struggle for the building it occupies.) It is clear that in this case the transition to active industrialization required completely different models of behavior.
This, oddly enough, was not critical - since the above-mentioned “modernization core” existed. But at the same time, the resistance of the environment increased extremely. As a result, industrialization and collectivization turned into a process in which efforts were spent precisely on this, and not only and not so much on solving the assigned tasks. It is quite possible that if the transition to a new stage had occurred a little earlier, the costs of this confrontation would have been lower. And the construction of Soviet society is more effective. But for this there would have to be a massive spread of dialectical thinking, which, of course, is impossible.
Nevertheless, the successful solution of the problem (or rather, simply its solution, since within the framework of classical thinking it is unsolvable) showed the correctness of the step taken. This convinced the Soviet leader that his “model” of using dialectics was correct. Moreover, both “in general” (that as socialism develops, resistance increases), and “in particular” (that this resistance will represent a “class struggle of capitalist elements”).
The latter turned out to be critical in terms of his understanding of the method used, since it hid the main thing - the systemic reasons for the correctly understood increase in confrontation. However, until a certain time, even such a “weak” idea was not particularly at odds with reality. Moreover, it gave fairly accurate predictions.
For example, let's take Stalin's equally well-known address to the same topic, made in 1937.
“It is necessary to smash and throw away the rotten theory that with every advance we make, our class struggle should fade more and more, that as we succeed, the class enemy becomes more and more tame.This speech is usually interpreted within the framework of the “great terror theory”, i.e. Stalin's deliberate destruction of his opponents. However, based on the above, it can be understood that it refers to the same problem as the above quote from 1928. Namely, after the successful use of the “dialectical operator”, Stalin finally confirmed his allegiance, and applies it again and again. This time with an expansion that takes the above class struggle beyond the borders of the state. True, the start of a new war against the USSR in 1937 was no longer any significant discovery. But it should be understood that consideration from this point of view automatically makes the USSR a participant in a future war, and completely excludes the possibility of any development of events beneficial for it. This is important, since the Second World War, in itself, is quite explainable by “intra-European” contradictions - which can create the impression of an opportunity for the Soviet Union to avoid it (or, conversely, create the impression of an opportunity for the USSR to solve its problems with this war).
……….
It must be borne in mind that the remnants of the broken classes in the USSR are not alone. They have direct support from our enemies outside the USSR. It would be a mistake to think that the sphere of class struggle is limited to the borders of the USSR. If one end of the class struggle has its effect within the framework of the USSR, then its other end extends into the borders of the bourgeois states surrounding us. The remnants of the broken classes cannot but know about this. And it is precisely because they know this that they will continue their desperate attacks.
This is what history teaches us. This is what Leninism teaches us. You need to remember all this and be alert.” Report at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on March 3, 1937.
“Alternatives” on this topic were once popular in the post-Soviet space (starting with the unforgettable “Icebreaker” by Rezun), but, as you can understand, the use of dialectics completely rejects these options, leaving only one path - the escalation of “external forces” against the Soviet Union for the purpose of its destruction. And here it does not matter that the real reasons that ultimately forced Germany to start the war were somewhat different - this is not important for dialectics. It allows us to identify the most hidden, tectonic processes, namely, that the USSR must inevitably face a military confrontation with the capitalist world.
However, with all this, Stalin also remained firmly convinced that the main cause of resistance was the “remnants of broken classes.” It was extremely difficult for a person of that time to finally move to a systemic understanding of the problem, to a search for “substance” and structure (however, this also applies to modern times). That is why the Stalin era was characterized by a certain desire to find those responsible for the difficulties that arose (as representatives of that very “sabotage substance”), although it was already clear that they could not have anything to do with those broken remnants. It is possible that all these attempts to find the notorious “Polish spies” and “Romanian intelligence agents” among persons associated with certain problems were a manifestation of precisely this phenomenon (there is no point in considering the topic of repression itself here).
Based on all of the above, it should be understood that the features of the “Stalinist dialectic” stem from the fact that Stalin was a man of his time, with corresponding ideas and misconceptions. His advantage was that he was able to see a perfectly working method performed by Vladimir Ilyich, but Stalin failed to fully understand it. That is why he could simultaneously boast of the successful application of the “dialectical operator” to government, and his commitment to the most banal substantialism, to the correlation of social classes with a certain “substance of class struggle” (correlated with the people who once belonged to them).
However, the question here is not the personality of the Soviet ruler, as such, but the ability of a person of that time in general to accept such a radical change in thinking that dialectics brings. Even if we discard the extremely weak theoretical development of dialectical methods by the early-mid 20th century, which still remained “purely philosophical” and seemed little connected with specific tasks (the systems approach, as such, was just being formed at that time), then no less an intellectual problem remains. underdevelopment of society as such. Coming from a time in which higher education is viewed as the norm, it is difficult for us to understand what a huge effort was required to bring the average person out of the “world of tradition” into a world ruled by science and its basis – logic. It would be ridiculous to expect that this person will be able to make the next “leap” and move from formal logic to dialectics.
That is why the attempts of the Soviet government to instill Marxism (based on dialectical materialism) in the masses ended in a crushing defeat. The massive introduction of “Marxism” into all spheres of life not only did not lead to the mastery of dialectical thinking by the masses, but, on the contrary, to some extent, was possible only thanks to a rollback to the pre-scientific, pre-logical era, since from the point of view of formal logic, there was no understanding of dialectics Problems. Unfortunately, in the USSR they considered this issue not particularly important, and instead of searching for a solution, they switched to banal memorization of the “postulates of Marxism,” reducing all “scientific communism” to a certain corpus of “sacred texts.” For a society with one foot in the era of tradition, this option turned out to be even closer and easier than any logical analysis. Moreover, everything was already going well - the “dialectical reserve” laid down by Lenin and copied by Stalin was sufficient in abundance.
But sooner or later, such a state had to end. No matter how funny it sounds, dialectics fell victim to the dialectical development of society: the massive development of education and science led to the massive spread of logical thinking and finally ended the “era of tradition.” This means that it destroyed the very “holy scripture” into which Marxism was transformed. The mechanism that, according to contemporaries, worked perfectly in the years 1920-1940, turned out to be unsuitable for existence in the more developed society of 1960-1980.
Therefore, from all of the above, one can finally understand how serious problems this seemingly banal Stalinist phrase touched upon. Or rather, its denial in late Soviet times. This point goes far beyond the personality of Stalin himself and touches on problems with dialectics and the dialectical method in Soviet reality - with that mechanism, which, in many ways, was the reason for the rapid development of Soviet society. However, the failure to spread it and the choice of the wrong path (the implantation of “scientific communism”) led to an increase in the rejection of dialectics as such by the Soviet people (and the most educated part of it).
Unfortunately, instead of understanding what happened, Soviet society chose not to notice the problem, turning the notorious “diamat” from a sincere belief into a purely ritual (which no one believed in anymore, and which became a pure formality), until this too was completely disgusted . And even then, dialectics, associated in the Soviet consciousness with official Marxism, turned out to be simply discarded, thrown out of the category of not only acceptable methods of thinking, but from the category of methods of thinking in general. In the minds of late Soviet and post-Soviet people, it has become a synonym for pure cheating, stupid and senseless deception. That is why Stalin’s phrase indicated at the beginning seemed either an example of outright stupidity, or sophisticated mockery.
And only now, after the late Soviet idea of the world is becoming a thing of the past, and there are fewer and fewer people who once passed “scientific communism”, is it possible to understand the essence of what happened. Including by rehabilitating dialectics, finally “untied” from the need to take a boring, uninteresting and useless subject. On the contrary, connecting it with a completely respectable systems approach (since dialectics is the science of systems). That is why it is now becoming clear how interesting and unusual a phenomenon Soviet history was, and how stupid it was to evaluate it with those philistine cliches (like “bloody tyrant”), as was done in the late Soviet and post-Soviet times.
89 years ago, July 9, 1928, I.V. Stalin put forward the slogan of intensifying the class struggle as we move towards socialism.
On July 9, 1928, Joseph Vissarionovich noted in his speech: “... as we move forward, the resistance of capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose forces will grow more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, the policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, the policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating the basis for the further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry.
It is impossible to imagine that socialist forms will develop, displacing the enemies of the working class, and the enemies will retreat silently, making way for our advancement, that then we will move forward again, and they will retreat back again, and then “unexpectedly” everyone without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves “suddenly,” “imperceptibly,” without struggle or worry, in the bosom of socialist society. Such fairy tales do not and cannot exist at all, especially in the context of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It has not happened and will not happen that moribund classes voluntarily surrendered their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has not happened and will not happen that the advancement of the working class towards socialism in a class society could do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, progress towards socialism cannot but lead to resistance from the exploiting elements to this advancement, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to an inevitable intensification of the class struggle.
That is why the working class cannot be lulled to sleep by talking about the secondary role of the class struggle...” (Stalin I. Works, vol. 11. M., 1949, pp. 171-172).
On March 3, 1937, in his report to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin developed this principle of Bolshevism: “... It is necessary to smash and throw away the rotten theory that with each of our advances the class struggle in our country should supposedly fade more and more that as we succeed, the class enemy seems to become more and more tame.
This is not only a rotten theory, but also a dangerous theory, because it lulls our people, leads them into a trap, and gives the class enemy the opportunity to recover to fight Soviet power.
On the contrary, the more we move forward, the more successes we have, the more embittered the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes will become, the sooner they will resort to more acute forms of struggle, the more they will spoil the Soviet state, the more they will grasp at the most desperate means of struggle as the last means of the doomed...” (Stalin I. “On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyists and other double-dealers” (“Word to Comrade Stalin.” M., 1995, pp. 121-122).
Today, thanks to the theoretically illiterate Khrushchevites, there is a mistaken opinion that the author of the idea of increasing the class struggle as the construction of socialism intensifies is Stalin. This is wrong. Joseph Vissarionovich took this idea from Lenin and developed it. But the author of this principle is Vladimir Ilyich. At the end of May 1919, Lenin’s article “Greetings to the Hungarian Workers” was published in Pravda. In this work, Vladimir Ilyich, in particular, writes: “...The destruction of classes is a matter of long, difficult, persistent class struggle, which, after the overthrow of the power of capital, after the destruction of the bourgeois state, after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, does not disappear (as the vulgarities of old socialism and the old social democracy), but only changes its forms, becoming in many respects even more fierce (emphasis added. author)" (Lenin V.I. Works, 3rd edition, vol. XXIV, p. 315).
This Leninist-Stalinist principle was confirmed especially in the thirties of the 20th century, when the number of cases of sabotage, sabotage in factories, railways, and attempts on the lives of leaders of the Soviet state increased significantly. You don't have to look far for examples. In 1935, when Stalin was vacationing on the Black Sea near Cape Pitsunda, the boat in which the Leader was was fired upon from the shore. In 1934, during a trip to Kuzbass, V.M.’s car. Molotova barely escaped an accident prepared by the enemies of the people, which threatened to be fatal for passengers.
The very beginning of the Great Patriotic War confirms the thesis about the intensification of the class struggle. The capitalists, seeing that the USSR was rapidly developing, moving forward and was already on the threshold of building a communist society, contributing to the collapse of capitalism throughout the world, decided to disrupt this process and set the Nazis against the Soviet Union.
Lesson for the future
The Khrushchevites, who were well-disguised agents of world imperialism, rejected the Lenin-Stalin thesis about the intensification of the class struggle and declared it erroneous in order to weaken the vigilance of the Soviet people and dull the weapon of struggle against the enemies of Soviet power. The CPSU’s rejection of this Bolshevik principle became one of the reasons for the infiltration of notorious enemies of the people like Gorbachev or Yeltsin into the highest positions in the party. They, together with their like-minded people, who climbed into important positions in the CPSU, destroyed the USSR. If senior party leaders after 1953 had been guided by this Leninist-Stalinist principle of intensifying the class struggle, then no amount of anti-communist carrion could have done anything towards the destruction of the Soviet Union.
After the death of I.V. Stalin, the class struggle in the USSR did not stop, but intensified even more. The external manifestation of this process was the removal of I.V.’s ardent associates. Stalin from power, their removal from key positions, the famous anti-Khrushchev popular uprisings in Tbilisi, Novocherkassk, internal party contradictions in the CPSU, when the group of Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich was insolently removed from power. After Khrushchev left the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee, the class struggle also did not subside, although it acquired more hidden forms.
An example of this is the attempt on Brezhnev’s life during one of the demonstrations on Red Square, the internal party struggle, when Stalinist cadres were removed from key positions, and supporters of Khrushchev and Brezhnev came to replace them. The conflict between the USSR and China in the late 60s also serves as an example of the intensification of the class struggle. Four consecutive deaths of the top officials of the state in less than three years (1982-1985) - Brezhnev, Andropov, Ustinov, Chernenko, suggest that all this is not accidental: someone persistently and purposefully cleared the way for Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This is also an example of the intensification of the class struggle. We're not even talking about what happened during "perestroika", when anti-Soviet forces were on horseback and did everything possible to eliminate socialism.
All this is a lesson for the future for us. When our country becomes socialist again, we must put at the forefront the Lenin-Stalin thesis about the intensification of the class struggle as the construction of socialism intensifies.
"The Truth about the Soviet Era"
USSR without Stalin: The path to disaster Igor Vasilievich Pykhalov
On the intensification of the class struggle as we move towards socialism
“In Stalin’s report at the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937, “On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyists and other double-dealers,” an attempt was made to theoretically substantiate the policy of mass repression under the pretext that as we move forward towards socialism, the class struggle should supposedly all become more and more aggravated. At the same time, Stalin argued that this is what history teaches, and this is what Lenin teaches.”
As subsequent events showed, Stalin’s assertion was absolutely correct. This issue is discussed in detail in the previous chapter of our book.
This text is an introductory fragment. From the book The Great Slandered Leader. Lies and truth about Stalin author Pykhalov Igor VasilievichExacerbation of the class struggle Since the ever-memorable Khrushchev report “On the cult of personality and its consequences,” official Soviet propaganda never tired of repeating about the “erroneous Stalinist thesis” about the aggravation of the class struggle as we move towards socialism: “In
From the book Apocalypse of the 20th century. From war to war author Burovsky Andrey MikhailovichSTRENGTHENING THE CLASS STRUGGLE It would seem, what more could you want? The communists are in power, a multimillion-dollar class of people loyal to Soviet power has been created. But it was at this time that Stalin in his speech “On industrialization and the grain program” on July 9, 1928 at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (July 4–12, 1928)
From the book Ancient Rome author Mironov Vladimir Borisovich author Skazkin Sergey DanilovichIntensification of the class struggle in the countryside The development of commodity-money relations in the countryside as a whole had a hard impact on the broad masses of the peasantry. As the market developed, the needs of the feudal lords grew. Some feudal lords satisfied their desire to increase income by
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From the book Why Stalin Lost World War II? author Winter Dmitry FranzovichChapter XIV “Exacerbation of the class struggle” The Second World War was started by the communists in 1930 against the men of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In 1939, this war spread to neighboring countries. (Viktor Suvorov. “The Last Republic”) We must not forget that in order to implement
From the book A Short Course in Stalinism author Borev Yuri BorisovichANOTHER MEANS OF CLASS STRUGGLE The head of the philosophy department of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute, Ilya Pantskhava, said in 1949: - In 1917, at the height of battles between parties, at one of the rallies a famous Menshevik attacked Lenin.
From the book World History. Volume 1. Stone Age author Badak Alexander NikolaevichIntensification of the class struggle Not much information has reached our time about the course of events during the Old Kingdom. But judging by the sources that we have, we can conclude that life in the Old Kingdom, despite the strong supreme power, was not
From the book Terrorism. War without rules author Shcherbakov Alexey YurievichTerror as a method of class struggle One day we went on strike again, And only Casey John decided not to go on strike, “Why fight,” he thought, “Isn’t it better to eat your own bread?” - So the strikebreaker Casey John became, in short, a scab. Casey John won't get out of the car, Casey John
From the book The Historical Insanity of the Kremlin and the “Swamp” [Russia is ruled by losers!] author Nersesov Yuri ArkadevichChoir is the best cure for class struggle. A child who sings in a choir, with different people, he has no concept of class struggle... Choir is the best cure for xenophobia, nationalism and social class struggle and everything else. (From a radio interview
by Gebbs IanI. The nature of the class struggle of the proletariat “The entire history of society has hitherto been the history of class struggle. This class struggle has reached the stage at which the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) cannot free itself from the class that exploits it.
From the book Left Communists in Russia. 1918-1930s by Gebbs IanII. Dialectics of class struggle Any given class society (as mentioned above) emerged as a result of the struggle of classes that grew up on a certain material basis. Only the ruling class, directly growing out of the primitive land community. Not
From the book Creative Heritage of B.F. Porshnev and its modern significance author Vite Oleg2. Theory of class struggle Porshnev’s work in filling the canonical Marxist formulas, which had become completely empty due to the state monopoly on Marxism, with real content, manifested itself in the problems of class struggle more than anywhere else. All
From the book History of the Ukrainian SSR in ten volumes. Volume six author Team of authors3. EXCERNSATION OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE Hostile activity of bourgeois-nationalist parties. The emergence of kulak banditry. The successes of Soviet power on the fronts of the civil war and the implementation of socialist transformations aroused the furious anger of their enemies. Before
From the book Complete Works. Volume 15. February-June 1907 author Lenin Vladimir Ilyich4. On the aggravation of mass economic need and economic struggle Taking into account, 1) that a number of facts indicate an extreme aggravation of the economic need of the proletariat and its economic struggle (lockout in Poland (12); movement among the workers of St. Petersburg and
From the book Complete Works. Volume 26. July 1914 - August 1915 author Lenin Vladimir IlyichThe tactics of the class struggle of the proletariat Having found out back in 1844–1845. one of the main shortcomings of the old materialism, consisting in the fact that it did not know how to understand the conditions and evaluate the significance of revolutionary practical activity, Marx throughout his life, along with
5.07.2013The day of July 9, 85 years ago, was marked by a very significant event. In one of his speeches at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he announced the intensification of the class struggle in the process of development and continuation of the construction of socialism.
On July 9, 1928, Joseph Vissarionovich noted in his speech: “... as we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet government, whose forces will grow more and more, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, the policy of disintegrating the enemies of the working class, and finally, the policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters, creating the basis for the further advancement of the working class and the bulk of the peasantry.
It is impossible to imagine that socialist forms will develop, displacing the enemies of the working class, and the enemies will retreat silently, making way for our advancement, that then we will move forward again, and they will retreat back again, and then “unexpectedly” everyone without exception social groups, both kulaks and the poor, both workers and capitalists, will find themselves “suddenly,” “imperceptibly,” without struggle or worry, in the bosom of socialist society. Such fairy tales do not and cannot exist at all, especially in the context of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It has not happened and will not happen that moribund classes voluntarily surrendered their positions without trying to organize resistance. It has not happened and will not happen that the advancement of the working class towards socialism in a class society could do without struggle and unrest. On the contrary, progress towards socialism cannot but lead to resistance from the exploiting elements to this advancement, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to an inevitable intensification of the class struggle.
That is why the working class cannot be lulled to sleep by talking about the secondary role of the class struggle...” (Stalin I. Works, vol. 11. M., 1949, p. 171-172).
On March 3, 1937, in his report to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin developed this principle of Bolshevism: “... It is necessary to smash and throw away the rotten theory that with each of our advances the class struggle in our country must supposedly become more and more fade away more and more, that as we succeed, the class enemy seems to become more and more tame.
This is not only a rotten theory, but also a dangerous theory, because it lulls our people, leads them into a trap, and gives the class enemy the opportunity to recover to fight Soviet power.
On the contrary, the more we move forward, the more successes we have, the more embittered the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes will become, the sooner they will resort to more acute forms of struggle, the more they will spoil the Soviet state, the more they will grasp at the most desperate means of struggle as the last means of the doomed..." (Stalin I. “On the shortcomings of party work and measures to eliminate Trotskyists and other double-dealers” // “Word to Comrade Stalin.” M., 1995, pp. 121-122).
Today, thanks to the theoretically illiterate Khrushchevites, there is a mistaken opinion that the author of the idea of increasing the class struggle as the construction of socialism intensifies is Stalin. This is wrong. Joseph Vissarionovich took this idea from Lenin and developed it. But the author of this principle is Vladimir Ilyich. At the end of May 1919, Lenin’s article “Greetings to the Hungarian Workers” was published in Pravda. In this work, Vladimir Ilyich, in particular, writes: “...The destruction of classes is a matter of long, difficult, persistent class struggle, which, after the overthrow of the power of capital, after the destruction of the bourgeois state, after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, does not disappear (as the vulgars of old socialism imagine and old social democracy), but only changes its forms, becoming in many respects even more fiercely (emphasis mine. author)» (Lenin V.I. Works, 3rd edition, vol. XXIV, p. 315).
This Leninist-Stalinist principle was confirmed especially in the thirties of the 20th century, when the number of cases of sabotage, sabotage in factories, railways, and attempts on the lives of leaders of the Soviet state increased significantly. You don't have to look far for examples. In 1935, when Stalin was vacationing on the Black Sea near Cape Pitsunda, the boat in which the Leader was was fired upon from the shore. In 1934, during a trip to Kuzbass, V.M.’s car. Molotova barely escaped an accident prepared by the enemies of the people, which threatened to be fatal for passengers.
The very beginning of the Great Patriotic War confirms the thesis about the intensification of the class struggle. The capitalists, seeing that the USSR was rapidly developing, moving forward and was already on the threshold of building a communist society, contributing to the collapse of capitalism throughout the world, decided to disrupt this process and set the Nazis against the Soviet Union.
The Khrushchevites, who were well-disguised agents of world imperialism, rejected the Lenin-Stalin thesis about the intensification of the class struggle and declared it erroneous in order to weaken the vigilance of the Soviet people and dull the weapon of struggle against the enemies of Soviet power. The CPSU’s rejection of this Bolshevik principle became one of the reasons for the infiltration of notorious enemies of the people like Gorbachev or Yeltsin into the highest positions in the party. They, together with their like-minded people, who climbed into important positions in the CPSU, destroyed the USSR. If senior party leaders after 1953 had been guided by this Leninist-Stalinist principle of intensifying the class struggle, then no amount of anti-communist carrion could have done anything towards the destruction of the Soviet Union.
After the death of I.V. Stalin, the class struggle in the USSR did not stop, but intensified even more. The external manifestation of this process was the murder of L.P. Beria and his associates, the famous anti-Khrushchev popular uprisings in Tbilisi, Novocherkassk, internal party contradictions in the CPSU, when the group of Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich was brazenly removed from power. After Khrushchev left the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee, the class struggle also did not subside, although it acquired more hidden forms. An example of this is the attempt on Brezhnev’s life during one of the demonstrations on Red Square, the internal party struggle, when Stalinist cadres were removed from key positions, and supporters of Khrushchev and Brezhnev came to replace them. The conflict between the USSR and China in the late 60s also serves as an example of the intensification of the class struggle. Four consecutive deaths of the top officials of the state in less than three years (1982-1985) - Brezhnev, Andropov, Ustinov, Chernenko, suggest that all this is not accidental: someone persistently and purposefully cleared the way for Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This is also an example of the intensification of the class struggle. We're not even talking about what happened during "perestroika", when anti-Soviet forces were on horseback and did everything possible to eliminate socialism.
All this is a lesson for the future for us. When our country becomes socialist again, we must put at the forefront the Lenin-Stalin thesis about the intensification of the class struggle as the construction of socialism intensifies.
