1. What Has Been Achieved¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 1: What Has Been Achieved¶
This chapter establishes the paradoxical foundation of the Soviet Union’s early development, arguing that the very backwardness which necessitated the proletarian revolution also imposed severe limits on its immediate achievements. The core argument is that Russia’s democratic tasks could only be accomplished through a proletarian dictatorship, not because the economy was ripe for socialism, but because the insignificance of the bourgeoisie and the impossibility of further capitalist development forced the country onto a revolutionary path. The bourgeois revolution thus merged directly with the first stages of socialist construction, a classic instance of the law of combined development for backward countries. The Soviet regime’s historic service, the chapter contends, is its struggle against this inherited backwardness, but the preparatory stage remains far from complete and must occupy a whole historic period.
The chapter presents impressive quantitative gains as evidence of this struggle. Between 1929 and 1935, industrial production increased approximately three and a half times, while capitalist countries stagnated or declined. Heavy industry output grew more than tenfold from 1925 to 1935; coal production in the Don basin rose from 2,275,000 tons in December 1913 to 7,125,000 tons in December 1935. The Soviet Union vaulted from eleventh to third place in electro-energy production, from tenth to fourth in coal, and from sixth to third in steel, achieving first place in tractor and sugar production.
Yet the chapter immediately undercuts any triumphalism by insisting that the correlation of forces is determined not by growth rates but by absolute power, measured by labour productivity, production costs, and prices. Here the Soviet record is stark. Output per worker in metal foundries is a third of the American average; in quarries, one-tenth. The Ukrainian beet harvest yields 131 hundredweight per hectare against 250 in Czechoslovakia and Germany and over 300 in France. Eighty-one percent of tractors required capital repairs in the last industrial year; a Soviet truck travels 20,000 kilometres annually compared to 60,000–100,000 in America, and only 55 of every 100 machines are working. The cost of auto repairs is double the cost of new machines. Railroads give only 5.0 km per 10,000 people, one of the lowest rates in the developed world; the merchant fleet equals that of Denmark and Spain. Coal output is 0.7 tons per person against nearly 5 in Britain; steel is 67 kg per person against 250 in the US; woollen fabric is under half a metre per person, eight to ten times less than in the US or Britain; shoe production is about half a pair per person against three pairs in the US. Foodstuffs like conserves, sausages and cheese remain inaccessible to the mass of the population; dairy production is low, with one cow per eight people, each giving half the milk of a Western cow. Only rye and potato production surpass European and US levels. National income per person is considerably lower than in the West, and with 25–30 per cent invested, mass consumption falls below the capitalist level. There is no possessing class, but privileged strata appropriate the lion’s share of consumption. The chapter’s polemic is thus directed against any premature celebration of Soviet achievement, insisting that the fundamental task of catching up with Europe and America in technique and productivity remains the central, unfinished business of the revolution.