STALIN AS THEORETICIAN By LLUN TROTSKY Ground Rent, or, Stalin Deepens Marx and Engels In the beginning of his struggle against the general secretary, Bucharin declared in some connection that Stalin chief ambition is to compel his recognition as a theoretician. Bucharin knows Stalin well enough, on the one hand, and the ABC of Communism, on the other, to understand the whole tragedy of this pretension. It was the role of a theoretician that Stalin appeared at the conference of the Marxian agronomists. Among other things, ground rent did not come out unscathed.
Only very recently (1925) Stalin judged that it was necessary to strengthen the peasant holdings for scores of years, that is, the actual and juridical liquidation the nationalization of the land. The People Commissar of Agriculture of Georgia, not without the knowledge of Stalin, it is understood, at that time introduced a legislative project for the direct abolition of the nationalization. The Russian Commissar of Agriculture worked in the same spirit. The Opposition sounded the alarm.
In its platform, it wrote: The Party must give a crushing rebuff to all the tendencies directed towards the abolition or undermining of the nationalization of land, one of the pillars of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Just as in 1922 Stalin had to give up his attempts on the monopoly of foreign trade, in 1926 he had to give up the attempt on the nationalization of land, declaring that he was not correctly understood.
After the proclamation of the Left course, Stalin not only became the defender of the nationalization of land, but he immediately accused the Opposition of not understanding the significance of this whole institution. Yesterday nihilism towards nationalization was immediately converted into a fetichism. Marx theory of ground rent was given a new administrative task: To justify Stalin complete collectivization.
Here we must make a brief reference to theory, his unfinished analysis on ground rent, Marx divides it into absolute and differential. Since the same human labor applied to different sections of the land yields different results, the surplus yield of the more fertile section will naturally be retained by the owner of the land. This is differential rent. But not one of the owners will give to a tenant free of charge even the worst section as long as there is a demand for it. In other words, from private ownership of land necessarily flows a certain minimum of ground rent, independent of the quality of the soil. This is what is called absolute rent. In conformity with this theory, the liquidation of private ownership of land leads to the liquidation of absolute ground rent. Only that rent remains which is determined by the quality of the land itself, or, to state it more correctly, by the application of human labor to land of ditferent quality. There is no need to elucidate that differential rent is not a relationship fixed by the section itself, but changes with the method of exploiting the land.
These brief reminders are needed by us in order to reveal the whole paltriness of Stalin excursion into the realm of the theory of the nationalization of land.
Stalin begins by correcting and deepening Engels. This is not the first time with him. In 1926, Stalin explained to us that to Engels as well as to Marx the ABC law of the unequal development of capitalism was unknown, and precisely because of this they both rejected the theory of socialism in one country which, in opposition to them, was defended by Voll.
mar, the theoretical forerunner of Stalin.
The question of the nationalization of the land, more correctly, the insufficient understanding of this problem by the old man Engels, is apparently approached by Stalin with greater caution. But in reality just as lightly. He quotes from Engels work on the peasant question the famous phrase that we will in no way violate the will of the small peasant; on the contrary, we will in every way help him In order to facilitate his transition into associations, that is, to collectivized agriculture. We will try to give him as much time as possible to consider it on his own piece of land. These excellent words, known to every literate Marxist, give a clear and simple formula for the relation of the proletariat to the peasantry.
Confronted with the necessity of justifying complete collectivization on a frenzied scale, Stalin underlines the exceptional, the even, at first glance, exaggerated caution of Engels with regard to conducting the small peasant on the road of socialist agricultural economy.
What was Engels guided by in his exaggerated caution? Stalin replies thus: It is evident that his point of departure was the existence of private ownership of land, the fact that the peasant has his piece of land from which he, the peasant, will be parted with difficulty. Such is the peasantry in capitalist countries, where private ownership in land exists. It is understood that here. great caution is needed. Can it be said that here in the there is such a situation? No, it cannot be said.
It cannot because we have no private ownership of land which binds the peasant to his individual economy. Such are Stalin observations. Can it be said that in these observations there is even a grain of sense? No, it cannot be said. Engels, it appears, had to be cautious because in the bourgeois countries private ownership of land exists. But Stalin needs no caution because we have established the nationalization of land. But did there not exist in bourgeois Russia private ownership of land alongside of the more archaic communal ownership? We did not acquire the nationalization of land ready made, we established it after the seizure of power.
But Engels speaks about the policy the proletarian party will put into effect precisely after the seizure of power. What sense is there to Stalin condescending explanation of Engels indecision: The old man had to act in bourgeois countries where private ownership of land exists, while we were wise enough to abolish private ownership. But Engels recommends caution precisely after the seizure of power by the proletariat, consequently, after the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.
By contrasting the Soviet peasant policy with Engels advice, Stalin confuses the question in the most ridiculous manner.
Engels promised to give the small peasant time to think on his own piece of land before he decides to enter the collective.
In this transitional period of the peasant deliberations, the workers state, according to Engels, must separate the small peasant from the usurers, the tradesmen, etc. that is, to limit the exploiting tendencies of the Kulak. The Soviet policy in relation to the main, that is, the nonexploiting, mass of all the peasantry, hall precisely this dual character in spite of all its vacillations. In spite of all the statistical clatterings the collectivization movement is now, in the thirteenth year of the seizure of power, really going through the first stages. To the overwhelming mass of the peasants, the dictatorship of the proletariat has thus given twelve years for deliberation. It is doubtful it Engels had in mind such a long period, and it is doubtful if such a long period will be needed in the advanced countries of the West where, with the high development of industry, it will be incomparably easier for the proletariat to prove to the peasant by deed all the advantages of collective agriculture. If we, only twelve years after the seizure of power by the proletariat, begin a wide movement, so far very primitive in content, and very unstable, towards collectivization, it is to be explained only by our poverty and backwardness, in spite of the fact that we have the land nationalized, which Engels presumably did not think of, or which the Western proletariat will presumably be unable to establish alter the seizure of power. In this contasting of Russia with the West, and at the same Stalin with Engels, the idolization of the national backwardness is glaringly apparent But Stalin does not stop at this. He immediately supplements economic incoherence with theoretical. Why, he asks his unfortunate auditory, do we succeed so easily. in demonstrating, under the condition of nationalized land the superiority (of collectives)
over the small peasant economies? This is where the tremendous revolutionary signl.
ficance of the Soviet agrarian laws lies, which abolished absolute rent. and which established the nationalization of land. And Stalin self contentedly, and at the same time, reproachfully, asks: Why santry generally does not issue out of the is not this new. argument utilized suf universal scissors regime. In the prices ficiently by our agrarian theoreticians in of grain and agricultural products in gentheir struggle against every bourgeois eral, the overwhelming mass of the small theory? And here Stalin makes reference peasantry does not realize the labor power, the Marxian agronomists are recommended let along the rent.
not to exchange glances, nor to blow their noses in confusion, and what is more, not But if absolute rent, which Stalin so to hide their heads under the table to the triumphantly abolished, says decidedly third volume of Capital and to Marx nothing to the brain or heart of the small theory of ground rent. What heights dia peasant, then differential rent, which Stalin this theoretician have to ascend before so generously spared, has a great signlplunging into the mire with his new arguficance, precisely for the Western peasant.
ment. According to Stalin, it would apThe tenant farmer holds on to bis piece pear that the Western peasant is tied down of land all the stronger the more he and his father spent strength and meang to to the land by nothing else than absolute rent. And since we destroyed this monraise its fertility. This applies, by the way, and not only to the West but to the ster, that in itself caused to disappear the mighty power of the land over the peasEast, for instance, to China with its districts of intensified cultivation. Certain ant, so grippingly depicted by Gleb Ouselements of the petty conservation of pripensky, and by Balzac and Zola in France.
vate ownership are inherent here, congeIn the very first place, let us establish quently, not in an abstract category of abthat absolute rent was not abolished by us, solute rent, but in the material conditions but was nationalized, which is not one and of a higher parcellized culture. If it is the same thing. Newmark valued the nacomparatively easy to break the Russian tional wealth of Russia in 1914 at 140, 000, peasants away from a piece of land, it is 000, 000 gold rubles, including in the first not at all because Stalin new argument liberated them from absolute rent but for place the price of all the land, that is, the capitalized rent of the whole country. It the very reason for which, prior to the we should want to establish now the spectOctober revolution, periodic repartition of fic gravity of the natural wealth of the land took place in Russia. Our Narodniki idolized these repartitions as such. NeverSoviet Union within the wealth of humantheless, they were only possible because of ity, we would of course have to include our non intensive economy, the three field the capitalized rent, differential as well as system, the miserable tilling of the soil, absolute.
that is, once again, because of the backAll economic criteria, absolute rent inwardness idolized by Stalin.
cluded, are reduced to human labor. UnWill it be more difficult for the vicder the conditions of market economy, torious proletariat of the West to eliminrent is determined by that quantity of pro ate peasant conservation which flows from ducts which can be extracted by the owner the greater cultivation of small holdings?
of the land from the products of the labor By no means. For there, because of the applied to it. The owner of the land in the incomparably higher state of industry and is the state. By that itself it culture in general, tho proletarian state is the bearer of the ground rent. As to the will more easily be enabled to give the actual liquidation of absolute rent, we will peasant entering collective farms an evibe able to speak of that only after the dent and genuine compensation for his loss socialization of the land all over our planet, of the differential rent on his piece of that is, after the victory of the world revo land There can be no doubt that twelve lution. But within national limits, if one years after the seloure of power the colman say so without insulting Stalin, not lectivization of agriculture in Germany, only socialism can not be constructed, but England or America will be immeasurably even absolute rent cannot be abolished. higher and farmer than ours.
This interesting theoretical question Is it not strange that his new argus has a practical significance. Ground rent ment in favor of complete collectivization finds its expression on the world market was discovered by Stalin twelve years afin the price of agriculture products. Inso ter nationalization had taken place? Then far as the Soviet government is an ex why did he, in spite of the existence of porter of the latter and with the inten nationalization in 1923 1928 so stubbornly sification of agriculture grain exports will rely upon the powerful individual producer increase greatly to that extent, armed with and not upon the collectives? It is clear: the monopoly of foreign trade, the Soviet Nationalization of the land is a necessary government appears on the world market condition for socialist agriculture but it as the owner of the land whose product it is altogether insufficient. From the narexports, and consequently, in the price of row economic point of view, that is, the these products the Soviet government real one from which Stalin tackles the quesizes the ground rent concentrated in its tion, the nationalization of land 18 prehands. If the technique of our agriculture cisely of third rate significance, because were not inferior to that of the capitalists. the cost of inventory required for rational, and at the same time the technique of our large scale economy exceeds manitold the foreign trade, then precisely with us in the absolute rent. absolute rent would appear in Needless to say that nationalization of its clearest and most concentrated form. land is a necessary and most important This moment will have to acquire the political and juridical pre condition for greatest siginticance in the future under socialist reconstruction of agriculture. But the planned direction of agriculture and the direct economic significance of nationexport. If Stalin now brags of our aboli. alization at any given moment is detertion of absolute rent, instead of realizing mined by the action of factors of a maIt on the world market, then a temporary terial productive character.
right to such bragging is given him by the (To Be Continued)
present weakness of our agricultural export and the irrational character of our foreign trade, in which not only is absolute ground rent sunk without a trace, but many other things as well. This side of the matter, which has no direct relation to the collectivization of peasant economy, nevertheless shows us by one more example EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT that the idolization of economic isolation and economic backwardness is one of the basic features of our national socialist Nov. 22: Thirteen Years of the Russian philosopher.
Revolution JAMES CANNON Let us return to the question of collectivization. According to Stalin it would Nov. 29: Unemployment and Revolutionary appear that the Western peasant is attachTacties ed to his piece of land by the tie of abso MAX SHACHTMAN lute rent. Every peasant hen will laugh at his new argument. Absolute rent is Dec. 6: Prospects for the New Unionism purely capitalist category. Dispersed peasant economy can have a taste abso JAMES CANNON lute rent only under episodic circumstances of an exceptionally favorable at the Labor Temple market conjuncture, as existed, for in14th Street and Second Avenue stance, at the beginning of the war. The All Invited. Admission 260 economic dictatorship of finance capital over the diffused village is expressed on Auspices: New York branch of the Comthe market in unequal exchange. The pea munist League of America (Opposition. OPEN FORUM