Leon
Trotsky et al: Counter-Theses on the Five-Year Plan
Excerpts,
November
1927
[Leon
Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-1927), New York
1980, p. 456-462]
4.
The “Starting Point”
The
next defect of the CC theses consists of their complete failure to
elucidate the present economic situation. Without a proper survey of
the results of the economic management of the last two years, and
without an analysis of the deficiencies of this management, no
economic verification of planned economic activity is possible.
In
the resolution passed by the July plenum in 1927 we read: “The
overall economic results of the current year, so far as these can be
judged from the provisional data, appear to be favorable, and on the
whole economic activity has developed during the current year without
crises. This demonstrates the considerable improvement that has taken
place in planned economic management.”
These
assertions have been refuted by actual facts.
During
the past year, the official press has unanimously asserted that the
goods famine in our country has been considerably alleviated, if not
altogether overcome.
This
theory that the goods famine has been overcome was necessary for the
purpose of refuting the Opposition's theses on the failure of
industry to keep pace with the growing economic needs of the
population and of the national economy.
As
a matter of fact there has been no alleviation of the goods famine;
all that has been achieved is an apparent pacification of the goods
market during the first half of the economic year 1926-27, brought
about by measures artificially
limiting demand.
The result has been that in the second half of the year the goods
famine revealed itself with full force.
The
most striking proof of this goods famine is the lines to be seen
outside the shops in the towns, and the entirely inadequate supply of
industrial goods to the rural districts. The triumph of the People’s
Commissariat of Trade over the market, proclaimed by the bureaucratic
optimists, has suffered complete shipwreck.
In
1925-26, 584.4 million poods of grain were bought by the state and
cooperative grain supply organizations [one pood = 36 pounds].
Besides this the amount bought by private and small cooperative
buyers was about 300 million poods. In 1926-27 these same supply
organizations brought in less grain than in the previous year.
Although
1927-28 is the third
year in a row with a good harvest, the situation in the grain market
has begun to worsen since the end of September. The collections
dropped and are at present 10 percent below last year’s level. When
we take into account that the number of private and small purchasers
have also declined considerably in comparison with last year, the
deficit in supply becomes even greater. The decline in the total
collection of grain products is on the one hand a clear sign of the
profound disturbances in the relations between town and countryside,
and on the other a source of new and threatening dangers. The
destruction of our export plans, and thus of our import plans,
involving the slowing down of industrialization, is an obvious result
of this state of affairs (in the fourth quarter of 1926-27 the amount
of grain exported was only 23 percent of the amount for the
corresponding quarter of the previous year). To this must be added
the unexampled gap between the purchase and consumption prices.
“In
1927 the consumer pays for a pood of flour 1 ruble 14 kopeks more
than the price paid to the peasant for a pood of rye. In the case of
wheat the difference is 2 rubles 57 kopeks. This difference is two
and a half times greater than that of prewar prices” (Pravda,
July 1927). Do the present leaders of our economy understand the real
meaning of this? No, they do not understand it. They say that in 1927
we began to “eat a great deal” (Rykov, in his report at the
Profkhorovka factory); that the war danger has upset the economy (If
that is the case, what will happen in time of war? But happily it is
not so); and that the apparatus is bad (which is true enough). These
explanations do not rise beyond the level of ideas of a
conventional-minded farmer. Three facts alone serve to explain the
difficulties in the grain market: the goods famine (backwardness of
industry); the accumulation of reserves by the kulaks
(differentiation in the countryside) and an imprudent policy in the
sphere of money circulation (excessive issue of currency). If this is
not grasped, the country will be plunged into an economic crisis.
“Practically
speaking,
a good
harvest — in the absence of industrial goods — could mean greater
utilization of grain for clandestine distillation
of alcohol
and longer lines in front of shops in the cities. Politically,
this would signify a
struggle by the peasant against the monopoly of foreign trade, i.e.,
against socialist industry* [“Amendments
to Rykov’s Resolution: On the Economic Situation in the USSR,” p.
50 of the present volume; emphasis added by Trotsky].
Subsequent
events have fully confirmed the fears of the Opposition. Comrade
Stalin attempted to misrepresent the purport of these warnings, and
to sweep them aside with a cheap sneer. “Comrade Trotsky,” said
Comrade Stalin, “seems to believe that our industrialization will
be realized, in a manner of speaking, by some sort of ‘crop
failure’ ” (Stenographic report of the Fifteenth National
Conference of the AUCP, p. 459).
All
these grave errors and miscalculations of our economic leaders have
brought about a disorganization of the commodities and money markets,
and threaten the stability of the chervonets.
The
demand for gold is growing among the peasantry, and the village shows
an increasing distrust of the chervonets.
As the peasant has no opportunity to exchange the chervonets
for goods, he prefers to sell less, and this leads to the decline of
the grain and raw material supplies, to increased prices, to the
restriction of export, and to the disorganization of the whole
economic system.
Is
it possible to simply ignore such facts when assessing our economic
situation, and when drawing up a five-year plan? To hide these facts
from the party merely because they throw too glaring a light on the
policy of the CC during the past few years would be more than an
error — it would be a crime against the party. …
8.
The Roots of Our Difficulties
The
chief and general cause of our difficulties may be briefly formulated
as follows: Industry has developed too slowly during the last few
years, and fails to keep pace with the overall development of the
national economy. The city cannot supply enough commodities in
exchange for the products of the countryside. The incorrect political
line that has been adopted, especially the incorrect taxation policy,
makes it easy for the kulak to concentrate the great bulk of the
grain and other reserves in his hands. This disproportion is a
constant source of growth of parasitic elements, speculators, and
gigantic profits of the capitalist strata.
At
the same time there is a rapid growth of the capitalist elements
among the small agricultural producers. Owing to this, the
dependence of the state economy on kulak and capitalist elements
is growing, as regards food, exports, and supplies of raw materials.
The
kulak elements, relying on their improved economic position and on
their growing reserves, join their capitalist allies in the city to
sweep aside the economic plans of Soviet power, place restrictions on
export — and thereby on capital investments and on the rate of
industrialization — which actually retard the process of building
socialism.
A
further aspect of these basic phenomena is the weak development of
export, the insufficient import of means of production, the lack of
fresh capital for the construction of new factories and for the
expansion and reequipment of the old ones, the continuous growth of
unemployment in town and countryside. The result is that at the end
of this decade we have not only economic success to record — as,
for instance, the uninterrupted growth of production in state
industry; the increase of capital investment and of building
activity; the growth of commerce between town and countryside,
accompanied by the absolute and relative growth of the cooperatives
and of state industry; and the improvement of the material position
of the middle peasantry — but we have at the same time to record an
indubitable growth of difficulties of a social and class character.
The
Opposition demanded a more rapid development of industry by a more
powerful and systematic taxation pressure on the kulak and NEPman,
and by cutting back the enormous bureaucratic apparatus. The majority
of the CC accused the Opposition of “super-industrialization,”
and “panic” over the kulak. The majority drifted along without
sail or rudder, trusting to chance. The present difficulties are the
penalty for the procrastinating policy of the leaders.
At
the beginning of the present year 800 to 900 million poods of
agricultural products lay accumulated in the villages, mainly in the
hands of the kulaks and better-off peasants. These reserves far
exceed the security store required, are growing rapidly, and will
increase by 200 to 300 million poods, reaching a billion by the end
of the present agricultural year. This fact is a threatening symptom
of the stagnation of commodity circulation in the village, and its
end result is bound to present obstacles to increasing the area under
cultivation.
Here
we have a consequence of the inadequate development of industry,
which is not in a position to provide an exchange fund for these
stocks in the village. The slow development of industry retards the
development of agriculture.
This
accumulation of agricultural products in the village is closely
connected with the question of our inadequate exports and the
frustration of our export and import plans by the better-off peasants
and kulaks. When Comrade Kamenev very correctly explained our failure
to carry out our grain export plan in 1925 by referring to the fact
that the kulak was holding back his grain, thereby thwarting the
plan, he was overwhelmed with an avalanche of attacks and statistics
intended to “refute” his statement. But the present accumulation
of agricultural products in the village, inaccessible to government
purchasers, has reached such a point that Comrade Kamenev’s
assertion has become a platitude recognized by every economist. And
not only that: his successor, Comrade Mikoyan, will be faced this
year by the frustration of the original grain export plan, and by the
prospect of the failure of an import plan already considerably cut
down. This second “miscalculation” is all the more unpardonable
in that it has been made two years after the first, that is, under
conditions when the consequences of the differentiation in the
countryside have become more obvious to everyone. Comrade Mikoyan, in
his article in no. 252 of Pravda,
pointed out very rightly that “our foreign trade turnover is the
boundary limiting the speed of our industrial development.” But who
establishes this boundary? The extent of our foreign trade is
determined to a certain degree by the extent of our industrial export
(35.8 percent in 1925-26), hut chiefly by the extent of agricultural
export, which comprised 64.2 percent of our total exports in 1925-26.
And since our supplies of grain and raw material surpluses for export
are chiefly obtained from the better-off peasants, while precisely
these strata are most determined to hold back their grain, the result
is that we are being “regulated” by the kulak and the well-to-do
peasant.
Foreign
trade is rightly designated as one of the key leading positions of
our state economy. The growth of capitalism in the countryside
results in a certain extremely important section of this key position
(made important by the fact that ours is an agrarian country) passing
into the hands of our class enemy. Here, the working class is
confronted with one of the most dangerous results of the policy
pursued by the CC since the Fourteenth Party Congress under the
slogan of “Fire Against the Left.” This devastating result is
comprehensible to the simplest workers. It means: cutting down
exports at a time when a billion poods of grain reserves are on hand;
difficulties in importing the raw material necessary for the textile,
wool, and leather industries and for producing articles of mass
consumption; difficulties in importing the most necessary machinery;
difficulties in settling credit obligations abroad; worsening of the
goods famine in town and countryside.
The
objective result of the economic policy of the CC during the last two
years has been to protect the accelerated growth of capitalist
elements, especially in agriculture, now reaching a point at which
these elements exert a noticeable pressure on the economic plans of
the Soviet state, and even thwart them. Even the blindest can see
this (see the above-quoted declaration of Comrade Mikoyan, and other
passages from the same article).
But
only those who refuse to see can fail to observe that the above-named
difficulties all tend in one direction — the foreign
trade monopoly.
There
are only two means of escape from the situation thus created, and the
situation as it stands cannot last.
The
first way is that proposed by the Opposition, a compulsory grain loan
from the wealthiest 10 percent of kulak farms, totaling from 150 to
200 million poods. After the needs of the towns have been satisfied,
the remainder of this grain is to be exported, raw materials and
machinery bought with the proceeds, and in this way the additional
volume of commodities required to meet the goods famine in the
countryside and the lack of food supplies in the cities can be
produced within the country itself.
Those
who reject this way are left with the sole alternative of abandoning
the foreign trade monopoly, of resorting to foreign capital for
export and import, and of importing foreign goods for the villages in
exchange for the export of the accumulated reserves of grain. The
present majority of the CC, with its policy of marking time in one
spot, is organically incapable of making a timely choice, either to
the left or to the right. This irresoluteness leads to decisions
being made at the last moment in panicky haste, and then inevitably
in the direction of a right policy.
The
Opposition has never at any time or place said that the CC has
resolved to annul the foreign trade monopoly, to recognize old debts,
etc. The idea of the annulment or modification of the foreign trade
monopoly has never been officially suggested, either in meetings or
in the press. But in the offices of various officials, or in narrower
business circles, even among Communists, a “reform” of the
foreign trade monopoly, a “modification,” is being referred to
with increasing frequency as a necessary prerequisite for the growth
of agricultural export and the development of the productive forces
of the country (it need not be said, on capitalist and not on
socialist lines). The overall direction of the CC’s policy and its
objective consequences are stronger than all its assurances on paper.
The Opposition warns the party against the impending turn to the
right on the question of the foreign trade monopoly. …