The daily worker., 1924-08-15

may say quite frankly that the theory
Of crisis must assume "more modest
Dimensions
What does it mean? 1t means that
according to Kautsky the capitalist
world has become more harmonized
in recent years. What is our view
upon these things? We have dealt
with this question more than once and
think we have shown that in some
branches of industry the state of an
archy has been partly removed as a
result of the creation of monopolies
But the creation of trusts does not
prevent crises; it rather produces
them in a more extended and gradu
ated manner.
Boris goes on to make the following
suggestion:
with the development of capital
ism, constant capital increases in re-
lation to the variable capital, con-
stant fixed capital in relation to con-
stant circulating capital, and par
ticularly constant fixed capital in re-
lation to the total capital The sys-
tematic management of production
goes at the same rate"
Then he says:
"The higher the organic compost
ton of an industry is, the more sys-
tematic is the management of such
an industry. OF course, increased
systematization leads not to a slack
ening but an intensification of capi-
talist competition. Systematic man.
agement of production leads to sys-
tematic curtailment of production,
which partly takes place instead of
the crisis
Revisionism of Boris.
This amounts to saying that the
growth of productive forces signifies
the growth of the organic composition
of capitalism; the ever increasing
systematization in the management OF
production, instead of crisis, a growth
of the productive forces. What does
it all mean? Does all this represent a
Communist theory? 1t is pure revis.
ionism, and a pure social democratic
theory.
There is yet another social demo.
cratic doctrine which says that the
circumstances during the war and the
period of revolutionary ferment are
such that the revolutionary prole-
tariat, if it wants to carry out the
revolution victoriously, must con-
stantly bear in mind the necessity for
the continuity of the process of pro-
duction. This is what we are told by
Kautsky, Hilferding; etc. In support
of their opposition of the bolshevist
Interpretation or revolutionary Marx
ism, they say that if we capture the
machinery of the State, we shall lose
all credits and shall be obliged to close
the factories, and so on. This is Ger
tainly not the goal of our revolution
Revolt HaIts Production.
AS l bluntly put it at the last Con
gress, the use of telegraph poles for
barricades will not encourage the in
crease of production. Revolution, like
war, entails loss of productivity thru
the temporary destruction of the pro
ductive forces.
Now, Comrade Boris comes along
again and reconstructs the whole doc.
trine of the community of production
He says: Il am going to put this in
the form of mathematical formula. y
And so he does, for he transforms the
transitory decline of the productive
forces into an absolute process. He
goes on to say that this indicates that
Bukharin ''is seriously of the opinion
that the Communist system of produc
tion will have to start literally with
nothing in the way of means of pro
duction and distribution" What a
wonderfully clever fellow he isl He
himself evolves the mathematical
formula, and then he accuses me Of
it. If for instance we were to trans
form Comrade Boris relative foolish
ness into absolute foolishness by
means of mathematical, historical, anc
logical reasoning, we would also OBJ
tain the corresponding result. But
we are content with having to dea
with relative foolishness.
Is Socialist Theory.
What is the meaning of the thing in
itself? 1t means nothing else than the
restoration of the social democratic
doctrine. For it is the best argument
in the hands of the social-democracy
against revolutionary methods. If We
say that the revolution can be based
only on the growth of the productive
forces, then we get the doctrine estab
lished by Kautsky.
You see how tactfully we have
established our theory. We have
shown that the process Of relative anC
temporary transition renders the de
struction of the productive forces alb
solutely necessary. We have showr
by various MARKHAM quotations tina
this transformation, these critical cir
cumstances, serves as the basis 70