The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-12-26


Thev thot that a system in which the means of
production and the state power belong to the
WORKING class cannot be called a state capitalistic
system They do not notice that employed the
term estate capitalism" firstly in order to estab-
lish the historical connection of our present posi-
ton with that in my pOlemic against the so-called
cleft" Communists. At that time l already
pointed out that state capitalism would be
higher stage than our present economic system
1t was important for me to point out the hered-
itary link between usual state capitalism and the
unusual, very unusual state capitalism of which
l spoke as | introduced the reader to the new
economic policy. Secondly, for me the practical |
goal was always important. And the practical
goal of our new economic policy was-the obtain k
ing of concessions. Under our conditions how
ever these concessions would represent the pure |
type of state capitalism. That was the basis of
my comment state capitalism.
But there is still another field in which we can
employ state capitalism at least something an
alogous thereto. That is the problem of coop
Grafton.
No doubt cooperation is in the capitalistic
state collective capitalistic institution. 1t is
also beyond the shadow of a doubt that under the
conditions of our present economic reality, where
we have private capitaistc enterprises-but
only upon publicly owned land and only under |
the control of the state power, which belongs to |
the working class-side by side with enterprises |
OF consistently socialist nature lin which the |
means of production as well as the land upon
which the enterprise stands and for that matter |
the enterprise itself belong to the state), that
the question of third form of enterprise arises,
which in the past was of no Independent impor- |
lance, the question of the cooperative enterprise
Under private capitalism, the cooperative enter
prises differed from the capitastic enterprises in
that they were collective Undertakings. Underi
state capitalism the difference between coop
eratve and state capitalistic enterprises is that
they are firstly private Enterprises and in the
second place collective. In our present system
as collective enterprises the co-operatives differ
from the private capitalistic enterprises, but
there is no difference between them and socialist
enterprises when they stand on the basis of state
ownership, /. e., the ownership of the working
class, OF the land and of the means of production
We do not attach sufficient Importance to this |
circumstance, when speak of cooperation.
We forget that due to the popularity of our state
system, cooperation has for us absolutely DOM
mating Importance. Aside from the concessions |
which, in passing, attained no specially wide
spread development, cooperation conceded under
our conditions with socialism.
will explain that. What is phantastic in the
plans of the old co-operators, beginning with
Robert Owen? The fact that they dreamt of a
peaceful transformation of present society into |
socialist one, without considering such funda-
mental problems the class struggle, the con
guest of political power by the working class and
the overthrow of the rule Of the exploiting class.
And we were therefore, justified when we found |
this cooperative" socialism to be nothing but
an inspid, romantic phantasy, day dreams upon
how the class enemy could be transformed into
the class collaboration, and the class war intoS
class peace (the so-called civil, peace) by meanN
uation.
There is no doubt that from the point of view
OF the basic problem of the present day we were
right, Tor without the class struggle and the po
litical power in the state socialism can not be |
realized
But let us now consider how the question has