The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-24
S t alin on
DeViatiOnS
to the Right

Does not this quotation from
Lenin seem to contradict other of
Lenin's dictums to the effect that
"the N. E. P. completely guarantees
us the possibility for development
of the basis of Socialist economy"
No, there is no contradiction at all.
On the contrary, the two assertions
completely concur. Lenin does not
assert that the N. E. P. can provide
us with a perfect state of Social
ism. He only says that the N. E.
P. guarantees us the possibility of
developing the foundations of So
cialist economy. Between the pos
sibility Of development of Social
ism and it's actual development there
is material difference. We must
not confound the possibility with the
reality. For it is just for the pur-
pose of turning this possibility into
reality that Lenin suggests the
identification of the country and the
REIMBURSEMENT of the technical basis
of industry, agriculture, and trans
ports on the lines Of our modern big
industries as Prescriptions for the
But in one or two years the pre-
sumptions for the realization of
socialism cannot be attained. 1t is
not possible to industrialize the
country in year or two, nor to
build up a powerful industry, to
combine millions of peasants in CO.
operatives, to give agriculture a
new technical basis, to unite the in
dividual peasant undertakings in
big collective ones, to develop Sow
let farming, to GUST and overcome
the capitalist elements in town and
country. For such task years and
years of strenuous construction of
the proletarian dictatorship are
requisite.
AS long as this is not done, and
it cannot be done all at once, we
must remain petty-peasant coun-
try, in which small production is
constantly creating capitalism and
bourgeoisie and the danger of re-
establishment of capitalism con-
tinues to exist. And as the prole-
tariat is not living in Theoretically
closed room but in reality and in
actual life with all its variety,
"the bourgeois elements created
on the basis of small production
envelop the proletariat on all
sides with their petty bourgeois
anarchy, permeating and destroy
ing it thereby and constantly call
ing forth within the proletariat
reversion to petty-bourgeois lack
of character, disharmony, indi-
vidualism, and the alienation of
exaggeration and depression"
In this way they cause certain vacil-
lations in the proletariat and in its
Party.
Such are the roots of all sorts of
vacillations and deviations from the
feminist directives in our Party.
Therefore the question of the Right
and Left. deviations in our Party
cannot possibly be considered as
trifling matter.
What are the characteristics of
the openly opportunist Right devia-
tions in our Party? They consist
in the fact that they underestimate
the strength of our enemies, the
capitalists, refuse to see the danger
of a establishment of capitalism,
fail to understand the dynamics of
the class struggle under the condi-
tions of proletarian dictatorship,
and therefore easily agree to make
concessions to capitalism, by de-
manding the slowing down of our
rate of industrial development and
facilities for the capitalist elements
in town and country, thrust the
question of collective and Soviet I'M
dertakings into the background, de-
mand a restriction of the foreign
trade monopoly, and SO on. The vic
tory of a Right deviation in our
Party would doubtless combine the
forces of capitalism, shatter the
revolutionary positions of the prole-
tariat, and enhance the chances of
establishment of capitalism in
our country.
Left, Trotskyist Deviation.
And in what does the left, Trot-
skyist, deviation in our country con-
sist? 1t lies in the fact that the
representatives of this deviation
over-estimate the forces Of our enc
mics and the strength of capitalism,
that they are blind to all save the
possibility of restoration of CAPT.
talism, especially blind to the pos
sibility of socialist construction on
it's own merits, and prone to COM
fort themselves with a lot of twad-
die about the Thermidor of our Par
ty. From Lenin's statement that,
"as long as we live in a petty
peasant country, there is in Rus
STA firmer economic basis for
capitalism than for Communism"
the Left deviators draw the mis-
taken conclusion that in the Soviet
Union in general it is impossible to
construct socialism, that nothing
can be attained from cooperation
with the peasantry, that the idea of
an alliance between working class
and peasantry has been superseded,
that if we receive no help from .
victorious revolution in the West,
the dictatorship Of the proletariat,
~ -