The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-27
Brouder Shows Conditions for Social Planning u Conference

main and in constantly growing
measure, the results intended by
him. 1t is the ascent of man
from the kingdom of necessity to
the kingdom of freedom" From
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific).
Role of Technicians
Shortly after Russian Czarism had
been overthrown, and while the
working class was preparing to take
political power in its own hands,
Lenin already indicated the road
toward a planned economy which
would be taken by the workers:
1.-THE proletariat, when victori-
Gus, will act thus: 1t will set the
economists, engineers, agricultural
experts and so on to work out a
plan under the control of the
workers organizations, to test it,
to seek means of saving labor by
means of centralism, and of secur-
ing the most simple, cheap, con-
venient, general control. We shall
pay the economists, statisticians,
technicians, good money, but-but
we shall not give them anything
to eat unless they carry out this
work honestly and entirely in the
interests of the workers.
1--WE are in favor of centralism
and of a plan but it must be
the centralism and the plan of the
proletarian state,-the proletarian
regulation of production and dis
tribution in the interest of the
poor, the laboring. the exploited,
against the exploiters." Oenin,
Toward the Seizure of Power,
Bo ok I'D p. 40.
AS soon as the Bolsheviks had
secured political power, they turned
to planned economy as their major
interest. In the words of Lenin
uttered at the moment of the end
of the civil war:
cat the present time we are
exercising our main influence on
the international revolution by
our economic policy. The
struggle on this field is now being
waged on world scale. If we
solve this problem, then we shall
have won on an international
scale for certain and finally. That
is why questions of economic con-
struction assume absolutely excep-
ttonal significance for us. On this
front we must win victory, by
slow, gradual-it cannot be fast
but steadily increasing progress"
Five Year Plans
Lenin's policy was continued and
developed under the leadership o.
Stain. 1t came to its great victory
in the first Five Year Plan. which
covered approximately the first pc
riod of the world crisis in the capt.
talist lands. At a moment wher
the economically most advanced
countries were falling into chaos
the Bolsheviks adopted a plan de.
signed to transform their country
backward and in some respects
medieval economically, into a coun-
try of the most advanced technique
TO accomplish the task set By
Lenin, to "overtake the advanced
countries and surpass them alsc
economically" While plans" were
crashing, in all capitalist countries
and being changed every few month:
only to crash again, the BolsheviE
plan was fulfilled nine months ahead
of schedule. Stain was able tx
report:
1--WE have done more than we
expected.
While the index number of the
volume of industrial production in
the U.S.S.R., at the end of 1892,
rose to 1874, taking the pre-war
output at 100; the index number
OF the volume of industrial out
put in the U.S.A. dropped in the
same period to "a, that of England
to rs, that Of Germany to g..
While the index number of the
volume of industrial output in
the U.S.S.R. at the end of 1882
rose to 2l9, taking 1928 at 100,
the index number of the volume
of industrial output in the U.S.A.
during the same period dropped
to Sc, that in England to 80, Ger
any to SIS, Poland to 81.
What do these figures show if
not that the capitalist system of
industry has not stood the test in
contest with the Soviet system,
that the Soviet system has all the
advantages over the capitalist sys-
tenn"
False Theories
1t is clear that If a social-eco
norrlic plan is to be discussed, tina
this Immediately takes us beyont
the boundaries of capitalism. Blu
it is still necessary to estimate thos,
theories which, apparently, accep
this fundamental truth, and which
yet reject the revolutionary road Il