J. V. STALIN - From Marx to Mao

1 J. V. STALINECONOMIC PROBLEMSOF SOCIALISMIN THE O R K E R S O F A L L C O U N T R I E S , U N I T E !From Marx to MaoML Digital Reprints2006J. V. STALINECONOMIC PROBLEMSOF SOCIALISMIN THE U. S. S. LANGUAGES PRESSPEKING 1972J. V. STALINECONOMIC PROBLEMSOF SOCIALISMIN THE U. S. S. LANGUAGES PRESSPEKING 1972 First Edition 1972 PUBLISHER S NOTEThe present English translation of J. V. STALIN s Economic Prob-lems of Socialism in the is a reprint of the text given inthe English pamphlet by the same name, published in Moscow,1952. Changes have been made according to other English transla-tions of the pamphlet. The notes at the end of the book have beentranslated from the Chinese edition published by the People sPublishing House, Peking, March in the People s Republic of ChinaC O N T E N T SREMARKS ON ECONOMIC QUESTIONS CONNECTEDWITH THE NOVEMBER 1951 DISCUSSION11.

2 Character of Economic Laws Under Socialism 12. Commodity Production Under Socialism93. The Law of Value Under Socialism 184. Abolition of the Antithesis Between Town andCountry, and Between Mental and Physical Labourand Elimination of the Distinction Between Them245. Disintegration of the Single World Market andDeepening of the Crisis of the World CapitalistSystem306. Inevitability of Wars Between Capitalist Countries327. The Basic Economic Laws of Modern Capitalismand of Socialism378. Other Questions429. International Importance of a Marxist Textbook onPolitical of Improving the Draft Textbook on PoliticalEconomy 47 REPLY TO COMRADE ALEXANDER ILYICH NOTKIN49 CONCERNING THE ERRORS OF COMRADE L. D.

3 YARO-SHENKO59I. Comrade Yaroshenko s Chief Error 60II. Other Errors of Comrade Yaroshenko 72 REPLY TO COMRADES A. V. SANINA AND V. G. VENZHER871. Character of the Economic Laws of Socialism 872. Measures for Elevating Collective-Farm Propertyto the Level of Public Property90 NOTES 1001To the Participants inthe Economic DiscussionREMARKSON ECONOMIC QUESTIONSCONNECTED WITH THE NOVEMBER 1951 DISCUSSIONI have received all the materials on the economic discus-sion arranged to assess the draft textbook on political econ-omy. The material received includes the Proposals for theImprovement of the Draft Textbook on Political Economy, Proposals for the Elimination of Mistakes and Inaccura-cies in the draft, and the Memorandum on DisputedIssues.

4 On all these materials, as well as on the draft textbook, Iconsider it necessary to make the following CHARACTER OF ECONOMIC LAWS UNDERSOCIALISMSome comrades deny the objective character of laws ofscience, and of laws of political economy particularly, under2socialism. They deny that the laws of political economyreflect law-governed processes which operate independentlyof the will of man. They believe that in view of the specificrole assigned to the Soviet state by history, the Soviet stateand its leaders can abolish existing laws of political economyand can form, create, new comrades are profoundly mistaken. It is evidentthat they confuse laws of science, which reflect objectiveprocesses in nature or society, processes which take placeindependently of the will of man, with the laws which areissued by governments, which are made by the will of man,and which have only juridical validity.

5 But they must notbe regards laws of science whether they be lawsof natural science or laws of political economy as the re-flection of objective processes which take place independent-ly of the will of man. Man may discover these laws, getto know them, study them, reckon with them in his activi-ties and utilize them in the interests of society, but he cannotchange or abolish them. Still less can he form or create newlaws of this mean, for instance, that the results of the actionof the laws of nature, the results of the action of the forcesof nature, are generally inavertible, that the destructive actionof the forces of nature always and everywhere proceedswith an elemental and inexorable power that does not yieldto the influence of man?

6 No, it does not. Leaving asideastronomical, geological and other similar processes, whichman really is powerless to influence, even if he has come toknow the laws of their development, in many other casesman is very far from powerless, in the sense of being ableto influence the processes of nature. In all such cases, having3come to know the laws of nature, reckoning with them andrelying on them, and intelligently applying and utilizingthem, man can restrict their sphere of action, and can imparta different direction to the destructive forces of nature andconvert them to the use of take one of numerous examples. In olden times theoverflow of big rivers, floods, and the resulting destructionof homes and crops, was considered an inavertible calamity,against which man was powerless.

7 But with the lapse oftime and the development of human knowledge, when manhad learned to build dams and hydro-electric stations, itbecame possible to protect society from the calamity of floodwhich had formerly seemed to be inavertible. More, manlearned to curb the destructive forces of nature, to harnessthem, so to speak, to convert the force of water to the use ofsociety and to utilize it for the irrigation of fields and thegeneration of this mean that man has thereby abolished laws ofnature, laws of science, and has created new laws of nature,new laws of science? No, it does not. The fact is that allthis procedure of averting the action of the destructive forcesof water and of utilizing them in the interests of society takesplace without any violation, alteration or abolition of scien-tific laws or the creation of new scientific laws.

8 On the con-trary, all this procedure is effected in precise conformitywith the laws of nature and the laws of science, since anyviolation, even the slightest, of the laws of nature wouldonly upset matters and render the procedure same must be said of the laws of economic develop-ment, the laws of political economy whether in the periodof capitalism or in the period of socialism. Here, too, thelaws of economic development, as in the case of natural4science, are objective laws, reflecting processes of economicdevelopment which take place independently of the will ofman. Man may discover these laws, get to know them and,relying upon them, utilize them in the interests of society,impart a different direction to the destructive action of someof the laws, restrict their sphere of action, and allow fullerscope to other laws that are forcing their way to the fore-front; but he cannot destroy them or create new of the distinguishing features of political economyis that its laws, unlike those of natural science, are imper-manent, that they, or at least the majority of them, operatefor a definite historical period, after which they give placeto new laws.

9 However, these laws are not abolished, butlose their validity owing to the new economic conditions anddepart from the scene in order to give place to new laws,laws which are not created by the will of man, but whicharise from the new economic is made to Engels Anti-D hring, to his formulawhich says that, with the abolition of capitalism and thesocialization of the means of production, man will obtaincontrol of his means of production, that he will be set freefrom the yoke of social and economic relations and becomethe master of his social life. Engels calls this freedom appreciation of necessity. 1 And what can this apprecia-tion of necessity mean? It means that, having come toknow objective laws ( necessity ), man will apply them withfull consciousness in the interests of society.

10 That is whyEngels says in the same book: The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing faceto face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating5him, will then be used with full understanding, and somastered by him. 2As we see, Engels formula does not speak at all in favourof those who think that under socialism existing economiclaws can be abolished and new ones created. On the con-trary, it demands, not the abolition, but the understandingof economic laws and their intelligent is said that economic laws are elemental in character,that their action is inavertible and that society is powerlessagainst them. That is not true. It is making a fetish oflaws, and oneself the slave of laws.