Title | What has become of the Russian Revolution |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (Local) |
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Publisher | International Review |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1937 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Topical (Local) |
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Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 63 pages; 22 cm |
Original Item Location | HN523.Y8613 1937 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304536~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | In Copyright: This item is protected by copyright. Copyright to this resource is held by the creator or current rights holder, and the resource is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without permission of the copyright owner. Users assume full responsibility for any infringement of copyright or related rights. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 50 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_2209396_049.jpg |
Transcript | 1919-1923. The Civil War ended in the total hegemony of Bolshevism. All other organizations were persecuted, suppressed, destroyed. But within the Bolshevik party itself diverse tendencies continued to face one another. There was one political organization, with a semblance of democracy still lingering within it. 1924-1927. Even before Lenin's death, a struggle began among the heads of the Bolshevik Party (Zinoviev, Trotsky, Boukharin, Rykov, Stalin, etc.) This struggle ended in Stalin's victory. Stalin's triumph put an end to the appearance of democracy inside and outside the single party. 1928-1937. The Stalinist absolutism is perfected. We have now a personal dictatorship adapted to the development of the new social form. Why This Evolution? The progressive destruction of the liberty of the Russian workers is not the accidental thing that some people like to think it is. The classic capitalist economy is a disorderly, chaotic economy. It functions like a machine that cannot be controlled by any mechanic. It moves from prosperity to crises, from progress to catastrophe, in pursuance of its own spontaneous laws. Classic capitalism is a "competitive" regime. Rivalry in the conquest of profit entails rivalry in obtaining the manpower that produces this profit. Because of this, the traditional capitalist regime needs a working class that is relatively free—free, at least, to sell its labor power to the best buyer. This liberty to sell one's labor power is possibly not as ludicrous as Karl Marx found it to be. The "chaos" was to be replaced with a "plan". In Russia, we see the birth of an "organized" economy, an economy that is supposedly subjected to man. Labor is regulated "scientifically". All the social wheels, all their movements, follow preestablished circuits. The economy of the country is "directed", obeying the laws imposed by human reason. The single machine functions in accordance with the will of the wise conductors who hold the national levers. A class of specialists, technicians, "initiates"—the brains of the Plan —rules more arbitrarily than any masters have ruled over human beings before. Five or six volumes, comprising a manual of algebraic formulae, summarize for the new masters the entire life of the society, the mainsprings of which they hold in their hands. Economic competition has disappeared within the country. But with that the liberty of the workers has also disappeared. The "plan" is exacting. It brooks no indiscipline. In the "planned" society, every man has a numbered place assigned to him. He is put in his place. He is labelled, controlled. He must do what the top orders him to do. The worker becomes a tiny mathematical symbol in the general plan. His food, his clothing, his fate, are so many graph lines drawn on the charts of the masters of the Plan. Each worker is a disciplined soldier. He is a sort of convict irremediably attached to a determined place, to a determined task, the choice of which he can not question. The laborer works in accordance with the preestablished scheme. The 48 |