Goldman Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 30, 27 July 1940, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghanfor ETOL.
When the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., at its next meeting, will grant the petitions of the Parliaments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to be incorporated into the Soviet Union (and no doubt exists but that it will), it will once more be evidence of the fact that the foundations of the October Revolution are still operative in spite of Stalin. The basic achievement of the October Revolution, the nationalization of private property in the means of production, is extended to other territories and no class-conscious worker can raise any objection to that.
The Sovietization of the Baltic states reminds us of the controversy that raged in our party before the minority, unwilling to remain a minority and cocksure of the correctness of its fantastic theories, decided to set up a little shop of its own.
When Stalin first sent the Red Army into the Baltic states and limited himself to stationing soldiers at important bases, the minority gleefully pointed out that Stalin was leaving capitalist relations in those states intact. Which would prove, according to the leaders of the minority, that Stalin was not interested in destroying capitalism, a position which we never contradicted.
What the leaders of the minority failed to see was that once Stalin for any reason whatever acquires control over territory where capitalist property relations exist, the tendency must be for him to incorporate such territory into the Soviet Union and, upon incorporation, capitalist property relations must be destroyed and displaced by nationalized property.
Stalin is not interested in extending the social revolution. He is interested primarily in the rule of the bureaucracy which he represents. But since Stalin heads a state based on nationalized property any territory acquired by that state cannot be left under capitalist property relations.
The ruling clique in the Soviet Union cannot afford to divide its power with an alien ruling class.
Should Stalin permit capitalism to function in any territory that had become part of the Soviet Union it would mean that he was actually determined to bring capitalism back to the Soviet Union.
How grotesque and senseless the “theory” of Soviet imperialism must appear to any one who thinks in Marxist terms. Every piece of territory into which Stalin sent his armed forces and which has been incorporated into the Soviet Union has been wrested from imperialism, the only kind of imperialism that Marxists know of as existing at the present time, the expansionist policy of finance capitalism.
The resources of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are no longer open to imperialist exploitation unless they are taken away from the Soviet Union.
And superficial wiseacres will still contend that there is no difference between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany! But these people have never yet explained why it is that Hitler has never called the Reichstag to proclaim the nationalization of land, banking and industry in any conquered territory.
Individual capitalists, especially Jewish capitalists, run away from Hitler’s rule. The capitalist class as such is expropriated under Stalin’s rule.
We do not like bureaucratic socialization of industry. We would much rather prefer socialization of industry coming as a result of a social revolution than as a result of the conquest of territory by the Red Army under Stalin. And it is obvious that Stalin’s bureaucratic method can only conquer small countries.
But as against capitalism even bureaucratic socialization is a step forward and we shall support it as against all people who for any pretext whatever will defend capitalism.
That the working masses of the Baltic countries are as enthusiastic about their incorporation into the Soviet Union as the Stalinist press would want us to believe can be seriously doubted. They live too close to the Soviet Union and they therefore know too much about real conditions there to be enthusiastic about the happy life promised them under the leadership of the Kremlin despot.
But the lot of the workers and peasants of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia under capitalism has been a miserable one at best. Probably hundreds of thousands of them cannot picture anything worse than what they have experienced.
The class-conscious workers of the Baltic countries, however, understand that capitalism throughout the world must be destroyed, that it offers nothing but fascism and war. These workers will support the nationalization of industry. And together with their class brothers in the Soviet Union they will continue the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy.
The corruption of Stalinism must be destroyed in order to make the Soviet Union the powerfully attractive force that it should be for the masses throughout the world.
Main NI Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 23 May 2020