The concept of state socialism. Lenin's model of the economy and the class structure of society

The political economy of socialism is constantly developing on the basis of the experience of the economic life of the USSR and other socialist countries. In the course of life, the party and the working people face new complex tasks, and for their solution the ideological legacy of V.I. Lenin is of great importance.

He proceeded from the fact that under socialism economic life would be subject to certain objective laws. The experience of the first years of building socialism in the USSR was insufficient to make it possible to formulate the objective laws of socialist management on its basis. Therefore, Lenin's teaching on the principles, forms, and methods of socialist economic management contains a theoretical substantiation of the economic laws of socialism.

For a correct understanding of the question of economic methods and problems of managing the national economy, the question of whether the law of value operates in a socialist society or not, whether socialist production has a commodity character or not is of great importance. K. Marx and F. Engels answered this question in the negative. They considered the market, goods, value, money, wages, profit, rent to be categories of an economy based on private bourgeois ownership of the means of production, for which there would be no place in a socialist society. The necessary accounting of labor will be carried out in units of working time, the distribution of products will be carried out without the help of value, money. VI Lenin also adhered to the same point of view, as evidenced by his numerous statements in the pre-October period.

In his work "State and Revolution" V.I. Lenin very insistently emphasized that socialism is not the ultimate goal of the working class, that socialism must inevitably develop into communism. Lenin developed the idea of ​​K. Marx about socialism as an inevitable historical stage in the development of society, about the creation of the productive forces of society as the most important condition for the transition from socialism to communism. The mighty flourishing of science and technology, the electrification of the country, the achievement of higher labor productivity than under capitalism, V.I. Lenin considered the most important prerequisites for communism.

Lenin persistently emphasized that the proletarian revolution and the building of socialism in the USSR are subject to general laws, inevitable for other countries as well. At the same time, they also have their own characteristics, due to the specific historical conditions of the life of the country. He considered erroneous and harmful the opinion that all countries would come to socialism in the same way.

VI Lenin created the foundations of the doctrine of the socialist industrialization of countries. He insistently emphasized that socialism could not be built without modern large-scale machine industry. The main modern large-scale industry is heavy industry - engineering, energy, chemical industry and other industries that produce means of production. Lenin attached great importance to the electrification of the country. He considered the rapid creation of heavy industry as an absolutely necessary condition for strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and the alliance of the working class with the peasantry, for ensuring the rapid growth of all industry, transport, for the technological and economic transformation of agriculture, for the final displacement of capital and the victory of socialism, for ensuring the country's defense capability. and her independence.

A great contribution to the economic theory of socialism is Lenin's elaboration of the question of the socialist transformation of agriculture. V. I. Lenin considered completely illusory the calculations of socialists - utopians and petty-bourgeois economists that by means of cooperation alone, without a proletarian revolution, capitalist society can be turned into a socialist one. He also exposed the bourgeois theories of "cooperative socialism", calculated to deceive the working people. The basic idea of ​​the famous cooperative plan for building socialism was put forward by Lenin as early as 1918. During the years of war communism, there were no conditions for the realization of the exceptionally important role of cooperation that Lenin assigned to it. In the spring of 1918, cooperation, like state trade, turned into a simple apparatus for distributing products.

In 1923, when Lenin returned to a fundamental assessment of the role of cooperation in building socialism, the situation was different - a new economic policy was being pursued, great importance was attached to material incentives for work, the role of the market, and trade. The NEP meant a concession to the peasant as a merchant. With the transition to the NEP, in the face of cooperation, the necessary "degree of combining private interest, private trade interest, verification and control of its state, the degree of its subordination to common interests ..." was found. The New Economic Policy "adapts itself to the level of the most ordinary peasant ... does not require anything higher from him." Thus, under conditions when state power is in the hands of the working class and the means of production belong to this state power, co-operation is "a simple, easy and accessible way for the peasant" to socialism. By means of cooperation every small peasant participates in the building of socialism. Co-operation "very often coincides completely with socialism," and the mere growth of co-operation is identical with the growth of socialism.

The Leninist model of the economy and the class structure of a society in transition served the CPSU, serves as a theoretical basis for the Marxist-Leninist parties of other countries to determine the tasks of building socialism, the policy of the party at different stages of this construction.

V. I. Lenin spoke about the inevitability of the victory of socialism in other countries, about the formation of a world system of socialism in the future, emphasized the need for fraternal cooperation and mutual assistance of the socialist countries, uniting their forces to defend socialism from the intrigues of imperialism, to accelerate the construction of socialism and communism.

Lenin's concept of socialism.

The time has come to restore the true, humanistic content of the Leninist concept of socialism. Recovery both in theory and in practice. One without the other is impossible.

As the experience of perestroika shows, it is easier to recognize the deformations of real socialism than to understand that our theoretical ideas about it have turned out to be deformed in many respects. It is with difficulty that we come to a self-critical admission that we assimilated Lenin's ideas in a far from adequate way, mainly in the spirit of Stalin's "Short Course" and "Questions of Leninism". But the deepening of perestroika more and more clearly exposes the falsity of the previously formed stereotypes. What is needed is "a creative approach to the theory and practice of socialism, their development along the paths of constructive comprehension of the historical experience of the 20th century, the legacy of Marx, Engels, Lenin, freed from dogmatic interpretation."

The struggle is not only between the views of different people, but also in the minds of each of us. It is public and intimate at the same time. This is the inner, spiritual and spiritual work of everyone to overcome the dogmas that are familiar, but alien to life. This is an active overcoming of the reflexes of intellectual self-alienation strengthened in us, the acquisition of personal freedom to think creatively and act according to the laws of truth and morality.

Three questions arise from a thoughtful approach to the subject of "Lenin's concept of socialism":

1. What place is occupied by the ideas of humanism in the views of V. I. Lenin on socialism and the ways of its creation?

2. How can Lenin's analysis of the dialectic of transitional forms of society be applied to the determination of the nature and tendencies of contemporary perestroika?

3. What are the main lessons from Lenin's ideas for perestroika today?

4. We will focus on consideration of these issues in the disclosure of this topic.

Humanistic content Lenin's concept of socialism

V. I. Lenin's views on socialism and the ways of its creation are many-sided and dynamic. They developed in accordance with the course of the social processes themselves in Russia and throughout the world, they provided answers to new questions put forward by life before the Bolshevik Party. This development took place especially intensively after the October Revolution, on the basis of a generalization of the experience of the first years of building a socialist society. In the last letters and articles of V. I. Lenin, a number of fundamentally new ideas were formulated, meaning "a radical change in our entire point of view on socialism."

Of course, if Lenin had continued to live and work on, he would have made more than one change in his and our ideas about socialism. His concept, by its very nature, was and has remained fundamentally open to new approaches and solutions that meet the new demands of life. Therefore, the correct attitude towards it, corresponding to its own principles, is to highlight the deep content in it, which can serve as a strategic guideline in the analysis of the problems of the modern stage of history. Such a deep content, its true foundation, constitute the ideas of humanism.

Humanism in a broad sense is a view that considers a person as the highest value and end in itself of social progress, defending his right to freedom and comprehensive development from encroachments by the church, state and other public institutions. As an ideological trend, humanism took shape as early as the Renaissance (XIV-XVI centuries), when, under the powerful blows of the humanistic movement, the Catholic Church lost its monopoly on the spiritual world of man. However, the spiritual self-liberation of the few was accompanied by the political enslavement of the majority by the feudal states, which were transformed into absolutist monarchies. The further development of humanism was expressed primarily in the ideas of European and American enlighteners, who ideologically prepared the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th - the first half of the 19th centuries, thanks to which a new circle of rights was assigned to a person - political, giving every citizen the opportunity to influence the formation of state bodies and forbidding the state to interfere into the privacy of citizens. But this progress was accompanied by new losses. In the economic sphere of the life of bourgeois society, a person turned out to be alienated not only from the means of labor and its results, but also from labor itself as a human activity, and, as a result, from oneself as an active being, from other people, separated by competition, from generic human essence. The progress towards freedom in the spiritual and political spheres was consequently accompanied by the alienation and self-alienation of man in economic life. And this inevitably caused new deformations of freedom in the social, political, spiritual spheres of his life.

Scientific socialism - the theory of real humanism

Having revealed the deep-seated contradictions in the implementation of the ideas of humanism under capitalism, K. Marx, already in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, substantiated the need for socialism and communism as a society of real humanism. The reality of humanism, affirmed by a new historical force - the working class in alliance with the peasantry and other sections of the working people, is ensured by a complex of revolutionary transformations of society. They cover all the main spheres of public life: economic - the expropriation of private and the approval of various forms of public ownership of the main means of production; social - the abolition of antagonistic classes, and then classes in general, the establishment of a free association of workers as the main unit of society; political - the elimination of the political domination of the exploiters, the establishment of the power of the working people themselves (initially in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat), the development of public self-government until the withering away of the state; spiritual - overcoming fetishistic and other transformed forms of consciousness, the spiritual emancipation of everyone, the development of a scientific worldview.

The totality of these transformations is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve the main goal: the liberation of workers, every citizen from any form of exploitation, political or spiritual oppression; approval of such social relations that open up space for the realization of a person's inner need for self-development, for freedom as the highest value of human life. "... The free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all" - the fundamental principle of real humanism, formulated by the founders of Marxism in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party".

In what forms, through what stages will man's self-liberation, the abolition of his alienation, take place? Already in 1844, comparing the history of real alienation with the history of communist ideas as theoretical ideas about its removal, Marx discovered a regularity: the removal of alienation goes the same way as alienation. Historically, its original, early form is only the denial of private property as the objective content of alienation, that is, crude communism, which affirms the universality of labor and equality of wages, but denies, together with private property, the personality of a person. In the next, more mature form, communism appears as a return to man of the subjective aspects of his life, primarily political ones: this is communism in its democratic or despotic political form; subsequently the state in general is subject to abolishment. In its highest form, communism means the overcoming of both objective and subjective manifestations of private property, the all-round appropriation by a person of his human essence, including its spiritual content. On this basis, a qualitatively new type of society is being formed, which no longer needs to deny alienation and therefore represents a direct self-affirmation of a person as the highest value and goal in itself of development.

The idea of ​​communism as a real, practical humanism Marx preserved and deepened in the course of all his further creative activity. In economic manuscripts of 1857 - 1859. he described three major forms of society, or three stages of historical progress: the first stage is the relationship of personal dependence between people (patriarchal, ancient and feudal system); the second step is personal independence based on material dependence (capitalism); the third stage is “free individuality based on the universal development of individuals and on the transformation of their collective, social productivity into their public property”, that is, communism.

Already in his early works, V. I. Lenin appears as a consistent Marxist, deeply and creatively perceiving all the basic provisions of scientific socialism, its humanistic content. The starting point for Lenin was the fundamental conclusion of Marxism about the world-historical mission of the proletariat as the only class in history that is called upon to carry out a revolution not in order to consolidate its rule and become a new ruling class, but in order to abolish all classes and thereby free them from exploitation and oppression of all working humanity, create a new, classless society. Consequently, the class interest of the proletariat is not selfish, but the general interest of all oppressed and suffering humanity. Vladimir Ilyich absorbed this scientifically based humanism of Marxism from his youth and remained faithful to it until the end of his life.

The principles of social freedom, equality, justice, and the all-round development of the individual serve as a concrete expression of socialist humanism. The objective prerequisite for their implementation is, as Lenin wrote in the draft Program of the RSDLP (1902), “a social revolution, i.e., the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, their transfer to public ownership and the replacement of capitalist production of goods by a socialist of the whole society, to ensure the full well-being and free all-round development of all its members.

Here the humanistic orientation of the upcoming socialist is clearly expressed.

tic revolution. The condition for the free development of all is the liberation of each from exploitation, achieved by the establishment of public ownership of the means of production.

leadership. Lenin also shared the realistic conclusion of Marx that socialism, as the first, bottom -

the highest phase of communism does not yet provide genuine social justice and equality: distribution according to work means applying the same scale to heterogeneous

kovy people, as a result of which differences in wealth will remain here, and the differences are unjust.

Socialism is the living creativity of the masses themselves

The emergence of socialism, its further development is a process of independent creativity of tens and hundreds of millions of people who are guided not by theories invented for them, but by their own interests. “The living creativity of the masses is the main factor of the new public ... - he said; VI Lenin on the 10th of those days that shook the world. - Socialism is not created by decrees from above. Official-bureaucratic automatism is alien to his spirit; socialism is alive, creative, is the creation of the masses of the people themselves. In a deep understanding of the people's nature of socialism and in a self-sacrificing struggle for its free disclosure lies true Leninist humanism.

“A broad, truly massive creation of the opportunity to show enterprise, emulation, a bold initiative is only now ...” Lenin wrote two months after October. - For the first time after centuries of labor for strangers, forced labor for exploiters, it is possible work for yourself and, moreover, work based on all the achievements of the latest technology and culture. He called the first communist subbotniks “a great initiative”. But these sprouts of a new, socialist and communist attitude to work could develop only if there were such conditions as openness, accounting and control of results, their comparability, and most importantly, ensuring diversity as a guarantee of the vitality of the new, suppressing any stereotyped and uniformity coming from above.

V. I. Lenin peered intently into life, into the revolutionary experience of the masses in search of those "bricks" from which socialism begins to take shape. True to the principles of science, he subjected this experience itself to critical analysis - both underestimation and overestimation of its "socialism", which sometimes manifested itself both among the masses and among theoreticians.

Six months after October, in the conditions of the “breathing space” achieved thanks to the Brest peace, V. I. Lenin worked on the article “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power”. At that time, a "cavalry attack" on capital was unfolding in the country - the nationalization of industrial enterprises, the expropriation of capitalists. But the revolutionary Lenin does not whip up this attack, but restrains the pace of the offensive. Why? Yes, because nationalization is far from identical with the real socialization of production, and it is dangerous to allow its significant separation from economic reality.

Under the present conditions, Lenin emphasized, the main difficulty is “to carry out the strictest and most widespread accounting and control of the production and distribution of products, to increase labor productivity, socialize production on deed". These words succinctly express the concept of real socialism, developed by the spring of 1918. Continuing the idea of ​​the role of accounting and control, formulated back in The State and Revolution, Lenin uses it to answer the most important, practically raised question: what does it mean to socialize production on really? But, of course, he does not just use it as a finished one, but details it on new vital material.

In the sphere of production itself, socialization means daily accounting and control by the workers in all enterprises - nationalized and private. “Keep a neat and conscientious account of money, manage economically, do not loafer, do not steal, observe the strictest discipline in work” These simple demands must be put into practice both by the mass of working people and by the Soviet government, its laws and methods. In order to increase labor productivity, everything that is scientific and progressive among the bourgeoisie (for example, in the Taylor system) should be used and energetically used the new opportunities opened up by socialism, above all, organize competition between workers, enterprises, communes. In relation to the remaining bourgeoisie, Lenin considers it necessary to replace one-time indemnities with a permanent and correctly levied property and income tax. A little time will pass, and, analyzing the new experience, he will already speak of the transition from workers' control to workers' management of industry, with the active participation of the trade unions as a school for educating the masses, under the control of the Soviets as organs of power. The question will also arise of a nationwide plan for the development of the national economy, the first example of which will be the GOELRO plan.

In the sphere of product distribution, socialization means the creation of a network of consumer societies, cooperatives. In the original version of the article “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power”, Lenin notes that under the conditions of the proletarian state the position of cooperatives is radically changing, and draws a conclusion of exceptional significance: “A cooperative, if it embraces the entire society in which the land is socialized and factories and plants are nationalized, is socialism". The idea of ​​a unified, nationwide consumer cooperative and even unified territorial cooperatives met with resistance from the cooperators themselves (bourgeois and workers) and found a compromise expression in a decree approved in April 1918. According to Lenin, one of the criteria for the work of the Soviets is now becoming the extent to which the population is covered by the network consumer cooperatives.

Finally, the general condition for the free creativity of the masses during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism is the "iron hand" of the dictatorship of the proletariat: strong forms of everyday discipline, unquestioning obedience of the masses to the unified will of the leaders of the labor process. This, however, does not rule out, but presupposes the "rally democratism" of the masses outside working hours, the further development of the soviets as the highest form of democracy with the aim of enlisting the poor peasantry in practical participation in government. Lenin emphasizes: “The more resolutely we must now stand for ruthlessly firm power, for the dictatorship of individuals for certain prowork processes, at certain times purelyperforming functions, the more diverse should be the forms and methods of control from below in order to paralyze every shadow of the possibility of distorting Soviet power, in order to repeatedly and tirelessly uproot the weeds of bureaucracy.

Thus, already at the initial stage of the revolution, V. I. Lenin developed the concept of building socialism as a living creativity of the masses themselves, which gradually, over a relatively long period, replaces the capitalist ways of life with the socialist one. The leader oriented the party, the Soviet government towards a gradual transition to a new social system.

But at the same time, Lenin contributed to the establishment of a one-party political system, which sought to subjugate the multi-structural economy of a vast country. The RCP (b) found itself alone against all political parties and trends in Russia. Their counteroffensive, which began in the spring of 1918, frustrated the policy of peaceful, gradual construction of socialism. The civil war and the intervention of the Entente countries plunged the country into a new military drama for more than two years and cost the peoples of Russia new hundreds of thousands of victims. In this situation, the party and the state began to pursue a policy of "war communism", which was based on non-economic, military-administrative methods of forcing all citizens to work and beggarly egalitarian distribution among the urban population of products taken from the peasants through food distribution, by the power of workers' food detachments and village committees. the poor. On the whole, according to Lenin's assessment, it was, although forced, but a deeply erroneous policy that contradicted "what we wrote earlier about the transition from capitalism to socialism ...". By the spring of 1921, it had placed Soviet power before the deepest political crisis - the crisis of the union of workers and peasants.

Realizing the impending danger, the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921 adopted a new economic policy on Lenin's initiative. It meant, on the one hand, a return to the old, cautious and prudent policy of the first period of the revolution, and, on the other hand, a qualitatively new approach to building socialism in a country dominated by small producers. Subsequent history showed that the NEP was of strategic importance for the construction of socialism in our country. But its capabilities were distorted and curtailed by Stalin's policy of imposing an administrative-command control system.

Under the conditions of modern perestroika, the party has again turned to the creative potential of the NEP, using the political and methodological richness of its ideas. Let us dwell on one of the most important questions of socialist construction, which was effectively solved along the lines of the New Economic Policy.

To the variety of ways to include personal interests in the construction of socialism.

We are talking about the evolution of the views of V.I. Lenin from unification to diversity of ways to include the interests of the working people in the processes of socialist construction. On the eve of October, in the book The State and Revolution, Lenin wrote about socialist society as one factory with equality of labor and equality of pay. In 1921, overcoming the negative experience of "war communism", he brought into focus the problem of new, diverse forms of combining the personal interests of the working people, especially the peasants, with the general tasks of socialist construction, solved by the proletarian state.

First, he unmistakably identified the most important components of these interests: to get rid of the surplus appropriation, which made it pointless to increase the efficiency of peasant labor, especially in peacetime, and to be able to receive industrial goods in the city in exchange for food. The next task is much more difficult: to find ways to satisfy these interests. These should be simple and understandable to every peasant, methods taken from everyday life, and not invented by theoreticians. Lenin proposed just such methods: 1) instead of the surplus appropriation - a firm, pre-announced - food tax for the use of land (about half the apportionment); 2) instead of a centralized distribution of products - free exchange of goods and product exchange; 3) free production of goods by small and handicraft industry. This meant the complete dismantling of the economy of "war communism", the restoration of commodity-money relations, elements of petty-bourgeois and state-capitalist production.

The measures taken ensured the restoration and strengthening of the union of workers and peasants. With the implementation of the NEP, a new task was put forward - the task of the transition of the peasants, handicraftsmen, and other sections of the petty bourgeoisie to the new, socialist order. How to solve this problem, in what real; Is it not in the offices of the invented associations to involve them, so that "every small peasant" could practically participate in the building of socialism? Intensely reflecting on the prospects of socialism, Lenin in his last articles found a fundamentally new solution to this historical problem: it is necessary to combine the NEP principle of free trade with the cooperative principle, which in the conditions of Soviet Russia is completely socialist! Thus, that degree of combination of the private interests of various sections of the working people with the general interests of the socialist state was found, which constituted a stumbling block for many socialists.

Cooperation and socialism

The original meaning of the term "cooperation" is the cooperation of workers (from the Latin word coopera-tio). The specific historical content of this concept includes production-technological, economic, organizational and actually social (class, group) aspects.

First of all, cooperation acts as a form of labor organization, in which a certain number of people jointly participate in the same or in different, but interconnected, labor processes. At the same time, savings are achieved from the sharing of common working conditions, as well as "the very social contact causes competition and a kind of excitement of vital energy ... increasing the individual productivity of individuals ...". If all employees do the same work, then there is simple cooperation; complex cooperation is based on the division of labor and ensures the highest growth of its productivity.

The cooperative nature of the organization of labor is an objective need for any joint work. In this sense, cooperation arises already in ancient times and exists in all socio-economic formations, bearing in itself a tendency towards an increase in the social nature of labor. And in the conditions of machine production, it becomes a technical necessity, determined by the nature of the means of labor themselves, while revealing an amazing ability to adapt to various socio-economic environments. As Marx notes, at the initial stages of human culture, cooperation rested on common ownership of the conditions of production and the inseparable connection of the individual with the genus or community. In the ancient world and in the Middle Ages - on the relationship of direct domination and subordination, most often on slavery. In modern times it constituted the historical and logical starting point of capitalist production.

On the other hand, the cooperative nature of labor gives rise to workers who are sufficiently developed as individuals, legally and economically free, and at the same time engaged in joint labor, the need for joint, group property. In response to this need, a new socio-economic form of existence of cooperation arises simultaneously with capitalism - a cooperative as an association of people based on the group property of its members, used for the joint production and marketing of products, the purchase and consumption of goods, services, etc. Characteristically , however, that the relations that develop within cooperation as a social group community, under capitalism, do not form any special historical type, but reproduce the type of relations that is inherent in the social environment surrounding them, society as a whole, that is, capitalist relations. “Just as the social productive power of labor, increased by cooperation, appears as the productive power of capital, so cooperation itself appears as a specific form of the capitalist process of production...”

But already, as V. I. Lenin called them, the “old cooperators” from among the utopian socialists comprehended not identity, moreover, the direct opposite of the principles underlying, on the one hand, the capitalist enterprise, and on the other hand, cooperation as a social -group community. The voluntary association of people in associations (Fourier's phalansters, Owen's communities, etc.) on the basis of the use of common, group property seemed to be sufficient to free their joint labor from exploitation and make their whole life happy. In the cooperative principle, the basic principle of combining individual and common interests in the coming socialist society was guessed.

However, the method of asserting this principle as a universal one, proposed by the "old cooperators", turned out to be utopian. They dreamed that the socialist cooperatives would transform capitalist society in a peaceful way, only by the force of example. Marxists have always called these dreams ridiculous fantasies that cause political harm to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. As Lenin showed in the struggle against the communal and artel illusions of the Narodniks, in the conditions of capitalistically developing Russia, even family cooperation is "the basis of capitalist cooperation".

"A radical change in our entire point of view on socialism"

And how does the role of cooperation change after the socialist revolution, when state power and the main means of labor pass into the hands of the working people themselves? K. Marx considered cooperation as a form of labor organization to be one of the foundations created by capitalism, on which its own negation (“expropriators are expropriated”) and the restoration of genuine “individual property” based on the “common ownership” of individuals takes place. At the same time, Marx highly valued the role of the cooperative factories created by the workers as evidence, not in words, but in deeds, that wage labor should “give way to associated labor, performed voluntarily, with readiness and enthusiasm” . But the development of cooperative labor on a national scale under socialism, Marx associated with the use of "nationwide funds", and not in itself cooperative property.

As noted above, already in 1918 V. I. Lenin grasped the new, changing nature of the cooperative under the conditions of the proletarian state. But then all his attention was focused on the role of cooperation in the distribution of products. In January 1923, however, he had a fundamentally new idea about the central role of cooperation as a socio-economic phenomenon in the construction and development of a socialist society. Cooperation is formed in the depths of capitalism, but its true social potential, its own principle, is realized only under socialism. This, so to speak, is its socialist mission. The cooperative principle constitutes the core of socialist society, which, in turn, ensures the full realization of the social and economic potentials of cooperation.

In other words, after the socialist revolution, cooperation acts as a naturally historically formed link between the deeply rooted private interests of the millions of working people and their own common interests, which are isolated in the form of the interests of the socialist state. And not just a link connecting these opposites (this function is already performed by the NEP principle of free trade), but contributing to the socialist transformation of private interests into group, collective ones. This is a knot in which the NEP principle of free trade and the cooperative principle of collectivity, the principle of socialism, are tied together and work for each other.

Therefore, Lenin concluded, “the system of civilized co-operators, with public ownership of the means of production, with the class victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, is the socialist system ... Now we have the right to say that the simple growth of cooperation for us is identical ... with the growth of socialism, and At the same time, we are compelled to recognize a radical change in our entire point of view on socialism.

The fundamental change consisted, first of all, in moving away from the concept of socialist property as exclusively state property, in understanding cooperative property as equally socialist, moreover, prevailing in such a small-peasant country as Russia. At the same time, cooperation itself is thought to be very diverse in its economic, socio-organizational and substantive content. In a word, there is not one and only way (through state property), but a variety of ways to combine the private and common interests of the working people, transform private interests into collective, socialist ones - such is the core idea of ​​the Leninist cooperative plan for building socialism, in short, state-cooperative socialism.

How do state and cooperative principles of socialism relate? The simplest answer would be that each of these principles applies to corresponding, i.e., different, masses of workers: some are employed in state enterprises, others in cooperatives. But Lenin set the task of "achieving, through the New Economic Policy, participation in the co-operatives without exception of the entire population ...". At the same time, of course, he did not intend to abandon the nationalization of the land, large industrial enterprises, banks, railways, etc. Consequently, he assumed a different, more complex relationship between the two principles, including both differentiation and their certain combination, intersection.

Production cooperatives in agriculture with their own, cooperative ownership of buildings, machinery, livestock, etc., can arise on socialized, nationalized land. The same is true in industry. Consequently, the state principle can be the basic principle on which a different, cooperative principle grows and develops. At the same time, the cooperative principle can and must develop as an independent one: both in production and in the consumer area. At the same time, the same strata of the population in production can be employed at state cooperative enterprises, and in consumption they can use the services of autonomous consumer cooperatives. In a word, the correlation of state and cooperative principles is called upon to meet the diversity of interests of the working people themselves.

This is what the work of the Party and the state should be directed to under the new conditions. Therefore, changing our whole point of view on socialism requires shifting the center of gravity from the political struggle for power "to peaceful organizational "cultural" work", to economic and other support for the cooperative system as one to which we must help beyond the usual.

In order to widely enter the life of the peoples of Soviet Russia, the cooperative system needed not only economic support: "... complete cooperation is impossible without a whole cultural revolution." It is no coincidence that it was precisely in connection with the problem of cooperation that the key concept of "cultural revolution" arose in Lenin's thoughts. The radical change in the whole point of view on socialism, the promotion of the cooperative principle to the fore, made qualitatively higher demands on every working person as an individual, on his culture in the broadest sense of the word. Therefore, the place of the political revolution must now be occupied by a cultural revolution, a civilizing culturalism, above all among the peasantry. If we work hard in this direction, then after some time a system of civilized co-operators will emerge - the system of socialism.

But there is a huge amount of work to be done, which will require a whole historical epoch to complete. “We can get to a good end this era in one or two decades,” Lenin admitted. This will be an era of achieving universal literacy, accustoming the population to use books, achieving a certain security from crop failure, hunger, etc. Every citizen of the Land of Soviets must go through the school of civilization, culture, humanism.

Humanistic orientation of Lenin's political testament.

The experience of the first five years of Soviet power revealed both historical achievements and dangerous problems that hindered the construction of a society of real humanism. Already being seriously ill, in late 1922 - early 1923. V. I. Lenin, in his last letters and articles, known as his political testament, formulated a number of fundamentally new provisions and conclusions aimed at achieving the humanistic goals of socialism.

The rod that always worried Lenin, but especially at this dramatic stage of summing up the results of his life, was the question of the role and place of man in the creation of a new society. Before his mind's eye, Vladimir Ilyich keeps both poles of this daunting question: on the one hand, the interests of ordinary people - millions of workers and peasants (the Leninist cooperative principle is aimed precisely at their connection with common interests), and on the other - the personal qualities of the political; leaders of the country, the preservation and strengthening of the influence of a thin layer of hardened Bolsheviks on the fate of socialism in Russia. Both poles are inseparable from each other, their connection goes through culture, the level of civilization of the population, the features of the historical processes they experience.

Our revolution was accomplished in violation of the usual historical order: it began without the necessary prerequisites for civilization and culture, but on the other hand it created such political prerequisites as the expulsion of the landlords and capitalists. Now it was necessary to embark on a cultural revolution, without which neither the co-operation of the population nor the radical overcoming of bureaucracy in management is possible.

The problem of bureaucracy worried Lenin extremely, because it was constantly growing and aggravating in spite of the measures taken to solve it. Lenin drew attention to this already in the spring of 1921. In the first six months after the revolution, he wrote then, we still did not feel bureaucracy. But a year later, the new Party Program speaks of "partiala new revival of bureaucracy within the Soviet system”. Two years later, this evil became much more formidable, and it is specially discussed at the Eighth Congress of Soviets (December 1920) and at the Tenth Party Congress (March 1921). The economic root of bureaucracy in our country is “fragmentation, dispersal of the small producer, his poverty, lack of culture, lack of roads, illiteracy, lack of turnover between agriculture and industry, the lack of communication and interaction between them. And now, at the beginning of 1923, having talked a lot about proletarian culture, not only have we not yet mastered real bourgeois culture, including the culture of management, but, Lenin pointed out, we have not even got rid of “especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order, i. e. bureaucratic or serf culture, etc.” . These are the ones that need to be overcome first.

It is possible to rebuild the state apparatus that emerged after the revolution and create a qualitatively new one in its place only by relying on the scientific theory of organization and management, using in this case everything progressive that is available in bourgeois theory, and combining educational work with practical work. It should be small in number, the most economical apparatus, free from excesses, of which so many remained in it from tsarist Russia, from its bureaucratic-capitalist apparatus. It is better to let our state apparatus be smaller in number, but higher in quality - this is the main idea of ​​V. I. Lenin in the article “Better less, but better.”

How to achieve this? After all, even the specially created People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (Rabkrin, which until 1922 was led by Stalin), according to Lenin, degenerated into the worst of institutions where people only fuss over improving the state apparatus, creating the appearance of work.

The strategic direction of all work is the democratization of the composition and methods of functioning of the apparatus and the highest party bodies themselves - the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, ensuring their new contacts "with really broad masses through the best of our workers and peasants." To this end, Lenin proposed a significant expansion of their composition at the expense of those workers and peasants who belong to the rank and file, and not to those who have already entered this apparatus, have absorbed those of its traditions and prejudices, which should be fought against. Moreover, under certain conditions, it was necessary to unite the Central Control Commission with the main part of the reorganized Rabkrin, and the plenums of the expanded Central Committee should be held with the participation of the Central Control Commission, thereby turning them into the highest party conferences.

Such an expansion of the composition of party bodies, strengthening their interaction with each other and with the broad masses, would, according to Lenin’s plan, solve the issue that worried him most about preventing a split in the Politburo of the Central Committee, primarily between Stalin and Trotsky. Lenin saw that many of the country's political leaders had not only merits, but also negative personal qualities - each with his own. In particular, he considered completely intolerant the moral vices that manifested themselves in Stalin in the position of general secretary of the Central Committee of the party: rudeness, inattention to comrades, capriciousness, lust for power. These features testify to the absence of such a quality necessary for a political leader as humanism, a humane attitude towards people, "near" and "far".

The program of “changes in our political system” proposed by V. I. Lenin after the death of the leader was not properly taken into account and remained almost unrealized. Contrary to his proposal, Stalin was retained as General Secretary. The Central Committee of the Party has not acquired the stability that would be a guarantee against a split, against an excessive concentration of power in the hands of one person. The course of socialist construction received a drama that was by no means necessary, even tragedy. Under the growing pressure of Stalin, who was striving to assert his absolute personal power, fundamental deviations from the Leninist concept of socialism were made, the process of its construction and its very essence were deformed, and many criminal actions became possible. Our Party and all the people have paid a heavy price for underestimating the moral essence of Lenin's political testament.

Turn from the Leninist concept

Stalin liked to emphasize his loyalty to Lenin's ideas. But in reality, he consciously or involuntarily departed from them, schematically straightened out their vital dialectics, often turned their social and humanistic content upside down. This manifested itself already at the Twelfth Party Congress (April 1923), where Stalin spoke for the first time as General Secretary of the Central Committee, and Lenin was bedridden by illness.

According to Lenin, the party is the vanguard of a class in the sense that it most profoundly and accurately expresses its own fundamental interests of this class, and leads its struggle for their realization. For Stalin, the party is also the vanguard of the class, but in a different sense: the class is the “army” that the party “finds”, on which it depends, but which it must master, lead; for this, “it is necessary that the party be surrounded by a wide network of non-party mass apparatuses, which are tentacles in the hands of the party, with the help of which it conveys its will to the working class, and the working class is transformed from a dispersed mass into the army of the party” .

Trade unions, cooperatives, youth unions, delegate meetings of working women, Soviet party schools and communal universities, the army - all these are just the “apparatus” of the party, “transmission belts” connecting it with the class. And the working class, with the help of the state apparatus, unites with a larger class, the peasantry. In the state apparatus and in other mass apparatuses, the Party must appoint to the most important posts people who are able to understand its directives, accept them “as if they were their own,” and put them into practice. Then politics will make sense, will cease to be "waving hands" and "we will achieve what we introduced the so-called NEP ...".

As we see, if, according to Lenin, the party must correctly express what the people are aware of, then, according to Stalin, the people must strictly embody the will of the party; party cadres serve as conductors of this will with the help of "tentacles" - apparatuses, and in this sense "decide everything." Thus, the Leninist concept of building socialism as a living creativity of the masses themselves is replaced by the policy of building socialism by the masses, acting only on instructions from above, under the constant control of "cadres", who quickly turned into a specific layer of bureaucracy.

At the same 12th Congress, Stalin legitimized a new mechanism for the selection and placement of cadres. Under the Secretariat of the Central Committee, there was an insignificant body for accounting and distribution of the main party workers - the department of distribution. Until now, he has been mainly engaged in cash mobilization of the communists on the instructions of the Central Committee. Now Stalin proposed to significantly change the functions of the departmental distribution, embracing its activities "without exception, all branches of management and the entire industrial command staff", while expanding the "apparatus of the departmental distribution department both in the center and in the localities ...". The department of distribution became the apparatus of the apparatus, on which the promotion of new cadres depends.

This instrument of party leadership acquired great practical importance in the context of the swelling of the party, whose membership in just two years (1924-1925) increased from 472 thousand to 1 million 88 thousand, which contributed to the creation of a social support for the political ambitions of Stalin and his entourage. . Stalin took under his personal control the work of the departmental distribution, which was later transformed into the organizational distribution. And a few years later, a significant layer of new party, Soviet and economic cadres owed their appointment to him personally. Stalin had the opportunity to test the loyalty of this stratum to himself in deeds: by restoring emergency measures ("emergency") to solve the food problem and by inflating the pace of industrialization. Both strengthened his position in the struggle for absolute personal power in the party and the state.

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Lenin's socialism

3. Modern characteristics of Lenin's socialist plans

There is an opinion that V.I. Lenin in 1921 revised his views and substantiated a new model of socialism. Is this opinion correct?

The answer to this question is not so simple. Today there are at least three positions on this issue. A number of researchers believe that we can talk about a complete change in Lenin's views. NEP is identified by them with the "new" model of socialism that arose with Vladimirovich Ilyich at the end of his life, with the loss of his hopes for building socialism in Russia and the transition to positions of knowledge of the role of commodity-money relations and a market economy. Others object, arguing that the NEP is only a temporary measure, which must again be followed by a return to the old rules and ideals. There are opinions that deny that Lenin had any clearly defined ideas about further steps, which determined the contradictions in the course of implementing this policy. The arguments relating to these points of view are in many respects insufficient and are based on only a small number of Lenin's statements.

Speaking of changing the point of view on socialism, Lenin had in mind the ways of building the foundation of a socialist society. He noted that in this process the main attention should be paid to new levers in the organization of the national economy. So is it about changing the concept of socialism? We must clearly separate the general from the particular. General idea of ​​socialism, its features; private-determination of ways to create a new society. According to Lenin, the question of socialism passes from the plane of the class struggle and the fate of revolutionary power into the sphere of building the foundation of a socialist society. This approach had its prerequisites in Lenin's previous work.

The economic mechanism of NEP is a structure characteristic not of socialism, but of its transitional stage of construction, its material base. The NEP was the result of the prevailing situation in the country at the turn of 1920-1921, it was the course of the country's economic development, and not the revision of theoretical provisions, that influenced the decisions of the party in 1921. This is evidenced by the preservation of the party program adopted at the VIII Congress in 1919. in the midst of "war communism". At the same time, in the conditions of Russia, Lenin provides for a new approach, taking into account the state of the country's economy. NEP was not a new model of socialism, but represented the way of building its foundation in the sphere of economy and government. In his last public speech on November 20, 1922, Lenin said: “We will not forget a single slogan that we learned yesterday. We can calmly, without a shadow of hesitation, say this to anyone ... from NEP Russia there will be socialist Russia "

The point of view about revising one's own and Marx's ideas about socialism arose in the process of comprehending his life and work, our gradual liberation from past dogmas and myths. Proponents of this point of view emphasize that the turn to the NEP was a recognition of the conceptual fallacy of the conduct of socialism, and not just the old paths to it. In essence, during the NEP period, a model of socialism was born that was different from the classical one.

The provisions put forward by Lenin during the NEP period were a concretization of the idea of ​​a transitional period; moreover, they represented the first development of the corresponding theory in the Marxist tradition. They allow us to talk about a radical revision of previous ideas. The essence of the revision lies in the transition from the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat to "extremely reformist actions", but while maintaining the proletarian dictatorship. The revision consisted in refusing to introduce socialism by violent means, by suppressing non-socialist economic structures, and in putting forward a program for the transition to socialist social relations through the release of the potentials of their opposite - private property relations.

Is it possible to say that Lenin left behind a complete plan for building a socialist society, as it was stated in our literature before?

It must be said that the task of creating a complete plan for building a socialist society once and for all is objectively unsolvable. Moreover, it was contrary to the spirit of Leninism itself.

Lenin adopted the Marxist tradition of a cautious and responsible attitude towards all kinds of fantasies about the future, the rejection of utopian projects trying to paint it in concrete and definite forms. The logic of Lenin's reasoning was as follows: starting socialist transformations, of course, we must clearly set ourselves a goal, it is necessary to maintain a common perspective, to see the red thread linking the entire development of capitalism and the entire road to socialism. But this road does not appear to be straight, but we must see its beginning, continuation and end. In life, it will never be straight, but will be incredibly complex. How many stages there will be in the transition to socialism, we do not know, and cannot know. We do not know now what finished socialism will look like.

Lenin thought a lot about the transition to socialism, did an enormous amount of pioneering work, and formulated the initial principles for building a new society in Russia.

Historical assessment of the viability of Lenin's theory and prophecies. Development and interpretation of Leninism by followers of the leader.

For a long time, the Stalinist version of the philosophy of "Marxism-Leninism" had a great influence on the spiritual life of a number of countries. This work, like the entire book, was canonized and, at the suggestion of A. Zhdanov, called "an encyclopedia of philosophical knowledge in the field of Marxism-Leninism."

Stalin's interpretation of Marxism has become a gigantic material force (due to its politicization). However, the presentation of philosophical positions was not sufficiently complete. The Leninist stage in the development of Marxism is, in general, an invention of those who discovered an extraordinary scent about the Stalinist manner of philosophizing.

Stalinism is a direct perversion not only of the Leninist theory of socialism, but also a kind of antipode of the humanistic essence of socialism and its direct opposite. Figuratively speaking, the deformations of socialism can be compared with the activities of pseudo-builders of a new house, who took a good blueprint, but built a bad house. Should we conclude on this basis that the drawing was bad? Can Lenin be held responsible for the deformations dating back to Stalinism? I think not. Although elements of technocratic methods of governing the country were already emerging under Lenin, he already abandoned them at the beginning of 1921. Lenin defended the scientific approach to the creation of socialism, brought to the fore socially sound and well-thought-out solutions. Deformations appeared due to the fact that there was a departure from scientific solutions: they were replaced in politics by voluntarism, the cult of personality

Conclusion

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was one of those who, at the turn of two centuries, through the efforts of creative will, participated in the preparation of the national spiritual renaissance, recklessly revised ideals, made dizzying attempts to reevaluate the past and look into the future. As a result of their efforts, a phenomenon appeared on the spiritual horizon, later called Leninism. Leninism is a product of the evaluation of Lenin's readings of Marxism. This phenomenon pulled together a colossal tangle of social contradictions, emotional outbursts of the revolutionary-minded intellectual elite, the riot and impatience of the Russian common people. After several years, Leninism turned into a terrible opposition doctrine, and then into the dominant ideology in the country, which completely subjugated politics, economics, culture, education, upbringing, thoughts and feelings of people.

Today, at the end of the 20th century, Leninism seems to have undergone a reverse evolution, but it is impossible to talk about the final assessment of Leninism in history. Marxist philosophy, like Leninism, is still not fully appreciated and keeps many secrets. In today's disputes, discussions about Lenin, contradictory, sometimes opposite value judgments are expressed. I see it necessary to digress from extremes in order to evaluate Lenin's activities objectively and in a generalized way.

Bibliography

1. Leninism and Russia. Rep. ed. A.V. Guide - Yekaterinburg. URORAN 2005

2. Lenin, about whom they argue today. A.S. Abramov, V.N. Shevchenko. Institute of Theory and History of Socialism of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Moscow. 2001

3. Political history of Russia and the USSR (Second half of the 19th-20th centuries). Course of lectures ed. B.V. Levanov. Moscow, 2003

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Lenin's concept of socialism.

The Leninist concept of the creation and building of socialism was of a comprehensive, comprehensive, broad and profound character, and was worked out in the most detailed and concretely detailed way. It included five main blocks: economic construction; social development; political, democratic development; ideological and spiritual, scientific and cultural, moral development; national, interethnic, international development.

The two main factors that permeated all these blocks and held them together into one whole were: independent and creative creation by the working people, the people of socialism, labor as the basis for the progress of society and the main way of self-realization of human life potentials. As V. I. Lenin emphasized, “in vain they attribute to us that we want to introduce socialism by force ... We are ready to help the workers in the implementation of socialism.” Socialism is successful and protected when it is created by a free and amateur people - the master of the country. If the working people, citizens feel that this society is “not theirs”, but the commanding elite, they will not come from within to defend it, as happened in the USSR-Russia in August 1991 and October 1993.

Labor, and only effective labor ensures the progress of society, civilization, people and man. Having broken the decisive orientation towards work, Gorbachev's and especially Yeltsin's "leadership" thereby destroyed the country, society, civilization in the USSR-Russia, turned the people and man onto the path of degradation. Under socialism, V.I. Lenin repeatedly emphasized, the peculiarity of labor, in contrast to capitalism, is that it is labor, “work for oneself”, it is voluntary, conscious, efficient, controlled and self-managed labor of workers as owners of power and property, and not alienated from them, as has happened since the Stalinist period.

The ultimate meaning and assessment of a complex, harmonious socialist society, built on labor and on autocracy, self-government of the people, is that it is a “better society”, in the words of V.I. Lenin, in comparison with the previous, capitalist one. “We want to achieve a new, better society: in this new, better society, there should be neither rich nor poor, everyone should take part in the work. Not a bunch of rich people, but all working people should enjoy the fruits of common work... This new, better society is called socialist society.” At the same time, such an assessment of society should be given by the working people themselves, who, as V.I. Lenin emphasized in his last public speech on November 20, 1922, would themselves say: “Yes, this is better than the old system.”

Lenin’s whole and harmonious, richest in content concept and theory of construction, the creation of socialism as a complex, proportional, harmonious society in the unity of all sides and humane methods of implementation was then “simplified” to the limit and primitized by I.V. Stalin in the form of the well-known “ triad”: industrialization of the country, cooperation of agriculture, cultural revolution. Very many of the most important Leninist provisions (independent construction of socialism by the people, autocracy, ownership and disposal of public property, accounting and control over production and distribution, the progress of the social sphere, which generally happened to I.V. Stalin, the flowering of a free personality, and much more) were emasculated and discarded as apparently not corresponding to the level of perception and understanding of I.V. Stalin or simply not matching his own concept of autocracy, authoritarianism and actual dictatorship. As a result, starting with Stalin, complexity was replaced by a much curtailed social development, proportionality - by obvious distortions and imbalances, disproportionalities in social processes.

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Introduction

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia marked the beginning of the practical implementation of the Marxist-Leninist concept of building a communist society. After the end of the civil war in the early 20s. 20th century construction of a socialist economy began. Unlike the capitalist mode of production, which is based on private property and the market organization of the economy, the socialist economy is based on public ownership of the means of production and central planning.

State socialism, in the history of economic doctrines, is a classification group that includes theories of transition to socialism carried out through private reforms, active state intervention in the economy and social relations, nationalization of the means of production, etc., without assuming a change in the foundations of the reformed system

Historiography connects the beginning of the development of the concepts of state socialism with the names of L. Blanc (France), C. Rodbertus and F. Lassalle (Germany). In Russia, this direction was supported and developed by I.I. Yanzhul and his student and successor in the university department I. Ozerov.

1. The doctrine of socialism V.I. Lenin

The radical direction of Russian Marxism was headed by V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin). His numerous works are permeated with the idea of ​​the inevitability of the movement of Russian capitalism towards the proletarian revolution and the possibility of building socialism in the USSR despite its economic backwardness from the West. Lenin solved all the questions of the transformation of society with the help of revolutionary violence carried out by the proletariat led by the Marxist party.

VI Lenin wrote several works on economic topics, but the largest among them was the book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" (1889), in which Marxist theory was applied to the analysis of the economic development of Russia. Lenin, using official statistics, characterized the development of the national market as a result of the strengthening of the social division of labor. Industry is shifting to a machine-factory basis, in agriculture the peasantry is being divided into prosperous (kulaks) and poor (proletarianizing) producers, and landlord farms are acquiring an increasingly commercial character. Cities and urban populations are growing. All this characterizes the transformation of the feudal system of Russia into a capitalist one, which means that the country does not have any special path of development. It is moving in the mainstream of world progress - towards developed capitalism, and then - towards socialism.

Lenin first developed the doctrine of socialism in accordance with the principles of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" by K. Marx and F. Engels. He stood for the complete elimination of private property and the transition to public property, the elimination of market relations, the nationalization of the entire economy and the implementation of centralized management of the economy.

However, the complete collapse of the Russian economy and social protest against the policy of the Bolsheviks forced Lenin to develop the principles of a new economic policy. There was a revival of private property, the market, money, entrepreneurship, but with the preservation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin tried to find a way for the gradual transformation of capitalism into socialism with the help of economic calculation and cooperation. However, these ideas turned out to be utopian. All elements of market relations and economic democracy were destroyed in the 30s. through mass terror. The liberal-reformist trend of Marxism in Russia ("legal Marxism") was developed by M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, P. B. Struve, and S. N. Bulgakov.

2. The political economy of socialism

The first condition for the study of the political economy of socialism is to ascertain the level of development of its subject - socialist relations of production in their interaction with the forces of production. And this is a more difficult task than both opponents and defenders of socialism usually think. The difficulty lies in the fact that socialism is not a mature organism, but an early, immature stage in the development of communist society. The very internal structure of socialism has a mixed and contradictory character: on the one hand, it includes the germs of a new society and, consequently, the tendency to transform the old production relations and the transition to a new type of social development (toward communist humanity). On the other hand, relations inherited from previous stages of social development (primarily from capitalism) are included in the internal structure of socialism and, consequently, the possibility of returning to the old society remains. Socialist society develops along an ascending line, when the leading, dominant role is played by the first trend.

The transformation of the second trend into the dominant one leads to the destruction of the essence of the new society and the restoration of old, historically obsolete social forms. The lower the level of development of the productive forces, the greater the likelihood of the second trend dominating, and vice versa. The final elimination of the second trend presupposes the creation of a material and technical basis adequate to the new production relations, that is, in essence, the transition from socialism to mature communism.

According to Marxist methodology, the subject determines the method of its research. In this regard, it must be stated that the method of political economy of socialism differs from the method used by K. Marx to study the capitalist mode of production. K. Marx explores the capitalist formation that develops on its own basis, therefore, in "Capital" the logical way of displaying categories prevails, that is, their analysis in the sequence that is determined by the already developed, mature subject. The study of a mature subject makes it possible to understand the past subject, to reveal the process of its formation. "Human Anatomy - Key to Monkey Anatomy". According to K. Marx, the previous stages of the development of the subject are not reduced to the preparation of a mature subject, but each of them retains its independence. This means that the study of the formation of an object is a special task, the solution of which requires the use of the historical method.

This feature of Marx's method is of great importance for the study of the political economy of socialism. The immaturity of the subject of study (and socialism is immature communism) necessitates the use of a predominantly historical method to study it. But it should be noted that the historical method of studying a subject, when its essence is not yet sufficiently formed, does not coincide with the historical method of research based on knowledge of a mature subject. Our understanding of the structure of the subject (and its history), when it is still in the process of becoming, is only preliminary.

It should be noted that the very attempt to directly compare capitalism and socialism has its own historical limitations. The fact is that communism is not a simple negation of capitalism, but a radical transformation of the entire historical process as a whole. The transition of humanity to communism is not just a transition from one formation to another, but a transition to a fundamentally new type of social development. From this point of view, the most fruitful direction in the study of the political economy of socialism is to include it in the framework of a broader study of world history. The discovery of the theory of surplus value became possible only on the basis of a materialistic understanding of history. We believe that a new substantiation of the political economy of socialism is possible only on the basis of revealing the logic of history.

After a brief examination of the level of maturity of the subject matter of the political economy of socialism, we pass on to an analysis of the method of its investigation. The political economy of socialism is at that stage of cognition, at which the movement from a sensually concrete chaotic idea of ​​an object to an analytical breakdown of its individual aspects and relations predominates. At the same time, the first attempts to apply the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete had already appeared. Thus, the specificity of the present stage of development of the political economy of socialism consists in the contradictory coexistence of two approaches to cognition: exoteric and esoteric. In the exoteric approach, the tendency to describe, compare, classify the external aspects of the subject prevails. The esoteric approach is an attempt to reveal the internal connection, the unity of the sides of the subject, the disclosure of the law of its self-development.

The peculiarity of the present stage of development of the political economy of socialism is that the exoteric and esoteric approaches are separated from each other and act as side by side. A one-sided empirical approach captures only the superficial aspects of the subject, while an attempt to apply a logical approach leads to a rational systematization of the categories and laws of the political economy of socialism. Thus, a contradictory cognitive situation arises.

The best way to overcome this contradictory cognitive situation is to use the historical method to study the political economy of socialism. "The most reliable thing in a question of social science, and necessary in order to really acquire the habit of approaching this question correctly and not to get lost in a mass of trifles or in a huge variety of contending opinions - the most important thing, in order to approach this question from a scientific point of view, is - do not forget the main historical connection, look at each question from the point of view of how a well-known phenomenon in history arose, what main stages in its development this phenomenon went through, and from the point of view of this development, look at what this thing has become now.

3. Reforms of the economic mechanism

Profound qualitative changes in the economy and the accumulated unresolved problems have necessitated radical reforms in the management system in most socialist countries. Relying on common principles, at the same time they are distinguished by significant specificity, a variety of specific forms of reorganization of economic life.

Reforms of the economic mechanism are aimed at demolishing the administrative-principal methods of management and intensifying economic methods. This trend is the main and general characteristic of economic reforms in various socialist countries. And the task is not to retouch the administrative system and thereby drive the disease in, but to introduce genuine economic management methods and an expansion of interior design.

What is also common is that, in contrast to the repeated partial improvements in the economic mechanism that took place in the past, “repairs of the facade of the building”, at the present stage, a radical restructuring of the economic management system as a whole is taking place. At the same time, the transition from the old to the new management model does not mean any deviation from the principles of socialism. The replacement of obsolete forms and methods of management with those that meet modern requirements and ensure an increase in the efficiency of the national economy, the growth of the living standards of the population, on the contrary, strengthens these principles and makes socialism more attractive.

A number of socialist countries began the transition to economic methods of management earlier than the Soviet Union. However, in none of these countries the transition to a new model of socialist economic management has yet been completed, not everything is going as desired, but a lot of experience has already been accumulated. The independence of the lower levels has noticeably increased, and the activities of state enterprises, to a much greater extent than in the Soviet Union, have absorbed such economic principles as self-management and full cost accounting. Primary and derivative forms of management, including rental, contract, joint-stock, etc., have become more diverse. There is an interweaving of various forms of ownership.

Having begun, as in the USSR, with a transition to normative management, economic reforms in a number of socialist countries went further, towards the complete liberation of the market from the deformations of the administrative command system. Thus, the form of state order they used from the very beginning was more in line with the model provided for by our reform, but has not yet been achieved in the Soviet economy (mutual benefit for the state and the enterprise, competitive placement system). The tendency towards the introduction of uniform economic standards and thereby the creation of an atmosphere of genuine competition at the beginning of the economic reform in the USSR is still less pronounced than in the socialist countries mentioned above.

communist socialism lenin economic

Conclusion

The Leninist model of the economy and the class structure of a society in transition served the CPSU, serves as a theoretical basis for the Marxist-Leninist parties of other countries to determine the tasks of building socialism, the policy of the party at different stages of this construction.

IN AND. Lenin spoke of the inevitability of the victory of socialism in other countries, of the formation of a world socialist system in the future, and emphasized the need for fraternal cooperation and mutual assistance among the socialist countries, for uniting their forces to defend socialism from the intrigues of imperialism, to accelerate the building of socialism and communism. The process of radical renewal of society is accompanied by overcoming the traditionally recognized differences between "capitalism" and "Socialism" and the formation of its own, synthetic system of democratic self-government based on various forms of ownership. The economic model that is being formed in all post-socialist countries accumulates the experience of both planned and market economies. This is especially evident in the example of China's economic development.

Bibliography

1. Nerovnya T.N. History of Economics in Questions and Answers: Proc. allowance Rostov n / D .: 1999.

2. History of economics and economic doctrines. Proc. allowance. Rostov n / D .: 2000.

3. Kulikov A.L. History of Economics in Questions and Answers: Proc. allowance M.: TK Velby, 2005.

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