Chapter VII: Prerequisites to Socialism

Marxism turned Socialism into a science. This does not prevent some "Marxians" from turning Marxism into a Utopia.

[Trotzky then proceeds to find logical flaws in the arguments of N.
Roshkov, a Russian Marxist, who had made the assertion that Russia
was not yet ripe for Socialism, as her level of industrial technique
and the class-consciousness of her working masses were not yet high
enough to make Socialist production and distribution possible. Then
he goes back to what he calls "prerequisites to Socialism," which in
his opinion are: (1) development of industrial technique; (2)
concentration of production; (3) social consciousness of the masses.
In order that Socialism become possible, he says, it is not
necessary that each of these prerequisites be developed to its
logically conceivable limit.]

All those processes (development of technique, concentration of production, growth of mass-consciousness) go on simultaneously, and not only do they help and stimulate each other, but they also _hamper and limit_ each other's development. Each of the processes of a higher order presupposes the development of another process of a lower order, yet the full development of any of them is incompatible with the full development of the others.

The logical limit of technical development is undoubtedly a perfect automatic mechanism which takes in raw materials from natural resources and lays them down at the feet of men as ready objects of consumption. Were not capitalism limited by relations between classes and by the consequences of those relations, the class struggle, one would be warranted in his assumption that industrial technique, having approached the ideal of one great automatic mechanism within the limits of capitalistic economy, _eo ipso_ dismisses capitalism.

The concentration of production which is an outgrowth of economic competition has an inherent tendency to throw the entire population into the working class. Taking this tendency apart from all the others, one would be warranted in his assumption that capitalism would ultimately turn the majority of the people into a reserve army of paupers, lodged in prisons. This process, however, is being checked by revolutionary changes which are inevitable under a certain relationship between social forces. It will be checked long before it has reached its logical limit.

And the same thing is true in relation to social mass-consciousness. This consciousness undoubtedly grows with the experiences of every day struggle and through the conscious efforts of Socialist parties. Isolating this process from all others, we can imagine it reaching a stage where the overwhelming majority of the people are encompassed by professional and political organizations, united in a feeling of solidarity and in identity of purpose. Were this process allowed to grow quantitatively without changing in quality, Socialism might be established peacefully, through a unanimous compact of the citizens of the twenty-first or twenty-second Century. The historic prerequisites to Socialism, however, do not develop in isolation from each other; _they limit each other_; reaching a certain stage, which is determined by many circumstances, but which is very far from their mathematical limits, they undergo a qualitative change, and in their complex combination they produce what we call a Social revolution.

Let us take the last mentioned process, the growth of social mass-consciousness. This growth takes place not in academies, but in the very life of modern capitalistic society, on the basis of incessant class struggle. The growth of proletarian class consciousness makes class struggles undergo a transformation; it deepens them; it puts a foundation of principle under them, thus provoking a corresponding reaction on the part of the governing classes. The struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie has its own logic; it must become more and more acute and bring things to a climax long before the time when concentration of production has become predominant in economic life. It is evident, further, that the growth of the political consciousness of the proletariat is closely related with its numerical strength; proletarian dictatorship presupposes great numbers of workingmen, strong enough to overcome the resistance of the bourgeois counter-revolution. This, however, does not imply that the overwhelming majority of the people must consist of proletarians, or that the overwhelming majority of proletarians must consist of convinced Socialists. Of course, the fighting revolutionary army of the proletariat must by all means be stronger than the fighting counter-revolutionary army of capital; yet between those two camps there may be a great number of doubtful or indifferent elements who are not actively helping the revolution, but are rather inclined to desire its ultimate victory. The proletarian policy must take all this into account.

This is possible only where there is a hegemony of industry over agriculture, and a hegemony of the city over the village.

Let us review the prerequisites to Socialism in the order of their diminishing generality and increasing complexity.

1. Socialism is not only a problem of equal distribution, but also a problem of well organized production. Socialistic, i.e., cooeperative production on a large scale is possible only where economic progress has gone so far as to make a large undertaking more productive than a small one. The greater the advantages of a large undertaking over a small one, i.e., the higher the industrial technique, the greater must be the economic advantages of socialized production, the higher, consequently, must be the cultural level of the people to enable them to enjoy equal distribution based on well organized production.

This first prerequisite of Socialism has been in existence for many years. Ever since division of labor has been established in manufactories; ever since manufactories have been superseded by factories employing a system of machines,--large undertakings become more and more profitable, and consequently their socialization would make the people more prosperous. There would have been no gain in making all the artisans' shops common property of the artisans; whereas the seizure of a manufactory by its workers, or the seizure of a factory by its hired employees, or the seizure of all means of modern production by the people must necessarily improve their economic conditions,--the more so, the further the process of economic concentration has advanced.

At present, social division of labor on one hand, machine production on the other have reached a stage where the only cooeperative organization that can make adequate use of the advantages of collectivist economy, is the State. It is hardly conceivable that Socialist production would content itself with the area of the state. Economic and political motives would necessarily impel it to overstep the boundaries of individual states.

The world has been in possession of technical equipment for collective production--in one or another form--for the last hundred or two hundred years. _Technically_, Socialism is profitable not only on a national, but also to a large extent on an international scale. Why then have all attempts at organizing Socialist communities failed? Why has concentration of production manifested its advantages all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries not in Socialistic, but in capitalistic forms? The reason is that there was no social force ready and able to introduce Socialism.

2. Here we pass from the prerequisite of industrial technique to the _socio-economic_ prerequisite, which is less general, but more complex. Were our society not an antagonistic society composed of classes, but a homogeneous partnership of men consciously selecting the best economic system, a mere calculation as to the advantages of Socialism would suffice to make people start Socialistic reconstruction. Our society, however, harbors in itself opposing interests. What is good for one class, is bad for another. Class selfishness clashes against class selfishness; class selfishness impairs the interests of the whole. To make Socialism possible, a social power has to arise in the midst of the antagonistic classes of capitalist society, a power objectively placed in a position to be interested in the establishment of Socialism, at the same time strong enough to overcome all opposing interests and hostile resistance. It is one of the principal merits of scientific Socialism to have discovered such a social power in the person of the proletariat, and to have shown that this class, growing with the growth of capitalism, can find its salvation only in Socialism; that it is being moved towards Socialism by its very position, and that the doctrine of Socialism in the presence of a capitalist society must necessarily become the ideology of the proletariat.

How far, then, must the social differentiation have gone to warrant the assertion that the second prerequisite is an accomplished fact? In other words, what must be the numerical strength of the proletariat? Must it be one-half, two-thirds, or nine-tenths of the people? It is utterly futile to try and formulate this second prerequisite of Socialism arithmetically. An attempt to express the strength of the proletariat in mere numbers, besides being schematic, would imply a series of difficulties. Whom should we consider a proletarian? Is the half-paupered peasant a proletarian? Should we count with the proletariat those hosts of the city reserve who, on one hand, fall into the ranks of the parasitic proletariat of beggars and thieves, and, on the other hand, fill the streets in the capacity of peddlers, i.e., of parasites on the economic body as a whole? It is not easy to answer these questions.

The importance of the proletariat is based not only on its numbers, but primarily on its role in industry. The political supremacy of the bourgeoisie is founded on economic power. Before it manages to take over the authority of the state, it concentrates in its hands the national means of production; hence its specific weight. The proletariat will possess no means of production of its own before the Social revolution. Its social power depends upon the circumstance that the means of production in possession of the bourgeoisie can be put into motion only by the hands of the proletariat. From the bourgeois viewpoint, the proletariat is also one of the means of production, forming, in combination with the others, a unified mechanism. Yet the proletariat is the only non-automatic part of this mechanism, and can never be made automatic, notwithstanding all efforts. This puts the proletariat into a position to be able to stop the functioning of the national economic body, partially or wholly--through the medium of partial or general strikes.

Hence it is evident that, the numerical strength of the proletariat being equal, its importance is proportional to the mass of the means of production it puts into motion: the proletarian of a big industrial concern represents--other conditions being equal--a greater social unit than an artisan's employee; a city workingman represents a greater unit than a proletarian of the village. In other words, the political role of the proletariat is greater in proportion as large industries predominate over small industries, industry predominates over agriculture, and the city over the village.

At a period in the history of Germany or England when the proletariats of those countries formed the same percentage to the total population as the proletariat in present day Russia, they did not possess the same social weight as the Russian proletariat of to-day. They could not possess it, because their objective importance in economic life was comparatively smaller. The social weight of the cities represents the same phenomenon. At a time when the city population of Germany formed only 15 per cent. of the total nation, as is the case in present-day Russia, the German cities were far from equaling our cities in economic and political importance. The concentration of big industries and commercial enterprises in the cities, and the establishment of closer relations between city and country through a system of railways, has given the modern cities an importance far exceeding the mere volume of their population. Moreover, the growth of their importance runs ahead of the growth of their population, and the growth of the latter runs ahead of the natural increase of the entire population of the country. In 1848, the number of artisans, masters and their employees, in Italy was 15 per cent. of the population, the same as the percentage of the proletariat, including artisans, in Russia of to-day. Their importance, however, was far less than that of the Russian industrial proletariat.

The question is not, how strong the proletariat is numerically, but what is its position in the general economy of a country.

[The author then quotes figures showing the numbers of wage-earners
and industrial proletarians in Germany, Belgium and England: in
Germany, in 1895, 12.5 millions proletarians; in Belgium 1.8
millions, or 60 per cent. of all the persons who make a living
independently; in England 12.5 millions.]

In the leading European countries, city population numerically predominates over the rural population. Infinitely greater is its predominance through the aggregate of means of production represented by it, and through the qualities of its human material. The city attracts the most energetic, able and intelligent elements of the country.

Thus we arrive at the conclusion that economic evolution--the growth of industry, the growth of large enterprises, the growth of cities, the growth of the proletariat, especially the growth of the industrial proletariat--have already prepared the arena not only for the _struggle_ of the proletariat for political power, but also for the _conquest_ of that power.

3. Here we approach the third prerequisite to Socialism, the _dictatorship of the proletariat_.

Politics is the plane where objective prerequisites intersect with subjective. On the basis of certain technical and socio-economic conditions, a class puts before itself a definite task--to seize power. In pursuing this task, it unites its forces, it gauges the forces of the enemy, it weighs the circumstances. Yet, not even here is the proletariat absolutely free: besides subjective moments, such as understanding, readiness, initiative which have a logic of their own, there are a number of objective moments interfering with the policies of the proletariat, such are the policies of the governing classes, state institutions (the army, the class-school, the state-church), international relations, etc.

Let us first turn our attention to the subjective moment; let us ask, _Is the proletariat ready for a Socialist change?_ It is not enough that development of technique should make Socialist economy profitable from the viewpoint of the productivity of national labor; it is not enough that social differentiation, based on technical progress, should create the proletariat, as a class objectively interested in Socialism. It is of prime importance that this class should _understand_ its objective interests. It is necessary that this class should _see_ in Socialism the only way of its emancipation. It is necessary that it should unite into an army powerful enough to seize governmental power in open combat.

It would be a folly to deny the necessity for the preparation of the proletariat. Only the old Blanquists could stake their hopes in the salutary initiative of an organization of conspirators formed independently of the masses. Only their antipodes, the anarchists, could build their system on a spontaneous elemental outburst of the masses whose results nobody can foresee. When Social-Democracy speaks of seizing power, it thinks of _a deliberate action of a revolutionary class_.

There are Socialists-ideologists (ideologists in the wrong sense of the word, those who turn all things upside down) who speak of preparing the proletariat for Socialism as a problem of moral regeneration. The proletariat, they say, and even "humanity" in general, must first free itself from its old selfish nature; altruistic motives must first become predominant in social life. As we are still very far from this ideal, they contend, and as human nature changes very slowly, Socialism appears to be a problem of remote centuries. This view seems to be very realistic, evolutionistic, etc. It is in reality a conglomeration of hackneyed moralistic considerations.

Those "ideologists" imagine that a Socialist psychology can be acquired before the establishment of Socialism; that in a world ruled by capitalism the masses can be imbued with a Socialist psychology. Socialist psychology as here conceived should not be identified with Socialist aspirations. The former presupposes the absence of selfish motives in economic relations, while the latter are an outcome of the class psychology of the proletariat. Class psychology, and Socialist psychology in a society not split into classes, may have many common features, yet they differ widely.

Cooeperation in the struggle of the proletariat against exploitation has developed in the soul of the workingmen beautiful sprouts of idealism, brotherly solidarity, a spirit of self-sacrifice. Yet those sprouts cannot grow and blossom freely within capitalist society: individual struggle for existence, the yawning abyss of poverty, differentiations among the workingmen themselves, the corrupting influence of the bourgeois parties,--all this interferes with the growth of idealism among the masses.

However, it is a fact that, while remaining selfish as any of the lower middle class, while not exceeding the average representative of the bourgeois classes by the "human" value of his personality, the average workingman learns in the school of life's experience that _his most primitive desires and most natural wants can be satisfied only on the debris of the capitalist order_.

If Socialism should attempt to create a new human nature within the limits of the old world, it would be only a new edition of the old moralistic Utopias. The task of Socialism is not to create a Socialist psychology as a prerequisite to Socialism, but to create Socialist conditions of human life as a prerequisite to a Socialist psychology.