Lessons of The Chinese Revolution, A Retreat In Full Disorder - Part 3 of 10

So, it is important to note some important distinctions, here. A workers' state is not synonymous with a socialist state. The establishment of a workers' state is a necessary, but not sufficient condition, for a socialist state. As Lenin describes, in the above, Russia was a workers' state, with bureaucratic distortions, sitting upon an economy that comprised,

“1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;

2) small commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);

3) private capitalism;

4) state capitalism;

5) socialism.”.

(ibid)

Given the predominance of 1), as he pointed out to the “Lefts”, even a progression to state capitalism would represent a progressive development.

“Between what elements is this struggle being waged if we are to speak in terms of economic categories such as “state capitalism"? Between the fourth and the fifth in the order in which I have just enumerated them. Of course not. It is not state capitalism that is at war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus private capitalism fighting together against both state capitalism and socialism. The petty bourgeoisie oppose every kind of state interference, accounting and control, whether it be state capitalist or state socialist. This is an absolutely unquestionable fact of reality, and the root of the economic mistake of the “Left Communists” is that they have failed to understand it. The profiteer, the commercial racketeer, the disrupter of monopoly—these are our principal “internal” enemies, the enemies of the economic measures of Soviet power.”

(ibid)

The same reactionary, petty-bourgeois ideas lay behind Brexit/Lexit, and behind the “anti-capitalist” calls for higher taxes and so on on large-scale companies.

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