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both
factions within the party were committed to industrialization, but
both disagreed on the methods, rates, and means of financing
industrial development. put briefly, the main distinction was that
the right advocated a more evolutionary and cautious development,
whereas the left insisted on a more rapid and ambitious investment
program in heavy industry. |
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bukharin, as the main spokesman of the
right, counseled the continuation of the two parallel sectors: the
state sector holding the 揷ommanding heights?of the economy, and
the private one represented by small-scale industry, handicraft, and
individual peasant farming. bukharin believed that the continuation
of the more peasant-friendly policies would help to strengthen the
worker-peasant alliance and would make soviet power more stable by
making it acceptable to the bulk of the population梩he peasant
masses. in short, his stand envisaged a more balanced development of
the industrial and agrarian sectors and implied an almost indefinite
continuation of a mixed economy, which was the essence of the nep.
this
economic program was branded as a 搆ulak deviation?by the
propaganda of the left. according to trotsky and his adherents, all
of this meant the appeasement of the petit bourgeois forces
represented by the mass of the peasantry. bukharin抯 program meant
the strengthening of the capitalist elements and would lead to the
restoration of capitalism. the left was against making any
concessions to the peasants and insisted upon speedy
industrialization by increasing the tax burden on the peasantry and
channeling the bulk of resources into state-owned industries.
stalin used the controversy between the left and the right to his
personal advantage. he swung easily from one political flank to the
other and back again when this promised gains in the power game. in
1925?6 he had posed as an enthusiastic supporter of the nep and an
ally of bukharin in order to undermine his previous political allies
zinoviev and kamenev. in 1928?9 he went all the way to the extreme
left, this time to defeat the right and bukharin. stalin realized
that the adoption of radical economic policies designed to curtail
the nep would almost inevitably turn bukharin and his supporters
into oppositionists. by defeating bukharin抯 group in 1929, he
achieved absolute personal power.
more
importantly, stalin抯 strategy appealed to the predominant attitudes
in the party as a whole. most communists lacked the education to
appreciate the finer theoretical differences that split the
political leadership. with the civil war experience behind them,
they were better equipped to deal with economic problems by coercive
and administrative measures, rather than learn the intricacies of
market mechanisms. many communists favored accelerated rates of
industrialization and a radical overhaul of the economy. they
accepted stalin抯 argument that soviet russia could not afford
spreading industrialization over a period of several decades, as was
implied in the program advocated by bukharin.
there is no doubt that the implementation of bukharin抯 alternative
based on the rejection of the idea of forced and rapid expansion of
heavy industry would have postponed the ussr抯 rise to the position
of one of the world抯 most powerful industrial nations for an
indefinite period of time. stalin抯 rapid industrialization provided
the soviet union with the industrial capacity and military might
that enabled it to defeat nazi germany in the second world war. from
that point of view, of the two alternative models of
industrialization, stalin抯 approach appears to be more historically
justified. however, stalin抯 triumph also meant the entrenchment of
a regime of personal dictatorship associated with high stalinism. it
dealt a shattering blow to the freedom of discussion within the
party and resulted in the abandonment of the nep and the reanimation
of the practices of war communism.
