Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

REVISION OF THE PARTY PROGRAMME157and the effect is that odds and ends of the definition ofimperialism have been inserted, mostly inappropriately.Let us take the second section. Here Comrade Sokolnikovleft unchanged the beginning and the end; the beginningstates that the means of production are in the handsof a minority; the end, that the majority of the populationare proletarians or semi-proletarians. Right in the middle,Comrade Sokolnikov inserts a special phrase to the effect that“during the last quarter of a century the direct or indirectcontrol of production organised on capitalist lines haspassed into the hands of all-powerful” banks, trusts, etc.This is mentioned earlier than the crowding out of thesmall by the big producers! The latter fact is first mentionedin the third section. But are not trusts the highest and latestmanifestation of the very process of the crowding out ofsmall-scale by large-scale production? Is it appropriate tospeak first of trusts, and then of the ousting of the smallproducer? Is it not a violation of logical sequence? Where,then, did the trusts come from? Is this not an error in theory?How and why has control “passed” into their hands? All thiscannot be understood before the process of the ousting of thesmall producer is made clear.Let us take the third section that deals with the crowdingout of small by large enterprises. Here too Comrade Sokolnikovretains the beginning (the increasing importance ofbig enterprises) and the end (small producers are being crowdedout). In the middle, however, he adds that big enterprises“have merged into gigantic organisms which combinea series of consecutive steps of production and exchange”.But this insertion deals with an entirely different matter,namely, the concentration of the means of production andthe socialisation of labour by capitalism, the creation ofthe material conditions for the replacement of capitalismby socialism. In the old programme this point is not dealtwith until the seventh section.Comrade Sokolnikov adheres to the general plan of theold programme. He, too, speaks of the material conditionsfor the replacement of capitalism by socialism only in theseventh section. He also retains in the seventh section a mentionof the concentration of means of production and thesocialisation of labour!