From Marx to Mao Tse-tung - BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET

We began our revolution in unusually difficultconditions, suih as no other workers' revolution inthe world will ever have to face. (LCW 28.ry7.)z. S o cialist C onstructionAt the end of the civil war the economic life of thecountry was almost at a standstili, and the workerpeasantalliance was under a severe strain. Thesituation was only saved by Lenin's New EconomicPolicy, through ,which production was revived on thebasis of private trade in small industry and agriculture.After this period of economic restoration thestruggle for socialist construction began.Industrialisation requires capital, and the onlyavailable source of capital was the labour of theproletariat and peasantry. Stalin said :In the capitalist countries industrialisation rvasusually effected, in the main, by robbing othercountries, by robbing colonies or defeated countries,or with dhe help of substantial and more orless enslaving loans from abroad.You know that for hundreds of years Britaincollected capital from all her colonies and fromall parts of the world, and was able in this wayto make additional investments in her industry.This incidentally explains why Britain became atone time the 'workshop of the worid'.You know aiso that Germany developed herindustry with the help, among other things, of ther),ooo million francs r.r'hich she levied as anindemnity on France after the Franco-Frussian!var.One respect in r.t'hich our country differs fromthe capitalist countries is that we cannot and mustnot engage in colonial robbery, or in the plunderingof other countries in general. That wan therefore,is closed to us.Neither, however does our country have, orwant to have, enslaving loans from abroad. Consequenty, that way too ,is closed to us.What then remains? Only one thing, and thatis to develop industry, to industrialise the country,with the help of internal accumuiations. . . .But what are the chief sources of these accumulations?As I have said, there are two suchsources : first, the working class, which createsvalues and advances our industry; secondly, thepeasantry.The way matters stand with the peasantry inthis respect is as follows. It not only pays thestate the usual taxes, direct and indirect; it alsoouer-pays in the relatively high prices for manufacturedgoods-that is in the first place-and itis more or less u.nder-paid in the prices for agriculturalproduce-that is in the second place.This is an additional tax levied on the peasantryfor the sake of promoting industry, whichcaters for the whole country, the peasantry included.(SCW tr.r65.)In order to implement this poiicy it was necessaryto maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat and theworker-peasant alliance, in which the masses of thepeasantry joined with the proletariat in the struggleagainst the kulaks:The alliance of the proletariat with the peasantrvis an alliance of the working class with the labouringmasses of the peasantry. Such an alliance cannotbe effective without a struggle against capitalistelements in the peasantry, against the kulaks. Suchan alliance cannot be a stable one unless the poorpeasants are organised as the bulwark of the work-