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PIATAKOV: A MIRROR OF SOVIET HISTORY 149In any case, the conscious step toward a new phase in the conception ofthe West and of relations with it came about later, coinciding with thedefeat of the German revolution of October 1923 that formally sanctionedthe closing of the era begun in 1917.This defeat represented, once and for all, the dashing of any hopes for ana posteriori and ab externo justification of the events of October, and, asdiscussed earlier, Piatakov emerged marked by a pessimism that took theform of a growing subjective commitment to internal matters. As herepeated in numerous articles, it was now time to build in the USSR,quickly and well. But, build what? The answer to this question, which Piatakovnever asked directly, was, as we have said, the "first system of stateindustry in history"—a system that would take as its models the technicaland organizational high points of the West, that is, of Germany and, in part,of the United States (the 1921-1922 reorganization of industry into trustsand syndicates, or cartels, was a clear indication of this), but that woulddiffer from them in one essential element: the means of production wouldbe state property (this difference, or better, this "superiority" was soonembodied in an organism Piatakov himself created at the end of 1923, theTsUGProm—more on this in the last section). The echo of Lenin's 1918position (and of Hilferding's theories) is, I believe, undeniable, and in thiswe can find the roots of that "confusion" between gosudarstvennyi and sotsialisticheskiiin the 1920s.From the standpoint of relations with the West, this was the decisive stepthat transformed the West into a technical-industrial prototype, into a pointof reference that was not cultural in a broad sense but was rather strictlyeconomic (and, indeed, the decision to put internal matters first was nowincreasingly accompanied by a sense of superiority over the "decadent"West). But Piatakov still rejected isolationism: he maintained the necessityfor Soviet industry to test itself on the world market, to become the equal ofwhatever was best in the most developed countries (a need that implied,obviously, rapid modernization of industry). From this stance, Piatakov criticizedhis former friend Bukharin and Bukharin's socialism in one countrybased on cooperation and gradualism—ridiculous tools for a man whowanted to build a state industry on the standard of Germany.During his three years at the VSNKh, Piatakov did everything possibleto apply this program. In his speeches, for example, we find quotations fromGerman accounting manuals, from Anton Weber's writings on the raionirovanieof industry, and from Henry Ford's memoirs. The American debatesof those years on corporative planning are echoed in his vision of the plan,to which we will return.