Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/403



We have defeated the bourgeoisie, but it is not yet destroyed and not even completely subjugated. We must, therefore, resort to a new and higher form of the struggle with the bourgeoisie, we must turn from the very simple problem of continuing the expropriation of the capitalists to the more complex and difficult problem—the problem of creating conditions under which the bourgeoisie can neither exist nor come into existence again. It is clear that this problem is infinitely more important and that we shall have no Socialism until it is solved.

Comparing our revolution with the revolutions of Western Europe, we are now approximately at the point which was reached in 1793 and 1871 in France. We have a right to be proud of the fact that we have reached this point and that in one respect we have, undoubtedly, gone somewhat further, as we have decreed and established throughout Russia a higher type of state—the Soviet government. But we cannot possibly rest satisfied with these achievements, for we have only begun the transformation toward Socialism, and in this respect we have not yet accomplished anything decisive.

Of decisive importance is the organization of strict and universal accounting and control of production and distribution. But, we have not yet effected accounting and control in those enterprises and in those branches and departments of economic effort which we have taken away from the bourgeoisie, and without this there can be no question of the second, just as essential, condition for the establishment of Socialism, viz: to increase the productivity of labor on a national scale.

It would therefore be impossible to formulate the problem of the present period in the simple sentence: continue the offensive against capital. In spite of the fact that we have, undoubtedly, not conquered capital—and that it is absolutely necessary to continue the attack on this enemy of the toilers,—such a proposal would be vague and not concrete, it would not indicate the peculiarity of the