Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - About the Co-operative Societies (1924).pdf/8

 Communists. At that time I already pointed out that state capitalism would be a higher stage than our present economic system. It was important for me to point out the hereditary link between usual state capitalism and the unusual, very unusual state capitalism of which I spoke as I introduced the reader to the new economic policy. Secondly, for me the practical goal was always important. And the practical goal of our new economic policy was—the obtaining of concessions. Under our conditions however these concessions would represent the pure type of state capitalism. That was the basis of my comment on state capitalism.

But there is till another field in which we can employ state capitalism or at least something analogous thereto. That is the problem of co-operation.

No doubt co-operation is in the capitalistic state a collective capitalistic institution. It is also beyond the shadow of a doubt that under the conditions of our present economic reality, where we have private capitalistic enterprises—but only upon publicly owned land and only under the control of the state power, which belongs to the working class—side by side with enterprises of consistently Socialist nature (in which the means of production as well as the land upon which the enterprise stands and for that matter the enterprise itself belong to the state), that here hethe [sic] question of a third form of enterprise arises, which in the past was of no independent importance, the question of the co-operative enterprise. Under private capitalism, the co-operative enterprises differed from the capitalistic enterprises in that they were collective undertakings. Under state capitalism, the difference between co-operative and state capitalistic enterprises is that they are firstly private enterprises and in the second place collective. In our present system, as collective enterprises, the co-operative differ from the private capitalistic enterprises, but there is no difference between them and Socialist enterprises when they stand on the basis of state ownership, i. e., the ownership of the working class, of the land and of the means of production.

We do not attach sufficient importance to this circumstance, when we speak of co-operation. We forget that, due to the peculiarity of our state system, co-operation has for us absolutely dominating importance. Aside from the concessions, which, in passing, attained no especially widespread development, co-operation coindcidedcoincided [sic] under our conditions with Socialism.

I will explain that. What is phantastic in the plans of the old co-operators, beginning with Robert Owen? The fact that they dreamt of a peacable transformation of present society into a Socialist one, without considering such fundamental problems as the class struggle, the conquest of political power by the working class, and the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting class. And we were therefore justified when we found this „co-operative" Socialism to be nothing but an insipid, romantic phantasy, day-dreams upon how the class enemy could be transformed into the class collaborator, and the class war into class peace (the so-called civil peace) by means of a simple co-operative organisation of the population.

There is no doubt that from the point of view of the basic problem of the present day we were right, for without the class struggle and the political power in the state Socialism can not be realised.

But let us now consider how the question has changed since the power of the state is already in the hands of the working class, since the political 6