Written by
Leon Trotsky:
From Liberty,
March 23, 1935
August 17, 1934
Should
America go
communist as a result of the difficulties and problems that your
capitalist social order is unable to solve, it will discover that
communism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic
tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual
liberty and shared abundance.
At present most
Americans regard
communism solely in the light of the experience of the
Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in
America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the
Soviet Union.
They fear lest
communism should try to fit them to a bed of
Procrustes, and they point to the bulwark of
Anglo-Saxon conservatism as an insuperable obstacle even to possibly desirable reforms. They argue that
Great Britain
and
Japan would undertake military intervention against the
American soviets. They shudder lest
Americans be regimented in their habits of dress and diet, be compelled to subsist on
famine rations, be forced to read stereotyped official
propaganda in the
newspapers, be coerced to serve as
rubber stamps for decisions arrived at without their active participation or be required
to keep their thoughts to themselves and loudly praise their soviet leaders in public, through fear of imprisonment and exile.
They fear monetary
inflation, bureaucratic
tyranny and intolerable
red tape in obtaining the necessities of life. They fear soulless standardization in the
arts and
sciences, as well as in the daily necessities of life.
They fear that all political spontaneity and the presumed
freedom of the press will be destroyed by the
dictatorship of a monstrous
bureaucracy. And they shudder at the thought of being forced into an uncomprehended glibness in
Marxist dialectic and disciplined social philosophies. They fear, in a word, that
Soviet America will become the counterpart of what
they have been told
Soviet Russia looks like.
Actually
American soviets will be as different from the
Russian soviets as the
United States of
President Roosevelt differs from the
Russian Empire of
Czar Nicholas II. Yet
communism can come in
America only through
revolution, just as
independence and
democracy came in
America. The
American temperament
is
energetic and
violent, and it will insist on breaking a good many dishes and upsetting a good many apple carts before
communism is firmly established.
Americans are enthusiasts and sportsmen before they are specialists and
statesmen, and it would be contrary to the
American tradition to make a major change without choosing sides and cracking heads.
However, the
American communist revolution will be insignificant compared to the
Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia, in terms of your national wealth and population, no matter how great its comparative cost. That is because
civil war of a revolutionary nature isn't fought by the handful of men at the top -- the
5 or 10 percent who own nine-tenths of American wealth; this handful could recruit its counterrevolutionary armies only from among
the lower middle classes. Even so, the
revolution could easily attract them to its banner by showing that support of the soviets alone offers them the prospect of
salvation.
Everybody below this group is already economically prepared for
communism. The
depression has ravaged your
working class and has dealt a crushing blow to the
farmers, who had already been injured by the long agricultural
decline of the postwar decade. There is no reason why these groups should counterpose determined resistance to the
revolution; they have nothing to lose, providing, of course, that the revolutionary leaders adopt a farsighted
and moderate policy toward them.
Who else will fight against
communism? Your corporal's guard of billionaires and multimillionaires? Your
Mellons,
Morgans,
Fords and
Rockefellers? They will cease struggling as soon as they fail to find other people to fight for them.
The
American soviet government will take firm possession of the commanding heights of your business system: the banks, the key industries and the transportation and communication systems. It will then give the
farmers,
the small tradespeople and
businessmen a good long time to think things over and see how well the nationalized section of industry is working.
Here is where the
American soviets can produce real miracles. "Technocracy" can come true only under
communism, when the dead hands of private property
rights and private profits are lifted from your industrial system. The most daring proposals of the
Hoover commission on standardization and rationalization will seem childish compared to the new possibilities let loose by
American communism.
National industry will be organized along the line of the conveyor belt in your modern continuous-production automotive factories. Scientific planning can be lifted out of the individual factory and applied to your entire
economic system. The results will be stupendous.
Costs of production will be cut to 20 percent, or less, of their present figure. This, in turn, would rapidly increase your
farmers' purchasing power.
To be sure, the
American soviets would establish their own gigantic
farm enterprises, as
schools of voluntary collectivization. Your
farmers could easily
calculate whether it was to their individual
advantage to remain as isolated links or to join the public
chain.
The same method would be used to draw small businesses and industries into the national organization of industry. By soviet control of raw materials, credits and quotas of orders, these secondary industries could be kept solvent until they were gradually and without compulsion sucked into the socialized business system.
Without compulsion! The
American soviets would not need to resort to the drastic measures that circumstances have often imposed upon the
Russians. In the
United States, through the science of publicity and advertising, you have means for winning the support of your middle class that were beyond the reach of the soviets of backward
Russia with its vast majority of pauperized and illiterate
peasants. This, in addition to your technical equipment
and your
wealth, is the greatest asset of your coming
communist revolution. Your
revolution will be smoother in character than ours; you will not waste your energies and resources in costly social
conflicts after the main issues have been decided; and you will move ahead so much more rapidly in consequence.
Even the intensity and devotion of religious sentiment in
America will not prove an obstacle to the
revolution. If one assumes the perspective of soviets in
America, none of the psychological brakes will prove firm enough to retard the pressure of the social
crisis. This has been demonstrated more than once in
history. Besides, it should not be forgotten that the
Gospels themselves contain some pretty explosive aphorisms.
As to the comparatively few
opponents of the soviet
revolution, one can trust to
American inventive genius. It may well be that you will take your unconvinced millionaires and send them to some picturesque island,
rent-free for life, where they can do as they please.
You can do this safely, for you will not need to fear foreign interventions.
Japan,
Great Britain and the other capitalistic countries that intervened in
Russia couldn't do anything but take
American communism lying down. As a matter of fact, the victory of
communism in
America -- the stronghold of
capitalism -- will cause
communism to
spread to other countries.
Japan will probably have joined the communistic ranks even before the establishment of the
American soviets. The same is true of
Great Britain.
In any case, it would be a crazy idea to send His Britannic Majesty's fleet against Soviet
America, even as a raid against the southern and more conservative half of your continent. It would be hopeless and would never get any farther than a second-rate military escapade.
Within a few weeks or months of the establishment of the
American soviets, Pan-Americanism would be a political reality.
The governments of
Central and
South America would be pulled into your federation like iron filings to a magnet. So would
Canada. The popular movements in these countries would be so strong that they would force this
great unifying process within a short period and at insignificant costs. I am ready to bet that the first anniversary of the
American soviets would find the
Western Hemisphere transformed into the Soviet
United States of
North,
Central and
South America, with its capital at
Panama. Thus for the first time the
Monroe Doctrine would have a complete and positive meaning in world affairs, although not the one foreseen by its author.
In spite of the complaints of some of your arch-conservatives,
Roosevelt is not preparing for a soviet transformation of the
United States.
The
NRA (noder's note: the NRA referred to here is the
National Recovery Act, not the
National Rifle Association) aims not to
destroy but to
strengthen the foundations of
American capitalism by overcoming your business difficulties. Not the
Blue Eagle but the difficulties that the
Blue Eagle is powerless to overcome will bring about
communism in
America. The "radical" professors of your Brain Trust are not revolutionists: they are only frightened conservatives. Your president abhors "systems" and "generalities." But a soviet government is the greatest of all possible systems, a gigantic generality in action.
The average man doesn't like systems or generalities either. It is the task of your
communist statesmen to make the system deliver the concrete goods that the average man desires: his
food,
cigars, amusements, his freedom
to choose his own neckties, his own
house and his own
automobile. It will be easy to give him these comforts in Soviet
America.
Most
Americans have been misled by the fact that in the
USSR we had to build whole new basic industries from the ground up. Such a thing could not happen in
America, where you are already compelled to cut down on your farm area and to reduce your industrial production. As a matter of fact, your tremendous technological equipment has been paralyzed by the crisis and already clamors to be put to use. You will be able to make a rapid step-up of consumption by your people the starting point of your economic revival.
You are prepared to do this as is no other country. Nowhere else has the study of the internal market reached such intensity as in the
United States. It has been done by your banks, trusts, individual businessmen, merchants, traveling salesmen and
farmers as part of their stock-in-trade. Your soviet
government will simply abolish all trade secrets, will combine all the findings of these researches for individual
profit and will transform them into a scientific system of economic planning. In this your
government will be helped by the existence of a large class of cultured and critical
consumers. By combining the nationalized key industries, your private businesses and democratic consumer cooperation, you will quickly develop a highly flexible system for serving the needs of your population.
This system will be made to work not by bureaucracy and not by policemen but by cold, hard cash.
Your almighty
dollar will play a principal part in making your new soviet system work. It is a great mistake to try to mix a "planned economy" with a "managed currency." Your money must act as regulator with which to measure the success or failure of your planning.
Your "radical" professors are dead wrong in their devotion to "managed money." It is an academic idea that could easily wreck your entire system of distribution and production. That is the great lesson to be derived
from the
Soviet Union, where bitter necessity has been converted into official virtue in the monetary realm.
There the lack of a stable
gold ruble is one of the main causes of our many economic troubles and catastrophes. It is impossible to regulate wages, prices and quality of goods without a firm monetary system. An unstable ruble in a Soviet system is like having variable molds in a conveyor-belt factory. It won't work.
Only when
socialism succeeds in substituting administrative control for money will it be possible to abandon a stable
gold currency. Then money
will become ordinary paper slips, like trolley or theater tickets. As
socialism advances, these slips will also disappear, and control over individual consumption -- whether by money or administration -- will no longer be
necessary when there is more than enough of everything for everybody!
Such a time has not yet come, though
America will certainly reach it before any other country. Until then, the only way to reach such a state of development is to retain an effective regulator and measure for the
working of your system. As a matter of fact, during the first few years a planned economy needs sound money even more than did old-fashioned
capitalism. The professor who regulates the monetary unit with the aim of regulating
the whole business system is like the man who tried to lift both his feet off the ground at the same time.
Soviet
America will possess supplies of
gold big enough to stabilize the
dollar -- a priceless asset. In
Russia we have been expanding our industrial plant by 20 and 30 percent a year; but -- owing to a weak ruble -- we have not been able to distribute this increase effectively. This is partly because we have allowed our bureaucracy to subject our monetary system to administrative
one-sidedness. You will be spared this evil. As a result you will greatly surpass us in both increased production and distribution, leading to a rapid advance in the comfort and welfare of your population.
In all this, you will not need to imitate our standardized production for our pitiable mass consumers. We have taken over from czarist
Russia a pauper's heritage, a culturally undeveloped peasantry with a low standard
of living. We had to build our
factories and
dams at the expense of our
consumers. We have had continual monetary inflation and a monstrous bureaucracy.
Soviet
America will not have to imitate our bureaucratic methods. Among us the lack of the bare necessities has caused an intense scramble for an extra loaf of
bread, an extra yard of cloth by everyone. In this struggle our bureaucracy steps forward as a conciliator, as an all-powerful court of arbitration. You, on the other hand, are much wealthier and would have little difficulty in supplying all of your people with all of the necessities
of life. Moreover, your needs, tastes and habits would never permit your bureaucracy to divide the national income. Instead, when you organize your society to produce for human needs rather than private profits, your entire
population will group itself around new trends and groups, which will struggle with one another and prevent an overweening bureaucracy from imposing itself
upon them.
You can thus avoid growth of bureaucratism by the practice of soviets, that is to say,
democracy -- the most flexible form of government yet developed. Soviet organization cannot achieve miracles but must simply reflect the will of the people. With us the soviets have been bureaucratized as a result of the political monopoly of a single party, which has itself become a bureaucracy. This situation resulted from the exceptional difficulties
of
socialist pioneering in a poor and backward country.
The
American soviets will be full-blooded and vigorous, without need or opportunity for such measures as circumstances imposed upon
Russia. Your unregenerate
capitalists will, of course, find no place for themselves
in the new setup. It is hard to imagine
Henry Ford as the head of the
Detroit Soviet.
Yet a wide struggle between interests, groups and ideas is not only conceivable -- it is inevitable. One-year, five-year, ten-year plans of business development; schemes for national education; construction of new basic lines of transportation; the transformation of the farms; the program
for improving the technological and cultural equipment of
Latin America; a program for stratosphere communication; eugenics -- all of these will arouse controversy, vigorous electoral struggle and passionate debate in the
newspapers and at public meetings.
For Soviet
America will not imitate the
monopoly of the press by the heads of Soviet
Russia's bureaucracy. While Soviet
America would nationalize all printing plants, paper mills and means of distribution, this would
be a purely negative measure. It would simply mean that private capital will no longer be allowed to decide what publications should be established, whether they should be progressive or reactionary, "wet" or "dry," puritanical
or pornographic. Soviet
America will have to find a new solution for the question of how the power of the press is to function in a
socialist regime. It might be done on the basis of proportional representation for the votes
in each soviet election.
Thus the right of each group of citizens to use the power of the press would depend on their numerical strength -- the same principle being applied to the use of meeting halls, allotment of time on the air and so forth.
Thus the management and policy of publications would be decided not by individual checkbooks but by group ideas. This may take little account of numerically small but important groups, but it simply means that each new idea will be compelled, as throughout history, to prove its right to existence.
Rich Soviet
America can set aside vast funds for research and invention, discoveries and experiments in every field. You won't neglect your bold
architects and
sculptors, your unconventional
poets and audacious
philosophers.
In fact, the Soviet
Yankees of the future will give a lead to
Europe in those very fields where
Europe has hitherto been your master.
Europeans have little conception of the power of technology to influence human destiny and have adopted an attitude of sneering superiority toward "Americanism," particularly since the crisis. Yet Americanism marks the true dividing
line between the
Middle Ages and the modern world.
Hitherto
America's conquest of nature has been so violent and passionate that you have had no time to modernize your philosophies or to develop your own artistic forms. Hence you have been hostile to the doctrines of
Hegel,
Marx and
Darwin. The burning of
Darwin's works by the
Baptists of
Tennessee is only a clumsy reflection of the
American dislike for the doctrines of evolution. This attitude is not confined to your pulpits. It is still
part of your general mental makeup.
Your
atheists as well as your
Quakers are determined rationalists. And your rationalism itself is weakened by empiricism and moralism. It has none of the merciless vitality of the great
European rationalists. So your
philosophic method is even more antiquated than your economic system and your political institutions.
Today, quite unprepared, you are being forced to face those social contradictions that grow up unsuspected in every
society. You have conquered nature by means of the
tools that your inventive
genius has created, only to find that your
tools have all but destroyed you. Contrary to all your hopes and desires, your unheard-of
wealth has produced unheard-of misfortunes. You have discovered that social development does not follow a simple formula. Hence you have been thrust into the school of the dialectic -- to stay.
There is no turning back from it to the mode of thinking and acting prevalent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
While the romantic numskulls of
Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the old race of Europe's
Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its original filth, you
Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic
machinery and your
culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new breed of men -- the first worthy of the name of Man.
One final prophecy: In the third year of soviet rule in
America, you will no longer chew gum!
::end of essay::
Essay provided by the
Trotsky Internet Archive
On edit: I don't understand why I would have to include a disclaimer stating that I added this node/essay for its historical value.