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Success of Socialism at Home
Held Best of Propaganda for
Conversion of Others
VIEW IS DEEMED ORTHODOX
Huge Extent of Country Cited
as Giving Possibility for Full
Development of Marxism
CAPITALISM HELD DOOMED
So Stalinists Feel They Are Not
Violating Ideals in Directing
Efforts to One Nation
This is the third of a series of articles on Russia
today by The New York Times Moscow
correspondent, who is at present in Paris
By WALTER DURANTY
Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES
PARIS. June 17--The essential feature of "Stalinism," which sharply define
its advance and difference from Leninism and is the key to the comprehension
of the whole five-year plan, is that it frankly aims at the successful
establishment of socialism in one country without waiting for world
revolution.
The importance of this dogma which played a predominant role in the bitter
controversy with Leon Trotsky and bitter with the "Rights" [Right-wing
Russian Communists], cannot be exaggerated. It s the Stalinist "slogan" par
excellence, and it brands as heretics or "defeatists" all Communists who
refuse to accept it in Russia or outside.
Marx Once Attacked View
Curiously enough, Karl Marx himself, in one of his earlier letters,
described this theory as a fallacy and an illusion. Lenin, too, in his early
belief that the World War would end in a stalemate from which a proletarian
revolution would be the only issue, was reluctant to admit that a single
Socialist State could flourish in a capitalist- therefore hostile- world.
Trotsky after characteristic indecisiveness (he once told a Communist Youth
meeting in Moscow that world revolution was 'far far beyond the mountains")
tried to use Marx and Lenin to convict Stalin of heterodoxy.
Stalin had a clearer perception of Russia's possibilities and the reserves
of untapped energy in her people, barely less "virgin" than her soil. He
saw, too, that the Soviet Union was not "one country" in the sense in which
Marx wrote but a vast self-sufficing continent far more admirably fitted by
its natural configuration and resources and by the character and ways of its
population for a communist experiment than what Marx prognosticated in a
compact industrial State like England.
It can fairly be argued, no doubt, that Stalin may have been pushed further
by the controversy with the Trotsky and the Rights and by the enthusiasm of
his younger followers than orthodox Marxism, would approve. Indeed, such
noted revolutionaries as Emma Goldman and Angelica Balabanoff, with whom the
writer recently talked, unite with Trotsky in accusing Stalin of
"perverting" or even "betraying'' the revolution.
But development along Stalinist lines became inevitable from the day the
United States broke the war deadlock and brought about a post-war
"capitalist stabilization" which, though they called it temporary, the
Bolsheviki even now do not believe to be fatally shattered by the current
world depression. For that matter, too, Lenin's new economic policy was a
flagrant retreat from orthodox Marxism, and if Stalin has had the will and
strength to correct that change of the compass and bring back the Soviet
ship back to the Marxist course he may surely be pardoned for a doctrinal
adjustment required and justified by circumstances.
It does follow, however, that the theory of "Soviet Socialist sufficiency,"
as it may be called, involves a certain decrease of interest in world
revolution-not deliberately, perhaps, but by force of circumstances. The
Stalinist socialization of Russia demands three things, imperatively-every
ounce of effort, every cent of money, and peace. It does not leave the
Kremlin time, cash or energy for "Red propaganda" abroad, which,
incidentally. is a likely cause of war, and, being a force of social
destruction, must fatally conflict with the five-year plan which is a force
of social construction.
International activities are confined to the Communist parties of other
countries and to a small group of zealots in Moscow, whose influence and
importance are much more theoretical than real. Of course, Stalinism refuses
to admit this openly, and takes refuge behind two theses-first, that world
revolution is inevitable anyway as a result of capitalist economic rivalries
(this is pure Marxist dogma which even zealots must accept); second, that
the success of socialism in Russia is the best possible propaganda for the
rest of the world.
But facts are facts, whether one admits them or not, and it is quite on the
cards that the real source of the quarrel of Trotsky and foreign Marxist
theoreticians with Stalinism is their realization that Stalinism, while
retaining world revolution as an ultimate goal, has abandoned it as an
immediate practical issue little less completely than the early Christian
Church abandoned the millennium or second advent when Constantine
made it the official faith of the Roman Empire.
In later articles the writer will show the effects of this abandonment on
Soviet foreign relations and foreign trade.
By Walter Duranty, The New York Times, NY, NY, Thursday, June
18, 1931, page one and nine.. This is article number three of the thirteen
articles submitted for the 1932 Pulitzer Prize which was awarded to
Walter Duranty.
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
WALTER DURANTY'S 13 ARTICLES WRITTEN IN 1931
WHICH WERE SUBMITTED FOR THE 1932 PULITZER PRIZE
Eleven-part series in The New York Times:
Duranty 1: 6/14/1931
"Red Russia of Today Ruled by Stalinism, Not Communism"
Duranty 2: 6/16/1931
"Socialism First Aim in Soviet's Program; Trade Gains Second"
Duranty 3: 6/18/1931
"Stalinism Shelves World Revolt Idea; To Win Russia First"
Duranty 4: 6/19/1931
"Industrial Success Emboldens Soviet in New World Policy"
Duranty 5: 6/20/1931
"Trade Equilibrium is New Soviet Goal"
Duranty 6: 6/22/1931
"Soviet Fixes Opinion by Widest Control"
Duranty 7: 6/23/1931
"Soviet Censorship Hurts Russia Most"
Duranty 8: 6/24/1931
"Stalinism Smashes Foes in Marx's Name"
Duranty 9: 6/25/1931
"Red Army is Held No Menace to Peace"
Duranty 10: 6/26/1931
"Stalinism Solving Minorities Problem"
Duranty 11: 6/27/1931
"Stalinism's Mark is Party Discipline"
Two articles in The New York Times magazine:
Duranty 12: 3/29/1931
"The Russian Looks at the World"
Duranty 13: 12/20/1931
"Stalin's Russia Is An Echo of Iron Ivan's"
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