Essay:Stalin's real views on Socialism

Introduction

There has been much confusion around Stalin, his views on Socialism, and whether he thought the USSR was Socialist. It is time this information was assembled into one article on that topic, so that no more confusion could reasonably continue. Stalin’s view of Socialism was in line with Lenin, Engels, and Marx. He studied their works and was able to demonstrate the development of the USSR towards Socialism in accordance with the material conditions of the USSR. At first glance, one may be forgiven for thinking the USSR was Socialist, for it is called the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”, how could it not be Socialist? However, this quick assessment is incorrect, it was already stated by Lenin that the USSR is called “Socialist” because it is their goal to achieve Socialism. This is where I believe the confusion stems. Stalin continued with this logic, stating that the USSR is aiming for Socialism, and at no point has he stated the USSR was a stateless, classless society (Socialism).

Consider then that this article may act as somewhat of a safeguard against such misunderstandings and confusion between Socialism and the period of economic construction to it, and a defence against the incorrect criticism and slander undertaken against Stalin by those who either have only read parts of Stalin’s works, or who simply misunderstood them.

What did Stalin think Socialism was?

Stalin took the standard Marxist view. To Stalin Socialism, as it was to Lenin, Engels, and Marx, is a classless society. He stated as much in a letter to Ivan Ivanov:

“Undoubtedly the question of the victory of Socialism in one country, in this case our country, has two different sides. The first side of the question of the victory of Socialism in our country embraces the problem of the mutual relations between classes in our country. This concerns the sphere of internal relations. Can the working class of our country overcome the contradictions with our peasantry and establish an alliance, collaboration with them? Can the working class of our country, in alliance - with our peasantry, smash the bourgeoisie of our country, deprive it of the land, factories, mines, etc., and by its own efforts build a new, classless society, complete Socialist society?”(1)

Here Stalin proclaims complete Socialism is classless, this is correct, the Proletariat abolishes itself as a class and sets in motion the withering of the state, as Engels stated in “Anti-Dühring”:

“The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production in the first instance into state property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state… State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not “abolished”. It dies out.”(2)

This letter is rarely known by those who attack Stalin, it is more likely they know Stalin’s work from 1951, “Economic problems of Socialism in the USSR”. Yet again we see the word “Socialism”, Stalin must have changed his mind then, he must have believed that Socialism is not classless, with commodities and wage labour!

This assertion however, is false, in 1906-1907 Stalin wrote the article “Anarchism or Socialism?”, where he stated that:

“Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists—there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc. As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc. It is also clear that future production will be socialistically organised, highly developed production, which will take into account the needs of society and will produce as much as society needs. Here there will be no room whether for scattered production, competition, crises, or unemployment. Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.”(3)

He says the same thing again in his work “Agrarian Question”:

“Introducing socialism means abolishing commodity production, abolishing the money system, razing capitalism to its foundations and socialising all the means of production.”(4)

We see again that Stalin has consistently held the belief, in accordance with the established theory, that Socialism is classless, there is no commodity production, or private ownership of the means of production.

Did Stalin think the USSR was Socialist?

In 1951, Stalin wrote “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”, a book on the Soviet economy and their situation. One point of contention for some critics of Stalin and his understanding of Socialism is the use of “Socialism” and “Socialist” seemingly to describe the USSR, implying that Stalin believed it was Socialist, as well as the section on “Commodity Production Under Socialism”. The critics maintain that Stalin believed the USSR was Socialism and had commodity production, which would mean Stalin did not understand Socialism.

This assertion is utterly incorrect, Stalin’s use of “Socialism” or “Socialist” to describe the USSR comes from term use that makes no sense without context.

In 1928, Stalin received a letter from Comrade Kushtysev, asking him what Lenin meant when he said “"Soviet power plus electrification is communism," Stalin replies:

“What did Lenin mean to say when making this statement? In my opinion, all he meant to say was that Soviet power alone is not enough for the advance towards communism, that in order to advance towards communism the Soviet power must electrify the country and transfer the entire national economy to large-scale production, and that the Soviet power is prepared to take this course in order to arrive at communism. Lenin's dictum implies nothing more than the readiness of the Soviet power to advance towards communism through electrification. We often say that our republic is a socialist one. Does this mean that we have already achieved socialism, done away with classes and abolished the state (for the achievement of socialism implies the withering away of the state)? Or does it mean that classes, the state, and so on, will still exist under socialism? Obviously not. Are we entitled in that case to call our republic a socialist one? Of course, we are. From what standpoint? From the standpoint of our determination and our readiness to achieve socialism, to do away with classes, etc.”(5)

Here Stalin states that the reason they call the USSR “Socialist” is because it is building towards Socialism, which Stalin again says is classless.

This is important context for when we discuss Stalin’s later works, such as “Economic problems of Socialism in the USSR”, for example this quote:

“It is said that some of the economic laws operating in our country under socialism, including the law of value, have been “transformed,” or even “radically transformed,” on the basis of planned economy. That is likewise untrue. Laws cannot be “transformed,” still less “radically” transformed. If they can be transformed, then they can be abolished and replaced by other laws. The thesis that laws can be “transformed” is a relic of the incorrect formula that laws can be “abolished” or “formed.” Although the formula that economic laws can be transformed has already been current in our country for a long time, it must be abandoned for the sake of accuracy. The sphere of action of this or that economic law may be restricted, its destructive action — that is, of course, if it is liable to be destructive — may be averted, but it cannot be “transformed” or “abolished.””(6)

Stalin simply states that the law of value operates in the USSR, and it is incorrect to say that laws can be transformed, that from Capitalism to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the law of value is “transformed”, which is incorrect, it is the same as it was under Capitalism, only existing because the same conditions exist as under Capitalism. But hang on, Socialism doesn't have the law of value! That is because Stalin is not referring to full Socialism, but to the conditions of the USSR.

Further down he talks in depth on the Law of Value under Socialism, he states that the law of value exists under Socialism, surely this is the final nail in the coffin for Stalin, it contradicts what he says above! But hang on, because there is a bit more to it.

“Sometimes people ask: does the law of value exist and operate in our socialist system? Yes, it does exist and operates. Where there are goods and commodity production, there cannot but be a law of value. The sphere of action of the law of value extends in our country primarily to commodity circulation, to the exchange of goods through purchase and sale, to the exchange mainly of personal consumption goods. Here, in this area, the law of value retains for itself, of course, within certain limits, the role of regulator.”(6)

Stalin links the existence of the law of value to the existence of Commodity Production in the USSR, what should be remembered is that full Socialism does not have commodity production, Stalin said as much in the “Agrarian Question”:

“Introducing socialism means abolishing commodity production, abolishing the money system, razing capitalism to its foundations and socialising all the means of production.”(4)

It is true this work is even older than “Economic problems of Socialism in the USSR”, being written in 1906, however it is one of the few works of Stalin (that I know of) where it is sure he is discussing Socialism as a mode of production, and not the USSR as it develops to Socialism. We must be sure that in these moments when he talks generally on the topic of the Socialist mode of production, that this is his view on the subject.

What can be gathered from this distinction? Only the most fundamentally important thing, that Stalin draws a line between full Socialism and the system of the USSR, which by all standards is not full Socialism, but instead a period of development to full Socialism. “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” should be regarded as a book outlining the economics of transition from Capitalism to Socialism for all states in a similar position to the USSR, and not a book on how full Socialism operates.

Furthermore it should be said that Stalin has also not aided us in the task of understanding Socialism by using the word in a way that has obviously caused confusion to many comrades, no doubt resulting in the famous “There is no fundamental contradiction between socialism and a market economy” quote from Deng Xiaopeng. If we apply the same logic as Stalin to Deng, then Deng is saying that during the developing stages of Socialism, under the transition period of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the market can be used to develop the Productive forces! This itself is not wrong and given the context of the interview with Deng that produced this quote, it seems Deng was going for this meaning, not that full classless Socialism can also have markets, anyone who knows Marxism can tell a market is contradictory to Socialism, because it means having exchange and commodities, which can not exist in a classless society because you would then need someone to pay the workers so they may buy commodities, only the state could do that and it is far better for production to be organised under the system Marx suggested, otherwise a classless society will not emerge as money is concentrated into the hands of a small few who pay all the workers to then exchange for commodities, leading to increases in wealth and the creation of nothing but a Social Democracy, not Socialism!

This is the unfortunate truth of studying Stalin, you must always be careful of the way you use terms, and you must first read Marx, Engels, and Lenin on Socialism and economics before you read Stalin on the topic so that your grasp of the concepts is firm. You must also read a large range of works by Stalin, so that you can discern from when he discusses the Socialist mode of production in general and how it operates, and the system in the USSR that is building Socialism.

Stalin also used the term “Socialist Producers”, would this not be a confession that Stalin thought that the USSR was Socialist? How can you have Socialist producers when how production is organised determines the society? Did Stalin think the USSR was thus Socialism?

What should also be discussed is Stalin’s use of terms in general, soon after the above quote Stalin goes on to attack those who state that their present path of development will lead back to Capitalism by stating:

“Absolutely mistaken, therefore, are those comrades who allege that, since socialist society has not abolished commodity forms of production, we are bound to have the reappearance of all the economic categories characteristic of capitalism: labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit, etc. These comrades confuse commodity production with capitalist production, and believe that once there is commodity production there must also be capitalist production. They do not realize that our commodity production radically differs from commodity production under capitalism.”(6)

Stalin is stating that if a “Socialist society” does not abolish commodity production then it will revert to Capitalism, this is incorrect, further I think his use of “a Socialist society”, implying the USSR is socialist, is in fact not a claim of achieving Socialism, but again following the logic laid out in the previously discussed letter, is a society seeking to create Socialism through using commodity production, and that it is false to say that this method will always result in restoring other economic categories. which is true as any student of history will note, the dissolution of the USSR was a complex event, which is outside the scope of this article, but what I will say is that in terms of causes of the dissolution it certainly was not the simple result of commodity production.

In 1875, Karl Marx wrote the “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, in this work Marx expanded on the early years of Socialism and the transformation from Capitalism to Communism. He states that:

“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.”(7)

Marx realistically points out that as a society emerging from Capitalism, Socialism(called lower phase Communism respectively by Marx) is stamped by the old views and economics. Further Marx said that:

“Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”(7)

Marx correctly points out that between Capitalism and Socialism, a transition between these modes of production would need to take place where the Dictatorship of the Proletariat forms the dominant class of society and builds the mode of production from Capitalism to Socialism. Commodity production in the USSR was a remnant of the Semi-Feudal Russian Empire, the Peasants had commodity relations as their relation before the USSR, as a consequence the USSR was stained with remnants of the past society, it was thus to be expected that commodity production would remain as part of the economy as the USSR developed to Socialism. This general line of logic is important to keep in mind when discussing past Socialist experiments, the most well known, such as China follow this line of development, from Feudal to State Capitalism and the transition period, where the mode of production is largely Capitalistic with elements of Socialism being built out of it as the state developed to Socialism, as Marx stated above.

Critics may also point to the aforementioned letter to Ivanov, some have said that Stalin claimed to have built Socialism, let us take a look at this quote of which if the claim is true, would hold foundational importance to any argument like this.

In the quote, Stalin states: “... establishing fraternal collaboration with our peasantry and in building, in the main, Socialist society”(1)

Is this not completely condemning of the view that Stalin believed Socialism was stateless? Here he is saying the USSR, a state that is not classless, has constructed Socialism! But hold your horses there, for the most vigilant reader may have noticed the phrase “in the main”. What this phrase means is “mostly”, or “generally with exceptions” (Collins dictionary).

So we see that Stalin believed the USSR had not constructed full Socialism, in his view the USSR had mostly constructed Socialism, he may have considered the next step to be the abolition of commodity production and as a result the abolition of classes as the means of production are seized for all of society. One may argue that Stalin was too optimistic, and that this caused him to believe that the USSR was closer to full Socialism than it really was, however this question is outside the scope of this article.

Stalin’s view on Socialism in One Country and the global revolution

Many critics of Stalin attack him for his “Anti-Internationalist” policy of Socialism in One Country, that against all things holy decided that the USSR could build Socialism on its own!

This take is nothing but a misunderstanding of what Socialism in One Country is, and to discuss it we must first discuss its most vocal critic, Leon Trotsky.

In “The Revolution Betrayed”, in the Appendix section, Trotsky wrote a large section on the theory of “Socialism in One Country”. He stated that the theory was a “break with the Marxist tradition of internationalism”(8), and suggests that the theory was a product of the “bureaucracy”. Further Trotsky implies that Stalin took an internationalist position by citing this quote from “Foundations of Leninism”:

“the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough—for this we must have the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries”

And then states that this edition was removed from circulation, implying that Stalin had given up on Internationalism and the “bureaucracy” had taken control of the government and now sought, not to implement the victory of Socialism, but to implement “their own victory.”(8)

This is a mistake on Trotsky’s end, Stalin repeated the same thing he did in Foundations of Leninism a whole 2 years after Trotsky wrote this book, in the aforementioned letter to Ivanov, Stalin said:

“Can we regard the victory of Socialism in our country as final, i.e., as being free from the dangers of military attack and of attempts to restore capitalism, assuming that Socialism is victorious only in one country and that the capitalist encirclement continues to exist? Such are the problems that are connected with the second side of the question of the victory of Socialism in our country. Leninism answers these problems in the negative. Leninism teaches that "the final victory of Socialism, in the sense of full guarantee against the restoration of bourgeois relations, is possible only on an international scale" (c.f. resolution of the Fourteenth Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). This means that the serious assistance of the international proletariat is a force without which the problem of the final victory of Socialism in one country cannot be solved.”(1)

Stalin again states that what he stated still holds, that not only does his statement in Foundations of Leninism hold, but tey hold to such an extent they are policy as of the 14th Party Congress, a congress that took place in 1925, a congress he could have attended (he was only expelled from the Party in 1927), did Trotsky intentionally not include this fact? Let us give him the benefit of the doubt, let us say he forgot, should the Trotskyists not have looked into this? We see the problem with many critics of Stalin and those who cite Trotsky as their source is that they follow him blindly, almost like a cult, like the one they claim formed around Stalin.

Stalin continues on with his explanation on the USSR and Socialism in this letter, stating:

“This, of course, does not mean that we must sit with folded arms and wait for assistance from outside. On the contrary, this assistance of the international proletariat must be combined with our work to strengthen the defence of our country, to strengthen the Red Army and the Red Navy, to mobilise the whole country for the purpose of resisting military attack and attempts to restore bourgeois relations. This is what Lenin says on this score : "We are living not merely in a State but in a system of States, and it is inconceivable that the Soviet Republic should continue to coexist for a long period side by side with imperialist States. Ultimately one or other must conquer. Meanwhile, a number of terrible clashes between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States is inevitable. This means that if the proletariat, as the ruling class, wants to and will rule, it must prove this also by military organization." (Collected Works, Vol. 24. P. 122.) And further: "We are surrounded by people, classes and governments which openly express their hatred for us. We must remember that we are at all times but a hair's breadth from invasion." (Collected Works, Vol. 27. P. 117.) This is said sharply and strongly but honestly and truthfully without embellishment as Lenin was able to speak.”(1)

Stalin justifies the reason for Socialism in One Country, that due to their conditions they had to build Socialism by themselves, that they could not just sit around and wait for allies, and that at all times they are in danger of invasion, as Lenin points out, Critics of Stalin may say that “if trotsky won the battle for leadership after Lenin’s death, the USSR would have done more to further world Socialism”. This claim is utter rubbish, the USSR would have been under the same conditions under Trotsky as they were under Stalin, to claim anything else is to reject the Marxist conception of history and replace it with “Great Man Theory”, as if Trotsky could have altered the conditions of Russia, a state actively surrounded by hostile states. If anything Trotsky would have followed a line similar to Stalin due to the undeniably strategically bad position at the time, the fact they could not expand out with other revolutions in Europe put a large dent into Trotsky’s theory of “Permanent Revolution”, which sees the combined efforts of many Socialist revolutions as key to world revolution, while Socialism in One Country sees that they must develop their state and help outside revolutions when they can, as they did for the Chinese Communist Party from the 1920s - 40s.

Stalin on Commodity production under Socialism, its role, and State Capitalism

First we must discuss the title, “Commodity Production Under Socialism” refers to the production of commodities done by what Stalin calls “Socialist producers”, meaning state owned industry. These industries were tasked with producing machinery that are exchanged with the peasants for food(3), it was because of this that Lenin stated that the USSR needed to preserve commodity production for a time, Stalin summarises Lenin’s point as such:

“e) In order to ensure an economic bond between town and country, between industry and agriculture, commodity production (exchange through purchase and sale) should be preserved for a certain period, it being the form of economic tie with the town which is alone acceptable to the peasants, and Soviet trade — state, cooperative, and collective-farm — should be developed to the full and the capitalists of all types and descriptions ousted from trading activity”(6)

Stalin further summarises the role of commodity production in the economy:

“Consequently, our commodity production is not of the ordinary type, but is a special kind of commodity production, commodity production without capitalists, which is concerned mainly with the goods of associated socialist producers (the state, the collective farms, the cooperatives), the sphere of action of which is confined to items of personal consumption, which obviously cannot possibly develop into capitalist production, and which, together with its “money economy,” is designed to serve the development and consolidation of socialist production.”(6)

Stating clearly they are developing and consolidating Socialist production in the period of developing to Socialism, it is not society wide commodity production, but restrained commodity production, done by state owned industry in order to develop production so that they can build and achieve Socialism.

One must remember the state the USSR was in during this time, after the devastation of World War II, and it was mostly isolated, it was forced to produce all of its materials to develop to Socialism, which is only possible through allowing limited commodity production with state oversight. This is not a theory for Socialism, but a theory on how to achieve Socialism for countries in a similar position to the USSR at the time, as Stalin said:

“The history of socialist construction in our country has shown that this path of development, mapped out by Lenin, has fully justified itself. There can be no doubt that in the case of all capitalist countries with a more or less numerous class of small and medium producers, this path of development is the only possible and expedient one for the victory of socialism.”(6)

Stalin also states that they will abolish Commodity Production in the future:

“Of course, when instead of the two basic production sectors, the state sector and the collective-farm sector, there will be only one all-embracing production sector, with the right to dispose of all the consumer goods produced in the country, commodity circulation, with its “money economy,” will disappear, as being an unnecessary element in the national economy. But so long as this is not the case, so long as the two basic production sectors remain, commodity production and commodity circulation must remain in force, as a necessary and very useful element in our system of national economy.”(6)

What he is describing is the creation of full Socialism, when the commodity circulation and the money economy are no longer needed for transition, then it will disappear as the whole economy is transformed into one all-embracing production sector, so again we see that Stalin is showing us that the USSR is in a period of construction and development to Socialism, a work in progress, that requires commodity production as a key part of this development, and so once the economy has developed to such an extent that a full Socialist economy is possible, then and only then will Commodity production disappear, and all means of production are seized for the whole of society as on all-embracing production sector, as Engels said before.

Many critics of Stalin also like to claim that the USSR was “State Capitalism”, but let us see how Lenin defines State Capitalism in his work “State and Revolution”

“The imperialist war has immensely accelerated and intensified the process of transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. The monstrous oppression of the working people by the state, which is merging more and more with the all-powerful capitalist associations, is becoming increasingly monstrous.”(9)

And then said

“...the era of gigantic capitalist monopolies, of the development of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism--has clearly shown an unprecedented growth in its bureaucratic and military apparatus in connection with the intensification of repressive measures against the proletariat both in the monarchical and in the freest, republican countries”(9)

And then he says

“At the present the postal service is a business organized on the lines of state-capitalist monopoly. Imperialism is gradually transforming all trusts into organizations of a similar type, in which, standing over the “common” people, who are overworked and starved, one has the same bourgeois bureaucracy.”(9)

State Capitalism, therefore, is defined by the build up of the Bourgeois bureaucracy, of military, and of the transformation of all trusts into bourgeois bureaucracies, that serve the interests of Capital, and that have merged with the state apparatus to oppress the workers. This does not describe the USSR in the slightest, it is an attempt by critics to disregard the definition of State Capitalism and apply it to the USSR, for no other reason than to disregard the USSR as state building to Socialism. These critics intentionally or not imply The USSR made no advances since the NEP, Which is nothing but a lie that ignores the development of the 5 year plans.

It is true that the economic base of the USSR is Capitalism, however It is not the Capitalism of the US or Scandinavia, it in fact had no equivalent until China emerged as a fellow state building to Socialism. When looking at the USSR, in evaluating the economy, its developments, and how different it is from the Capitalist States. in my view the only word you could describe this kind of economy with is “Socialist” or “Socialistic”, of course just because the USSR is closer to Socialism than Capitalism doesn't make it Socialism, and it would be misunderstanding the whole point to make such a claim, the point is that Stalin was a writer, and in order to describe the economy of the USSR he could have really only used “Socialism” due to lack of a better term, a more accurate term that keeps in mind the transitional nature of the USSR’s economy.

This is not an issue exclusive to Stalin, the same has happened with Marx in “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, in which Marx calls Socialism the “lower phase of Communist society” and full Communism the “higher stage of Communist society”. This has no doubt caused confusion for many. When Marx says “the future state of Communist society”, some belief that this means that Communism has a state, those who know only Gotha would no doubt think Marx contradicted himself, that Marx has gone back on statelessness and become a statist, as some, who have only read “economic problems of socialism in the USSR” might do with Stalin, however it is incorrect to do so in either case. We have seen before that Stalin has said that Socialism Is classless and that achieving Socialism requires commodity production to be abolished. The same is true for Marx, In the Communist Manifesto he, with Engels, discusses the withering of the State and Communism, the key distinction is that Gotha is not talking about the higher phase of communist society, but the lower phase, Socialism and the transition to it. This is the same as what Stalin is doing, in economic problems he discusses the economy of the USSR, in some places referring to Socialism generally, but he mainly talks about the economy of the USSR, therefore a distinction can be made between what Stalin said on Socialism generally in 1906 and 1938, and what he says as an analysis on the USSR's economy in 1951, which should be regarded as primarily an analysis of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and how it can develop to Socialism in states of similar conditions.

Consider then that this article may act as somewhat of a safeguard against such misunderstandings and confusion between Socialism and the period of economic construction to it, and help the reader understand Stalin’s works more easily.

Notes

(1) Letter from Ivan Ivanov to Stalin, Stalin’s reply to Ivanov https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm

(2) Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/anti_duhring.pdf

(3) Joseph Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism? https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm

(4) Joseph Stalin, The Agrarian Question, 1906 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/03/x01.htm

(5) Joseph Stalin, Reply to Kushtysev https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/12/28.htm

(6) Joseph Stalin, Economic problems of Socialism in the USSR, 1951 https://archive.org/details/economic-problems-of-socialism-in-the-ussr/page/6/mode/2up

(7) Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf

(8) Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, 1936 https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/revbetray.pdf

(9) Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf