"At the present stage we must choose from two alternatives. Either we must prohibit every kind of private exchange of goods, otherwise capitalism. Such a policy is idiotic and would mean suicide for the party attempting to introduce it, for such policy is economically impossible. The other alternative is to aid the development of capitalism in Russia, while we are trying to transform it into state capitalism. This is economically possible and does not contradict the proletarian dictatorship. On the contrary state capitalism is one stage in the advance of free capitalism."
The pessimism prevailing in Communist circles Lenine explains by the mistake in comparing how much state capitalism is behind Socialism. One should compare how much state capitalism is in advance of petty bourgeois economy. "Only then," concludes the dictator, "will we see how great the progress is we have made. The chief problem now is to find the proper methods of how to turn the inevitable growth of capitalism in Russia into the form of state capitalism now and assist in securing speedy conversion of state capitalism into Socialism."
Another passage from the same speech (taken from the Bolshevist organ, Pravda, and reproduced in the German Socialist Press) explains even more clearly Lenin's motive in advocating the policy of state capitalism. As Lenin said, "the Communists did not need to fear the development of state capitalism as they can fix limits for it to suit themselves. Capitalism under the control of a state in which the proletariat held all the power in its hands, was not contradictory to the ideas of Communism."
Changes are taking place in Soviet Russia. But what is the nature of these changes? That is the question. It cannot be answered either by the Bolshevists
