The quote from Stalin here is kind of long, but it was a good, simple criticism on why the US will never properly handle poverty and unemployment while there are still capitalists. I'm about to go to sleep but I thought some of you might like it if you've never read the interview.

Joseph Stalin and H. G. Wells, Marxism VS. Liberalism: An Interview

EXHIBIT No. 44

[New York, New Century Publishers, September 1937; reprinted October 1950. Joseph Stalin and H. G. Wells, Marxism VS. Liberalism: An Interview.]

NOTE H. G. Wells visited the Soviet Union in 1934 and on July 23 he inter­viewed Joseph Stalin. The conversation, lasting from 4 P. M. to 6:50 P. M., was recorded by Constantine Oumansky, then head of the Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The text, as printed in this pamphlet, has been approved by Mr. Wells.

Wells: My visit to the United States excited my mind. The old financial world is collapsing; the economic life of the country is being reorganized on new lines. Lenin said: "We must learn to do business," learn this from the capitalists. Today the capitalists have to learn from you, to grasp the spirit of socialism. It seems to me that what is taking place in the United States is a profound reorganization, the creation of planned, that is, socialist, economy. You and Roosevelt begin from two different starting points. But is there not a relation in ideas, a kinship of ideas, between Washington and Moscow? In Washington I was struck by the same thing I see going on here; they are building offices, they are creating a number of new state regulation bodies, they are organizing a long-needed Civil Service. Their need, like yours, is directive ability.

STALIN: The United States is pursuing a different aim from that which we are pursuing in the U.S.S.R. The aim which the Americans are pursuing arose out of the economic troubles, out of the economic crisis. The Americans want to rid themselves of the crisis on the basis of private capitalist activity without changing the economic basis. They are trying to reduce to a minimum the ruin, the losses caused by the existing economic system.

Here, however, as you know, in place of the old destroyed economic basis an entirely different, a new economic basis has been created. Even if the Americans you mention partly achieve their aim, i.e., reduce these losses to a minimum, they will not destroy the roots of the anarchy which is inherent in the existing capitalist system. They are preserving the economic system which must inevitably lead, and cannot but lead, to anarchy in production. Thus, at best, it will be a matter, not of the reorganization of society, not of abolishing the old social system which gives rise to anarchy and crises, but of restricting certain of its bad features, restricting certain of its excesses.

Subjectively, perhaps, these Americans think they are reorganizing society; objectively, however, they are preserving the present basis of society. That is why, objectively, there will be no reorganization of society. Nor will there be planned economy.

What is planned economy? What are some of its attributes? Planned economy tries to abolish unemployment. Let us suppose it is possible, while preserving the capitalist system, to reduce unemployment to a certain minimum. But surely, no capitalist would ever agree to the complete abolition of unemployment, to the abolition of the reserve army of unemployed, the purpose of which is to bring pressure on the labor market, to ensure a supply of cheap labor. Here you have one of the rents in the "planned economy" of bourgeois society.

Furthermore, planned economy presupposes increased output in those branches of industry which produce goods that the masses of the people need particularly. But you know that the expansion of production under capitalism takes place for entirely different motives, that capital flows into those branches of economy in which the rate of profit is highest.

You will never compel a capitalist to incur loss to himself and agree to a lower rate of profit for the sake of satisfying the needs of the people. Without getting rid of the capitalists, without abolishing the principle of private property in the means of production, it is impossible to create planned economy.

  • Florn [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    The whole interview is fucking hilarious. Wells opens by asking Stalin how stoked he is to have Roosevelt, a socialist, in power in the U.S. and the entire rest of the conversation is Stalin trying as politely as he can to explain that he and Roosevelt do not represent the same social class and Wells just absolutely refuses to understand.

      • RNAi [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Decades pass but white libs never change

        • Florn [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          He literally says that socialists should side with the police in the face of reactionary violence in this interview

    • Florn [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Fuck if, I'm just gonna link it. Please read it, it's like a parody of every online conversation with a liberal.

      https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/07/23.htm

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      The kindest thing that can be said about Wells' political views is that they were better than one would expect for a wealthy white British man in the early 20th century

      Actually, come to think of it, his anti-imperialism made him better than 90% of modern succdems

  • RNAi [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Stalin failed to consider the total oligopolization of every part of the economy as a way to avert "anarchy of production" and swtiching from trying to fuck over other capitalists to the capitalist endgame of only worrying about fucking over the captured workers and costumers as much as possible.

    We have planned economy, the problem is who plans it.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      and costumers

      Stalin failed to predict the rise of Spirit Halloween.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      He had justified reason to believe that. The dominant American capitalists Stalin was familiar with were Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, guys like that. Complete and utter narcissists who'd hire mercenary mobsters to destroy their competition or assassinate union leaders. Large capitalists were gangsters, and this was still back when the American state would actually use its antitrust laws.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    It's really funny how patient and polite Stalin is in this interview. "I'm sure your FDR is a very nice man, sir."