As soon as it has won victory in the revolutionary war–and even as it wins control of key areas in the course of that war–while it is instituting the new organs of political power of the masses, the proletariat will immediately take control of the organization of production. As they face defeat on the battlefield, the capitalists and their faithful representatives will not simply flee and abandon the factories, railroads, etc., but will attempt to sabotage and destroy them in order to prevent the proletariat from taking hold of and using them. The workers, with the overall leadership of the Party, must actively combat and prevent this and seize control of and safeguard these vital productive facilities and carry out production to serve the proletarian revolution.
This will establish the basis for moving quickly to socialize ownership in industry, beginning with the largest and most decisive factories and other facilities. Those management and supervisory personnel–especially among the lower levels–who have not been active and die-hard defenders of the old order, and who are willing to accept the direction and supervision of the masses of workers and assist in organizing and carrying out production on that basis, will be allowed and encouraged to do so. The same policy will be applied to owners of small plants. But, from the beginning, forms of management and organization of production that involve and rely on the masses will be developed and strengthened. The exploitation of the workers and their subordination to authority in the work place corresponding to such exploitation will be quickly abolished as the workers take control of the factories. And, further, the factories will no longer be just workplaces, but will also become political centers and arenas of class struggle in which the battle to transform society will have a sharp and crucial focus.
As for small shopkeepers, artisans and other self-employed working people, with the exception of those who have committed counter-revolutionary crimes and must be imprisoned or otherwise punished, they will be united with and their economic activity will be coordinated into the overall functioning of the economy. Gradually over a period of time, the proletariat, on the basis of socializing industry and planning socialist economic development, will lead these strata in developing cooperative forms of ownership and collective labor to carry out their former and other economic functions. Only later, in tempo with the development of the socialist economy, will they be transformed into state employees.
The proletariat, as it wins power, will also take over the large hospitals and similar institutions, applying the same basic policies there as in the factories and other workplaces. Not only will the workers in these hospitals be the base of proletarian power there, exercising control and supervision over their functioning and management, but many among the professional strata–including nurses and even a number of doctors–will make important contributions to the proletariat’s struggle for power and will be allies of the workers in controlling the hospitals and actually making them serve the needs of the masses, eliminating the outrageous situation where health care is dominated by the dictates of capital and profit and is beyond the reach of many of the masses to begin with.
One of the most pressing questions the proletariat will face as it takes control of society will be providing housing for the masses that is fit for the shelter and comfort of human beings. One of its first steps will be to take hold of the mansions of the capitalists, as well as their fancy hotels, convention centers, and even office buildings–much of which are unused–and move in masses who are literally homeless; some of these structures will be permanently transformed into housing for the masses, while as rapidly as possible new housing is also built. With regard to apartment buildings and complexes, those which are owned by large capital, “slumlords,” etc. will be taken over quickly and without compensation by the state, and in these situations as well as in the emergency housing described above, the masses will be mobilized to protect and manage them. Small landlords, who own only one or a few units will be allowed to continue collecting rents on them for a period of time, but they will have no power to evict and the rents will be set by the state. As soon as possible, in conformity with the overall construction of housing and the development of the economy as a whole, the state will buy out these small landlords and convert these units into state property.
Those among the people–the working class and its allies–who own their own homes (or, more often, are still buying them from the bank, etc. while living in them) will not only have the right to retain these homes but will have all debts connected with them cancelled and be granted ownership outright. Where they own more than one home and are employing one or more as rental property, the policy toward small landlords will be applied to those properties where they do not live.
The steps and policies outlined so far, as well as others, will be possible to maintain and develop, however, only on the basis that the proletariat, through its state and with the leadership of its Party, moves very quickly and decisively to control the key levers and lifelines of the economy. Once the proletariat has seized power and the workers have seized control of the main productive facilities in industry, these must be brought under state ownership. The large factories will be expropriated by the state right away and without compensation to the former capitalist owners. On the other hand with regard to small plants, the state may, depending on the circumstances there as well as the overall situation, proceed more slowly with the expropriation and pay compensation to the former owner. Unless it moves in this way to establish state ownership, it will be impossible for the proletariat to regulate production and the economy as a whole, the anarchy characteristic of capitalism will reign, and capitalists–mainly the old ones but in a few cases some new ones who have emerged from among the workers, lower-level managers, etc.–will be back in control of the factories, and the society as a whole. State ownership combined with reliance on the workers in the factories to take the lead in organizing production and supervising management–this is the form in which the proletariat will exercise its control of industry as a first great step after seizing political power.
At the same time, the proletarian state will immediately move to exercise control over money and finance. The large capitalist banks and similar financial institutions will be deprived of all authority and functioning, their holdings and claims nullified, while small banks will be brought under strict regulation by the state–and later will be brought under state ownership, in some cases with compensation. As quickly as possible, the proletarian state will also establish and introduce into circulation a new currency, requiring those with the old currency to exchange it for the new with the state-controlled financial institutions. The overthrown capitalists, many of whom will escape the proletarian army and in some cases disguise themselves, will do everything possible to hold onto their hoards of ill-gotten wealth and will even attempt to flood the old currency into circulation in order to sabotage the economy and the rule of the proletariat. While the masses must be mobilized to search out and seize this hoarded wealth and turn it over to the state, the introduction of a new currency and the firm control of finance by the proletarian state is essential to combat this and other sabotage, to stabilize prices and more than that to develop the economy along socialist lines. Only in the far distant future, when the vestiges of commodity production and exchange have been eliminated, will it be possible to abolish money as a medium of exchange.
Similarly, the proletarian state will move quickly to control the various spheres of trade, both within the country and with other countries. By achieving state ownership of the major industrial means of production–factories, machinery, etc.–the proletariat takes a great step toward controlling trade as well, for this puts the exchanges between such factories directly in the control of the state. But other, generally smaller units of production will for some time remain in the hands of either private or cooperative owners and in addition there will for some time remain smaller-scale merchant operations, both individual and cooperative; and for these reasons the proletarian state must exercise firm control over trade and continually increase its own direct role in the exchange of products as well as set and enforce price standards, combat “black market” activities, etc.
The proletariat in power, in order to build socialism, must also carry on some trade with other countries. But there is a sharp contradiction here: while these other countries may have materials needed by the socialist state, and in turn need things which the socialist state is able to trade, those countries under imperialist and reactionary rule do not seek to carry out trade for mutual benefit but on unequal terms and as a means for gaining leverage in other countries–and this is all the more the case when they are dealing with a socialist state. Therefore, for the socialist state to carry out international trade on the correct lines, in conformity with building socialism, it must first of all subordinate such trade to the self-reliant struggle of the masses in building socialism and, in addition, wage struggle to force the imperialist and reactionary states to accept trade terms based on equality and mutual benefit. If it allows itself to become dependent on such trade and entangled in imperialist economic and financial arrangements, the proletariat in power will not long be able to maintain power or carry out socialist construction.
At the same time, the new state must abolish all unequal trade relations, in which the U.S. imperialists have entangled and bled scores of nations and must compensate for and make provisions to overcome this economic dependency. For example, the economies of many foreign countries are now, and will be for a time after the U.S. proletarian revolution, dependent on spare parts from this country, and the new proletarian state cannot act like an international overlord and cut off their supply to those nations formerly oppressed by U.S. imperialism or in any way use such a situation to carry out economic or political blackmail. It must meet obligations while at the same time creating new relations of equality and mutual benefit.
With the establishment of socialist state ownership in industry–or at least of the major means of production–and of the control of finance and trade by the proletarian state, the question remains of how to further develop socialist relations and socialist production, both within particular factories (and similar units) and between them. This includes such questions as management, the role of technical personnel–engineers, researchers, etc.–and their relation to the productive workers. It also involves other questions of the division of labor within the factories, for example between more and less skilled workers, and between factories–that is, how the specific production of different factories relates to the others, especially those who either provide materials for a given factory or use materials provided by it (a rubber plant in relation to an auto factory and a machine-building plant would be an example).
In general, upon seizing and consolidating its state power and achieving state ownership of the major industrial means of production, the proletariat will still be faced, for a fairly long period, with the necessity to employ, even in state-owned enterprises, fairly large numbers of technicians and even some supervisory and management personnel who were trained in the old society and served the capitalist owners in the past. This is because it will take some time for the workers to master the scientific, technical and organizational knowledge and skills necessary to carry out these functions. While this is being actively developed, the proletarian state will not only have to rely to a significant extent on the old technicians, etc. but will have to take into account that in the old society they generally received rather large salaries; in order to get them to work for the proletariat and socialist construction and to minimize sabotage on their part, it will be necessary to continue to pay them quite a bit more than the production workers. On the other hand, the proletariat cannot allow them to use their temporary monopoly of certain important knowledge and skills as capital in the literal sense–they cannot be allowed to command production and the production workers, and on the contrary they must in an overall sense accept the supervision of the masses of workers. And further, consistent and urgent efforts must be made and struggle carried out both to educate, train and involve workers in these skilled, intellectual capacities and to involve the technical, managerial and similar personnel in productive labor together with the masses of workers.
The same basic approach must be taken toward the divisions among the productive workers themselves in regard to skills, etc.–production must be organized and workers must have a post within the overall production process, but they must not be chained to it. Instead, they must have one post at any given time but develop many different skills and learn to master all phases of the production process–as well as technical and management work, etc.
Another problem confronting the proletariat in carrying out the socialist transformation and development of the economy is the fact that, because of the high degree of parasitism of imperialism, and U.S. imperialism in particular, there are many, even millions of people–such as bureaucrats in the corporate as well as government structure, salesmen, advertising men, etc.–whose old functions will be unnecessary under and contrary to socialism. To the degree possible–and with the specific exception of conscious counter-revolutionaries, especially among the upper ranks of these strata–the proletariat will seek to utilize these people in technical, managerial and other similar functions, and in general it will make some concessions to their previous standard of living. But, again, they will not be allowed to lord it over the masses or to command production, scientific research, etc. but instead must accept the overall supervision of the masses.
With regard to the relations between different factories and other production units, again the basic principle is that, while of course there must be a division of labor between them–that is, they must produce different products–in order for the economy to be developed in a balanced and proportionate way, and while in fact only socialist transformation will make possible a rational plan for such a division, nevertheless, this division, too, must not be made an absolute. Specifically, delegations of workers from the different factories will regularly be organized to have discussions with each other, exchange experience about production, discuss the quality of and problems with the products exchanged between them, and so on. In this way as well as others, the workers in the various spheres of production will become more conscious of the process of production and exchange in socialist society as a whole, and the masses of workers will be able to strengthen their conscious mastery over production and all of society.
For a fairly long period of time, cost-accounting methods and some survivals of commodity exchange will have to be used within the factories and in exchanges between them. That is, although the state will be the owner of the factories as well as their means of production and although the workers’ wages will be paid by the state, nevertheless the state will not simply assign means of production to the various factories, set the wage scales and then deliver the product to another factory (or to the state or other stores for sale). Rather, the state may set some very small interest charge to the factory in exchange for machinery, raw materials, etc.; and in the exchanges between factories some form of contracts will be used. All this is necessary to ensure the most rational and efficient production and exchange, but it is also clearly a survival of capitalism that the proletariat must move to eventually eliminate. And in the meantime, socialist relations of cooperation and the breaking down of the division of labor, within and between factories and other economic units, must be vigorously promoted.
So far, only industry has been directly touched on. But, although the agricultural population in the U.S., including both farmworkers and farm owners, is very small–in absolute numbers and relative both to the rest of the U.S. population and to the agricultural population of most other countries, even other imperialist countries–agriculture is the foundation of any economy, and agricultural production in the U.S. is extremely important and will be a crucial question for the proletarian revolution, both in winning power and in carrying out socialist transformation. And, in fact, the high level of development of U.S. agriculture, and even the fact that there are so few farm owners, will be an advantage for the proletariat in this country.
On the other hand, it is true in the U.S. as elsewhere that agriculture lags behind industry. One of the manifestations of this is the fact that, although large numbers of farmers have been and continue to be wiped out under the weight of large capital in both production of farm equipment and purchase of farm products, the big capitalists have not in large part gone directly into farming but more generally have “surrounded” the small farmer by controlling the input and output sectors.
The result of all this is that not only are large numbers of farmers driven under each year, but even among those still hanging on large numbers are forced to work part of the time off their own farm, either for other farm concerns or in industry. Thus, a significant number of farmers are actually semi-proletarians–that is, they earn part of their livelihood by working as hired wage laborers, even if in fairly skilled categories in many, probably most, cases. The plight of the majority of farmers in the U.S. is a clear illustration of the fact that for most of the petty bourgeoisie they have no way out of their situation except to unite with the proletariat and the socialist transformation of society.
In the first great act of the proletarian revolution, in the revolutionary war itself, the political and military struggle for control of the rural farming areas (and of the important transport and processing facilities located there) will be of extreme importance. To win this struggle the working class, while relying principally on its own forces and its main allies in the cities as well as the agricultural proletariat, will have to unite with significant numbers of small, middle-sized and even some large farmers. Once state power is effectively consolidated by the proletariat, it will be both possible and necessary to proceed with a relatively rapid socialization of agricultural production, largely by-passing the cooperative forms that have proved necessary in economically backward countries with extensive peasant agricultures. But in carrying this out the proletariat will have to take into account the concrete conditions, including not only the fact that agriculture in the U.S., though comparatively highly developed, still lags behind industry, but also the differing local conditions and the particularities of the varied branches of agriculture as well as the immediate effects upon the productive forces and specifically rural society of civil war–and perhaps, also, inter-imperialist war. The basic approach of the proletariat will be to lead the step-by-step but fairly rapid transformation of agriculture by first removing it from the clutches of big capital and advancing, by stages and according to the specific conditions, to socialist ownership.
The main criterion of the proletariat in determining friends and enemies among the farmers and uniting with the former to oppose and defeat the latter, will not be the size of their farms (though that will be taken into account to some degree) but whether or not and to what degree they exploit wage labor. Some large farms, for example in grain, are worked entirely or overwhelmingly by their owner-operators (including the family), who may hire only a very small number of workers; on the other hand, some smaller farms, for example in fruits and vegetables, employ significant numbers of wage laborers and many even depend mainly on these farmworkers for production. In general, those farmers who exploit little or no labor, on small, medium, or even large-sized farms, will be united with; those who exploit a large amount of labor, and especially those who depend largely on this, will be the target of the revolution, even though their farms may be smaller than some of those with whom the proletariat seeks to unite.
Upon seizing power, the proletariat will nationalize and place at the service of the masses in the whole country the great farm input and output monopolies which today exert such dominance over production and distribution of farm products. Further, in expropriating the banks and other major financial institutions, the proletariat will cancel the debt burden on the large majority of farmers. But, most important, the proletarian state will eliminate the fetter of rent in various forms (including mortgages) on agriculture– and society as a whole–by immediately nationalizing all the land and assigning it rent-free to the farmers with whom the proletariat unites. Nationalization of land stands at the center of the proletariat’s strategy for uniting with its allies among the farmers: it is a first and major step which must and will be taken even as state power is being consolidated. And immediately with the seizure of power, those large landowners who do not farm their own property and big farmers who are mainly dependent on hired labor will be expropriated without compensation, and their lands–as well as other capital assets–will be turned over to the farmworkers and semi-proletarian small farmers, wherever possible through the establishment of state farms. On the other hand, as an immediate step, the great majority of owner-operators who do not exploit labor to any significant degree, whether their holdings are small, medium or even fairly large, will be compensated for the equity they formerly held by being allotted shares of nationalized land, based on such equity, and allowed to farm these properties themselves–provided they do not actively oppose the revolution, including its struggle to gain control over significant non-farm assets in which some large farmers may have proprietary interests. Tenants, of course, will also be granted assistance in farming their old plots.
These actions, together with the firm consolidation of its power by the proletariat and its first major steps in transforming industry along socialist lines, will clear the way for the rapid and balanced development of socialized agriculture. On the basis of the initial nationalization of the land, the proletariat, relying first and foremost on the agricultural workers and secondly on the masses of (mainly) non-exploiting farmers, will not only be able to achieve increased production on expropriated and state-owned land, but also to bring about in a fairly short period the socialization of farm equipment and ownership and of agricultural production in general, again mainly through the establishment of nationalized state farms. This will depend, specifically in regard to the proletariat’s farmer allies, not on political compulsion but on winning them to see that such socialization is the only way forward, the only way to move beyond the conditions characteristic of capitalism that dictate that they will be ruined and crushed. And in this the uncompromising stand and resolute measures of the proletariat and its state against big capital, shattering its political rule and breaking its stranglehold on the economy, in agriculture as well as industry, will be of decisive importance. But, on the other hand, while aiming its spearhead in this direction and uniting with the (mainly) non-exploiting farmers on the basis of and through the measures already summarized, the proletariat cannot conciliate with the petty proprietor aspects of these farmers’ outlook and inclinations, for this would only weaken not strengthen this alliance–and in fact will only send the farmers, as well as other middle forces, scurrying to the enemy camp.
The strongest basis for advancing to socialized agriculture will exist in those areas which today employ large numbers of hired workers. Here socialization will begin almost immediately upon the seizure of power. But even in farming where individual ownership, and individualism, has its strongest base, such as grain, conditions will not generally be unfavorable for the development of state-owned agriculture. For just as the monopoly bourgeoisie was able to “surround” the farmer through control of the input and output sectors, so too the proletarian state will be able to use its control of these sectors, with profoundly different objectives and employing very different methods, to influence the farmers in the direction of socialization. The proletariat’s control of these sectors, through its state, will not be utilized, as today under capitalism, to squeeze the farmers, but to assist them and the agricultural population in general to acquire and employ advanced machinery and technical know-how and develop agricultural production on nationalized land. This, together with the proletariat’s overall control of the key levers of the economy and its steps in carrying out socialist transformation in industry and the more favorable agricultural areas, will further strengthen the basis for moving forward to socialized state ownership in agriculture as a whole as well as industry.
As an important first step in overcoming the division between agriculture and industry and the urban and the rural areas, the proletariat will further develop industry in the rural areas in order to help link together agriculture and industry in those areas, and to link together the working people in both spheres. In addition, communication and transport as well as health care and other services will be greatly developed in rural areas in order to help eliminate this inequality left over from capitalism. Through all of this, it will become clear to many farmers that a guaranteed wage for farming paid by the state will be a far more effective source of security than various Utopian schemes under capitalism, such as parity. Moreover, even now under capitalism, with the increasing integration of agriculture and industry, many industrial workers, particularly those employed in farm equipment manufacture, canneries, grain storage and transport facilities and slaughterhouses, etc., work in or near farm areas; and once the proletariat has seized power and begun achieving the integration of agriculture and industry on a new basis, moving toward overcoming the gap between them and the subordination of agriculture to industry, these industrial workers will be able to play a significant role in the struggle in the rural areas, alongside farmworkers and the proletariat’s farmer allies.
Of course, the main force that the proletariat must and will rely on in agriculture are the millions of farmworkers–including the large number who under capitalism are employed only seasonally if at all but who under socialism will be not only immediately employed but relied on, together with the other farmworkers, as the main force in consolidating the political rule of the proletariat in the rural areas and carrying forward its policies for the socialist transforming of agriculture. Along with providing employment for the agricultural population as a whole, an immediate step of the proletariat, upon seizing power, will be to abolish the miserable conditions in which farmworkers are forced to live and labor under capitalism. Special priority will be given to constructing decent housing and other facilities for farmworkers and to providing them with the basic necessities, including health care. This will include so-called “illegals” many of whom are employed in agriculture. They will be immediately granted citizenship in the new proletarian state and not only provided employment but fully involved in every aspect of ruling and remaking society.
Where, for a brief period at the very beginning, some hiring of farmworkers by individual owner-operators may have to be allowed, because of the specific conditions in an area as well as the general situation, from the start the wages and working conditions of these workers will be established by the proletarian state, and the farmworkers themselves will be mobilized in enacting these policies. Further, such private employment and exploitation of wage labor in agriculture will be quickly abolished as the proletariat consolidates its control in those areas and its rule in society as a whole. Where it corresponds to the concrete conditions, socialization of the farm land, equipment, etc., will be rapidly carried out, according to the principles already discussed. Where that is not possible for a time, farmworkers will be employed on state farms that have already been established or organized to establish state farms on land that is expropriated and/or reclaimed from waste; they will be relied on as the main force in moving to socialized state ownership of these farm areas as quickly as possible. And overall, as the proletariat leads its allies in carrying out such transformation to state ownership and then in further transforming the relations between people within these state farms, those who were the exploited hired laborers under capitalism will become the leading force in organizing production, supervising management, breaking down the old division of labor and strengthening the proletariat’s mastery over the production process, in agriculture as well as in industry, and ultimately over the society, as a whole.
In forging the alliance with its allies in the agricultural areas, both to overthrow the bourgeoisie and then carry out socialist transformation, the proletariat will pay special attention to the national question. A disproportionately large number of farmworkers are recruited from the ranks of the oppressed peoples within the U.S., and the high rates of exploitation and the particularly degrading conditions associated with agricultural labor, while they have a basis in the overall dominance of industry over agriculture and the relative backwardness of the latter, are also closely linked with and intensified by the whole structure of national oppression and discrimination against these peoples. On the other hand, the link between national oppression and agricultural labor has also meant that the struggle in each arena has been infused with more militancy and revolutionary sentiments and has established a broader basis for unity and mutual support between the urban and farming masses in general. This is something the proletariat must further strengthen and build on in its struggle to seize power and revolutionize society. And in order to do this it must win the broadest masses to implement policies that strike at the whole history and present structures of national oppression, with the question of land and agricultural conditions generally an important focus of that.
Although, today, the oppression of Black people is not in the main or in essence a land question, this is its historical basis, and still today remnants of the sharecropping system in the South survive. In addition, large numbers of Black people, over the past several generations, have been viciously expropriated of literally millions of acres of land by large landholders and big capital in general. As part of its overall agricultural policy of expropriating without compensation the major exploiting landholders and nationalizing land as its first major step, the proletariat in power will uphold the right of Black people, who were by various means driven off the land they owned or worked, to return to and farm that land. On the other hand, it will generally not encourage such a “return to the land,” and the class-conscious proletariat will in this case as all others struggle to win people to base their actions on the overall needs of the proletariat in maintaining its state power and transforming the economy and the society as a whole along socialist lines.
The proletarian state, in nationalizing the land and carrying out its overall agricultural policy will also take account of and make provision for the right to land of the Native American peoples and the Chicanos of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, rights guaranteed by treaties which have been and continue to be consistently broken by the bourgeoisie. And, again, at the same time it will adopt specific policies to assist these oppressed peoples to utilize and develop such land and its resources and to carry out these efforts in unity with the overall needs of the proletariat in power and its concrete steps to abolish exploitation, control and develop the economy in the interests of the masses of people and revolutionize all of society.
In the economic, political and social relations in the agricultural areas as a whole, as well as in the entire society, the proletarian state will also take immediate steps to put an end to discrimination in fact and to overcome the whole legacy of such discrimination and national oppression in general. This will be firmly applied in employment, housing, education and other such spheres and in the area of language and culture. In this way, and more generally through its overall policy in agriculture, as well as throughout society, the proletariat will unite with and fully unleash the profound desire and tremendous potential of the oppressed peoples to overcome not only the special degradation to which they have been subjected but the backwardness and disfigurement that capitalism has imposed on society in general.
Broadly speaking, transforming agriculture and integrating it with industry on a socialist basis is a critical question for the proletariat upon coming to power, a question it must and will move quickly and decisively to tackle by applying the overall line and specific policies that enable it to firmly unite its own ranks, win over its allies and advance step by step but as rapidly as possible to the victory of socialism over capitalism in agriculture, a decisive victory in the entire battle for the triumph of socialism.
In order to integrate agriculture and industry in overall socialist production, the proletariat, on the basis of state ownership of the major means of production in industry and the nationalization of land and some state ownership in agriculture, will institute planning for the economy as a whole. This will take into account not only the various sectors of industry and agriculture, but also the various levels of socialization of ownership that have been achieved, as well as the remaining small-scale private ownership in production and trade. This planning will include the basic decisions as to the allocation of the work force in the various areas of the country and spheres of the economy. Where people work will be based no longer on the anarchistic drive of competing capitalists for profit, but on the overall needs of the proletariat in carrying forward the socialist revolution and socialist economic construction. The Party will mobilize its own members, and other class-conscious people who volunteer, to be the leading force in going where work is most difficult; and in general, through the schools, factories, neighborhood committees, etc., and under the centralized leadership of the Party and state, the people will be mobilized and assigned to meet the requirements of the plan in various areas and economic spheres.
Planning is a crucial weapon of the proletariat in exercising and strengthening its control over the economy and carrying out further socialist transformation. But planning itself is neither equivalent to socialism nor guarantees it. And planning cannot simply be left to planners–full-time intellectual workers and officials–if it is to be socialist planning. Rather, in carrying out socialist planning, the state, with the Party playing the leading role, must investigate and draw on the experience and ideas of the masses, who themselves must be organized to sum up this experience and make suggestions with regard to planning, not only on the basic level but for the country as a whole. Then this must be systematized and synthesized, and an overall plan for the economy developed, which in turn must be taken up, discussed and carried out by the masses. Further, nothing in life proceeds in a straight line and many new things will arise and experiences will be gained in the course of carrying out a plan, especially a longer-term one, such as one covering five years or so. Therefore, the experience in carrying out the plan must be repeatedly summed up, by the same basic methods through which the plan was developed to begin with, and the plan must be adjusted accordingly. Thus planning, like all other aspects of transforming and developing the economy, and all other spheres of society, along socialist lines, is a process of struggle–against bourgeois-bureaucratic conceptions and methods and those who would practice them–which can only be carried out in the interests of the proletariat by involving and fundamentally relying on the masses with the guidance of a scientific, Marxist line and method.