Socialism in One Country - Relation To Leninism

Relation To Leninism

Stalin claimed that his theory of "Socialism in one country" is a further development of Leninism. In his February 14, 1938 Response to Comrade Ivanov ("Ответ товарищу Иванову, Ивану Филиповичу"), formulated as an answer to a question of a "comrade Ivanov" mailed to Pravda newspaper, Stalin splits the question in two parts. The first side of the question is in terms of the internal relations within the Soviet Union: whether it is possible to construct the Socialist Society by defeating the local bourgeoisie and fostering the union of workers and peasants.

Stalin quotes Lenin that "we have everything necessary to construct the complete socialism" and claims that despite the claims of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev ("who later became spies and fascist agents", in Stalin's words), the socialist society has for the most part been indeed constructed. The second side of the question is in terms of external relations: whether the victory of the socialism is "final", i.e., whether capitalism cannot possibly be restored. Here Stalin cites Lenin that the final victory is possible only on the international scale and only with the help of the workers of other countries.

In other words, Stalin draws a line between the "victory of socialism or the victory of socialist construction in one country" and the "ultimate victory of socialism" stating that the latter problem cannot be solved only by internal efforts.