Further by the text, Stalin continues taking a more detail view of L.D. Yaroshenko’s ideas and formulates his thought by means of the suitable quotation from Marx’s heritage:
«Marx said:
“In production, men not only act on nature but also on one another. They produce only by cooperating in a certain way and mutually exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production take place”». (Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital”, Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, p. 83.)[372].
Revealing himself with the help of this quotation to everyone willing as a true Marxist, J.V. Stalin pursues his thought and readdresses the ideas of L.D. Yaroshenko:
«Consequently, social production consists of two sides, which, although they are inseparably connected, reflect two different categories of relations: the relations of men to nature (productive forces), and the relations of men to one another in the process of production (production relations). Only when both sides of production are present do we have social production, whether it be under the socialist system or under any other social formation.
Comrade Yaroshenko, evidently, is not quite in agreement with Marx. He considers that this postulate of Marx is not applicable to the socialist system. Precisely for this reason he reduces the problem of the Political Economy of Socialism to the rational organization of the productive forces, discarding the production, the economic, relations and severing the productive forces from them.
If we followed Comrade Yaroshenko, therefore, what we would get is, instead of a Marxist political economy, something in the nature of Bogdanov's «Universal Organizing Science».
Hence, starting from the right idea that the productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary forces of production, Comrade Yaroshenko reduces the idea to an absurdity, to the point of denying the role of the production, the economic, relations under socialism; and instead of a full-blooded social production, what he gets is a lopsided and scraggy technology of production — something in the nature of Bukharin's «technique of social organization». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Concerning the Errors of Comrade L.D. Yaroshenko”, part 1. “Comrade Yaroshenko’s Chief Error”).
One comes to a conclusion that Yaroshenko’s addressing to non-Marxist views in his “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” for J.V. Stalin is only a convenient occasion to warn against mere declamation on the topic of so-thought enough replacement of a conceptually define theory by «a common-sense reasoning about rational organization of the productive forces in the social economics, scientific underpinning of such organization», and against nisus to take purchase on something qualitatively similar to “Universal Organizing Science” of A.A. Bogdanov in the development of the theory.
As for the first point — the so-called «common-sense reasoning» regarding organization of the processes of management and self-management in society in the pace of arising problems — Stalin during decades of his party and state work (especially after 1923 as the party and state power was being concentrated in his hands) has mastered in such kind of common-sense and amiss reasoning, that ran in lexical forms of Marxism and economical science, that conceptual expressed Self-focused mentality of the “elite” of the before-socialist formations. And when this reasoning was of common sense and this was demonstrated in the successes of the USSR economics, they hid actually full and desperate practical and theoretical inequality of Marxism from people who were not in management. J.V. Stalin was obviously not content with such a situation. And he very convincingly showed in his answer if not to comrade Yaroshenko, then to many readers of his work, that having pretensions to soundness of reasoning, that free from «scholastic argues» (i.e. from the necessity to define the meaning of each of the used definitions and their interrelations with each other and life[373]), comrade Yaroshenko in fact is not capable of such reasoning.
It becomes clear, if you understand that Stalin was not a Marxist, and Yaroshenko, understanding neither this fact, nor Marxism in its essence, pretended to creative development of the Marxist theory in the context of new historical circumstances. Accordingly, at the example of comrade Yaroshenko, in the form of criticism of non-Marxist viewpoints J.V. Stalin showed the sterility of attempts of the «creative development of the Marxist theory in the context of new historical circumstances» and turned the laugh against the leaning to «common-sense reasoning», that pretend to change the conceptually defined sustainable theory.
Generally, as the historical reality shows, the so-called «common-sense reasoning»:
either turns into creation of sustainable scientific theories, which do not reject common-sense reasons, but become their backbone in tackling the problems that arise before the society, revealing to the people the possibility of comprehending the problems and their reasons and also the ways and methods of their solving;
or stays a Self-focused schmooze, that is the source of life for, at times, rather large social groups, but is of no good for creation, and therefore can destroy a lot of things if to hang on it in the politics on the state and society[374].
One of the following examples of such kind of the «common-sense» reasoning is academic A.D. Sakharov (under the physiological dictate E. Bonner) and the whole dissenting movement that took place in the last decades of the USSR existence[375]: if to suppose that their goal was to destroy the USSR in order to drain million people dry and rule over them, and be parasitic on their labor and life, then A.D. Sakharov and his companions are just scoundrels; but if they hoped that after the downfall of the bureaucratic regime in the forms of nationality of the Soviet power all in the social life will go on «on its own» to the pleasure of everybody (i.e. there would be neither homeless, beggars, living at dump piles[376], nor seats of Civil War, and such social intestine calamities that took no place on the USSR, at least in the periods of its peaceful life) then they are fools, that were «deceived» and used by scoundrels, who stayed at the backstage of the following events.
However, in the foundation of such kind of foolishness is abiding ethics. In other words if academic Sakharov is someone’s conscience, then it is a very sick and perverted one. An earlier but a matter of record example of such «common-sense» reasoning on the topics of history and sociology is «Mein Kampf» by A. Hitler. In all appearance J.V. Stalin actively desired to see the nations of the USSR free from the power of such kind «common-sense» reasoning that ruled them and their fates.
Therefore a question about “Universal Organizing Science” by A.A. Bogdanov touched upon by Stalin is more significant, than just non-Marxist ideas of comrade Yaroshenko and his tendency to «common-sense» reasoning, that pretend to change the conceptually defined sustainable theory, becoming a matter of allusion of problematic of universal organizing science as such. And this is also a question of «conspiracies» [377] in the general context of “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”.
A.A. Bogdanov — Malinovsky (real last name) Alexander Alexandrovich (1873 — 1928) is an economist, philosopher, natural scientist, political leader, and fantasist; since 1896 until 1903 — a member of social-democratic party, joined the Bolsheviks. His views in many ways were of a non-Marxist character. In 1909 he dropped out of the party. In the following years linked up with different party groups. After the Great October social Revolution he gradually drew back from the politics and devoted himself to the scientific work (his basic education was medical). He is the organizer and the director (since 1926) of the first in the world Blood Transfusion Institution, that later was named after him. Malinovsky died on April 7, 1928 during the experiment on blood transfusion that he tried on himself (biographical background is based on the article about A.A. Bogdanov from the “Big Soviet Encyclopedia” (BSE), 3 edition, book 3, p. 442, 443).