These fragments show that J.V. Stalin understood that there was no way to escape the objective law of value in economy in the course of building Socialism and Communism. But management and economists’ ignorance prevented from achieving the utmost efficiency of planned Socialist economy of the USSR. The efficiency was improved by turning on market machinery of self-regulation of using available over and above the plan facilities. It was impossible to overcome this ignorance under the limitations of I-centered economic theories both: Marxism and private-owner theories. Without overcoming the ignorance they would not solve the problem of combining the plan of public utility conditioned by the population science and market machinery within one system of production and consumption.
This is not the whole story. If de-bureaucratization had been carried out it would have exposed ill-intentioned bureaucrats and would have enlightened ignorant bureaucrats on the basis of a theory alternative to Marxism. Then market machinery could have been subordinated to the planned beginning and the main economic law of socialism by means of the machinery of dues and donations and included into Socialism economy. But J.V. Stalin was not content with market machinery as a regulator. It did not guarantee superiority over Capitalism in the quality of economy management for in capitalism economy there had already been an attempt to combine a planned beginning on a national scale with market self-regulation. That was the reason for J.V. Stalin to set another object explaining the issue of the law of value under socialism. This object was more important than combining a plan and market machinery of self-regulation of using available over and above the plan facilities in the USSR national economy:
«In the second phase of communist society, the amount of labour expended on the production of goods will be measured not in a roundabout way, not through value and its forms, as is the case under commodity production, but directly and immediately — by the amount of time, the number of hours, expended on the production of goods <if we specify it as the time conditioned by techniques and organization and remember that scientific, technical, organizational and technological advance are held in store of plan stability then everything is right. There appear no unfounded manhours needed to make a scientific discovery>. As to the distribution of labour, its distribution among the branches of production will be regulated not by the law of value, which will have ceased to function by that time, but by the growth of society's demand for goods. It will be a society in which production will be regulated by the requirements of society, and computation of the requirements of society will acquire paramount importance for the planning bodies» (put in bold type by the authors: comments will be given later). (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Remarks on Economics Questions Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, part 3. “The Law of Value Under Socialism”).
If we go into particulars of direct responsiveness of people’s needs and production orientation towards them directly, it suggests the following. There should be created such systems of production and of production management and distribution that secure production of almost everything[427] at a pace that does not cause nuisance for a consumer during the time while his order is being executed.
J.V. Stalin realized this system was an alternative for the market, that could excel the market in efficiency. Naturally he did not wait for Communism to be built to move to this system but started it right away.
«We still have no developed system of products-exchange, but the rudiments of such a system exist in the shape of the "merchandising" of agricultural products. For quite a long time already, as we know, the products of the cotton-growing, flax-growing, beet-growing and other collective farms are "merchandised". They are not "merchandised" in full, it is true, but only partly, still they are "merchandised." Be it mentioned in passing that "merchandising" is not a happy word, and should be replaced by "products-exchange". The task is to extend these rudiments of products-exchange to all branches of agriculture and to develop them into a broad system, under which the collective farms would receive for their products not only money, but also and chiefly the manufactures they need. Such a system would require an immense increase in the goods allocated by the town to the country, and it would therefore have to be introduced without any particular hurry, and only as the products of the town multiply. But it must be introduced unswervingly and unhesitatingly, step by step contracting the sphere of operation of commodity circulation and widening the sphere of operation of products-exchange.
Such a system, by contracting the sphere of operation of commodity circulation, will facilitate the transition from socialism to communism. Moreover, it will make it possible to include the basic property of the collective farms, the product of collective farming, in the general system of national planning». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Reply to Comrades A.V. Sanina and V.G. Venzher” part 2).
If the state regarded this undertaking seriously more and more enterprises of all economic sectors would be involved in this system of self-regulation of production and consumption in the course of social and historic development. It could be achieved on the basis of virtual management structures of production and consumption products exchange[428]. But when J.V. Stalin died this way of development was cut short. Some economic reformers of the age of Khrushchev and Brezhnev and the period after the USSR break-up showed their readiness to capitulate to Capitalism, others showed their feeble mind for they concentrated on the problem of introducing a market machinery into Russian economy. First they tried it as a means to improve the planned beginning function, then as a supposed alternative to it[429].
While reading the given fragments concerning the substitution for commodity production (and trade correspondingly) by direct products exchange one should not think that J.V. Stalin was an idiot. He was not like those reformers of early 90-s of the 20th century who could not cope with adjustment of the financing system to maintaining product exchange because of their stupidity and grabbling and who drove the country to barter. Barter was a type of exchange trade of primitive society. Those who take his words about direct products exchange this way are idiots themselves, they insensible to the tenor of life and incapable of thinking. J.V. Stalin had figurative ideas of the way Socialism planned economy was to work in the process of changing to communism. But in the culture of society there was no conceptual system to express his thought clearly. J.V. Stalin did not create this system himself. It appeared too much for him to bear to govern the country day-to-day and at the same time to create philosophy and sociology afresh that agreed with ideals of Communism, building of it in practice and the atmosphere of Marxism cult that was essentially hostile to Communism.
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Keeping the supreme public authority of the USSR under his thumb J.V. Stalin being the leader of the Party and the head of the state for thirty years led society successfully to another point of re-examining the past and forming intentions for the future. With the help of the means of expressing thoughts available in the culture of society at that time he revealed and defined the unsolved problems that prevented the USSR society and the global civilization from developing.