Stalin’s thought on the Law that the Relations of Production Must Suit the Nature of the Productive Forces

This law was first discovered by Marx and Engels and cited by Lenin in his article of 1894 which criticized the idealist views of Mikhailovsky. Stalin elaborated the law that the relations of production must fit the nature of the productive forces when he talked about the nature of economic laws under the socialist system, mainly in his works Dialectical and Historical Materialism in 1938 and Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. in 1952.

First of all, as for the definition and connotation of the concepts of productive forces and relations of production, Stalin pointed out in Dialectical and Historical Materialism that the productive forces are composed of the instruments of production and the people who use them and realize the production of material means together, and that the productive forces are the most active and revolutionary factor in production. The relations of production are the interrelations in the process of production of people, and Stalin in the article “On the Errors of Comrade L. D. Yaroshenko” in Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. clearly states that the relations of production include: the forms of ownership of the means of production; the status of the various social groups in production and their inter-relations that follow from these forms, or what Marx calls: “They exchange their activities”; the forms of distribution of products, which are entirely determined by them.

The second is about the dialectical relationship between the productive forces and the relations of production and their contradictory movements. In his book Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin pointed out that the production, the mode of production, includes both the productive forces and the relations of production, which embody the unity of both in the process of production of material means. Stalin analyzed the scenario of the development of five major relations of production from the primitive community to socialism and realized that the development of relations of production depended on the development of social productive forces and the state of productive forces is the objective precondition and material basis for the formation of relations of production. In addition, Stalin refuted Yaroshenko’s one-sided view that the relations of production have a hindering role in fettering the development of the productive forces, pointing out that the old relations of production hinder the development of the productive forces, and that the new relations of production will gradually replace the old ones and promote the development of the productive forces, but with the continuous operation of society, the new relations of production will change from the promoter of the productive forces to the hindering ones, and the cycle will repeat itself to promote the development of social production.

Finally, he clarified the erroneous views concerned and insisted upon a scientific understanding of this law under the socialist system. In his article “Reply to Comrade Alexander Ilyich Notkin”, Stalin responded to Notkin’s erroneous assertion that the complete conformity of the relations of production with the character of the productive forces can be achieved only under socialism and communism, clearly pointed out that this law is applicable in all social forms and clarified his understanding of the term “full conformity” mentioned in Dialectical and Historical Materialism. He pointed out that “full conformity” cannot be understood in an absolute sense, and that “full conformity” under the socialist system should be understood as the absence of a decadent class capable of organizing resistance in this society. It is possible for society to adapt the backward relations of production to the nature of the productive forces in time.

In addition, Stalin criticized Yaroshenko’s erroneous view that the relations of production will disappear under the socialist system and that social production will be reduced to the organization of the productive forces, pointing out that the productive forces and the relations of production are two inseparable aspects of social production and that they interact with each other, reflecting the relationship between people and nature and the interrelationship of people in the production process.

In fact, Stalin’s statement of the law that relations of production must suit the nature of the productive forces adheres to historical materialism, but there is a tendency to simplify the understanding of the physical elements of the productive forces and the issue of the “full conformity” of relations of production to the development requirements of the productive forces under socialist conditions.