13.What was the impact of the construction of new factory cities by the Bolsheviks?*
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Answer:
Explanation:
On the most basic level, Lenin saw socialism as a society dedicated to the interests of the working people, who make up the vast majority of the population. The basic means by which society produces its wealth – factories, mines and farms – are transferred from private to public ownership, and exploitation is for the most part eliminated. Socialism unleashes the creativity of the common people, who are capable of tremendous advances when not laboring under a system of exploitation. Lenin held that capitalism could not be eliminated and socialism fully established at one stroke. It took time to phase out the old capitalist machinery, set up new economic and political institutions, and remold people’s way of thinking Lenin believed that socialism would eventually replace capitalism worldwide because it would prove economically superior and would provide a better quality of life for its people. Realizing socialism’s potential for economic progress required flexibility and innovation. While Lenin upheld the basic Marxist tenets of social ownership of the means of production and “to each according to his work, he utilized a variety of methods. In the political sphere, Lenin held that socialism should be far more democratic than the most democratic capitalist state. Socialism provided rights and freedoms for working people that capitalism did not offer, such as the right to a job, the right to health care and to financial security in old age. Socialism also provided rights capitalism promised but did not deliver, like the right to genuinely participate in the government. Minority nationalities were guaranteed the right to develop their own culture, use their own language and govern themselves. Working people controlled the socialist government through their own political party, the Communist Party. The socialist government defended the rights of the working people and ensured that the overthrown bourgeoisie did not return to power. In fact, socialism could only be built if the majority of the people supported it and were actively involved in building it. Lenin cautioned that Russia’s path to socialism should not be mechanically applied to other countries. Each country had to find its own way, based on its particular situation. In a speech to a gathering of Marxists from other countries at the First Congress of the Communist International in 1919 he said, “In our revolution we advanced along the path of practice, and not of theory.As for what socialism in the U.S. will look like, no one can predict exactly. Socialism has never been built in a country like this. We will face very different problems than those Lenin confronted in 1917, and we do not aim to copy the example of Russia under Lenin. Socialists in the U.S. cannot take the approach of seeking a model in another country. The form socialism takes here will inevitably be shaped by this country’s particular conditions, including the highly developed capitalist economy, long history of bourgeois democracy, multinational population, vast geographical resources and particular cultural heritage. While it would be impossible to describe exactly what this new social system will look like, it will be a positive new era in which the insecurity, oppression, and injustice characteristic of the U.S. today will be eliminated, and the potential for a better life and social progress can be realized.