False distinction

False distinction
Lenin was not the first to describe socialism as a transitional society, but through his followers, he turned out to be the most influential. In Lenin's Political Thought (1981), Neil Harding claims that in 1917 Lenin made “no clear delineation” between socialism and communism. But in fact Lenin did write in State and Revolution (1917) of a “scientific distinction” between socialism and communism:


“What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the 'first', or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production become common property, the word 'communism' is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism” 


The first sentence of this quote is simply untrue and Lenin must have known this. Marx and Engels used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably to refer to the post-revolutionary society of common ownership of the means of production. It is true that in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) Marx wrote of a transition between a lower phase of communism and a higher phase of communism. Marx held that, because of the low level of economic development (in 1875), individual consumption would have to be rationed, possibly by the use of labour-time vouchers (similar to those advocated by Robert Owen). But in the higher phase of communism, when the forces of production had developed sufficiently, consumption would be according to need. It is important to realise, however, that in both phases of socialism/communism there would be no state or money economy. Lenin, on the other hand, said that socialism (or the first phase of communism) is a transitional society between capitalism and full communism, in which there is both a state and money economy.