“The capitalist mode of production is based on a monopoly of the means of production in the hands of the class of capitalists… There is no difference in principle whatsoever whether the state power is a direct expression of this monopoly or whether this monopoly is ‘privately’ organised. In either case there remains commodity economy (in the first place the world market) and, what is more important, the class relations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.”
— Nikolai Bukharin, quoted in Michael Haynes, Nikolai Bukharin & the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism, 1985, New York, Holmes & Meier, p. 35.
“… of course, our economic system can be changed into ‘true’ state capitalism, if the class struggles in the sphere of direct processes of production and in the political sphere result in the loss of power by the working class.”
— N.I. Bukharin, ‘The Economic Structure of Soviet Russia’, International Press Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 22, 21 MARCH 1922, p, 165; Pravda, no. 30, 8 February 1922, p. 1.