[EarthIsHome]

> The Americans want to rid themselves of the crisis on the basis of private capitalist activity, without changing the economic basis.

Here, Stalin is alluding to the idea of the "Base and Superstructure" of a society [0], where the superstructures of a society are built on top of the base over time. They are borne out of the base of a society. The superstructures naturally re-enforce the base. He's essentially saying that you cannot re-organize society at the superstructure levels, it must be re-organized at the base.

This also indicates that superstructures lag the base. (i.e. the idea lags the material.) This is the opposite of western thought, which emphasizes that the material lags the idea. (e.g. Plato's idea of a tree, or that "history is made by great men")

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure#/media...