The Rise in the Material and Cultural Standard of the Working People
January 26, 1934
3. The Rise in the Material and Cultural Standard of the Working People
We have thus depicted the situation of our industry and agriculture, their development during the period under review and their state at the present moment.
To sum up, we have:
a) A mighty advance in production both in industry and in the main branches of agriculture.
b) The final victory, on the basis of this advance, of the socialist system of economy over the capitalist system both in industry and in agriculture; the socialist system has become the sole system in the whole of the national economy, and the capitalist elements have been ousted from all spheres of the national economy.
c) The final abandonment of small-commodity individual farming by the overwhelming majority of the peasants; their uniting in collective farms on the basis of collective labour and collective ownership of the means of production; the complete victory of collective farming over small-commodity individual farming.
d) An ever-increasing process of expansion of the collective farms through the absorption of individual peasant farms, which are thus diminishing in number month by month and are, in fact, being converted into an auxiliary force for the collective farms and state farms.
Naturally, this historic victory over the exploiters could not but lead to a radical improvement in the material standard of the working people and in their conditions of life generally.
The elimination of the parasitic classes has led to the disappearance of the exploitation of man by man.
The labour of the worker and the peasant is freed from exploitation. The incomes which the exploiters used to squeeze out of the labour of the people now remain in the hands of the working people and are used partly for the expansion of production and the enlistment of new detachments of working people in production, and partly for directly increasing the incomes of the workers and peasants.
Unemployment, that scourge of the working class, has disappeared. In the bourgeois countries millions of unemployed suffer want and privation owing to lack of work, whereas in our country there are no longer any workers who have no work and no earnings.
With the disappearance of kulak bondage, poverty in the countryside has disappeared. Every peasant, whether a collective farmer or an individual farmer, now has the opportunity of living a human existence, provided only that he wants to work conscientiously and not to be a loafer, a tramp, or a despoiler of collective-farm property.
The abolition of exploitation, the abolition of unemployment in the towns, and the abolition of poverty in the countryside are historic achievements in the material condition of the working people that are beyond even the dreams of the workers and peasants even in the most "democratic" of the bourgeois countries.
The very appearance of our large towns and industrial centres has changed. An inevitable feature of the big towns in bourgeois countries is the slums, the so-called working-class districts on the outskirts of the towns—a heap of dark, damp and dilapidated dwellings, mostly of the basement type, where usually the poor live in filth and curse their fate. The revolution in the U.S.S.R. has meant the disappearance of such slums. They have been replaced by blocks of bright and well-built workers' houses; in many cases the working-class districts of our towns present a better appearance than the centre of the town.
The appearance of the countryside has changed even more. The old type of village, with the church in the most prominent place, with the best houses—those of the police officer, the priest, and the kulaks—in the foreground, and the dilapidated huts of the peasants in the background, is beginning to disappear. Its place is being taken by the new type of village, with its public farm buildings, with its clubs, radio, cinemas, schools, libraries and creches; with its tractors, harvester combines, threshing machines and automobiles. The former important personages of the village, the kulak-exploiter, the bloodsucking usurer, the merchant-speculator, the "little father" police officer, have disappeared. Now, the prominent personages are the leading people of the collective farms and state farms, of the schools and clubs, the senior tractor and combine drivers, the brigade leaders in field work and livestock raising, and the best men and women shock brigaders on the collective-farm fields.
The antithesis between town and country is disappearing. The peasants are ceasing to regard the town as the centre of their exploitation. The economic and cultural bond between town and country is becoming stronger. The country now receives assistance from the town and from urban industry in the shape of tractors, agricultural machinery, automobiles, workers, and funds. And the countryside itself now has its own industry, in the shape of the machine and tractor stations, repair shops, all sorts of industrial undertakings of the collective farms, small electric power stations, etc. The cultural gulf between town and country is being bridged.
Such are the principal achievements of the working people in the sphere of improving their material conditions, their everyday life, and their cultural standard.
On the basis of these achievements we have the following to record for the period under review:
a) An increase in the national income from 35,000 million rubles in 1930 to 50,000 million rubles in 1933. In view of the fact that the income of the capitalist elements, including concessionaires, at the present time constitutes less than one half of one per cent of the total national income, almost the whole of the national income is distributed among the workers and other employees, the labouring peasants, the co-operatives, and the state.
b) An increase in the population of the Soviet Union from 160,500,000 at the end of 1930 to 168,000,000 at the end of 1933.
c) An increase in the number of workers and other employees from 14,530,000 in 1930 to 21,883,000 in 1933. The number of manual workers increased during this period from 9,489,000 to 13,797,000; the number of workers employed in large-scale industry, including transport, increased from 5,079,000 to 6,882,000; the number of agricultural workers increased from 1,426,000 to 2,519,000, and the number of workers and other employees engaged in trade increased from 814,000 to 1,497,000.
d) An increase in the total of the wages paid to workers and other employees from 13,597 million rubles in 1930 to 34,280 million rubles in 1933.
e) An increase in the average annual wages of industrial workers from 991 rubles in 1930 to 1,519 rubles in 1933.
f) An increase in the social insurance fund for workers and other employees from 1,810 million rubles in 1930 to 4,610 million rubles in 1933.
g) The adoption of a seven-hour working day in all surface industries.
h) State aid to the peasants by the organisation of 2,860 machine and tractor stations, involving an investment of 2,000 million rubles.
i) State aid to the peasants in the form of credits to the collective farms amounting to 1,600 million rubles.
j) State aid to the peasants in the form of seed and food loans amounting in the period under review to 262 million poods of grain.
k) State aid to the economically weaker peasants in the shape of relief from taxation and insurance payments amounting to 370 million rubles.
As regards the cultural development of the country, we have the following to record for the period under review:
a) The introduction of universal compulsory elementary education throughout the U.S.S.R., and an increase in literacy among the population from 67 per cent at the end of 1930 to 90 per cent at the end of 1933.
b) An increase in the number of pupils and students at schools of all grades from 14,358,000 in 1929 to 26,419,000 in 1933, including an increase from 11,697,000 to 19,163,000 in the number receiving elementary education, from 2,453,000 to 6,674,000 in the number receiving secondary education, and from 207,000 to 491,000 in the number receiving higher education.
c) An increase in the number of children receiving pre-school education from 838,000 in 1929 to 5,917,000 in 1933.
d) An increase in the number of higher educational institutions, general and special, from 91 in 1914 to 600 in 1933.
e) An increase in the number of scientific research institutes from 400 in 1929 to 840 in 1933.
f) An increase in the number of clubs and similar institutions from 32,000 in 1929 to 54,000 in 1933.
g) An increase in the number of cinemas, cinema installations in clubs, and mobile cinemas, from 9,800 in 1929 to 29,200 in 1933.
h) An increase in the circulation of newspapers from 12,500,000 in 1929 to 36,500,000 in 1933.
Perhaps it will not be amiss to point out that the proportion of workers among the students in our higher educational institutions is 51.4 per cent of the total, and that of labouring peasants 16.5 per cent; whereas in Germany, for instance, the proportion of workers among the students in higher educational institutions in 1932-33 was only 3.2 per cent of the total, and that of small peasants only 2.4 per cent.
We must note as a gratifying fact and as an indication of the progress of culture in the countryside, the increased activity of the women collective farmers in social and organisational work. We know, for example, that about 6,000 women collective farmers are chairmen of collective farms, more than 60,000 are members of management boards of collective farms, 28,000 are brigade leaders, 100,000 are team organisers, 9,000 are managers of collective-farm marketable livestock sectors, and 7,000 are tractor drivers.
Needless to say, these figures are incomplete; but even these figures quite clearly show the great progress of culture in the countryside. This fact, comrades, is of tremendous significance. It is of tremendous significance because women form half the population of our country; they constitute a huge army of workers; and they are called upon to bring up our children, our future generation, that is to say, our future. That is why we must not permit this huge army of working people to remain in darkness and ignorance! That is why we must welcome the growing social activity of the working women and their promotion to leading posts as an indubitable sign of the growth of our culture. (Prolonged applause.)
Finally, I must point out one more fact, but of a negative character. I have in mind the intolerable fact that our pedagogical and medical faculties are still being neglected. This is a great defect bordering on violation of the interests of the state. This defect must be remedied without fail, and the sooner the better.
4. The Progress of Trade Turnover and Transport
Thus we have:
a) An increase in the output of industry, including goods for mass consumption.
b) An increase in the output of agriculture.
c) A growth in the requirements and the demand for produce and manufactured goods on the part of the masses of the working people of town and country.
What more is needed to co-ordinate these conditions and to ensure that the entire mass of consumers receives the necessary goods and produce?
Some comrades think that these conditions alone are sufficient for the economic life of the country to go full steam ahead. That is a profound delusion. We can imagine a situation in which all these conditions exist; yet if the goods do not reach the consumers, economic life—far from going full steam ahead—will, on the contrary, be dislocated and disorganised to its foundations. It is high time we realised that in the last analysis goods are produced not for the sake of producing them, but for consumption. Cases have occurred where we have had quite a quantity of goods and produce, but they have not only not reached the consumers, they have continued for years to wander in the bureaucratic backwaters of our so-called commodity-distribution network, at a distance from the consumers. Naturally, under these circumstances industry and agriculture lost all stimulus to increase production; the commodity-distribution network became overstocked, while the workers and peasants had to go without these goods and produce. The result was a dislocation of the economic life of the country, despite the existence of the goods and produce. If the economic life of the country is to go full steam ahead, and industry and agriculture are to have a stimulus for further in creasing their output, one more condition is necessary, namely, well-developed trade turnover between town and country, between the various districts and regions of the country, between the various branches of the national economy. The country must be covered with a vast network of wholesale distribution bases, shops and stores. There must be a ceaseless flow of goods through these bases, shops and stores from the producer to the consumer. The state trading system, the co-operative trading system, the local industries, the collective farms, and the individual peasants must be drawn into this work.
This is what we call fully developed Soviet trade, trade without capitalists, trade without speculators.
As you see, the expansion of Soviet trade is a very urgent problem, which must be solved or further progress will be rendered impossible.
And yet, in spite of the fact that this truth is perfectly obvious, in the period under review the Party has had to over come a number of obstacles to the expansion of Soviet trade which could briefly be described as the result of an aberration of the brain among a section of Communists on questions of the necessity and importance of Soviet trade.
To begin with, there is still among a section of Communists a supercilious, disdainful attitude towards trade in general, and towards Soviet trade in particular. These Communists, so-called, look upon Soviet trade as a matter of secondary importance, not worth bothering about, and those engaged in trade as being quite hopeless. Evidently, these people do not realise that their supercilious attitude towards Soviet trade is not an expression of Bolshevik views, but rather of the views of impoverished aristocrats who are full of ambition but lack ammunition. (Applause.) These people do not realise that Soviet trade is our own, Bolshevik work, and that those employed in trade, including those behind the counter—if only they work conscientiously—are doing our revolutionary, Bolshevik work. (Applause.) It goes without saying that the Party had to give those Communists, so-called, a slight dressing down and throw their aristocratic prejudices on the rubbish heap. (Prolonged applause.)
Further, we had to overcome prejudices of another kind. I have in mind the Leftist chatter current among a section of our functionaries to the effect that Soviet trade is a superseded stage; that it is necessary to organise the direct exchange of products; that money will soon be abolished, because it has become mere tokens; that it is unnecessary to develop trade, since the direct exchange of products is knocking at the door. It must be observed that this Leftist petty-bourgeois chatter, which plays into the hands of the capitalist elements who are striving to sabotage the expansion of Soviet trade, is current not only among a section of our "Red professors," but also among certain of our trading personnel. Of course, it is ridiculous and funny to hear these people, who are incapable of organising the very simple business of Soviet trade, chatter about their readiness to organise the more complicated and difficult business of a direct exchange of products. But Don Quixotes are called Don Quixotes precisely because they lack the most elementary sense of reality. These people, who are as far removed from Marxism as the sky from the earth, evidently do not realise that we shall use money for a long time to come, right up to the time when the first stage of communism, i.e., the socialist stage of development, has been completed. They do not realise that money is the instrument of bourgeois economy which the Soviet Government has taken over and adapted to the interests of socialism for the purpose of expanding Soviet trade to the utmost, and so preparing the conditions necessary for the direct exchange of products. They do not realise that the direct exchange of products can replace, and be the result of, only a perfectly organised system of Soviet trade, of which we have not a trace as yet, and shall not have for some time. Naturally, in trying to organise developed Soviet trade, our Party found it necessary to give a dressing down to these "Left" freaks as well, and to scatter their petty-bourgeois chatter to the winds.
Further, we had to overcome among the people in charge of trade the unhealthy habit of distributing goods mechanically; we had to put a stop to their indifference to the demand for a greater range of goods and to the requirements of the consumers; we had to put an end to the mechanical consignment of goods, to lack of personal responsibility in trade. For this purpose, regional and inter-district wholesale distribution bases and tens of thousands of new shops and booths were opened.
Further, we had to put an end to the monopoly position of the co-operatives in the market. In this connection we instructed all the People's Commissariats to start trade in the goods manufactured by the industries under their control; and the People's Commissariat of Supplies was instructed to develop an extensive open trade in agricultural produce. This has led, on the one hand, to an improvement in co-operative trade through emulation, and, on the other hand, to a drop in market prices and to sounder conditions in the market.
A wide network of dining-rooms was established which provide food at reduced prices ("public catering"). Workers' Supply Departments were set up in the factories, and all those who had no connection with the factory were taken off the supply list; in the factories under the control of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry alone, no less than 500,000 such persons had to be removed from the list.
We have organised a single centralised bank for short term credit—the State Bank, with its 2,200 district branches capable of financing trade operations.
As a result of these measures we have the following to record for the period under review:
a) An increase in the number of shops and trading booths from 184,662 in 1930 to 277,974 in 1933.
b) A newly created network of regional wholesale distribution bases, numbering 1,011, and inter-district wholesale distribution bases, numbering 864.
c) A newly created network of Workers' Supply Departments, numbering 1,600.
d) An increase in the network of shops for non-rationed sale of bread, which now exist in 330 towns.
e) An increase in the number of public dining-rooms, which at the present time cater for 19,800,000 consumers.
f) An increase in state and co-operative trade turnover, including public dining-rooms, from 18,900 million rubles in 1930 to 49,000 million rubles in 1933.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that all this expansion of Soviet trade is sufficient to satisfy the requirements of our economy. On the contrary, it is now becoming clearer than ever that the present state of trade turnover cannot satisfy our requirements. Hence, the task is to develop Soviet trade still further, to draw local industry into this work, to increase collective-farm and peasant trade, and to achieve new and decisive successes in the sphere of increasing Soviet trade.
It must be pointed out, however, that we cannot restrict ourselves merely to the expansion of Soviet trade. While the development of our economy depends upon the development of the trade turnover, upon the development of Soviet trade, the development of Soviet trade, in its turn, depends upon the development of our transport, both rail and water transport, and motor transport. It may happen that goods are available, that all the possibilities exist for expanding trade turnover, but transport cannot keep up with the development of trade turnover and refuses to carry the freight. As you know, this happens rather often. Hence, transport is the weak spot which may be a stumbling-block, and indeed is perhaps already beginning to be a stumbling-block to the whole of our economy and, above all, to our trade turnover.
It is true that railway transport has increased its freight turnover from 133,900 million ton-kilometres in 1930 to 172,000 million ton-kilometres in 1933. But that is too little, far too little for us, for our economy.
Water transport has increased its freight turnover from 45,600 million ton-kilometres in 1930 to 59,900 million ton-kilometres in 1933. But that is too little, far too little for our economy.
I say nothing of motor transport, in which the number of automobiles (lorries and passenger cars) has increased from 8,800 in 1913 to 117,800 at the end of 1933. That is so little for our national economy that one is ashamed even to mention it.
There can be no doubt that all these forms of transport could work much better if the transport system did not suffer from the well-known disease called red-tape methods of management. Hence, besides the need to help transport by providing personnel and means, our task is to root out the red-tape attitude in the administration departments of the transport system and to make them more efficient.
Comrades, we have succeeded in solving correctly the main problems of industry, which is now standing firmly on its feet. We have also succeeded in solving correctly the main problems of agriculture, and we can say quite definitely that agriculture also is now standing firmly on its feet. But we are in danger of losing all these achievements if our trade turnover begins to be defective and if transport becomes a fetter on our feet. Hence, the task of expanding trade turnover and of decisively improving transport is an immediate and urgent problem which must be solved or we cannot go forward.
III
The Party
I pass to the question of the Party. The present congress is taking place under the flag of the complete victory of Leninism, under the flag of the liquidation of the remnants of the anti-Leninist groups.
The anti-Leninist group of Trotskyites has been smashed and scattered. Its organisers are now to be found in the backyards of the bourgeois parties abroad.
The anti-Leninist group of the Right deviators has been smashed and scattered. Its organisers have long ago renounced their views and are now trying in every way to expiate the sins they committed against the Party.
The groups of nationalist deviators have been smashed and scattered. Their organisers have either completely merged with the interventionist emigres, or else they have recanted.
The majority of the adherents to these anti-revolutionary groups had to admit that the line of the Party was correct and they have capitulated to the Party.
At the Fifteenth Party Congress 9 it was still necessary to prove that the Party line was correct and to wage a struggle against certain anti-Leninist groups; and at the Sixteenth Party Congress we had to deal the final blow to the last adherents of these groups. At this congress, however, there is nothing to prove and, it seems, no one to fight. Everyone sees that the line of the Party has triumphed. (Thunderous applause.)
The policy of industrialising the country has triumphed. Its results are obvious to everyone. What arguments can be advanced against this fact?
The policy of eliminating the kulaks and of complete collectivisation has triumphed. Its results are also obvious to every one. What arguments can be advanced against this fact?
The experience of our country has shown that it is fully possible for socialism to achieve victory in one country taken separately. What arguments can be advanced against this fact?
It is evident that all these successes, and primarily the victory of the five-year plan, have utterly demoralised and smashed all the various anti-Leninist groups.
It must be admitted that the Party today is united as it has never been before. (Stormy and prolonged applause.)
1. Questions of Ideological and Political Leadership
Does this mean, however, that the fight is ended, and that the offensive of socialism is to be discontinued as superfluous?
No, it does not.
Does it mean that all is well in our Party, that there will be no more deviations in the Party, and that, therefore, we may now rest on our laurels?
No, it does not.
We have smashed the enemies of the Party, the opportunists of all shades, the nationalist deviators of all kinds. But remnants of their ideology still live in the minds of individual members of the Party, and not infrequently they find expression. The Party must not be regarded as something isolated from the people who surround it. It lives and works in its environment. It is not surprising that at times unhealthy moods penetrate into the Party from outside. And the ground for such moods undoubtedly exists in our country, if only for the reason that there still exist in town and country certain intermediary strata of the population who constitute a medium which breeds such moods.
The Seventeenth Conference of our Party 10 declared that one of the fundamental political tasks in fulfilling the Second Five-Year Plan is "to overcome the survivals of capitalism in economic life and in the minds of people." That is an absolutely correct idea. But can we say that we have already overcome all the survivals of capitalism in economic life? No, we cannot say that. Still less can we say that we have overcome the survivals of capitalism in the minds of people. We cannot say that, not only because in development the minds of people lag behind their economic position, but also because the capitalist encirclement still exists, which endeavours to revive and sustain the survivals of capitalism in the economic life and in the minds of the people of the U.S.S.R., and against which we Bolsheviks must always keep our powder dry.
Naturally, these survivals cannot but be a favourable ground for a revival of the ideology of the defeated anti-Leninist groups in the minds of individual members of our Party. Add to this the not very high theoretical level of the majority of our Party members, the inadequate ideological work of the Party bodies, and the fact that our Party functionaries are overburdened with purely practical work, which deprives them of the opportunity of augmenting their theoretical knowledge, and you will understand the origin of the confusion on a number of questions of Leninism that exists in the minds of individual Party members, a confusion which not infrequently penetrates into our press and helps to revive the survivals of the ideology of the defeated anti-Leninist groups.
That is why we cannot say that the fight is ended and that there is no longer any need for the policy of the socialist offensive.
It would be possible to take a number of questions of Leninism and demonstrate by means of them how tenaciously the survivals of the ideology of the defeated anti-Leninist groups continue to exist in the minds of certain Party members.
Take, for example, the question of building a classless socialist society. The Seventeenth Party Conference declared that we are advancing towards the formation of a classless socialist society. Naturally, a classless society cannot come of its own accord, as it were. It has to be achieved and built by the efforts of all the working people, by strengthening the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat, by intensifying the class struggle, by abolishing classes, by eliminating the remnants of the capitalist classes, and in battles with enemies, both internal and external.
The point is clear, one would think.
And yet, who does not know that the enunciation of this clear and elementary thesis of Leninism has given rise to not a little confusion in the minds of a section of Party members and to unhealthy sentiments among them? The thesis that we are advancing towards a classless society—put forward as a slogan—was interpreted by them to mean a spontaneous process. And they began to reason in this way: If it is a classless society, then we can relax the class struggle, we can relax the dictatorship of the proletariat, and get rid of the state altogether, since it is fated to wither away soon in any case. And they fell into a state of foolish rapture, in the expectation that soon there would be no classes, and therefore no class struggle, and therefore no cares and worries, and therefore it is possible to lay down one's arms and go to bed—to sleep in expectation of the advent of a classless society. (General laughter.)
There can be no doubt that this confusion of mind and these sentiments are exactly like the well-known views of the Right deviators, who believed that the old must automatically grow into the new, and that one fine day we shall wake up and find ourselves in a socialist society.
As you see, remnants of the ideology of the defeated anti-Leninist groups are capable of revival, and are far from having lost their vitality.
Naturally, if this confusion of views and these non-Bolshevik sentiments obtained a hold over the majority of our Party, the Party would find itself demobilised and disarmed.
Let us take, further, the question of the agricultural artel and the agricultural commune. Everybody admits now that under present conditions the artel is the only correct form of the collective-farm movement. And that is quite understandable: a) the artel correctly combines the personal, everyday interests of the collective farmers with their public interests; b) the artel successfully adapts personal, everyday interests to public interests, and thereby helps to educate the individual peasants of yesterday in the spirit of collectivism.
Unlike the artel, where only the means of production are socialised, the communes, until recently, socialised not only the means of production, but also everyday life of every member of the commune; that is to say, the members of a commune, unlike the members of an artel, did not individually own poultry, small livestock, a cow, grain, or household land. This means that in the commune the personal, everyday interests of the members have not so much been taken into account and combined with the public interests as they have been eclipsed by the latter in the interests of petty-bourgeois equalisation. It is clear that this is the weakest side of the commune. This indeed explains why communes are not widespread, why there are but a few score of them in existence. For the same reason the communes, in order to maintain their existence and save themselves from going to pieces, have been compelled to abandon the system of socialising everyday life; they are beginning to work on the basis of the workday unit, and have begun to distribute grain among their members, to permit their members to own poultry, small livestock, a cow, etc. But from this it follows that, in fact, the commune has gone over to the position of the artel. And there is nothing bad in that, because it is necessary in the interests of the sound development of the mass collective-farm movement.
This does not mean, of course, that the commune is not needed at all, and that it no longer represents a higher form of the collective-farm movement. No, the commune is needed, and it is, of course, a higher form of the collective-farm movement. This applies, however, not to the present commune, which arose on the basis of undeveloped technique and of a shortage of produce, and which is itself going over to the position of the artel; it applies to the commune of the future, which will arise on the basis of a more developed technique and of an abundance of produce. The present agricultural commune arose on the basis of an underdeveloped technique and a shortage of produce. This indeed explains why it practised equalisation and took little account of the personal, everyday interests of its members, as a result of which it is now being compelled to go over to the position of the artel, in which the personal and public interests of the collective farmers are rationally combined. The future communes will arise out of developed and prosperous artels. The future agricultural commune will arise when the fields and farms of the artel have an abundance of grain, cattle, poultry, vegetables, and all other produce; when the artels have mechanised laundries, modern kitchens and dining-rooms, mechanised bakeries, etc.; when the collective farmer sees that it is more to his advantage to get meat and milk from the collective farm's meat and dairy department than to keep his own cow and small livestock; when the woman collective farmer sees that it is more to her advantage to take her meals in the dining-room, to get her bread from the public bakery, and to have her linen washed in the public laundry, than to do all these things herself. The future commune will arise on the basis of a more developed technique and of a more developed artel, on the basis of an abundance of products. When will that be? Not soon, of course. But it will take place. It would be criminal artificially to accelerate the process of transition from the artel to the future commune. That would confuse the whole issue, and would facilitate the work of our enemies. The transition from the artel to the future commune must proceed gradually, to the extent that all the collective farmers become convinced that such a transition is necessary.
That is how matters stand with regard to the question of the artel and the commune.
One would think that this was clear and almost elementary.
And yet there is a fair amount of confusion on this question among a section of Party members. There are those who think that by declaring the artel to be the fundamental form of the collective-farm movement the Party has drifted away from socialism, has retreated from the commune, from the higher form of the collective-farm movement, to a lower form. Why, one may ask? Because, it is suggested, there is no equality in the artel, since differences in the requirements and in the personal, everyday life of the members of the artel are preserved; whereas in the commune there is equality, because the requirements and the personal, everyday life of its members have been made equal. But, firstly, we no longer have any communes in which there is levelling, equalisation of requirements and personal, everyday life. Practice has shown that the communes would certainly have been doomed had they not abandoned equalisation and had they not in fact gone over to the position of artels. Consequently, there is no point in referring to what no longer exists. Secondly, every Leninist knows, if he is a real Leninist, that equalisation in the sphere of requirements and personal, everyday life is a reactionary petty-bourgeois absurdity worthy of some primitive sect of ascetics, but not of a socialist society organised on Marxist lines; for we cannot expect all people to have the same requirements and tastes, and all people to mould their personal, everyday life on the same model. And, finally, are not differences in requirements and in personal, everyday life still preserved among the workers? Does that mean that workers are more remote from socialism than members of agricultural communes?
These people evidently think that socialism calls for equalisation, for levelling the requirements and personal, everyday life of the members of society. Needless to say, such an assumption has nothing in common with Marxism, with Leninism. By equality Marxism means, not equalisation of personal requirements and everyday life, but the abolition of classes, i.e., a) the equal emancipation of all working people from exploitation after the capitalists have been overthrown and expropriated; b) the equal abolition for all of private property in the means of production after they have been converted into the property of the whole of society; c) the equal duty of all to work according to their ability, and the equal right of all working people to receive in return for this according to the work performed (socialist society); d) the equal duty of all to work according to their ability, and the equal right of all working people to receive in return for this according to their needs (communist society). Moreover, Marxism proceeds from the assumption that people's tastes and requirements are not, and cannot be, identical and equal in regard to quality or quantity, whether in the period of socialism or in the period of communism.
There you have the Marxist conception of equality.
Marxism has never recognised, and does not recognise, any other equality.
To draw from this the conclusion that socialism calls for equalisation, for the levelling of the requirements of the members of society, for the levelling of their tastes and of their personal, everyday life—that according to the Marxist plan all should wear the same clothes and eat the same dishes in the same quantity—is to utter vulgarities and to slander Marxism.
It is time it was understood that Marxism is an enemy of equalisation. Already in the Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels scourged primitive utopian socialism and termed it reactionary because it preached "universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form." 11 In his Anti-Duhring Engels devoted a whole chapter to a withering criticism of the "radical equalitarian socialism" put forward by Duhring in opposition to Marxist socialism.
". . . The real content of the proletarian demand for equality," said Engels, "is the demand for the abolition of classes. Any demand for equality which goes beyond that, of necessity passes into absurdity." 12
Lenin said the same thing:
"Engels was a thousand times right when he wrote that to conceive equality as meaning anything beyond the abolition of classes is a very stupid and absurd prejudice. Bourgeois professors have tried to make use of the concept of equality to accuse us of wanting to make all men equal to one another. They have tried to accuse the Socialists of this absurdity, which they themselves invented. But in their ignorance they did not know that the Socialists—and precisely the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels—said: Equality is an empty phrase unless equality is understood to mean the abolition of classes. We want to abolish classes, and in this respect we stand for equality. But the claim that we want to make all men equal to one another is an empty phrase and a stupid invention of intellectuals" (Lenin's speech "On Deceiving the People with Slogans About Liberty and Equality," Works, Vol. XXIV, pp. 2 9 3 - 9 4 13).
Clear, one would think.
Bourgeois writers are fond of depicting Marxist socialism in the shape of the old tsarist barracks, where everything is subordinated to the "principle" of equalisation. But Marxists cannot be held responsible for the ignorance and stupidity of bourgeois writers.
There can be no doubt that this confusion in the minds of some Party members concerning Marxist socialism, and their infatuation with the equalitarian tendencies of agricultural communes, are exactly like the petty-bourgeois views of our Leftist blockheads, who at one time idealised the agricultural communes to such an extent that they even tried to set up communes in mills and factories, where skilled and unskilled workers, each working at his trade, had to pool their wages in a common fund, which was then shared out equally. You know what harm these infantile equalita-rian exercises of the "Left" blockheads caused our industry.
As you see, the remnants of the ideology of the defeated anti-Party groups display rather considerable tenacity.
It is obvious that if these Leftist views were to triumph in the Party, the Party would cease to be Marxist, and the collective-farm movement would be utterly disorganised.
Or take, for example, the slogan "Make all the collective farmers prosperous." This slogan applies not only to collective farmers; it applies still more to the workers, for we want to make all the workers prosperous— people leading a prosperous and fully cultured life.
One would think that the point was clear. There was no point in overthrowing capitalism in October 1917 and building socialism all these years if we are not going to secure a life of plenty for our people. Socialism does not mean poverty and privation, but the abolition of poverty and privation; it means the organisation of a prosperous and cultured life for all members of society.
And yet, this clear and essentially elementary slogan has caused a good deal of perplexity, confusion and muddle among a section of our Party members. Is not this slogan, they ask, a reversion to the old slogan "Enrich yourselves," that was rejected by the Party? If everyone becomes prosperous, they go on to say, and the poor cease to exist, upon whom then are we Bolsheviks to rely in our work? How shall we work without the poor?
This may sound funny, but the existence of such naive and anti-Leninist views among a section of Party members is an undoubted fact, which we must take into account.
Evidently, these people do not understand that a wide gulf lies between the slogan "Enrich yourselves" and the slogan "Make all the collective farmers prosperous." In the first place, only individual persons or groups can enrich themselves; whereas the slogan concerning a prosperous life applies not to individual persons or groups, but to all collective farmers. Secondly, individual persons or groups enrich themselves for the purpose of subordinating other people to themselves and exploiting them; whereas the slogan concerning a prosperous life for all the collective farmers—with the means of production in the collective farms socialised—pre-cludes all possibility of the exploitation of some persons by others. Thirdly, the slogan "Enrich yourselves" was issued in the period when the New Economic Policy was in its initial stage, when capitalism was being partly restored, when the kulak was a power, when individual peasant farming predominated in the country and collective farming was in a rudimentary state; whereas the slogan "Make all the collective farmers prosperous" was issued in the last stage of NEP, when the capitalist elements in industry had been abolished, the kulaks in the countryside crushed, individual peasant farming forced into the background and the collective farms had become the predominant form of agriculture. This is apart from the fact that the slogan "Make all the collective farmers prosperous" was issued not in isolation, but inseparably bound up with the slogan "Make the collective farms Bolshevik."
Is it not clear that in point of fact the slogan "Enrich yourselves" was a call to restore capitalism, whereas the slogan "Make all the collective farmers prosperous" is a call to deal the final blow to the last remnants of capitalism by increasing the economic power of the collective farms and by transforming all collective farmers into prosperous working people? (Voices: "Quite right!")
Is it not clear that there is not, and cannot be, anything in common between these two slogans? (Voices: "Quite right!")
As for the argument that Bolshevik work and socialism are inconceivable without the existence of the poor, it is so stupid that it is embarrassing even to talk about it. Leninists rely upon the poor when there exist both capitalist elements and the poor who are exploited by the capitalists. But when the capitalist elements have been crushed and the poor have been emancipated from exploitation, the task of Leninists is not to perpetuate and preserve poverty and the poor—the conditions for whose existence have already been eliminated— but to abolish poverty and to raise the poor to a life of prosperity. It would be absurd to think that socialism can be built on the basis of poverty and privation, on the basis of reducing personal requirements and lowering the standard of living to the level of the poor, who themselves, moreover, refuse to remain poor any longer and are pushing their way upward to a prosperous life. Who wants this sort of socialism, so-called? It would not be socialism, but a caricature of socialism. Socialism can be built only on the basis of a vigorous growth of the productive forces of society; on the basis of an abundance of produce and goods; on the basis of the prosperity of the working people, on the basis of a vigorous growth of culture. For socialism, Marxist socialism, means not the reduction of individual requirements, but their development to the utmost, to full bloom; not the restriction of these requirements or a refusal to satisfy them, but the full and all-round satisfaction of all the requirements of culturally developed working people.
There can be no doubt that this confusion in the views of certain members of the Party concerning the poor and prosperity is a reflection of the views of our
Leftist blockheads, who idealise the poor as the eternal bulwark of Bolshevism under all conditions, and who regard the collective farms as an arena of fierce class struggle.
As you see, here too, on this question, the remnants of the ideology of the defeated anti-Party groups have not yet lost their tenacious hold on life.
It is obvious that had such blockheaded views triumphed in our Party, the collective farms would not have achieved the successes they have gained during the past two years, and would have disintegrated in a very short time.
Or take, for example, the national question. Here, too, in the sphere of the national question, just as in the sphere of other questions, there is in the views of a section of the Party a confusion which creates a certain danger. I have spoken of the tenacity of the survivals of capitalism. It should be observed that the survivals of capitalism in people's minds are much more tenacious in the sphere of the national question than in any other sphere. They are more tenacious because they are able to disguise themselves well in national costume. Many think that Skrypnik's fall from grace was an individual case, an exception to the rule. This is not true. The fall from grace of Skrypnik and his group in the Ukraine is not an exception. Similar aberrations are observed among certain comrades in other national republics as well.
What is the deviation towards nationalism—regardless whether it is a matter of the deviation towards Great-Russian nationalism or the deviation towards local nationalism? The deviation towards nationalism is the adaptation of the internationalist policy of the working class to the nationalist policy of the bourgeoisie. The deviation towards nationalism reflects the attempts of "one's own," "national" bourgeoisie to undermine the Soviet system and to restore capitalism. The source of both these deviations, as you see, is the same. It is a departure from Leninist internationalism. If you want to keep both deviations under fire, then aim primarily against this source, against those who depart from internationalism—regardless whether it is a matter of the deviation towards local nationalism or the deviation towards Great-Russian nationalism. (Stormy applause.)
There is a controversy as to which deviation represents the chief danger: the deviation towards Great-Russian nationalism, or the deviation towards local nationalism. Under present conditions, this is a formal and, therefore, a pointless controversy. It would be foolish to attempt to give ready-made recipes suitable for all times and for all conditions as regards the chief and the lesser danger. Such recipes do not exist. The chief danger is the deviation against which we have ceased to fight, thereby allowing it to grow into a danger to the state. (Prolonged applause.)
In the Ukraine, only very recently, the deviation towards Ukrainian nationalism did not represent the chief danger; but when the fight against it ceased and it was allowed to grow to such an extent that it linked up with the interventionists, this deviation became the chief danger. The question as to which is the chief danger in the sphere of the national question is determined not by futile, formal controversies, but by a Marxist analysis of the situation at the given moment, and by a study of the mistakes that have been committed in this sphere.
The same should be said of the Right and "Left" deviations in the sphere of general policy. Here, too, as in other spheres, there is no little confusion in the views of certain members of our Party. Sometimes, while fighting against the Right deviation, they turn away from the "Left" deviation and relax the fight against it, on the assumption that it is not dangerous, or hardly dangerous. This is a grave and dangerous error. It is a concession to the "Left" deviation which is impermissible for a member of the Party. It is all the more impermissible for the reason that of late the "Lefts" have completely slid over to the position of the Rights, so that there is no longer any essential difference between them.
We have always said that the "Lefts" are in fact Rights who mask their Rightness by Left phrases. Now the "Lefts" themselves confirm the correctness of our statement. Take last year's issues of the Trotskyist Bulletin. What do Messieurs the Trotskyists demand, what do they write about, in what does their "Left" programme find expression? They demand: the dissolution of the state farms, on the grounds that they do not pay; the dissolution of the majority of the collective farms, on the grounds that they are fictitious; the abandonment of the policy of eliminating the kulaks; reversion to the policy of concessions, and the leasing to concessionaires of a number of our industrial enterprises, on the grounds that they do not pay.
There you have the programme of these contemptible cowards and capitulators—their counter-revolutionary programme of restoring capitalism in the U.S.S.R.!
What difference is there between this programme and that of the extreme Rights? Clearly, there is none. It follows that the "Lefts" have openly associated themselves with the counter-revolutionary programme of the Rights in order to enter into a bloc with them and to wage a joint struggle against the Party.
How can it be said after this that the "Lefts" are not dangerous, or hardly dangerous? Is it not clear that those who talk such rubbish bring grist to the mill of the sworn enemies of Leninism?
As you see, here too, in the sphere of deviations from the line of the Party—regardless of whether we are dealing with deviations on general policy or with deviations on the national question—the survivals of capitalism in people's minds, including the minds of certain members of our Party, are quite tenacious.
There you have some of the serious and urgent problems of our ideological and political work on which there is lack of clarity, confusion, and even direct departure from Leninism in certain strata of the Party. Nor are these the only questions which could serve to demonstrate the confusion in the views of certain members of the Party.
After this, can it be said that all is well in the Party?
Clearly, it cannot.
Our tasks in the sphere of ideological and political work are:
1) To raise the theoretical level of the Party to the proper height.
2) To intensify ideological work in all the organisations of the Party.
3) To carry on unceasing propaganda of Leninism in the ranks of the Party.
4) To train the Party organisations and the non-Party active which surrounds them in the spirit of Leninist internationalism.
5) Not to gloss over, but boldly to criticise the deviations of certain comrades from Marxism-Leninism.
6) Systematically to expose the ideology and the remnants of the ideology of trends that are hostile to Leninism.
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