"On the question of the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class."
Article by I.V. Stalin "On the question of the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class." January 21, 1930
193-10
In No. 16 of Krasnaya Zvezda, in the article “The Elimination of the Kulaks as a Class,” which on the whole is indisputably correct, there are two inaccuracies in the wording. It seems to me that it is necessary to correct these inaccuracies.
1) The article says:
“During the restoration period, we pursued a policy of restricting the capitalist elements in town and country. With the beginning of the reconstruction period, we moved from a policy of restriction to a policy of ousting them. "
This position is incorrect. The policy of restricting the capitalist elements and the policy of ousting them are not two different policies. They are one and the same policy. The ousting of the capitalist elements in the countryside is an inevitable result and an integral part of the policy of limiting the capitalist elements, the policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks. The ousting of the capitalist elements in the countryside is not yet the ousting of the kulaks as a class. The displacement of the capitalist elements in the countryside is the displacement and overcoming of individual detachments. the kulaks, who could not withstand the tax pressure, could not stand the system of restrictive measures of the Soviet government. It is clear that the policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks, the policy of limiting the capitalist elements in the countryside, cannot but lead to the ousting of individual detachments of the kulaks. Therefore, the ousting of individual detachments of the kulaks cannot be viewed otherwise than as an inevitable result and an integral part of the policy of limiting the capitalist elements in the countryside.
This policy was pursued in our country not only during the period of restoration, but also during the period of reconstruction, but also in the period after the XV Congress (December 1927), but also during the XVI Conference of our Party (April 1929), as well as after this conferences up to the summer of 1929, when a period of continuous collectivization began in our country, when a turning point began in the direction of the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class.
If we consider the most important documents of the Party, starting at least from the XIV Congress in December 1925 (see the resolution on the Central Committee's report) and ending with the XVI Conference in April 1929 (see the resolution "On the Ways of Boosting Agriculture"), then one cannot but note that the thesis about "limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks" or "limiting the growth of capitalism in the countryside" always goes alongside the thesis about "ousting the capitalist elements of the countryside", about "overcoming the capitalist elements of the countryside."
What does it mean?
This means that the party does not separate the ousting of the capitalist elements in the countryside from the policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks, from the policy of limiting the capitalist elements in the countryside.
The 15th Party Congress, like the 16th Conference, stand entirely on the basis of the policy of "limiting the exploiting aspirations of the agricultural bourgeoisie" (resolution of the 15th Congress "On Work in the Countryside"), on the basis of the policy ["] of adopting new measures to restrict the development of capitalism in the countryside" ( see ibid.), on the basis of the policy of "decisively limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulak" (see the resolution of the 15th Congress on the five-year plan), on the basis of the policy of "attacking the kulak" in the sense of "transition to a further, more systematic and persistent restriction of the kulak and the private trader" (see ibid.), on the basis of the policy of "even more decisive economic displacement" of "elements of private capitalist economy" in the city and countryside (see the resolution of the 15th Congress on the report of the Central Committee).
So, a) wrong and the author of the said article, depicting the policy of restricting the capitalist elements and the policy of repression as two different policies. The facts show that we are dealing here with one general policy of restricting capitalism, an integral part and the result of which is the ousting of individual sections of the kulaks.
Consequently, b) the author of the above article is wrong in asserting that the ousting of the capitalist elements of the countryside began only during the period of reconstruction, during the 15th Congress. In fact, the displacement took place both before the 15th Congress, during the restoration period, and after the 15th Congress, during the reconstruction period. During the 15th Congress, the policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks by new additional measures was only intensified, in connection with which the ousting of individual detachments of the kulaks was to be intensified.
2) The article says:
"The policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class follows entirely from the policy of ousting the capitalist elements, being a continuation of this policy at a new stage."
This position is inaccurate and therefore incorrect. It is clear that the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class could not fall from the sky. It was prepared by the entire previous period of restriction, and hence the ousting of the capitalist elements in the countryside. But this does not mean that it does not differ radically from the policy of restricting (and ousting) the capitalist elements of the countryside, that it is, as it were, a continuation of the policy of restriction. To say this [,] as our author says, is to deny that there has been a turning point in the development of the village since the summer of 1929. To say so is to deny the fact that we have made a turn during this period.in the policy of our party in the countryside. To say so means to create some kind of ideological shelter for the right-wing elements of our Party, who are now clinging to the decisions of the 15th Congress against the new policy of the party, just as Comrade Frumkin once clung to the decisions of the 14th Congress against the policy of imposing collective and state farms.
What was the starting point of the Fifteenth Congress, proclaiming an intensification of the policy of restricting (and ousting) the capitalist elements in the countryside? From the fact that, in spite of this limitation of the kulaks, the kulaks as a class must nevertheless remain for the time being. On this basis, the 15th Congress upheld the law on land lease, knowing full well that the tenants, in their mass, are kulaks. On this basis, the Fifteenth Congress upheld the law on the hiring of labor in the countryside, demanding its precise implementation. On this basis, the inadmissibility of dispossession was once again proclaimed. Do these laws and these regulations contradict the policy of restricting (and ousting) the capitalist elements in the countryside? Of course not. Are these laws and regulations contrary to policyliquidation of the kulaks as a class? Definitely yes. Therefore, these laws and these decrees will now have to be put aside in areas of complete collectivization, the scope of which is growing by leaps and bounds. However, they have already been set aside by the very course of the collective farm movement in areas of continuous collectivization.
Can it then be asserted that the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class is a continuation of the policy of restricting (and ousting) the capitalist elements in the countryside? It is clear that it is impossible.
The author of the aforementioned article forgets that it is impossible to oust the class of the kulaks, as a class, by means of tax and any other restrictions, leaving in the hands of this class the instruments of production with the right to free use of land and keeping in our practice the law on hiring labor in the countryside, the law on rent, the prohibition dispossession. The author forgets that with the policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks, one can count on ousting only individual groups of the kulaks, which does not contradict, but, on the contrary, presupposes the preservation for the time being, until the time of the kulaks as a class. To oust the kulaks as a class, the policy of restricting and ousting its individual units is not enough. To oust the kulaks as a class, it is necessary to breakin open battle the resistance of this class and deprive it of the productive sources of its existence and development (free use of land, tools of production, rent, the right to hire labor, etc.). This is a turn towards the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class. Without this, talk about ousting the kulaks as a class is empty chatter, pleasing and beneficial only to the Right deviators. Without this, no serious, let alone complete, collectivization of the countryside is inconceivable. This is well understood by the poor and middle peasants of our village, who are crushing the kulaks and carrying out complete collectivization. It is not yet understood, apparently used some of our comrades.
Consequently, the present policy of the Party in the countryside is not a continuation of the old policy, but a turn from the old policy of restricting (and ousting) the capitalist elements in the countryside to a new policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class.
I. Stalin
- Published: Stalin I. Questions of Leninism. 11th ed. M., 1939.S. 295-298.
and Here and so on in the document, it should be wrong.
b So in the document.
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