Speech by Comrade V.M. Molotov at the 3rd All-Ukrainian Conference of the CP(b)U July 6, 1932
(unedited transcript)
MOLOTOV: Comrades, allow me first of all, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars of the Union, to convey to the Third All-Ukrainian Conference of Bolsheviks warm Bolshevik greetings (applause).
Our conference, entirely devoted to the questions of agriculture, the questions of the rise of agriculture, the holding of the main agricultural campaigns and the decisive tasks - the strengthening of our collective farms and state farms.
It seems to me that the party organization of the Ukraine has done the right thing by placing at the present moment the questions of the development of agriculture, the harvesting campaign, grain procurements and the strengthening of the collective farms at the center of its attention. We have to carry out enormous tasks of socialist construction, with tasks of unprecedented scope and complexity, the basic questions of the construction of our country are inextricably linked with the course towards socialist industrialization. This course requires, and follows from it, for every Bolshevik, for every class-conscious worker and toiler in the countryside, that the questions of new construction in our industry, questions of the development of branches of industry, should be constantly in the field of vision and struggle.
It often happens that these exciting questions, these decisive questions for industrialization and building socialism so absorb our attention and strength that we do not always remember that the question of development, the question of upsurge, growth, the development of industry is inextricably linked with the upsurge and development of the forces of our agriculture.
We remember well the period when small-scale individual farming was the dominant element in agriculture, we remember that difficult period when the development of industry came up against the rise of agriculture and confronted us point-blank with the question of launching an offensive against the capitalist elements in the countryside, the question of uprooting the roots of the kulaks and building large-scale farming in the countryside on a new socialist basis. When life, when the growth of our country, when the development of the class struggle within the country, confronted us with this question, then the Party gave a clear answer, called on the entire working class to mobilize forces for the struggle along the entire front against the capitalist elements, for the development of socialist forms of agriculture. And you know that this struggle, despite all the difficulties it had, this struggle was victorious for the working class, for its revolution.
This year, agricultural issues are of exceptional importance for a number of reasons. We must reckon with the fact that the past 1931 was a year of crop failure for a number of regions in the East of the Soviet Union, the largest agricultural regions of the Middle and Lower Volga region, the Urals, Western Siberia, and Kazakhstan. The largest agricultural the regions are in a very difficult situation as a result of a great drought, and this, of course, could not but be reflected throughout the entire Soviet Union.
It must not be forgotten that the drought of last year required from us, in excess of the usual seed and food resources of the countryside, from state resources, that we had to allocate 107 million poods for seed and food aid this year from the harvest of 1931, the situation that we had as a result of the drought last year in these 5 large areas.
We know that Ukraine is not immune from drought either. Suffice it to recall 1931, but in any case, what happened last year with regard to the situation in agriculture in a number of regions emphasizes the need for increased attention to agricultural issues. production. So far, we cannot talk about the final prospects for the current year in the field of agriculture, while we can talk about preliminary outlines of how the current agricultural sector is developing. year. Preliminary estimates are much more favorable than last year.
You probably read the day before yesterday the message of our press - "Izvestia" conversation comrade. Osinsky about the views of the harvest for the current moment, how it is shaping up at the moment. These plans for the harvest make it possible to expect that if the situation does not change in the weeks before the final ripening of the grain, we will harvest more grain than last year by ½ billion poods. This figure says that our views this year are much more favorable.
True, Ukraine does not rise above the average level in terms of crop prospects, but if we take the Soviet Union as a whole, then not only can we not talk about a crop failure or drought of any large agricultural crops. areas, but, apparently, according to all the data available at the present time, we can count on an average yield that is not lower than average.
However, this fact does not at all mean that attention to agricultural issues this year may be less than last year, or that the difficulties and tasks of our struggle for the harvest in any way can be blurred or underestimated.
On the contrary, we also remember that the fulfillment of the enormous tasks in industry which have been set before us this year, the year of the completion of the five-year plan, and the preparation for the second five-year plan, these tasks require exceptional work, strenuous strengthening our state farms and collective farms.
True, the sowing campaign in the spring of this year showed completely and completely and with absolute clarity that the victory of the collective farms and state farms is evident, that the road to socialism in the countryside has been unshakably fortified. The sowing campaign in the spring of this year, despite the fact that we have a huge breakthrough in all areas, this breakthrough is especially great in Ukraine, for all that it gives the indisputable indicator that more than 82% of the entire sown area belongs to our collective farms and state farms, which more than four-fifths of our agricultural production is firmly and definitively entrenched on socialist paths.
This conclusion is of exceptional importance, and it has shown itself over the past year. Of course, if we had not had the predominance of socialist forms in our agriculture already in 1931, if our collective farms and state farms had not occupied a dominant position not since then, but even earlier, of course, that those facts of crop failure, drought, which I spoke about 5 large agricultural regions, they would have placed before us much more, a hundred times more difficult tasks in the fulfillment of our main economic and political tasks.But we see that the path of the collective farms and state farms is the path that we have firmly and definitively traveled along the entire agricultural front. The growth of collective farms and state farms has enabled us to put forward new tasks and carry them out faster than under any other conditions. In fact, could one imagine such an increase in industrial crops as we had in Ukraine in recent years, if collective-farm socialist forms had not taken a dominant position in our agriculture.
After all, there is nothing to prove now that over the past 2-3 years, the sown area under such industrial crops as beets, flax, and cotton in Ukraine has grown enormously. Under the beet grew by 100%. Cotton is a new crop; it has reached 200 thousand hectares in terms of sown area, i.e. slightly less than half of the pre-war sown area in Turkestan. We see that these new tasks in the field of agriculture, and in particular in industrial crops, have learned to solve, at least, to solve in the main with quick steps and have achieved significant results.
Despite the fact that last year was not fruitful for Ukraine, we have a large undersowing of grain, which is also reflected in the results of the entire sowing plan for this spring. This fact shows how great the shortcomings of our work are, and how far the Ukraine, in particular, has not yet coped with the task of mastering the development of the productive forces of agriculture on a new socialist basis.
It must be noted, comrades, that the result that we have achieved in the spring sowing campaign is inextricably linked with the whole matter of guiding the work of the collective farm, with the whole state of our work in the countryside, and in particular with our grain procurement work this year. Be that as it may, we have a situation in the Ukraine in which not only has the sowing plan not been fulfilled and, moreover, to a large extent not been fulfilled, the sowing plan, and especially for grain crops, but we have a situation in which a difficult situation has arisen in a number of regions, when our work in the Ukrainian countryside this year was accompanied by exceptionally bad results for a number and number of districts, for many, many collective farms.
The situation can be explained in different ways. But what is important to us is the explanation, the answer that the Bolshevik of Ukraine and the Bolshevik of the entire Soviet Union, a member of our Party, can and must give. It is important for us to understand that the victory we won on the collective and state farm fronts has not yet been secured by us, that we have not really mastered this victory yet, that the shortcomings of our work in relation to the countryside, and in relation to the leadership of collective farms in the first place, were those the main reasons that gave this result for the present period.
We know, comrades, how things are going in regard to industry. We know that up to now we have succeeded more easily in building a new plant, and much more difficult to start up and take over this plant. We know what difficulties we faced in starting up the first largest tractor plant in Stalingrad, how successfully we built it, with what enthusiasm we started it up, and what difficulties we encountered further in mastering the production techniques at this new giant.
And only as a result of a stubborn and protracted struggle, under the leadership of the entire Party and its Central Committee, did we achieve a decisive improvement at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, lay a solid foundation for advanced technology there, and mastered the business of tractor construction. We know that this later served as a good example for the Kharkov Tractor Plant, and already here things were much faster set up and organized.
But, comrades, we must not forget that even in this largest sector of our construction, in similar major sectors of our construction, to which the attention of the entire working class and our entire Party is riveted, the task is not so simple for us, and even at the present time a number of newly grown giants are still far from working satisfactorily; there is not that perseverance, there is not that organization, that necessary struggle for the full use of these existing plants, mastery of this production and its technology in the time frame that we need.
We remember the example of the Donbass, when the task was set to implement mechanization in the coal industry. This task has been set for more than a month and not even the first year. But how difficult it is to carry it out, what huge obstacles it still encounters to this day. How the tasks that the Party and the working class set before this industry, which is of tremendous importance for the entire national economy, are still frustrated.
How many times more difficult is our task in agriculture in relation to those tens of thousands, and now hundreds of thousands of collective farms which we have organized, but whose production and management we have not yet been able to master. And now it affects every and every step.
Here in Ukraine there are enough reasons for the attention of party organizations and even their leading center - the Central Committee - to be often diverted towards industrial tasks, towards new construction projects - Donbass, Dneprostroy, etc. Reasons for this are enough, plenty.
However, comrades, the situation of agriculture in the Ukraine is a question which cannot give way to any other question in its importance, in its economic and political significance.
Meanwhile, how did things develop in Ukraine over the recent period? It seems to me that the comrades who have spoken here have cited many examples of how insufficient and downright unsatisfactory the leadership of work in the countryside, the leadership of the advancement of agriculture, and the leadership of the organization of collective farms have been. There have been a lot of them lately. They have set enormous tasks for us, and we have set before them enormous tasks in carrying out the sowing campaign, grain procurement, and so on. At the same time, over the last period it has been especially sharply revealed that sufficient management of this business from day to day, knowledge of what is being done in the countryside, attention to how to approach the collective farm, how to carry out the main tasks - sowing, procurement, etc., it was not, and every now and then we were shown this by gaps, shortcomings and minuses, which found expression in a number of exceptionally unfavorable phenomena in the countryside.
Unfortunately, comrades, it must be said that the Central Committee in the Ukraine has not taken into account the situation that has developed in recent years for its work in the countryside.Even 6 months ago, the Central Committee of the Ukraine thought that it would manage the work in the countryside satisfactorily, that it owns these more than 400 districts from Kharkov, and it must be said that the proposal to organize regions for this, in order to correct this situation, was not met at the beginning. without pleasure, I thought that we would manage and so not badly in the countryside.
It was not difficult to see, not only in terms of grain procurements, but also from other facts, that the situation with leadership in the countryside, with everyday practical leadership in the countryside, was far from up to par in this new situation. Things have turned out in such a way that in recent years the signal about the situation in the countryside for the Central Committee of Ukraine has often begun to come not from the countryside directly, but from Moscow.
The comrades who spoke here, comrade Petrovsky and others have already pointed out a number of facts, about the fact that in the Drobovsky district, about the situation in a number of districts, in Moldavia and other areas, about the leading party bodies, not to mention other bodies that have not yet managed to cope practically in the countryside in accordance with with these new problems and about a number of other facts.
The comrades of the Ukrainian leading organs began to think seriously after the reports given about these facts not by the local organizations themselves, but by our central organs, and above all by our Central Committee of the Party.
We must further note such facts, for example, as the plundering of products in our state farms, as a number of facts of the most ugly management in state farms and collective farms. Not infrequently, it was also necessary to call from the central authorities on the basis of all the data that came from the localities from various sources. And one could not dwell on individual examples, but suffice it to note that at present all comrades from the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, from regional bodies, and as far as can be seen from the debate and from regional organizations, that recently, after the organization of regions began to come closer to the work of local organizations and to the management of the collective farm in the first place. This is undeniable.
All this speaks for the fact that from the point of view of practical leadership in the countryside, the management of collective farm construction, a large number of shortcomings have accumulated, which we must correct at a rapid pace, by a decisive restructuring of all work, from top to bottom, from the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, to the grassroots. organizations.
I must add to this that my impression of the discussions that took place at the conference, especially from the speeches of the district workers, is far from being such that I agree that for the local workers the question of the need for a sharp change in work in relation to agriculture and leadership collective farms, has already matured to a sufficient extent, is sufficiently understood, sufficiently realized.
Here we hear a lot of speeches by local workers, but very few speeches from their side regarding criticism of the shortcomings of their work. This was very little. Little has been said about what is being done with regard to the preparation of the present harvesting campaign, what is being done with regard to the organization of brigades in the collective farms on the principles indicated by the Central Committee of our Party.
It should be noted that the questions that are currently put before us in Ukraine are of great political importance and they are far from being truly understood by our local workers.
I think that it is of decisive political importance how we, all grass-roots workers and workers in central organs, answer the question of why the situation that we now have in the Ukraine in a number of regions, on many collective farms, the difficult situation that we we have in terms of food and with the progress of the sowing campaign. The answer to this question for a Bolshevik must be quite definite.
Attempts to transfer the matter to the fact that we were carrying out a plan that inevitably led to these results - these attempts cannot have anything in common with the Party point of view. The question is not this. The question is how we managed, how we carried out the tasks that were set before us in the village.
These assignments were difficult. These tasks demanded a huge amount of effort from us. These assignments required us to know what is being done in the districts, what our districts represent, what is being done on the collective farms, what our collective farms represent, and precisely in this sector of our work, precisely in this regard, in understanding how things are in the districts, how the situation in individual collective farms, which would be correct for an individual collective farm and region if the tasks set by the Party were to be carried out.
In this regard, we have learned a huge lesson, pointing to a huge minus in our work.
I must, comrades, bring here the assessment of the situation given by Comrade Stalin in one of his last letters to members of the Politburo. Here's how tov. Stalin evaluates the situation. I will read in full the letter that was recently received by members of the Politburo. Stalin writes:
“As you remember, in connection with the decision of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on the reduction of the grain procurement plan, the localities turned to the Central Committee with a request to allow them to bring the grain procurement plan to the village. We refused the places, told them that the reduction of the plan should be used for the time being only to stimulate the sowing work.
It is now clear to everyone that we were right in focusing the workers' attention on the sowing work. But we were right not only in this respect. We were also right in that we did not allow the localities to distribute the grain procurement plan mechanically among the districts, villages, and collective farms on the principle of equalization, and thereby undermine both grain procurement work and the difficult situation on the collective farms. The main mistake of our grain procurement work in the past year, especially in the Ukraine and the Urals, is that the grain procurement plan was laid out for districts and collective farms and carried out not in an organized manner, but spontaneously on the principle of leveling, carried out mechanically, without regard for the situation in each individual collective farm, district, without taking into account the situation in each individual collective farm.
As a result of this mechanical egalitarian attitude to the matter, a blatant incongruity resulted, due to which in the Ukraine, despite a good harvest, a number of productive regions found themselves in a state of ruin and starvation, and in the Urals the regional committee deprived itself of the opportunity to provide assistance to lean regions at the expense of productive regions. areas. I'm not talking about the fact that a number of the first secretaries of Ukraine, the Urals, and partly the Nizhny Novgorod Territory were carried away by the giants of industry and did not pay due attention to agriculture. Forgetting that without a systematic rise in agriculture, we cannot have a rise in industry either. This year, between manifested itself, the isolation of the secretaries from the village.
The results of this mistake are now affecting the sowing business, especially in the Ukraine, and several tens of thousands of Ukrainian collective farmers are still traveling all over the European part of the USSR and corrupting our collective farms with their complaints and whining.
What needs to be done to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past year? The plan must be brought to the attention of the districts and collective farms, but it must be carried through not mechanically and on an equal footing, but taking into account the characteristics of each district, each collective farm.
Since, given the current state of our organization, we cannot have an absolutely accurate account of these features, we must allow a surcharge to the plan of 4-5% in order to thereby create the possibility of covering the inevitable errors in accounting and to fulfill the plan for us at all costs. . I propose, firstly, to convene no later than June 26-27 ... "
This letter was written at the beginning of June.
"To convene no later than June 26-27 a meeting of the secretaries and chairmen of the executive committees, the chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, the North Caucasus and other regions on the organization of grain procurements and the unconditional implementation of grain procurements."
This meeting took place on June 27, and the decision of this meeting was approved by the Central Committee of the Party and sent to the localities in all the Central Committees of the regional and district committees.
“Second, to criticize at the conference the mistakes of our grain procurement practices in the past year and to outline ways of organizing grain procurements with bringing the plan to the districts and collective farms and taking into account the situation of each district, each collective farm.
Third. Responsibility for the state of agricultural territories, regions, republics for the successes and shortcomings of this year's grain procurements should be placed personally on the first secretaries of the North Caucasus, Ukraine, the Central Chernobyl region and other regions (all procurement regions are listed), which, of course, should in no way relieve from the responsibility of the respective pred.executive committees and pred.sovnarkoms. The corresponding decision of the Central Committee shall be sent to the Republican Central Committee and Regional Committees.
Here are the instructions given by Comrade. Stalin on the results, on the assessment of the results of the grain procurements of the past year and on how to approach the tasks of grain procurements in the current year. The Central Committee fully agreed with these instructions.
The decisions that have now been worked out by the Central Committee of the Party in Moscow at a conference with the participation of representatives of all the indicated districts, secretaries and chairman executive committees of all these organizations - you must receive these decisions if you have not already received them today or tomorrow no later.
But here, comrades, what should be emphasized in these conclusions of Comrade. Stalin. Indeed, isn’t it symptomatic that when the decision of the Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee on the collective-farm trade in grain and on the grain procurement plan was issued in the spring of this year, the first movement of a number of local organizations was an attempt to immediately transfer these grain procurement plans from the regional republican centers to places.
A number of regional organizations, in this case I understand the Ukrainian organization, which did not make these proposals, but a number of regional organizations did.
What could this mean? This could mean only one thing, that from the point of view of carrying out a correct approach to the districts and collective farms during the period of grain procurement, during the period of fulfillment of the grain procurement plan, this could not give a correct and responsible account of the characteristics of the regions, of the characteristics of the collective farms.
The Central Committee did not allow this path to be taken and proposed that the issue of grain procurements be resolved under conditions when, in the main, the picture of the harvest had already been determined, when we had to establish the situation in the regions after the sowing campaign and its completion, establish more accurately and more correctly the position of the region, and already district the position of the collective farm.
And so, comrades, this is the main instruction that Comrade Stalin gives, both with regard to assessing what happened during the grain procurements in our largest grain procurement areas, in particular in the Ukraine, and with regard to the new tasks that confront us this year. The main thing is not to follow the path of a mechanically egalitarian attitude towards the districts, the main thing is to skillfully understand the peculiarities of the situation of individual districts, and within the districts - in the peculiarities of the situation of individual villages and collective farms. And if we correctly approach the districts, correctly approach the collective farms and villages, then the tasks set by the Party in relation to grain procurements cannot give rise to doubts and hesitations in their feasibility and solvability in not a single Bolshevik. The fact that we have, in particular, in the Ukraine in relation to the grain procurements of the current year, once again underlines the correctness of these instructions of Comrade Stalin.
The plan that has been given - a plan significantly reduced compared to last year - takes into account the special difficulties that we have had and are having at the present time in Ukraine. So the question is how to accomplish this task.
There can be two answers in the conditions in which we find ourselves, in particular in Ukraine. First answer: we have a difficult situation in a number of regions for a considerable number of collective farms, we are faced with the difficult task of grain procurements for the new economic year - is it possible to somehow get around this task, can this task be reduced, curtailed, can the question be raised so as to give for some period the opportunity to set smaller, more modest, more confident tasks.
I think, comrades, that is not how the question stands before us. The specifics and difficulties of this year have been taken into account and reduced by the plan adopted for Ukraine. If we now take the path of fluctuating the feasibility of these plans, the path of reducing these plans, then this can mean only one thing, that in the decisive question, it is true in a very complex and difficult matter - in the matter of grain procurements, instead of the policy of ensuring the the pace of building socialism, instead of providing our work with the best approach to the cause of these tasks that have been set before us, we are moving to another path, to the path of capitulation in the face of these difficulties, to the path of disorganization of our Party organization in the solution of these Party tasks.
I think that there are two ways: the way of curtailing the plan, surrendering to the tasks set, the way of demobilization and unwinding our organization, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, the mobilization of all forces in order to fulfill the tasks set and turn the work abruptly onto a new path . The Bolsheviks of the Ukraine are drawing a conclusion that is absolutely clear to every Bolshevik, and of the two paths they will choose the path of the Bolsheviks, the path of organizing party forces for the fulfillment of the assigned tasks. For the Bolsheviks, there have been, there are now and there will still be considerable difficult tasks, but the Bolsheviks are Bolsheviks because, undertaking difficult tasks, they take into account the peculiarities of the situation, take into account the difficulties of these tasks in practice and approach this matter practically with an assessment of the peculiarities in individual regions and collective farms. They are mobilizing the forces of the entire organization for the accomplishment of these tasks, and are working to carry out this task with all Bolshevik enthusiasm.
We know what basic tasks confront us in order to ensure the fulfillment of the tasks set by the Party in respect of agriculture. The main tasks here will rest on the question of harvesting, on the question of preserving the harvest, on the question of weeding industrial crops, organizing labor on collective farms, organizing active workers on collective farms, on organizing party forces, explaining to them the new situation and the new tasks that we face. .
This is what you need to focus on right now. We must take up the tasks assigned to Ukraine and other organizations with all determination, without giving any reasons, any fingers to those who want to reach for a revision of the plan, for hesitations, in the fulfillment of these basic tasks. We know that any hesitation in carrying out these assignments, adopted on the basis of taking into account the situation that has arisen with a reduction in the plan in comparison with the previous year, any hesitation will play into the hands of the kulak elements, the kulak, the right opportunist, the Trotskyist, but not into the hands of our Party.
We have another task - to direct all attention at the present time to ensuring that the work of the harvesting campaign, the organization of labor in the collective farms, of raising the work of the collective farms to such a level that would ensure the best collective farms the best harvest results, so that those collective farms that actually work better in during the sowing campaign, those collective farms that were better able to organize the harvesting of the crops could also use the best results of their labor.
To direct all our forces here, all our attention to organizing the sale of the harvest and combating (inaudible) theft of the harvested crops, to direct attention to organizing the collective farm asset as the guiding force for carrying out these tasks - that is our task.
Of the two paths, we must choose the path of resolutely turning the attention of the entire Party organization, primarily the regional and rural organization, to improving the organization of collective farms, to improving the work of harvesting, preserving the harvest through stacking, through all these measures that we must carry out during threshing, when dividing the crop, etc.
The practical and concrete task of how to carry out the organization of the harvesting campaign has been specially worked out by the Central Committee of our Party. This decision has now been published for the general information of Party members, workers and collective farmers. All the practical work is done there, as it should be done by the Bolsheviks in this harvesting campaign and in preparation for the grain procurements.
These questions are put practically and concretely before the Ukrainian organization as well. In the event that we correctly take into account the present situation and use the situation to strengthen our positions in the countryside, to strengthen our collective farms in the countryside, we will cope with the tasks set in full, as we did before. Indeed, this year's situation for the advancement of agriculture and the situation on the collective farms has quite a bit that is new.
The decisions of the Central Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the Union published in the spring on reducing the plan for grain procurements and on collective-farm trade must be strictly observed when carried out in practice. These decisions indicate that in a number of collective farms there may be a tendency to ensure, first of all, the interests of their private or even collective farm interests, contrary to the interests of the state, these tendencies may also lead to a transition from collective farm trade to individual, which would led not to the strengthening, but to the disintegration of the collective farms, to the strengthening of petty proprietorship and tendencies within the collective farms, among the collective farmers.
These dangers exist. We cannot ignore this. The kulak and his agents in the countryside have worked hard to interpret and use the implementation of our decisions of the Party and the Soviet government on the question of collective-farm trade in precisely this way. We are faced with a difficult task, but the Bolsheviks can, and must, and must turn things in the other direction, in the direction that the Party and the Soviet government demand. The Bolsheviks must put the question in such a way that the possibility of unhindered collective-farm trade after the completion of grain procurements would increase the interest and incentive of the collective farms to strengthen the collective-farm economy, to increase the marketability of the economy, to increase the collective-farm asset, to involve it in the tasks that are set during the harvest campaign, so that complete it more quickly, so that the collective farm fulfills its obligation to the state as soon as possible, and the faster, and the better and to a greater extent, it will be able to use the result of the harvest for the development of collective farm trade, for the additional benefits that flow from this for them. Therefore, the prospect of developing collective-farm trade will be under the influence of the kulaks, under the influence of our class enemy.
In some cases they will interpret in the face of the weakness of our positions on the collective farm, in the case of insufficient activity of our workers in the countryside, they will be able to push towards negative consequences in relation to the collective farms, in relation to the strengthening of the collective farms. But if we rightly put before the collective farms, before our collective farmers, that the expansion of collective farm trade after the fulfillment of the grain procurement plan requires from them better work during the harvest, a better attitude towards preserving the results of the harvest, a better attitude towards the entire organization of labor on the collective farms, we can and will achieve that these decisions of the Party and the Soviet government will serve as a real lever for strengthening our collective farms.
The Party and the Soviet government demand the strengthening of revolutionary legality, especially in the countryside. Of course, the kulaks and their agents will strive to use this decision of the party and the Soviet government in order to inspire the class enemy with hope that now the struggle against the class enemy of the workers and peasants will be softer, less decisive. But in this both the kulak and his agents will have to err, and they will err and quickly become disillusioned. Revolutionary legitimacy for the working class, for the working people, must consist in strengthening our collective farms in the countryside, in strengthening and defending the interests of the workers and working peasants against the class enemy, against his agents. The task will be to ensure that against those who use power for outrages, for counter-revolutionary sabotage, for counter-revolutionary violence against the working people of the countryside to destroy the collective farms, to undermine the collective farms, more cruel measures are taken, there is a more resolute struggle and, thereby, the habits of excesses, no matter what “leftist” phrases, no matter what “leftist” motives are explained, they were less tolerant than ever before. The struggle against “leftist” inflections and kulak sentiments on the basis of revolutionary legality must strengthen our position in the countryside, must strengthen our collective farms, must facilitate the fulfillment of the economic tasks and in terms of grain procurements that face us this year, more than ever with all importance and of all importance to the working class.
From the point of view of raising the interests of our countryside and agriculture, those measures that have been carried out in the countryside in recent years, increasing the supply of manufactured goods to the countryside, are of enormous importance. In fact, the development of consumer products, especially in relation to the countryside, must be set as one of the first tasks of our entire Party organization.
Only now, comrades, have we truly set this task before all our organisations, before our entire state and handicraft industry. We cannot yet boast of great results in this respect, comrades; It is precisely during the period when grain procurements are beginning that we give twice as much for supplying the countryside with manufactured goods as compared to the corresponding quarter of last year for manufactured goods. Isn't this an additional and most important element in all our work in the countryside? And here is all our work to improve agriculture, to strengthen our collective farms. If last year during the grain procurement period we were able to allocate manufactured goods for only 350 million in the third quarter, and this year for 690 million, does this not mean that the increase in manufactured goods in the countryside is beginning to proceed at a much faster pace. On our further work, comrades, now depends the flow of goods to the countryside, which is a tremendous question for strengthening the link between the working class and the peasantry, so that this flow will grow further.
Only recently, on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Party, and in particular Comrade. Stalin, the question of the deployment of consumer products. It is a matter of satisfying the needs of our state economy and other organs, which will satisfy consumer demand better than the usual norms in the market of town and country. But already now there are signs that our enormous potential in the development of marketable products for a wide market has not been used and can be used much better than it has been until now. The formation of a waste workshop at a number of factories, the expansion of the output of those light industry factories that are not really working, the cessation of those attempts that were made in our country until recently in relation to light industry enterprises by all our organizations when there was not enough electricity and when there was less of it. and in the first place went exclusively to enterprises for mass consumption of products in which there is a huge need for our industry, without trying to ensure the growth and further rapid rise of all branches of industry to supply our urban worker and rural peasant market.
As early as the 16th Congress, it was firmly stated that the development of light industry should proceed at a rapid pace. What do we have so far. It turns out that the whole thing has not yet been implemented. The time has come to implement these decisions more resolutely, more rapidly, by getting the plants and factories interested in this sense, perhaps releasing for them the profits that they will receive from additional industrial production, for their disposal, for encouraging the growth of this consumer goods industry, In order to attract to the growth of the production of consumer goods, the enormous possibilities that still exist in our handicraft cooperation, by involving our entire industry, state and handicraft organizations in this work, we can really ensure a further great shift in the work of our industry in the line of consumer goods. Very little has been done yet.
But even less has been done to ensure that the goods that we have already allocated for the countryside really reach the countryside, so that they really get through all the obstacles, through all those fences, through all those organizations that often put the satisfaction of the needs of consumer goods in last place. and especially the countryside, and which must now understand their obligations to the working class, to the broadest masses of the peasantry, primarily the collective farm peasantry, in the matter of supplying manufactured goods to our countryside. This question, now posed by the Party with all its sharpness, gives us the opportunity to expand our work in the countryside even more vigorously, further strengthening our prestige, our positions in agriculture and expanding our further work to strengthen the collective farms.
Enormous tasks lie before us in the matter of strengthening the cadres of the collective farms, in the matter of strengthening our regional party organizations. The comrades rightly said here that the decision of the Party that the district is the center of the reorganization of agriculture can now be forgotten or relegated to the background on the occasion, let us say, of the organization of regions in the Ukraine, on the occasion of the fact that we have created these new organizations that stand between the Central Committee and the districts.
We must give a resolute rebuff to all these attempts, we must strengthen the regional organizations with the best workers we have, strengthen our collective-farm activists in order to rely on them, prevent "leftist" excesses, prevent spontaneous kulak moods that still exist in collective farms through organized and conscious workers of our party and collective farm organizations.
All this is at present the most enormous task of our Party in the countryside, a task which we are still performing very, very poorly, but the work on which is bearing enormous fruit and must bear fruit if the Party really ensures that the attention of the Party organizations, which have enormous weight in development of agriculture in our country, it is to these tasks of raising agriculture and strengthening our collective farms.
Comrades, the Ukraine is one of the decisive sectors in our entire national economy. It is of exceptionally great importance not only in directly economic questions, but also in political questions. Those shortcomings, those blunders, those mistakes that we have here, they are reflected and hit hard on our entire Soviet Union, on the entire working class, on our entire Party.
That is why we speak of shortcomings, of the unsatisfactory practical guidance with regard to the countryside in the Ukraine, as about the moment, as about the conclusion that we need in order to achieve a decisive change in the shortest possible time in this decisive area for the agriculture of the whole country. decisive growth of our agriculture, decisive strengthening of our collective farms. The difficulties of this year will be great, the difficulties of the work that confronts us in advancing agriculture are enormous. But, comrades, these difficulties and the solution of these problems are a most rewarding task for the Bolsheviks.
We are now hearing more and more often from states that are outside the Soviet Union that our enemies are counting on the difficulties that exist in the Ukraine in order to unleash events of a wider international order.
We know that these attempts will now intensify if we do not correct the situation and achieve a decisive change on the agricultural front in such an important territory of the Soviet Union, in such a decisive section of our agricultural front as the Ukraine. Our enemies are not averse to speeding up the denouement of international intervention against the Soviet Union.
Their calculations are aimed at the fact that the difficulties in agriculture that we have experienced in the past year and our difficulties connected with the attempts of the imperialists to drag us into a new war at an accelerated pace will be of exceptionally great importance for us and will undermine our work, our energy in present time. But, comrades, we know that at the beginning of this year the danger of an attack on the Soviet Union was especially urgent. But by quick and decisive measures the Party ensured the mobilization of a number of its sectors of economic work to serve the needs of the defense. We know that in the Far East the danger of a new imperialist war and direct intervention against the Soviet Union was growing very rapidly. No one could guarantee at the beginning of this year that the imperialist gentlemen would not unleash a new attack, a new intervention against the Soviet Union, starting from the Far East sector this spring.
But apparently they also received information that our party is capable of rapidly mobilizing its forces under the necessary conditions. Our Party has shown that our state industry, at the right moment, can quickly provide huge new funds for strengthening the defense of our country, quickly direct them there, to those sectors and to those borders of the Soviet Union, which are especially interested in this. And we see that we have taken measures and struggle to fulfill all our economic tasks - we have ensured such an attitude that speaks of a certain restraint, of a certain caution of our enemies.
They sense a quick and enormous opportunity to mobilize our funds for the accomplishment of major economic and political tasks, and they became alert, they apparently were forced to postpone the denouement of the attack on the Soviet Union. But now, comrades, we must all say that the denouement of the new attack is far beyond our control.
We must be prepared for the worst. Therefore, this year we must ensure the mobilization of our work, our forces, and with all our work ensure the fulfillment of the main economic tasks. Without the fulfillment of these tasks, without providing ourselves with coal, metal, grain, without fulfilling agricultural tasks, especially in the Ukraine - this decisive sector for our entire agriculture, without this we will not be able to really, in a real, Bolshevik way, those tasks that we set before ourselves.
... day by day the practical implementation of this general line, she must lead the implementation of the general line, improving and perfecting, as Comrade says. Stalin, in the course of work, adopted plans for economic construction, correcting and preventing errors.
But we have great opportunities. We have shown that, relying on the collective farms, we can solve the most difficult tasks at a really Bolshevik pace, and let me express my confidence that despite all the shortcomings, despite all the situation that we cannot consider satisfactory with regard to agriculture in Ukraine, the Bolsheviks of Ukraine will achieve the fact that by turning the attention of the Party organizations of the Ukraine to the right extent, by turning the attention of the entire Party organization to the right extent to the cause of raising agriculture, strengthening our collective farms, to the growth and strengthening of the collective farm active, we will ensure the fulfillment of the tasks set before us, we will ensure the fulfillment of the tasks, both economic and political, and the enemies of our party, class enemies, whoever they are - a kulak, a pest, a speculator, whoever they are in their political coloring - a Socialist-Revolutionary, a Menshevik, a Right or "Left" deviationist, will meet with our side rebuff, readiness to fulfill the tasks assigned to us and indestructible (?) rebuff to all whining kame, capitulators, who are not capable of carrying out the tasks set before us, who hesitate in carrying out these tasks, who do not understand the responsibility of the Bolshevik for the solution of these basic and decisive tasks.
We are now carrying out the most responsible business, not only economic but also political, when we talk about the main tasks of advancing agriculture and strengthening the collective farms in the Ukraine. It is up to us to complete these tasks quickly.
It depends on us that those areas that are now in a difficult situation quickly rectify the present situation. The further growth of our agriculture on the socialist foundations, the further strengthening of our collective farms, and the development of state farms depend on us. These forces are growing and getting stronger. They go to victory.
Let's organize for the final victory of socialism, mobilize all our forces to carry out the main tasks, and we will fulfill our task in the Bolshevik way (loud applause).
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