Greetings, Comrade Kaganovich!

1) Why are the daily reports on AMO and the Automobile Factory not being published? Whom are you sparing -- bureaucrats? Are the interests of bureaucrats really worth more than the interests of the cause? What a disgrace we have come to...

2) Why has tractor production fallen at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory? They received the Order of Lenin and relaxed? And the CC can tolerate such an outrage!...

3) How do things stand with the fulfillment of the production plan for tanks, airplanes, and engines for them, tank guns and anti-tank guns? Was the May plan fulfilled or not? What are the prospects for the June plan?

4) When do you plan to convene the CC Plenum? It would be good to convene it by August 1-2.

5) I have just received your letter of June 9. I reply:

(a) On consumer goods. According to the CC decision, we must have not only quarterly but also monthly supply plans for the market -- this is the first point; and second, we must ship a definite percentage of the total volume of production for the market (and the countryside), and only the remainder should be given to non-market consumers. What has become of these decisions? Why are they not being fulfilled? If you are truly seeking the truth, write to me -- what percentage of total output in the relevant branches is being allocated to the market (month by month!), or should be allocated to the market (month by month!), and how much to non-market consumers. Well now, try that!

6) As for the Central Union of Consumer Cooperatives, there is no point in citing its weakness: its weakness is common knowledge. The Politburo Commission on Consumer Goods was created precisely so that the Central Union would be directed by you and Postyshev. That is the purpose of creating the commission. From now on, reference to the weakness of the Central Union will be (must be!) treated as a reflection of the weakness of Kaganovich and Postyshev.

The immediate task is to send the maximum of consumer goods in May, June, and July to the grain-producing, sugar (beet), and cotton regions -- with the expectation that the goods will be on the spot already in July and August. If this is not done, the commission deserves to be buried alive.

Well, that is all for now.

Greetings.

I. Stalin.

Source: Stalin i Kaganovich. Perepiska. 1931-1936 gg. [Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936], pp. 161-162.

RGASPI, f. 81, op. 3, d. 100, ll. 120-124.

NOTE

In May 1932, tractor production in the USSR fell to 1,697 as compared with 2,997 in April and was not restored to its former level for several months (although in all of 1932, 28,882 tractors were produced as compared with 17,536 in 1931). On September 16, 1932, the Politburo, on Stalin's initiative, adopted a resolution: "Instruct Comrade Ordzhonikidze, within two days, to report to the CC what is happening at STZ, why it is operating abnormally, and what must be undertaken in order urgently to establish normal production."

In the newspaper Za Industrializatsiyu (October 17), this fall was explained by a shortage of metal and the need to repair worn-out equipment.

On February 10, 1932, the Politburo proposed drawing up such a plan for the distribution of consumer goods for that year that the share of the free market would amount to no less than 80% of the gross output of such goods. Later, the question of drawing up supply plans for consumer goods and of distributing goods between the free market and state consumers was repeatedly considered by the Politburo.

On May 8, on Stalin's proposal, the Politburo formed a commission to check the implementation of the decisions of central institutions on consumer goods, which included Molotov, Stalin, Kaganovich, Postyshev, Rudzutak, and Yagoda.