Speech Delivered on July 9, 1928

Comrades, before I pass to the specific question of our difficulties on the grain front, allow me to deal with some general questions of theoretical interest which arose here during the discussion at the plenum. First of all, the general question of the chief sources of development of our industry, the means of guaranteeing our present rate of industrialisation. Ossinsky and then Sokolnikov touched upon this question, perhaps without themselves realising it. It is a question of paramount importance.

I think that there are two chief sources nourishing our industry: firstly, the working class; secondly, the peasantry.

In the capitalist countries industrialisation was usually effected, in the main, by robbing other countries, by robbing colonies or defeated countries, or with the help of substantial and more or less enslaving loans from abroad.

You know that for hundreds of years Britain collected capital from all her colonies and from all parts of the world, and was able in this way to make additional investments in her industry. This, incidentally, explains why Britain at one time became the “workshop of the world.”

You know also that Germany developed her industry with the help, among other things, of the 5,000 million francs she levied as an indemnity on France after the Franco-Prussian war.

One respect in which our country differs from the capitalist countries is that it cannot and must not engage in colonial robbery, or the plundering of other countries in general. That way, therefore, is closed to us. Neither, however, does our country have or want to have enslaving loans from abroad. Consequently, that way, too, is closed to us.

What then remains? Only one thing, and that is to develop industry, to industrialise the country with the help of internal accumulations.

Under the bourgeois system in our country, industry, transport, etc., were usually developed with the help of loans. Whether you take the building of new factories or the re-equipment of old ones, whether you take the laying of new railways or the erection of big electric power stations—not one of these undertakings was able to dispense with foreign loans. But they were enslaving loans.

Quite different is the situation in our country under the Soviet system. We are building the Turkestan Railway, with a length of 1,400 versts, which requires hundreds of millions of rubles. We are erecting the Dnieper Hydro-Electric Power Station, which also requires hundreds of millions of rubles. But have they involved us in any enslaving loans? No, they have not. All this is being done with the help of internal accumulations.

PLENUM OF THE C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.), JULY 4-12, 1928

But what are the chief sources of these accumulations? As I have said, there are two such sources: firstly, the working class, which creates values and advances our industry; secondly, the peasantry.

The way matters stand with the peasantry in this respect is as follows: it not only pays the state the usual taxes, direct and indirect; it also overpays in the relatively high prices for manufactured goods—that is in the first place, and it is more or less underpaid in the prices for agricultural produce—that is in the second place.

This is an additional tax levied on the peasantry for the sake of promoting industry, which caters for the whole country, the peasantry included. It is something in the nature of a “tribute,” of a supertax, which we are compelled to levy for the time being in order to preserve and accelerate our present rate of industrial development, in order to ensure an industry for the whole country, in order to raise further the standard of life of the rural population and then to abolish altogether this additional tax, these “scissors” between town and country.

It is an unpalatable business, there is no denying. But we should not be Bolsheviks if we slurred over it and closed our eyes to the fact that, unfortunately, our industry and our country cannot at present dispense with this additional tax on the peasantry.

Why do I speak of this? Because some comrades, apparently, do not understand this indisputable truth. They based their speeches on the fact that the peasants are overpaying for manufactured goods, which is absolutely true, and are being underpaid for agricultural produce, which is also true. But what do they demand? They demand the establishment of replacement prices for grain, so that these “scissors,” these underpayments and overpayments, would be done away with at once. But what would be the effect of doing away with the “scissors” this year or next year, say? The effect would be to retard the industrialisation of the country, including the industrialisation of agriculture, to undermine our young industry which is not yet firmly on its feet, and thus to strike at our entire national economy. Can we agree to this? Obviously, we cannot. Should the “scissors” between town and country, should all these underpayments and overpayments be done away with? Yes, they certainly should. Can we do away with them at once without weakening our industry, and hence our national economy? No, we cannot.

What, then, should our policy be? It should be gradually to close the “scissors,” to diminish the gap from year to year, by lowering the prices for manufactured goods and improving agricultural technique—which cannot but result in reducing the cost of producing grain— and then, within the space of a number of years, to do away completely with this additional tax on the peasantry. Are the peasants capable of bearing this burden? They undoubtedly are: firstly, because this burden will grow lighter from year to year, and, secondly, because this additional tax is being levied not under conditions of capitalist development, where the masses of the peasantry are condemned to poverty and exploitation, but under Soviet conditions, where exploitation of the peasants by the socialist state is out of the question, and where this additional tax is being paid in a situation in which the living standards of the peasantry are steadily rising. That is how matters stand with regard to the basic sources of the industrialisation of our country at the present time.

The second question concerns the problem of the bond with the middle peasant—the problem of the aims of the bond and the means for effecting it.

It would follow from what some comrades say that the bond between town and country, between the working class and the main mass of the peasantry, is based exclusively on textiles, on satisfying the personal requirements of the peasantry. Is this true? It is quite untrue, comrades. Of course, it is of immense importance to satisfy the peasants’ personal requirements for textiles. That is how we began to establish the bond with the peasantry in the new conditions. But to assert on these grounds that the bond based on textiles is the beginning and end of the matter, that the bond based on satisfying the peasants’ personal requirements is the all-inclusive or chief foundation of the economic alliance between the working class and the peasantry, is to commit a most serious error. Actually, the bond between town and country is based not only on satisfying the peasants’ personal requirements, not only on textiles, but also on satisfying the economic requirements of the peasants as producers of agricultural products. It is not only cotton fabrics that we give the peasants. We also give them machines of all kinds, seeds, ploughs, fertilisers, etc., which are of the weightiest importance for the advancement and socialist transformation of peasant farming. Hence, the bond is based not only on textiles, but also on metals. Without this, the bond with the peasantry would be insecure. In what way does the bond based on textiles differ from the bond based on metals? Primarily in the fact that the bond based on textiles chiefly concerns the peasants’ personal requirements, without affecting, or affecting to a comparatively small extent, the production side of peasant farming, whereas the bond based on metals chiefly concerns the production side of peasant farming, improving it, mechanising it, making it more remunerative and paving the way for uniting the scattered and small peasant farms into large socially-conducted farms. It would be a mistake to think that the purpose of the bond is to preserve classes, the peasant class in particular. That is not so, comrades. That is not the purpose of the bond at all. The purpose of the bond is to bring the peasantry closer to the working class, the leader of our entire development, to strengthen the alliance of the peasantry with the working class, the leading force in the alliance, gradually to remould the peasantry, its mentality and its production, along collectivist lines, and thus to bring about the conditions for the abolition of classes.

The purpose of the bond is not to preserve classes, but to abolish them. Whereas the bond based on textiles affects the production side of peasant farming very little and therefore, generally speaking, cannot result in the remoulding of the peasantry along collectivist lines and in the abolition of classes, the bond based upon metals, on the contrary, affects primarily the production side of peasant farming, its mechanisation and its collectivisation, and for this very reason should result in the gradual remoulding of the peasantry, in the gradual elimination of classes, including the peasant class. How, in general, can the peasant—his mentality, his production—be remoulded, remade, along the lines of bringing his mentality closer to that of the working class, along the lines of the socialist principle of production? What does this require? It requires, firstly, the widest agitation on behalf of collectivism among the peasant masses.

It requires, secondly, implanting a co-operative communal life and the ever wider extension of our co-operative supply and marketing organisations to the millions of peasant farms. There can be no doubt that had it not been for the broad development of our co-operatives, we should not have that swing towards the collectivefarm movement that we observe among the peasants at the present time, for the development of supply and marketing co-operatives is in our conditions a means of preparing the peasants for going over to collective farming.

But all this is still far from enough to remould the peasantry. The principal force for remoulding the peasantry along socialist lines lies in new technical means in agriculture, the mechanisation of agriculture, collective peasant labour, and the electrification of the country. Lenin has been referred to here, and a passage on the bond with peasant farming has been quoted from his works. But to take Lenin in part, without desiring to take him as a whole, is to misrepresent Lenin. Lenin was fully aware that the bond with the peasantry based on textile goods is a very important matter. But he did not stop there, for, side by side with this, he insisted that the bond with the peasantry should be based also on metals, on supplying the peasant with machines, on the electrification of the country, that is, on all those things which promote the remaking and remoulding of peasant farming on collectivist lines.

Please listen, for example, to the following quotation from Lenin: “The remaking of the small tiller, the remoulding of his whole mentality and habits, is a work of generations. As regards the small tiller, this problem can be solved, his whole mentality can be put on healthy lines, so to speak, only by the material base, by technical means, by introducing tractors and machines in agriculture on a mass scale, by electrification on a mass scale. That is what would remake the small tiller fundamentally and with immense rapidity” (Vol. XXVI, p. 239).

Quite clearly, the alliance between the working class and the peasantry cannot be stable and lasting, the bond cannot be stable and lasting and cannot attain its purpose of gradually remoulding the peasantry, bringing it closer to the working class and putting it on collectivist lines, if the bond based on textiles is not supplemented by the bond based on metals. That is how Comrade Lenin understood the bond. The third question is that of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and the class struggle under NEP conditions. It is necessary first of all to establish the point that the principles of NEP were laid down by our Party not after war communism, as certain comrades sometimes assert, but before it, already at the beginning of 1918, when we were able for the first time to set about building a new, socialist economy. I could refer to Ilyich’s pamphlet, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power, published in the beginning of 1918, where the principles of NEP are set forth. When the intervention ended and the Party introduced NEP, it described it as a new economic policy because this policy had been interrupted by the intervention and we were in a position to apply it only after the intervention, after war communism, compared with which NEP really was a new economic policy. In confirmation of this, I consider it necessary to refer to the resolution of the Ninth Congress of Soviets, where it is stated in black and white that the principles of the New Economic Policy were laid down before war communism. This resolution, “Preliminary Results of the New Economic Policy,” says the following:

“What is known as the New Economic Policy, the basic principles of which were precisely defined already at the time of the first respite, in the spring of 1918,* is based on a strict evaluation of the economic resources of Soviet Russia. The implementation of this policy, which was interrupted by the combined attack of the counter-revolutionary forces of the Russian landlords and bourgeoisie and European imperialism on the workers’ and peasants’ state, became possible only after the armed suppression of the counter-revolutionary attempts, at the beginning of 1921” (see Resolutions of the Ninth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, p. 1647).

You will thus see how mistaken is the assertion of some comrades that it was only after war communism that the Party realised the necessity for building socialism in the conditions of a market and a money economy, that is, in the conditions of the New Economic Policy. And what follows from this?

It follows, first of all, that NEP cannot be regarded as only a retreat. It follows, further, that NEP presumes a victorious and systematic socialist offensive on the capitalist elements in our economy. The opposition, in the shape of Trotsky, thinks that once NEP has been introduced, only one thing remains for us to do, and that is to retreat step by step, as we retreated at the beginning of NEP, “extending” NEP and surrendering positions. It is on this incorrect conception of NEP that Trotsky bases his assertion that the Party “extended” NEP and retreated from Lenin’s position by permitting the renting of land and the hiring of labour in the countryside. Please listen to Trotsky’s words:

“But what is the significance of the Soviet Government’s latest measures in the countryside—sanctioning the renting of land and the hiring of labour—all that which we call extending rural NEP. . . . But could we have abstained from extending NEP in the countryside? No, because then peasant farming would have fallen into decay, the market would have narrowed, and industry would have been retarded” (Trotsky, Eight Years, pp. 16-17). That is the length to which one may go if one gets into one’s head the mistaken notion that NEP is a retreat and nothing but a retreat.

Can it be asserted that, in permitting the hiring of labour and the renting of land in the countryside, the Party “extended” NEP, “retreated” from Lenin’s position and so on? Of course not! People who talk such nonsense have nothing in common with Lenin and Leninism.

I might refer to Lenin’s letter to Ossinsky of April 1, 1922, where he speaks explicitly of the necessity of permitting the hiring of labour and the renting of land in the countryside. That was towards the end of the Eleventh Party Congress, where the question of work in the countryside, of NEP and its consequences had been widely discussed by the delegates.

Here is a quotation from this letter, forming the draft of a resolution for the delegates at the Party congress: “On the question of the conditions for permitting the hiring of labour in agriculture and the renting of land, the Party Congress recommends all functionaries engaged in this field not to hamper either of these trends with excessive formalities, and to confine themselves to carrying out the decision of the last congress of Soviets, and also to studying what practical measures would be expedient in order to restrict the possibility of extremes and harmful excesses in this matter” (see Lenin Miscellany, IV, p. 39648). You see how foolish and baseless is the talk about an “extension” of NEP, about a “retreat” from Lenin’s position in connection with the introduction of the renting of land and the hiring of labour in the countryside, etc. Why do I speak of this?

Because the people who are talking about an “extension” of NEP are seeking to use this talk as a justification for retreating in face of the capitalist elements in the countryside.

Because people have arisen inside and around our Party who see in the “extension” of NEP a means of “saving” the bond between the workers and the peasants, people who, on the grounds of the repeal of the emergency measures, demand that the restrictions on the kulaks be discarded, and who demand that the capitalist elements in the countryside be given a free hand—in the interests of the bond.

Because the Party must be safeguarded against these anti-proletarian sentiments by all ways and means in our power.

Not to go too far afield, I shall refer to a note from a comrade, Osip Chernov, a member of the staff of Bednota,49 in which he demands a series of relaxations for the kulaks, relaxations which would be nothing but a real and undisguised “extension” of NEP. I do not know whether he is a Communist or not. But this comrade, Osip Chernov, who is a supporter of the Soviet regime and of the alliance between the workers and the peasants, is so muddled over the peasant question that it is difficult to distinguish him from an ideologist of the rural bourgeoisie. What, in his opinion, are the reasons for our difficulties on the grain front? “The first reason,” he says, “is unquestionably the progressive income tax system. . . . The second reason is the legal changes in the election regulations, the lack of clarity in the regulations as to who is to be regarded as a kulak.” What must be done to remove the difficulties? “It is necessary in the first place,” he says, “to abolish the progressive income tax system as it now stands, and replace it by a land taxation system, and to put a light tax on draught animals and major agricultural implements. . . . A second, and no less important, measure is to revise the election regulations, so as to make more prominent the signs showing where an exploiting, ku- ¤lak farm begins.”

There you have the “extension” of NEP. As you see, the seed cast by Trotsky has not fallen on barren soil. Incorrect understanding of NEP gives rise to talk about “extension” of NEP, and talk about “extension” of NEP results in all sorts of notes, articles, letters and proposals recommending that the kulak should be allowed a free hand, that he should be relieved of restrictions and enabled to enrich himself without hindrance. In reference to this same question, the question of NEP and the class struggle under NEP conditions, I should like to mention another fact. I am referring to the statement made by one of the comrades to the effect that, in connection with the grain procurements, the class struggle under NEP is only of minor importance, that this class struggle is not and cannot be of any serious importance in our grain procurement difficulties. I must say, comrades, that I cannot at all agree with this statement. I think that, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is not and cannot be a single political or economic fact of any importance which does not reflect the existence of a class struggle in town or country. Does NEP abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat? Of course not! On the contrary, NEP is a specific form of expression and an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat. And is not the dictatorship of the proletariat a continuation of the class struggle? (Voices: “True!”) How, then, can it be said that the class struggle plays only a minor role in such important political and economic facts as the kulaks’ attack on Soviet policy at the time of the grain procurements and the counter-measures and offensive actions undertaken by the Soviet Government against the kulaks and speculators in connection with the grain procurements? Is it not a fact that at the time of the grain procurement crisis we had the first serious attack by the capitalist elements of the countryside on Soviet policy under NEP conditions?

Have classes and the class struggle ceased to exist in the countryside?

Is it not true that Lenin’s slogan about relying on the poor peasant, an alliance with the middle peasant and fighting against the kulaks is the basic slogan of our work in the countryside under the present conditions? And what is this slogan if not an expression of the class struggle in the countryside?

Of course, our policy must by no means be regarded as a policy of fanning the class struggle. Why? Because fanning the class struggle would lead to civil war. Because, inasmuch as we are in power, and inasmuch as we have consolidated our power and the key positions are in the hands of the working class, it is not in our interest that the class struggle should assume the forms of civil war. But this in no way implies that the class struggle has been abolished, or that it will not grow sharper. Still less does it imply that the class struggle is not the decisive factor in our advancement. No, it does not. We often say that we are promoting socialist forms of economy in the sphere of trade. But what does that imply? It implies that we are squeezing out of trade thousands upon thousands of small and medium traders. Is it to be expected that these traders who have been squeezed out of the sphere of trade will keep silent and not attempt to organise resistance? Obviously not.

We often say that we are promoting socialist forms of economy in the sphere of industry. But what does that imply? It implies that, by our advance towards socialism, we are squeezing out and ruining, perhaps without ourselves noticing it, thousands upon thousands of small and medium capitalist manufacturers. Is it to be expected that these ruined people will keep silent and not attempt to organise resistance? Of course not. We often say that it is necessary to restrict the exploiting proclivities of the kulaks in the countryside, that they must be heavily taxed and the right to rent land limited, that kulaks must not be allowed the right to vote in the election of Soviets, and so on and so forth. But what does that imply? It implies that we are gradually pressing upon and squeezing out the capitalist elements in the countryside, sometimes driving them to ruin. Is it to be presumed that the kulaks will be grateful to us for this and will not endeavour to organise part of the poor peasants or middle peasants against the Soviet Government’s policy? Of course not. Is it not obvious that our whole forward movement, our every success of any importance in the sphere of socialist construction, is an expression and result of the class struggle in our country?

But it follows from all this that the more we advance, the greater will be the resistance of the capitalist elements and the sharper the class struggle, while the Soviet Government, whose strength will steadily increase, will pursue a policy of isolating these elements, a policy of demoralising the enemies of the working class, a policy, lastly, of crushing the resistance of the exploiters, thereby creating a basis for the further advance of the working class and the main mass of the peasantry.

It must not be imagined that the socialist forms will develop, squeezing out the enemies of the working class, while our enemies retreat in silence and make way for our advance, that then we shall again advance and they will again retreat until “unexpectedly” all the social groups without exception, both kulaks and poor peasants, both workers and capitalists, find themselves “suddenly” and “imperceptibly,” without struggle or commotion, in the lap of a socialist society. Such fairy-tales do not and cannot happen in general, and in the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. It never has been and never will be the case that a dying class surrenders its positions voluntarily without attempting to organise resistance. It never has been and never will be the case that the working class could advance towards socialism in a class society without struggle or commotion. On the contrary, the advance towards socialism cannot but cause the exploiting elements to resist the advance, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to the inevitable sharpening of the class struggle.

That is why the working class must not be lulled with talk about the class struggle playing a secondary role.

The fourth question concerns the problem of emergency measures against the kulaks and speculators. Emergency measures must not be regarded as something absolute and established once for all. Emergency measures are necessary and expedient in definite, emergency circumstances, when no other means of manoeuvring are available. Emergency measures are unnecessary and harmful in other circumstances, when other, flexible means of manoeuvring in the market are available. Those who think that emergency measures are a bad thing in all circumstances are mistaken. A systematic struggle must be waged against such people. But mistaken, too, are those who think that emergency measures are necessary and expedient at all times. A resolute struggle against such people is essential.

Was it a mistake to resort to emergency measures in the conditions of the grain procurement crisis? It is now recognised by all that it was not a mistake, that, on the contrary, the emergency measures saved the country from a crisis of our whole economy. What induced us to resort to these measures? The deficit of 128,000,000 poods of grain by January of this year, which we had to make good before the roads were spoiled by the spring thaws, at the same time ensuring a normal rate of grain procurement. Could we refrain from resorting to emergency measures in the absence of a reserve of about 100,000,000 poods of grain essential for being able to hold out and to intervene in the market with the object of reducing grain prices, or in the absence of an adequate reserve of foreign currency essential for importing large quantities of grain from abroad? Obviously, we could not. And what would have happened if we had not made good this deficit? We should now be having a most serious crisis of our entire national economy, hunger in the towns and hunger in the army.

If we had had a reserve of about 100,000,000 poods of grain with which to hold out and then wear down the kulak by intervening in the market with a view to reducing grain prices, we should not, of course, have resorted to emergency measures. But you know very well that we had no such reserve.

If at that time we had had a foreign currency reserve of 100,000,000 or 150,000,000 rubles with which to import grain from abroad, most likely we should not have resorted to emergency measures. But you know very well that we had no such reserve.

Does that mean that we should continue to remain without a reserve in the future and again resort to the aid of emergency measures? No, it does not. On the contrary, we must do everything in our power to accumulate reserves and to rule out completely the necessity of resorting to any emergency measures. People who contemplate converting the emergency measures into a permanent or prolonged policy of our Party are dangerous, because they are playing with fire and are a source of danger to the bond.

Does it follow from this that we must renounce once for all resort to emergency measures? No, it does not. We have no grounds for asserting that emergency circumstances necessitating resort to emergency measures will never recur. To assert that would be sheer quackery. Lenin demonstrated the necessity for the New Economic Policy; yet he did not consider it possible under NEP to renounce resort even to the methods of the Poor Peasants’ Committees in certain conditions and under certain circumstances. Still less can we renounce once for all resort to emergency measures, which cannot be put on a par with so drastic a measure for combating the kulaks as the methods of the Poor Peasants’ Committees.

It may not be superfluous to recall an incident involving Preobrazhensky at the Eleventh Congress of our Party that has a direct bearing on the matter in hand. You know that at the Eleventh Congress in his theses on work in the countryside Preobrazhensky attempted to reject “once for all” under NEP conditions the policy of combating the kulaks by the methods of the Poor Peasants’ Committees. Preobrazhensky wrote in his theses: “The policy of repudiating this stratum (the kulaks and well-to-do peasants) and of gross extra-economic suppression of it by the methods of the Poor Peasants’ Committees of 1918 would be a most harmful mistake” (§2). You know that Lenin replied to this as follows: “The second sentence of the second paragraph (directed against the methods of the Poor Peasants’ Committees’) is harmful and wrong, since war, for example, might compel us to resort to the methods of the Poor Peasants’ Committees. This should be spoken of quite differently—in this way, for example: in view of the paramount importance of improving agriculture and increasing its output, the policy of the proletariat towards the kulaks and well-to-do peasants at the present moment* should aim chiefly at r e s t r i c t i n g their exploiting efforts, and so forth. The whole point lies in the ways and means by which our state can and should restrict those efforts and protect the poor peasants. This must be studied and we must see to it that it is studied practically, but general phrases are f u t i l e” (see Lenin Miscellany, IV, p. 39150).

Clearly, emergency measures must be regarded dialectically, for everything depends on the conditions of time and place.

* My italics.—J. St.

That, comrades, is how matters stand with the questions of a general character that arose in the course of the discussion.

Allow me to pass now to the question of the grain problem and the basic causes of our difficulties on the grain front.

I think that a number of comrades have committed the error of lumping together different kinds of causes of our difficulties on the grain front, of confusing temporary and circumstantial (specific) causes with chronic and fundamental causes. There are two sets of causes of our grain difficulties: chronic, fundamental causes, the elimination of which will require a number of years, and specific, circumstantial causes, which can be eliminated now, if a number of necessary measures are adopted and carried out. To lump all these causes together is to confuse the whole question.

What is the underlying significance of our difficulties on the grain front? It is that they confront us squarely with the problem of grain, of grain production, with the problem of agriculture in general, and of cereal production in particular. Do we have a grain problem at all, as an urgent question? We undoubtedly do. One must be blind to doubt that the grain problem is now harassing every aspect of Soviet social life. We cannot live like gypsies, without grain reserves, without certain reserves in case of harvest failure, without reserves with which to manoeuvre in the market, without reserves against the contingency of war, and, lastly, without some reserves for export. Even the small peasant, for all the meagreness of his husbandry, cannot do without reserves, without certain stocks.

Is it not clear that a great country covering one-sixth of the world cannot do without grain reserves for its internal and external requirements? Supposing the winter crop in the Ukraine had not perished and we had ended the grain procurement year just “breaking even”—could this have been considered enough? No, it could not. We cannot continue to live just “breaking even.” We must have at our disposal a certain minimum of reserves if we want to uphold the position of the Soviet Government both internally and externally. Firstly, we are not guaranteed against armed attack. Do you think we can defend the country if we have no reserves of grain for the army? Those comrades were perfectly right who said here that the peasant today is not what he was six years ago, say, when he was afraid that he might lose his land to the landlord. The peasant is already forgetting the landlord. He is now demanding new and better conditions of life. Can we, in the event of enemy attack, wage war against the external enemy on the battle front, and at the same time against the muzhik in the rear in order to get grain urgently for the army? No, we cannot and must not. In order to defend the country, we must have certain stocks for supplying the army, if only for the first six months. Why do we need this six-months’ breathing space? In order to give the peasant time to awaken to the situation, to realise the danger of the war, to see how matters stand and to be ready to do his bit for the common cause of the country’s defence. If we content ourselves with just “breaking even,” we shall never have reserves against the contingency of war.

Secondly, we are not guaranteed against complications in the grain market. A certain reserve is absolutely essential to enable us to intervene in the grain market and make our price policy effective. For we cannot, and must not, resort every time to emergency measures. But we shall never have such a reserve if we always find ourselves on the edge of a precipice and are content if we can end the procurement year just “breaking even.”

Thirdly, we are not guaranteed against crop failure. A certain grain reserve is absolutely essential to enable us in the event of crop failure to supply the famine areas at least to some extent and at least for some time. But we shall not have such a reserve if we do not increase the production of marketable grain and do not positively and decisively abandon the old habit of living without reserves. Lastly, a reserve is absolutely essential to enable us to export grain. We have to import equipment for industry. We have to import agricultural machines, tractors and spare parts for them. But this cannot be done if we do not export grain, if we do not accumulate a certain reserve of foreign currency obtained by exporting grain. Before the war we used to export from 500,000,000 to 600,000,000 poods of grain annually. We were able to export so much because we went short ourselves. That is true. It should, however, be realised that all the same our marketable grain before the war was double what it is today. And it is just because we have now only half as much marketable grain that grain is ceasing to be an item of export. And what does ceasing to export grain mean? It means losing the source which enabled us to import—as we must import—equipment for industry and tractors and machines for agriculture. Can we go on living in this way—without accumulating grain reserves for export? No, we cannot.

So you see how insecure and unstable our position in the matter of grain reserves is.

This is apart from the fact that not only have we no grain reserves for all these four purposes; we have not even a minimum reserve to enable us to carry over without distress from one procurement year to the next and to supply the towns uninterruptedly in such difficult months as June and July.

Can it then be denied that the grain problem is acute and that our difficulties on the grain front are serious? But, because of our grain difficulties, we are also having difficulties of a political character. Under no circumstances must this be forgotten, comrades. I am referring to the discontent which was to be observed among a certain section of the peasantry, among a certain section of the poor peasants, and also of the middle peasants, and which created a certain threat to the bond.

Of course, it would be quite wrong to say, as Frumkin does in his note, that there is already an estrangement instead of the bond. That is not true, comrades. An estrangement would be a serious thing. An estrangement would mean the beginning of civil war, if not civil war itself. Don’t let us frighten ourselves with “terrible” words. Don’t let us give way to panic. That would be unworthy of Bolsheviks. An estrangement would mean that the peasantry had broken with the Soviet Government. But if the peasant really had broken with the Soviet Government, which is the chief purchaser of peasant grain, he would not be enlarging his crop area. Yet we find that this year the spring crop area has been enlarged in all the grain areas without exception. Does that look like estrangement? Can one call this state of things a “hopeless prospect” for peasant farming, as Frumkin, for example, says it is? Does that look like a “hopeless prospect”?

What is the basis of our grain difficulties, meaning by that the chronic and fundamental causes of the difficulties, and not the temporary, circumstantial ones?

The basis of our grain difficulties lies in the increasingly scattered and divided character of agriculture. It is a fact that agriculture, especially grain farming, is growing smaller in scale, becoming increasingly less remunerative and less productive of marketable surpluses. Whereas before the revolution we had about 15,000,000 or 16,000,000 peasant farms, now we have some 24,000,000 or 25,000,000; moreover, the process of division tends to become more marked.

It is true that our crop area today falls little short of pre-war, and that the gross output of grain is only some five per cent less than it was before the war. But the trouble is that, in spite of all this, our output of marketable grain is only half, that is, about 50 per cent, of prewar. That is the root of the matter. What is the point? The point is that small-scale farming is less remunerative, produces smaller marketable surpluses and is less stable than large-scale farming. The Marxist thesis that small-scale production is less profitable than large-scale production fully applies to agriculture also. That is why, from one and the same area, small-scale peasant farming yields much less marketable grain than large-scale farming.

What is the way out of this situation?

There are three ways, as the Political Bureau resolution tells us. 1. The way out is to raise the productivity of smalland middle-peasant farming as far as possible, to replace the wooden plough by the steel plough, to supply small and medium machines, fertiliser, seed and agronomic help, to organise the peasantry into co-operatives, to conclude contracts with whole villages, supplying them with the best-grade seed on loan and thus ensuring the peasants collective credit, and, lastly, to place big machines at their disposal through machine-hiring stations. Those comrades are mistaken who assert that smallpeasant farming has exhausted its potentialities for further development, and that therefore it is not worth while to give it any further help. That is quite untrue. Individual peasant farming still possesses no inconsiderable potentialities for development. One only has to know how to help it to realise these potentialities. Nor is Krasnaya Gazeta right in asserting that the policy of organising the individual peasant farms in supply and marketing co-operatives has not justified itself. That is quite untrue, comrades. On the contrary, the policy of organising supply and marketing co-operatives has justified itself fully, by creating a real basis among the peasantry for a swing towards the side of the collectivefarm movement. There is no doubt that if we had not developed supply and marketing co-operatives, we should not have that swing in the attitude of the peasantry towards collective farming which now exists, and which is helping us to lead the collective-farm movement forward.

2. The way out, further, is to help the poor and middle peasants gradually to unite their scattered small farms into large collective farms based on new technical equipment and collective labour, as being more profitable and yielding larger marketable surpluses. I have in mind all forms of uniting small farms into large, socially-conducted farms, from simple co-operatives to artels, which are incomparably more productive and yield far larger marketable surpluses than the scattered small-peasant farms.

That is the basis for the solution of the problem. Comrades are mistaken when, while advocating collective farms, they accuse us of “rehabilitating” smallpeasant farming. They evidently think that the attitude towards the individual peasant farms should be one of fighting and destroying them, and not of assisting them and drawing them over to our side. That is quite wrong, comrades. Individual peasant farming is in no need of “rehabilitation.” It is not very remunerative, it is true. But that does not mean that it is altogether unprofitable. We should be destroying the bond if we adopted the attitude of fighting and destroying individual peasant farming, departing from the Leninist position that the collective farms must render day-to-day assistance and support to the individual peasant farms. Even more mistaken are those who, while extolling the collective farms, declare that individual peasant farming is our “curse.” This already smacks of downright war on peasant farming. Where do they get this idea from? If peasant farming is a “curse,” how do they explain the alliance of the working class and the main mass of the peasantry? Alliance of the working class with a “curse”—can there be anything so fantastic? How can they say such things and at the same time preach in favour of the bond? They recall what Lenin said about the necessity of our gradually changing over from the peasant nag to the steel steed of industry. That is very good. But is that the way to change over from one horse to another? To proclaim peasant farming a “curse” before a broad and powerful base has been created in the shape of a ramified system of collective farms—would not the upshot be that we should be left without any horse, without any base at all? (Voices: “Quite right!”) The mistake of these comrades is that they counterpose collective farming to individual peasant farming. But what we want is that these two forms of farming should not be counterposed to one another, but should be linked together in a bond, and that within the framework of this bond the collective farms should assist the individual peasant and help him little by little to go over to collectivist lines. Yes, what we want is that the peasants should look upon the collective farms not as their enemy, but as their friend who helps them and will help them to emancipate themselves from poverty. (Voices: “True!”) If that is true, then you should not say that we are “rehabilitating” individual peasant farming, or that peasant farming is our “curse.” What should be said is that, compared with the big collective farm, the small-peasant farm is less profitable, or even the least profitable, but that all the same it is of some, not inconsiderable, benefit. But from what you say it follows that small-peasant farming is altogether unprofitable, and perhaps even harmful. That was not Lenin’s opinion of small-peasant farming. Here is what he said on this score in his speech on “The Tax in Kind”:

“If peasant farming can develop further, we must firmly assure its transition to the next stage too, and this transition to the next stage will inevitably consist in the small, isolated peasant farms, the least profitable and most backward, gradually uniting to form socially-conducted, large farms. That is how Socialists have always conceived it. And that is how our Communist Party conceives it” (Vol. XXVI, p. 299).

It follows that individual peasant farming is after all of some benefit.

It is one thing when a higher form of enterprise, large-scale enterprise, contends against a lower form and ruins, kills it. That is what happens under capitalism. It is quite another thing when the higher form of enterprise does not ruin the lower form, but helps it to raise itself, to go over to collectivist lines. That is what happens under the Soviet system.

And here is what Lenin says about the relations between the collective farms and the individual peasant farms:

“In particular, we must see to it that the law of the Soviet Government (on collective farms and state farms—J. St.) requiring that the state farms, agricultural communes and similar associations should render immediate and all-round assistance to the surrounding middle peasants, is actually, and moreover fully, carried out. Only if such assistance is in fact rendered is agreement with the middle peasant feasible.* Only in this way can, and should, his confidence be won” (Vol. XXIV, p. 175).

* My italics.—J. St.

It follows from this that the collective farms and state farms must assist the peasant farms precisely as individual farms.

Lastly, a third quotation from Lenin:

“Only if we succeed in practice in showing the peasants the advantages of common, collective, co-operative, artel cultivation of the soil, only if we succeed in helping the peasant by means of co-operative, artel farming, will the working class, which holds state power in its hands, actually prove to the peasant the correctness of its policy and actually secure the real and durable following of the vast masses of the peasantry” (Vol. XXIV, p. 579). You see how highly Lenin appreciated the value of the collective-farm movement for the socialist transformation of our country. It is extremely strange that some comrades in their long speeches focussed attention exclusively on the question of the individual peasant farms and did not say a single word, literally not a single word, about the task of promoting collective farms, as an urgent and decisive task of our Party.

3. The way out, lastly, is to strengthen the old state farms and to promote new, large state farms, as being the economic units that are the most remunerative and yield the largest marketable surpluses.

Such are the three principal tasks, the accomplishment of which will enable us to solve the grain problem, and thus do away with the very basis of our difficulties on the grain front.

The specific feature of the present moment is that the first task, that of improving individual peasant farming, although it still remains our chief task, is already insufficient for the solution of the grain problem.

The specific feature of the present moment is that the first task must be supplemented in practice by the two new tasks of promoting collective farms and promoting state farms. Unless we combine these tasks, unless we work persistently along all these three channels, it will be impossible to solve the grain problem, whether in the sense of supplying the country with marketable grain or in the sense of transforming our entire national economy on socialist lines.

What was Lenin’s view of this matter? We have a document which shows that the Political Bureau resolution submitted to this plenum fully coincides with the practical plan for the development of agriculture which Lenin outlined in this document. I am referring to the “Mandate of the C.L.D.” (Council of Labour and Defence) written in Lenin’s own hand. It was published in May 1921. In this document Lenin analyses three groups of practical questions: the first group concerns trade and industry, the second group concerns the promotion of agriculture, and the third group concerns the various economic councils and regional conferences on the regulation of economic affairs.

What does this document say on the subject of agriculture? Here is a quotation from the “Mandate of the
C.L.D.”:

“Second group of questions. Promotion of agriculture: a) peasant farming, b) state farms, c) communes, d) artels, e) co-operatives, f) other forms of socially-conducted farming” (see Vol. XXVI, p. 374).

You will see that the practical conclusions contained in the Political Bureau resolution on the solution of the grain problem, and of the agricultural problem in general, fully coincide with Lenin’s plan as set forth in the “Mandate of the C.L.D.” of 1921.

It was very interesting to observe the truly youthful joy with which that giant, Lenin, who could move mountains and bring them face to face, greeted every item of news of the formation of a couple or so of collective farms, or of the arrival of tractors in some state farm. Here, for instance, is an excerpt from a letter to the Society for Technical Aid to Soviet Russia: “Dear Comrades, extremely gratifying reports have appeared in our newspapers regarding the work of members of your Society in the state farms of the Kirsanov Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia, and at Mitino Station, Odessa Gubernia, as well as regarding the work of a group of miners from the Donets Basin. . . . I am applying to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee requesting that the most outstanding farms should be classed as model farms and rendered special and priority assistance necessary for the favourable development of their work. I once more profoundly thank you in the name of our Republic, and request you to bear in mind that your assistance to us in the way of tractor cultivation of the soil is especially timely and valuable. I am particularly pleased to have this opportunity of congratulating you on your project to organise 200 agricultural communes” (Vol. XXVII, p. 309).

And here is an excerpt from a letter to the Society of Friends of Soviet Russia in America:

“Dear Comrades: I have just verified by a special request to the Perm Executive Committee, the extraordinary favourable news published in our press with reference to the work of the members of your Society headed by Harold Ware and organised as a Tractor Unit, in the Government of Perm, on a Soviet Farm*

* My italics.—J. St.

‘Toykino.’ . . . I am appealing to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to place this Soviet Farm in the ranks of Model Farms and to render it in every possible way special and extraordinary assistance in its constructive work, as well as supplying it with gasoline, metals and other material necessary for the organisation of a Repair Shop. Once more, I wish to thank you in the name of our Republic and to point out that no other form of relief is so timely and so important for us as the one rendered by you”* (Vol. XXVII, p. 308).

So you see with what joy Lenin received every item of news, however small, regarding the development of collective farms and state farms.

Let this be a lesson to all who think they can deceive history and dispense with collective farms and state farms in victoriously building socialism in our country.

I am concluding, comrades. I think that the grain difficulties will not have been without their value for us. Our Party has learned and progressed by overcoming difficulties and crises of every kind. I think that the present difficulties will steel our Bolshevik ranks and induce them to tackle the solution of the grain problem in thorough fashion. And the solution of this problem will remove one of the biggest difficulties standing in the way of the socialist transformation of our country.

* The text is as sent in English.—Tr.

---

Notes:

* My italics.—J. St.