Comrades, it is not accidental that it is to you that I have come to report on the congress. I have come here not only because of your invitation, but also because at the present stage of development the uyezds, and in particular the Party workers in the uyezds, represent the principal connecting link between the Party and the peasantry, between town and country. And, as you are well aware, establishing the bond between town and country is today the fundamental question of our practical Party and state activities.

I have already said that establishing the bond between state industry and the peasant economy must proceed along three main lines: consumers’ co-operatives, agricultural co-operatives and local credit co-operatives. I have said that these are the three basic channels through which the bond must be organised. But it would be fanciful to imagine that we shall succeed at once in linking up industry with the peasant economy directly on the volost level, by-passing the uyezd. There is no need to prove that we have neither the forces for this, nor the skill, nor the funds. Therefore, at this juncture, the uyezd, the area, remains the pivotal point in building up the bond between town and country. To entrench ourselves in the sphere of trade there is no need to oust

RESULTS OF THE XIII CONGRESS OF THE R.C.P.(B.)

the very last shopkeeper from the very last volost; all we need is to convert the uyezd into a base of Soviet trade, so that all the shopkeepers will be compelled to revolve round the co-operative or Soviet shop in the uyezd as the planets revolve round the sun. To gain control in the sphere of credit there is no need at all at the present moment to cover the volosts and villages with a network of credit co-operatives; it is sufficient to build a base in the uyezd, and the peasants will immediately begin to break away from the kulak and usurer. And so on and so forth.

In short, in the near future the uyezd (area) must be converted into the principal base for organising the bond between town and country, between the proletariat and the peasantry.

How quickly this conversion will take place depends upon you comrades working in the uyezds. There are some 300 of you now—a veritable army. And it depends upon you, and your comrades in the uyezds of our country, to convert the uyezd, as quickly as possible, into the pivotal point of our Party and state work in establishing the bond between industry and the peasant economy. I do not doubt that the uyezd workers will fulfil their duty to the Party and the country.

Pravda, Nos. 136 and 137,

June 19 and 20, 1924