Josef Stalin, Excerpts from A Year of Great Change. On the Occasion of the Twelfth Anniversary of the October Revolution. November 7, 1929
Original Source: Pravda, 7 November 1929.
The past year was a year of great change on all the fronts of socialist construction. The keynote of this change has been, and continues to be, a determined offensive of socialism against the capitalist elements in town and country. The characteristic feature of this offensive is that it has already brought us a number of decisive successes in the principal spheres of the socialist reconstruction of our national economy.
We may, therefore, conclude that our Party succeeded in making good use of our retreat during the first stages of the New Economic Policy in order, in the subsequent stages, to organize the change and to launch a successful offensive against the capitalist elements.
When NEP was introduced Lenin said:
"We are now retreating, going back as it were; but we are doing this in order, by retreating first, afterwards to take a run and make a more powerful leap forward. It was on this condition alone that we retreated in pursuing our New Economic Policy ... in order to start a most persistent advance after our retreat." (Vol. XXVII, pp. 361-62.)
The results of the past year show beyond a doubt that in its work the Party is successfully carrying out this decisive directive of Lenin's.
If we take the results of the past year in the sphere of economic construction, which is of decisive importance for us, we shall find that the successes of our offensive on this front, our achievements during the past year, can be summed up under three main heads.
I. In the Sphere of Productivity of Labor
There can scarcely be any doubt that one of the most important facts in our work of construction during the past year is that we have succeeded in bringing about a decisive change in the sphere of productivity of labor. This change has found expression in a growth of the creative initiative and intense labor enthusiasm of the vast masses of the working class on the front of socialist construction. This is our first fundamental achievement during the past year.
The growth of the creative initiative and labor enthusiasm of the masses has been stimulated in three main directions:
a) the fight -- by means of self-criticism -- against bureaucracy, which shackles the labor initiative and labor activity of the masses; b) the fight -- by means of socialist emulation -- against labor shirkers and disrupters of proletarian labor discipline;
c) the fight -- by the introduction of the uninterrupted working-week -- against routine and inertia in industry.
As a result we have a tremendous achievement on the labor front in the form of labor enthusiasm and emulation among the vast masses of the working class in all parts of our bound less country. The significance of this achievement is truly inestimable; for only the labor enthusiasm and zeal of the vast masses can guarantee that progressive increase of labor productivity without which the final victory of socialism over capitalism in our country is inconceivable…
II. In the Sphere of Industrial Construction
Inseparably connected with the first achievement of the Party is its second achievement. This second achievement of the Party consists in the fact that during the past year we have in the main successfully solved the problem of accumulation for capital construction in heavy industry, we have accelerated the development of the production of means of production and created the prerequisites for transforming our country into a metal country.
That is our second fundamental achievement during the past year.
The problem of light industry presents no special difficulties. We solved that problem several years ago. The problem of heavy industry is more difficult and more important.
It is more difficult because its solution demands colossal investments, and, as the history of industrially backward countries has shown, heavy industry cannot manage without huge long-term loans.
It is more important because, unless we develop heavy industry, we cannot build any industry at all, we cannot carry out any industrialization.
And as we have not received, and are not receiving, either long-term loans or credits of any long-term character, the acuteness of the problem for us becomes more than obvious.
It is precisely for this reason that the capitalists of all countries refuse us loans and credits, for they assume that we cannot by our own efforts cope with the problem of accumulation, that we shall suffer shipwreck in the task of reconstructing our heavy industry, and be compelled to come to them cap in hand, for enslavement.
But what do the results of our work during the past year show in this connection? The significance of the results of the past year is that they shatter to bits the anticipations of Messieurs the capitalists.
The past year has shown that, in spite of the overt and covert financial blockade of the USSR, we did not sell ourselves into bondage to the capitalists, that by our own efforts we have successfully solved the problem of accumulation and laid the foundation for heavy industry. Even the most inveterate enemies of the working class cannot deny this now…
How can anyone doubt that we are advancing at an accelerated pace in the direction of developing our heavy industry, exceeding our former speed and leaving behind our "age old" backwardness?
Is it surprising after this that the targets of the five-year plan were exceeded during the past year, and that the optimum variant of the five-year plan, which the bourgeois scribes regard as "wild fantasy," and which horrifies our Right opportunists (Bukharin's group), has actually turned out to be a minimum variant?...
III. In the Sphere of Agricultural Development
Finally, about the Party's third achievement during the past year, an achievement organically connected with the two previous ones. I am referring to the radical change in the development of our agriculture from small, backward, individual farming to large-scale, advanced collective agriculture, to joint cultivation of the land, to machine and tractor stations, to artels, collective farms, based on modern technique, and, finally, to giant state farms, equipped with hundreds of tractors and harvester combines.
The Party's achievement here consists in the fact that in a whole number of areas we have succeeded in turning the main mass of the peasantry away from the old, capitalist path of development -- which benefits only a small group of the rich, the capitalists, while the vast majority of the peasants are doomed to ruin and utter poverty -- to the new, socialist path of development, which ousts the rich, the capitalists, and re-equips the middle and poor peasants along new lines, equipping them with modern implements, with tractors and agricultural machinery, so as to enable them to climb out of poverty and enslavement to the kulaks on to the high road of co-operative, collective cultivation of the land.
The achievement of the Party consists in the fact that we have succeeded in bringing about this radical change deep down in the peasantry itself, and in securing the following of the broad masses of the poor and middle peasants in spite of incredible difficulties, in spite of the desperate resistance of retrograde forces of every kind, from kulaks and priests to philistines and Right opportunists.
For the first time in the history of mankind there has appeared a government, of the Soviets, which has proved by deeds its readiness and ability to give the laboring masses of the peasantry systematic and lasting assistance in the sphere of production.
Conclusions
We are advancing full steam ahead along the path of industrialization -- to socialism, leaving behind the age-old "Russian" backwardness.
We are becoming a country of metal, a country of automobiles, a country of tractors.
And when we have put the USSR on an automobile, and the muzhik on a tractor, let the worthy capitalists, who boast so much of their "civilization," try to overtake us! We shall yet see which countries may then be "classified" as backward and which was advanced.
Source: I. V. Stalin, Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952-1955), Vol. XII.
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