STALIN

STALIN AND RUSSIA’S

FIVE YEAR PLANS

Lenin, so long as he lived, was the unchallenged leader of Soviet Russia. To his final decision every one bowed; when there were conflicts, his word was law and brought together the warring sections in the Communist Party. Trouble came inevitably after his death when rival groups and rival forces fought for mastery. To the outside world, and to a lesser extent in Russia also, Trotsky was the outstanding personality among the Bolsheviks after Lenin. It was Trotsky who had taken a leading part in the October Revolution, and it was he who faced by stupendous difficulties, created the Red Army which triumphed in the Civil War and against foreign intervention. And yet, Trotsky was a newcomer to the Bolshevik Party, and the old Bolsheviks, Lenin apart, neither liked him nor trusted him greatly.

One of these old Bolsheviks,STALIN had become general secretary of the Communist Party and as such he was in control of the dominant and most powerful organization in Russia. Between Trotsky and Stalin there was no love lost. They hated each other, and they were wholly unlike each other. Trotsky was a brilliant writer and orator, and had also proved himself a great organizer and man of action. He had a keen and flashing intellect, evolving theories of revolution, and hitting out at his opponents with words that stung like whips and scorpions. Stalin seemed to be a common place man beside him,silent, unimposing, far from brilliant. And yet he was also a great organizer , a great and heroic fighter, and a man of iron will. Indeed, he has come to be known as “the man of steel”. While Trotsky was admired, it was Stalin who inspired confidence. He came from the masses himself, being a Georgian of peasant origin. There was no room in the Communist Party for both these towering personalities.

The conflict between Stalin and Trotsky was a personal one, but it was really something more than that. Each of them represented a different policy, a different method of developing the revolution. Trotsky had, many years before the Revolution, worked out a theory of “Permanent Revolution”. According to this, it was not possible for a single country, however advantageously situated it might be, to establish full socialism. Real socialism would only come after a world revolution, as only then could the peasantry be effectively socialized. Socialism was the next higher stage in economic development after capitalism. As capitalism became international, it broke down, as we see happening in the greater part of the world today. Only socialism could work this international structure to advantage, hence the inevitability of socialism. That was the Marxist theory. But if an attempt were made to work socialism in a single country-that is, nationally and not internationally- this would mean a going back to a lower economic stage. Internationalism was the necessary foundation for all progress, including socialist progress, and to go back from it was neither possible nor desirable. According to Trotsky, therefore, it was not economically possible to build up socialism in a separate country, even in the Soviet Union, big as it was. There was so much for which the Soviets had to rely on the industrial countries of Western Europe. It was like the co-operation of the city and the village or rural areas; the industrial West was the city, and Russia was largely rural. Politically, also, Trotsky was of opinion that a separate socialist country could not survive for long in a capitalist environment. The two were-and we have seen how true this is-wholly incompatible with each other. Either the capitalist countries would crush the socialist country, or there would be social revolutions in the capitalist countries and socialism would be established everywhere. For some time, of course, or some years, the two might exist side by side in an unstable equilibrium."

To the large extent this seems to have been the view of all the Bolshevik leaders before and after the Revolution. They waited impatiently for world revolution, or at any rate revolutions in some European countries. For many months there was thunder in the air of Europe, but the storm passed off without bursting. Russia settled down to NEP and a more or less humdrum life. Trotsky thereupon raised the cry of alarm, and pointed out that the Revolution was in danger unless a more aggressive policy aiming at world revolution were followed. This challenge resulted in a mighty duel between Trotsky and Stalin, a conflict which shook the Communist Party for some years. The conflict resulted in the complete victory of Stalin, chiefly because he was the master of the Party machine. Trotsky and his supporters were treated as enemies of the Revolution and driven out from the Party. Trotsky was at first sent to Siberia, and then exiled outside the Union.

The immediate conflict between Stalin and Trotsky had taken place on Stalin’s proposal to adopt an aggressive agrarian policy to win over the peasant to socialism. This was an attempt to build up socialism in Russia, apart from what happened in other countries, and Trotsky rejected it and stuck to his theory of “permanent revolution”, without which, he said, the peasantry could not be fully socialized. As a matter of fact Stalin adopted many of Trotsky’s suggestions, but he did so in his own way, not in Trotsky’s. Referring to this, Trotsky has written in his autobiography: “In politics, however, it is not merely what, but how and who that decides.”

So the great struggle between the two giants ended and Trotsky was pushed off the stage on which he had played such a brave and brilliant part. He had to leave the Soviet Union, of which he had been one of the principal architects. Nearly all the capitalist countries were afraid of this dynamic personality, and would not admit him. England refused him admittance, as did most other European countries. At last he found temporary refuge in Turkey in the little island of Prinkipo, off Istanbul. He devoted himself to writing, and produced a remarkable History of the Russian Revolution. His hatred of Stalin possessed him still, and he continued to criticize and attack him in biting language. And ranged itself against the Soviet Government and the official communism of the Comintern.

Having disposed of Trotsky, Stalin devoted himself to his new agrarian policy with extraordinary courage. He had to face a difficult situation. There was distress and unemployment among the intellectuals and there had even been strikes of workers. He taxed the kulaks, or the rich peasants, heavily, and then devoted this money to building up rural collective farms-that is, big co-operative farms in which large numbers of farmers worked together and shared the profits. The kulaks and richer peasants resented this policy and became very angry with the Soviet Government. They were afraid that their cattle and farm materials would be pooled with those of their poorer neighbours, and because of this fear they actually destroyed their livestock. There was such a great destruction of livestock that in the following year there was an acute shortage of foodstuffs, meat, and dairy product.

This was an unexpected blow to Stalin, but he clung on grimly to his programme. Indeed, he developed it and made it into a mighty plan, covering the whole Union, for both agriculture and industry. The peasant was to be brought near to industry by means of enormous model State farms and collective farms, and the whole country was to be industrialized by the erection of huge factories, hydro-electric power works, the working of mines, and the like; and side with this, a host of other activities relating to education, science, co-operative buying and selling, building houses for millions of workers and generally raising their standards of living, etc., were to be undertaken. This was the famous “Five Year Plan”, or the Piatiletka, as the Russians called it. It was a colossal programme, ambitious and difficult of achievement even in a generation to attempt it seemed to be height of folly.

This Five Year Plan had been drawn up after the careful thought and investigation. The whole country had been surveyed by scientists and engineers, and numerous experts had discussed the problem of fitting in one part of the programme into another. For the real difficulty came in this fitting in. There was not much point in having a huge factory if the raw material for it was lacking; and even when raw material was available, it had to be brought to the factory. So the problem of transport had to be tackled and railways built, and railways required coal, so coal-mines had to be worked. The factory itself wanted power for its working. To supply it with this power, electricity was produced by the water-power obtained from damming up great rivers, and this electric power was then sent over the wires to the factories and farms, and for the lighting of cities and villages. Then again, all this required engineers, mechanics, and trained workers, and it is no easy to produce score of thousands of trained men and women within a short time. Motor tractors could be sent to the farms by the thousand, but who was to work to them?

These are but a very few instances to give you an idea of the amazing complexity of the problems raised by the Five Year Plan. A single mistake would have far-reaching results; a weak or backward link in the chain of activity would delay or stop a whole series. But Russia had one great advantage over the capitalist countries. Under capitalism all these activities are left to individual initiative and chance, and owning to competition there is waste of effort. There is no co-ordination between different producers or different sets of workers, except the chance co-ordination which arises in the buyers and sellers coming to the same market. There is, in brief, no planning on a wide scale. Individual concerns may and do plan their future activities, but most of this individual planning consists in attempts to overreach or get the better of other individual concerns. Nationally, this results in the very opposite of planning; it means excess and want, side by side. The Soviet Government had the advantage of controlling all the different industries and activities in the whole Union, and so it could draw up and try to work a single co-ordinated plan in which every activity found its proper place. There would be no waste in this, except such waste as might come from errors of calculation or working, and even such errors could be rectified far sooner with a unified control than otherwise.

The object of the Plan was to lay down the solid foundations of industrialism in the Soviet Union. The idea was not to put up some factories to produce the goods which everyone needs, such as cloth, etc. This would have been easy enough by getting machinery from abroad, as is done in India, and fixing it up. Such industries, producing consumable goods, are called “light industries”. These light industries necessarily depend on the “heavy industries”, the iron and steel and machine-making industries as well as engines, etc. The Soviet Government looked far ahead and decided to concentrate on these basic or heavy industries in the Five Year Plan. In this way the foundations of industrialism would be firmly laid, and it would be easy to have the light industries afterwards. The heavy industries would also make Russia less dependent on foreign countries for machinery or war material.

This choice in favour of heavy industry seems to have been the obvious one under the circumstances, but it meant a far greater effort and tremendous suffering for the people. Heavy industries are far more expensive than light ones, and-a more vital difference-they do not begin to pay for a much longer time. A textile factory starts making cloth, and this can be sold to the people immediately; so also in regard to other light industries producing consumable goods. But an iron and steel rails and locomotives. These cannot be consumed, or even used, till a railway line is built. This takes time, and till then a great deal of money is locked up in the concern, and the country is the poorer for it.

For Russia, therefore, this building of heavy industries at a tremendous pace meant a very great sacrifice. All this construction, all this machinery that came from outside, had to be paid for in gold and cash. How was this to be done? The people of the Soviet Union tightened their belts and starved und deprived themselves of even necessary articles so that payment could be made abroad. They sent their food-stuffs abroad, and with the price obtained for them paid for the machinery. They sent everything they could find a market for: wheat, rye, barley, corn, vegetables, fruits, eggs, butter, meat, fowls, honey, fish, caviare, sugar, oils, confectionery, etc. Sending these good articles outside meant that they themselves did without them. The Russian people had no butter, or a very little of it, because it went abroad to pay for machinery. And so with many other goods.

This mighty effort embodied in the Five Year Plan began in 1929. Again the spirit of revolution was abroad, the call of an ideal stirred the masses and made them devote all their energy to the new struggle. This struggle was not against a foreign enemy or an internal foe. It was a struggle against the backward conditions of Russia, against the remains of capitalism, against the low standards of living. Almost with enthusiasm they put up with further sacrifices and lived a hard, ascetic life; they sacrificed the present for the great future that seemed to beckon to them and of which they were the proud and privileged builders.

Nations have, in the past, concentrated all their efforts on the accomplishment of one great task, but this has been so in times of war only. During the World War, Germany and England and France lived for one purpose only-to win the war. To that purpose everything else was subordinated. Soviet Russia, for the first time in history, concentrated the whole strength of the nation in a peaceful effort to build, and not to of socialism. But the privation, especially of the upper and middle-class peasantry, was very great, and often it seemed that the whole ambitious scheme would collapse, and perhaps carry the Soviet Government with it. It required immense courage to hold on. Many prominent Bolsheviks thought that the strain and suffering caused by the agricultural programme were too great and there should be a relaxation. But not so Stalin. Grimly and silently he held on. He was no talker: he hardly spoke in public. He seemed to be the iron image of an inevitable fate going ahead to the predestined goal. And something of his courage and determination spread among the members of the Communist Party and other workers in Russia

A continuous propaganda in favour of the Five Year Plan kept up the enthusiasm of the people and whipped them up to fresh endeavour. Great public interest was taken in the building of the huge hydro-electric works and dams and bridges and factories and communal farms. Engineering was the most popular profession, and newspapers were full of technical details about great feats of engineering. The desert and the steppes were peopled and large new towns grew up round each big industrial concern. New roads, new canals, and new railways, mostly electric railways, were built and air services developed. A chemical industry was built up, a war industry, and a tool industry, and a tool industry, and the Soviet Union began producing tractors, automobiles, high-power locomotives, motor engines, turbines, aeroplanes. Electricity spread over large areas, and the radio came into common use. Unemployment disappeared completely, as there was so much building and other work to be done that all available workers were absorbed. Indeed many qualified engineers came from foreign countries and were welcomed. It is worth remembering that this was the time when depression spread all over Western Europe and America and unemployment increased to enormous figures.

The work of the Five Year Plan did not go on smoothly. There was often great trouble and lack of co-ordination and upsets and waste. But in spite of all this tempo of work went on the increasing, and the demand always was for more and more work. And then came the slogan “The Five Year Plan in Four Years”, as if five years had not been a short enough time for this amazing programme! The Plan formally came to an end on December 31, 1932-that is, at the end of four years. And immediately from January 1, 1933, a new Five Year Plan was started.

People often argue about the Five Year Plan, and some say it was a tremendous success, and others call it a failure. It is easy enough to point out where it has failed, for in many respects it has not come up to expectations. There is a vast disproportion in many things in Russia more factories than qualified engineers to run them, more restaurants and kitchens than qualified cooks! These disproportions will no doubt soon disappear, or at any rate lessen. One thing is clear: that the Five Year Plan has completely changed the face of Russia. From a feudal country it has suddenly become an advanced industrial company. There has been an amazing cultural advance; and the social services, the system of social health and accident insurance, are the most inclusive and advanced in the world. In spite of privation and want, the terrible fear of unemployment and starvation which hangs over workers in other countries has gone. There is a new sense of economic security among the people.

The argument about the success or otherwise of the Five Year Plan is rather a pointless one. The answer to it is really the present state of the Soviet Union. And a further answer is the fact that this Plan has impressed itself on the imagination of the world. Everybody talks of “planning” now, and of Five-Year and Three-Year plans. The Soviets have put magic into the world.