The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 28, 1933, Page 7

mo oo __S__ _ Jegtivigalion it is inapossible: to lead .our ; ry on \tp the broad path, of cengtrué~ * fon) tign,2 of <the’ eebnormie icoandation of So- cialism} that it is impossible to free the masses of the working peasants, number- ing noillions, from misery and ignorance, Lenin said: “If we keep in the old man- ner. to the small farms—even if as free citizens on freed land—we shall still be ned with inevitable ruin,” aid that: “Only with the aid of veneral collective co-cperative work can we emerge from this blind alley.” The Party proceeded from these words of Lenin when it carried out the program of collectivized agriculture, the program of the Five-Year Plan of agriculture. In this connection the task of the Five- Year plan consisted in uniting the scat- tered, small individual peasant farms, which are deprived of the possibility of using tractors and modern agricultural machines. These farms had to be con- verted into collectivized big farms, equipped with all modern implements, into a highly developed agriculture; State model farms. Soviet farms had to be es- tablished on free land. The task of the Five-Year-Plan of ag- riculture consisted in transforming the Soviet Union from a backward small peasant country into a country of large agriculture, organized on the basis of coliective work and delivering the largest quantities of market grain. *- * * | grad has the Party achieved in carry- ing out the agricultural Five-Year Pian in four years? Has it carried out the program, or has it suffered a defeat? The Party succeeded within about three years in organizing more than 200,000 collec- tive farms and about 5,000 Soviet farms for grain growing and cattle breeding, and in four years increased the area un- der cultivation by 21 million hectares. The Party succeeded in uniting over 60 per cent of all the peasant farms and collective farms, which means a surpass- ing of the Five-Year Plan by 200 per cent. It is to the credit of the Party that instead of the- 500 to 600 million poods of market grain which was procured in the period when the individual peasant farms predominated, there now exists the possibility of procuring 1,200 to 1,400 million poods of corn a year, It is to the credit of the Party that the kulaks have been shattered as a class, although not yet destroyed, that the working peasants are freed from the fet- ters of exploitation by the kulaks, and that the Soviet power in the village pos- sesses a firm economic basis, the basis of the collective farms. It is to the credit of the Party that the Soviet Union has been already trans- formed from a land of small peasant economy into a land of the largest agri- culture in the world. Judge for yourselves; after all this, of what work is the idle talk of the bour- geos press about the collapse of ccllec- tivization, about the failure of the Five- Year Plan in agriculture? What is the position of agriculture in * * * the capitalist countries, which are now passing through the severest agrarian crisis? Let us take the generally known official] figures: The area under cultivation in the most important grain-producing countries has declined by 8-10 per cent. The area under cotton in the United States has declined by 15 per cent, the area under sugar beets in Czechoslovakia and Germany by 22- 30 per cent, the area under flax in Lithu- ania and Latvia by 25 to 30 per cent. Comrade Stalin quoted the figures of the American Farm Board on the tre- mendous diminution of the gress produc- tion of agriculture in the United States ef America, and then continued: Do, not all these facts go to prove the ; advantages of. the agricultural of the So- viet. system. over the agriculture of the capitalist. system? Do not these facts . show. that: the .colleetive farms are more viable forms of agriculture than the ih- , dividual farms and the capitalist farms? It is said that the collective farms and Soviet farms do not yield a profitable return, that-it would be more advanta- geaus to dissolve them and only permit those ‘to remain which are yielding a profitable returns But only people who ~ understand ‘nothing of the questions of WORKERS’ REST. HOMES Former czarist palace, now one of the thoucands of rest hemes for workers amd peasants in the Soviet Union. An > 5 @laborate seeial inguranee sysiem exists‘ eae fin te USAR S ¢ sf : NREL le DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1933 made Typical workers’ apartments first Five-Year Plan. possible as a result of the successfull national economy can talk like this. Profitability must not be considered from the point of view of the small shop- keeper, from the point of view of the moment. Profitability must be considered from the standpoint of the national economy in general, on the average of several yeais. Only such a standpoint can really be described as a Leninist standpoint, is a really Marxist standpoint. And this standpoint is obligatory, not only in regard to industry, but also to a still greater extent in regard to the col- lective farms and Soviet farms. Just think. In about three years we have established over 200,000 collective farms and about 5,000 Soviet farms. That is to say, we have created completely new giant undertakings which possess the same importance for agriculture as the factories and works for industry. Name me a country which could create within three years not 205,000 new giant under- takings, but only 25,000 such undertak- ings. You cannot name such a country, and there does not exist such a country. And we created 205,000 new under- takings in agriculture. But we find that there are people in the world who de- mand that these undertakings shall im- mediately pay, and if they do not pay at once they must be destroyed and dis- solved. * * od S it not clear that these more or less singular people are longing for the lau- rels of Herostrat? When I speak of the unprofitability of the collective and So- viet farms I do not by any means @ish to say that the whole of them are un- profitable. Quite the contrary. It is known to all that there are now already a num- ber of very profitable collective and So- viet farms. We possess thousands of col- lective farms, dozens of Soviet farms, which are now already on a sound paying basis. These collective farms and Soviet farms are the pride of our Party, the pride of the Soviet power. The collective farms and Soviet farms are of course not everywhere alike. Some of them are old, some new and some quite new. They are still weak not yet finally shaped eco- nomic organisms. In their organizational development they pass:through about the same period as did our factories and workshops in the year 1920-21. It is un- derstandable that in the majority they cannot yet be profitable, but that within two to three years they will be just as profitable as our factories and enter- . prises after 1921; of that there can be no doubt. To refuse them help and sup- port because all of them are not yet profitable would be the greatest crime against the working class and the peas- antry. Only enemies of the people, coun- ter-revolutionaries, can speak of the use- lessness of the collective and Soviet farms. In realizing the Five-Year Plan of ag- riculture the, Party carried out collec- tivization at an. accelerated pace. Did the Party act corréctly when it carried out _ the policy of accelerated tempo-of- collec- tivization? Yes; absolutely correctly. Al- though here various displays of passions were not avoided. In carrying out the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class and clearing out the nests of kulaks, the Party could not remain standing half- way. It had to carry out the work to the end. Making use, on the one hand, of the possession of tractors and agricul- tural machines and, on the other hand, of the absence of private property in Jand the Party had every possibility of forcing the collectivization of agriculture. And in this sphere it really achieved the very greatest success, for it surpassed the Five-Year Plan of coliectivization three- fold. ° . * Dees this mean that we must carry out the policy of the foreed tempo of collec- tivization also in the period of the sec- ond Five-Year Plan? No, it does not mean this. The fact is, we have in the main already concluded the coliectivization of the most imporiant regions of the Soviet Union. In this enhere we have done even more than could be expected. And we have not only concluded the main col- lectivization. We have succeeded in get- _ ting the great majority of the peasantry _ to realize that the collective i farm peeet, accepiable form ef eco Tkaca ds an enormous achievement. For col~ is the jective farms the question is no longer to be or not to be? This question has been solved»-positively. The ‘collective farms are consolidated and the path to the old individual peasant farm is finally closed. The present task consists in or- ganizationally strengthening the collec- tive farms, in clearing out the sabotagers, in drawing really tried Bolshevist cadres into the collective farms, and converting them into really Bolshevist farms. That is now the main thing. That is how. the question stands re- garding the Five-Year Plan in four years in the sphere of agriculture. Wherein consist the most important results of our successes in the sphere of industry and agriculture from the point of view of the fundamental improvement of the material position of the toilers? They consist firstly in the abolition of unemployment and the liquidation of ig- norance among the workers, They con- sist secondly in the fact that nearly all the poor peasants have been drawn into the work of building up collective farms, in the undermining of the foundatien for the division of the peasantry into ku- laks and poor peasants, and, in connec- tion therewith, in the abolition of misery and poverty in the village. * * * HIS is a tremendous achievement of which no bourgeois State can -even dream, mo matter how “democratic” a State it may be. With us in the Soviet Union the workers have long forgotten unemployment. Three years ago we still had one and a half million unemployed. It is now already two years since un- employment was abolished. In this time the workers have been able to forget unemployment and its horrors. Look at the capitalist countries, what horrors prevail there as a result. of unemploy- ment. In the capitalist countries there are no less than 30 to 40 million unemployed. What sort of people are they? They are generally spoken of as “down and outs.” Day after day they go in quest of work: they are prepared to accept work under almost any conditions, but there is no work for them, because they are “super- fluous.” And this at_a time when huge quantities of commodities and preducts are rotting, thanks to the whims of the spoiled and pampered sons of the capi- talists and big landowners. The unem- ployed are refused food because they cannot pay for it, are refused a shelter because they cannot pay the rent of .lodgings. How and where do they live? _They. live on the miserable crumbs of charity, by raking in the dustbins, where -they find rotten remnants of food. They live in. the holes and corners. of the big _towns. But that is not all. It is not only .the unemployed who suffer as a result of unemployment. The workers who are still: in employment suffer, for the ex- istence of a large number of unemployed creates for them an unseitled position in production, uncertainty regarding to- -morrow. Today they are at work, but -they do not know whether tomorrow they will not learn that they are dismissed. One of the most important achieve- ments. of the Five-Year Plan in four years consists in the fact that in the Soviet -Union we have liquidated unemployment and freed the workers from its terrors. The same applies to the peasants. They, too, have forgotien the division of the peasantry into kulaks and poor peas- ants, the exploitation of the poor peas- ants by the kulaks, the ruin which every year drove hundreds of thousands and millions from the soil. Three or four years ago, not less than 30 per cent of the tctal peasant population consisted of poor peasants, They numbered more ‘than 10 million. Still earlier, before the October revolution, the poor peasants comprised about 60 per cent of the peas- antry, The poor peasants are people who Jed a starvation existence, were regularly enslaved by the kulaks, and in the olden times by the kulaks and the big land- owners. as well. Not so long ago 144 mil- lion*and sometimes 2 million poor peas- ants went every year to the South, to the ‘North Caucasus and the Ukrainia to work as wage laborers for the kulaks, and formerly for the kulaks and the big Jandowners. Still more of them came every year to the gates of the factories, thereby increasing the ks of the un- employed. And not only the poor peas- Page Three ants. were in such an unenviable position A ‘good half:of the middle peasants ‘suf- fered the sane misery: and the same pri vations as the poor peasants. The peas ants have already forgotten all this. HAT has the Five-Year Plan given t the poor peasants and the lowe strata of the middle peasants? It under- mined and destroyed the kulaks as a class, thereby freeing the poor peasants and a good half of the middie peasants from slavery to the kulaks. It drew them into the collective farms; it created for them a firm foundation. It thereby did away with the possibility of the peasants being divided into exploiting kulaks and exploited poor peasants. It raised the poor peasantry and the lower strata of the middle peasants on the collective farms to the position of men with an assured existence, and thereby destroyed the pro- cess of impoverishment and ruination of the peasantry. With us it is now no Jonger the case that millions of peasants every year abandon their farms and seek to earn their living in far-off countries. Before the peasants can be hired for work anywhere outside of their own col- lective farms, a treaty must be signed with the collective farm, end in fact, the collective peasant.must be guaranteed: his free fare on the railway. With us it is no longer the case that hundreds of thou- sands and millions of peasants are ruined and throng the doors of the factories and workshops. The peasant today is an es- tablished farmer and a member of the collective farm, which possesses, tractors, agricultural machines, stocks of seed, re- serve funds, etc. E As a result ef the important achieve- ments in the sphere of improving the material situation of the workers and peasants, we have in the first Five-Year Plan: a) growth of the number of workers and employees in big industry to double that of 1928, thus surpassing the Pive- Year Plan by 75 per cent.; b) growth of the national income, ie. growth of the income of the workers and peasants.. in the year 1932 to 45,100 million roubles, which means an increase of 85 per cent. compared with 1928; c) growth of the av- erage annual earnings of the workers and employees in big industry by 67 per cent. as compared with 1928, which means a surpassing of the plan by 18 per cent.; d) increase of the social insurance fund by 292 per cent. compared with 1928 (4120 million roubles in the year 1932-as against 1050 millions,in the year 1928), which means a surpassing of the Five- Year Plan by 111 per cent.; e) increase of public feeding, embracing over 70 per cent. of the workers in the most im- portant branches of industry, which means a sixfold fulfilment of the Five- Year Plan. * * * It is true, we have not yet achieved everything in order to completely satisfy the demands of the workers and peas- ants; and we shall scarcely achieve this in the next year or so. Nevertheless we have succeeded so far in that the mate- rial position of the workers and peas- ants is improving from year to year. Only the sworn enemies of the Soviet Power can doubt this, or possibly some repre- sentative of the bourgeois press, includ- ing a part of the correspondents of this press in Moscow, who understand as much about the economy of the country and the position of the toilers as the King of Abyssinia does about higher mathematics. The tremendous increase of prodne- tion in industry and agriculture, te growth of the commodity surplus both in industry and ‘agriculture, and finally, the growth in the needs of the workers and peasants—all these factors were caleu- lated to result in an increase and ex- tension of commodity exchange between town and country and did in fact have this result. The productive alliance be- tween tawn and country is the chief form of this alliance. This alliance must be supplemented by a commodity alliance in order that the connections between town and country are rendered unbreak- able. This can only be achieved by the development of soviet trade. 3 > > 7 OME comrades imagine that the devel- opment ef Soviet trading and in par- ticular the development of collective trading means a return to the first stage of the New Economic Policy. This idea is