The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 28, 1933, Page 8

Page Four . Peas:nt women on _ coliectivized Soviet farms. The progress made as @ result of the success of the coliecti- _ absolutely erroneous. First of all, trading activities in the first stage of the N.EP. led to a certain rejuvenation of capitalism and permitted the development of the private capitalist sector in commodity exchange. Our Soviet trading, however, is based on a rejection of both these possibilities. What is So- viet trading? Soviet trading is trading without -the mediation of capital- ists. It is wholesale and retail trad- ing without speculation and witnout speculators, either big or small. It is a special form of trading unknown to eco- nomic history up to the present and practiced only by us Bolsheviki under the Special conditions of our Soviet develop- ment. Secondly, we have now behind us a sufficiently developed State industry and @ whole network of collective and Soviet farms which provide the State with tre- mendous reserves of agricultural and in- dustrial commodities for the development of Soviet trading. This was not the case and could not have been the case in the first stage of the N.E.P. Thirdly, in the last stage we succeeded im driving the private traders, merchants, and private mediators of all sorts out of commodity circulation. This certainly does not exclude the ap- pearance of new private traders and speculators according to the law of ata- vism in commodity circulation, individ- uals who exploit a favorable field for their operations in this case, collective agricultural trading. However, we are in possession of a weapon against these un- desirable phenomena in the shape of the Soviet law for the suppression of specu- jation and the punishment of the -specu- lators. * s * ft has been said that it will prove im- possible to develop trading, even Soviet trading, without a healthy currency sys~ tem and stable currency, and that above all our currency system, our Soviet cur- rency, which allegedly is without value, must return to the normal. This is the opinion of the economists in the capital- ist countries. In my opinion these econo- mists know as much about political econ- omy as the Archbishop of Canterbury knows about anti-religious propaganda. How is it possible to declare that our So- viet currency is without value? Is it not @ fact that with this currency we have built Magnitostroi, Dnieprostroi, Kusnet- akstroi, the Stalingrad and Kharkov tractor works, the automobile works in Moscow and Gorki, hundreds of thou- sands of collective farms and thousands of Soviet farms? Do these capitalist ex- perts imagine that all these things were built of straw or clay and not of real materiais of a definite value? What pro- vides the basis of our Soviet currency if we take into consideration the organ- ized market, which is of decisive impor- tance for commodity circulation in our country, and not the unorganized market which is of subordinate importance only? Certainly not only our gold supplies. 'The Stability of Soviet currency is secured above all by tremendous masses of com- modities in the hands of the state and over to the market at fixed prices. Where is the economist who can deny that such a security, which exists only in the Soviet Union, is not a better security for the stability of our currency than any particular gold supplies? What have we achieved on the field of Soviet trading as a result of the carrying out of the Five-Year Plan? As a result of the carrying out of the Five-Year Plan we achieved: &) an increase of the production of our and co-operative organizations in agri- culture. a s e Ym situation of commodity circulation in the capitalist countries shows a completely different picture. There the manufacturing industries by 187 per cent. as compared witn 1928; b) an increase of co-operative and State retail trading which at present totals 39.6 million roubles in 1932 prices, by 175 per cent. as compared with 1928; ©) an increase of the State and co-op- erative trading network by 158,000 shops and stores as compared with 1929; d) 9 continual increase of our collective trading and the creation of various State crisis has led to a catastrophic shrinking of trade, tothe closing down of trade un- ; on a mass scale, to the im- ‘poverishment of the small and middle 12 Ne CRLRUC RANMA DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1933 ———————————————————————————————————— remnants; of; the dying | bourgeois glasses vization program is described in Com- rade Stalin’s speech. ‘ traders, to the bankruptcy of big trading firms, to a congestion of commodity cir< culation in trading and to a steady de- cline of the purchasing power of the working masses. As a result of the carrying out of the Five-Year Plan in industry, agriculture and trading we have consolidated the principle of socialism in all economic spheres by driving the capitalist elements out everywhere. The result was that the last remnants of the dying classes were flung out of their last resting places: the industrialists and their lackeys, the traders and their assistants, the former aristocrats, priests, kulaks, kulek elements, former white guardist officers, former policemen and gendarmes, the various chauvinist shades of bourgeois intellectuals and the other anti-Soviet elements. Thrown out of their element and scattered all over the Soviet Union these former bourgeois crept into our undertakings, our factories, our ad- ministrative institutions, our trading or- ganizations, our building undertakings, our railway and water transport systems and into our collective and Soviet farms. They have concealed themselves in these places and adepted the mask of “workers” and “peasants” and some of them have even, found their way into the Commu- nist Party, Why did they de this? Naturally, they entered these various organizations, etc., with feelings of hatred towards the So- viet power, with feelings of bitter hos- tility towards the new economic and cul- tural forms. These gentry are no longer powerful enough to undertake an open attack against the Soviet power. They and their class have’ made many such attacks, but they have been beaten .off and scattered. All that now remains open to them is the treacherous underground weapon of sabotage and they use this weapon wherever they find an oppor- tunity, whereby they proceed with great cunning. Robbery and theft in the factories, ete.; robbery and theft on the railways, on the lines and in the depots and in the trading undertakings; robbery and theft in the collective farming undertakings is their specialty. These are the chief forms of the activity of these elements from the former ruling classes. Their class in- stinct tells them that the basis of the Soviet economic system is socialized property and that this basis must be damaged if the Soviet power is to be shaken. * * In organizing robbery and theft they exploit the remnants of the private prop- erty feelings and customs of the collec- tivized peasants, the individual peasants of yesterday. The consciousness of the individual lags behind the actual material situation. The material situation of the collective peasants is that they are mem- bers of a collective, but their conscious- ness is still that of the individual peas- ant. The elements from the ranks of the former exploiting classes now utilize the old private-property feelings of the col- lective peasants in order to organize rob- bery and theft against socialized property and thus damage the basis of the Soviet system, common property. Many of our comrades regard such phenomena good-naturedly in the belief that the matter is “not so important.” They are making a big mistake. The basis of our order of society is socialized prop- erty, just as private property is the basis of capitalist society. In the period of the consolidation of the capitalist order of society private property was declared sa- cred and inviolate and we must now de- clare socialized property to be equally inviolate in order to consolidate our new socialist economic forms on all fields of production and -trading. To tolerate rob- bery and theft against socialized property means to permit the undermining of the Soviet system which is based on socialized property. This was the standpoint of our Soviet government when it issued the law for the protection of socialized property a little while ago. At the moment this law is the basis of our revolutionary legal code. The struggle for the protection of so<« cialized property is one of the chief tasks of the Party. * . * HAT we need at the moment is a strong and: powerful proletarian dic< tatorship in order to destroy the last wih accaperaiyaldan si be and to ppt an‘énd’ to their predatory ma~ » thinations.) Some | comrades have inter- ! preted the theory of the dstruciion of the classes, the: creation of a classless order of society, and the gradual dis- appearance of the State as a justification for laziness and conciliation, as a justi- fication of the counter-revolutionary the- ory of the disappearance of the class struggle and the weakening of the State power. It is hardly necessary to point out that such people have nothing in common with our Party. The destruc- tion of the classes cannot come about through the disappearance of the class struggle. On the contrary, it can be the result, of an intensification of the class struggle only. The gradual disappearance of the State can not come about es a result of the weakening of the State power, but as a result of the maximum strengthening of the State power neces- sary to destroy, completely the remnants of the dying bourgeois classes and to or- ganize an effective defense against the capitalist environment which is by no means at an end and will not be for a long time to conie. As a result of the carrying out of the Five-Year Plan we succeeded in ejecting the last remnants of the hostile classes from their positions in production. ‘The kulaks were defeated and the way pre- pared for their final extermination. This is the result of the carrying out of the Five-Year Plan with regard to the strug- gle against the last remnants of the bour- geoisie. However, that is not much. Our task now consists in ejecting these ele- ments of the former ruling classes from our own undertakings and administra- tion and finishing them off once and for all, Naturally, these elements from the for- mer exploiting classes cannot bring about any fundamental alteration in the situa- tion of the Soviet Union with their sabo- tage, robbery and theft. They are too weak and impotent to counter effectively the measures of the Soviet power. How- ever, we must bear in mind that the growth of the Soviet power will intensify the resistance of these last remnants of the dying bourgeois classes, Just because they are dying and experiencing their last days they will adopt one wea- pon after the other against us. There is no crime which these elements of the former ruling classes would not ascribe to the Soviet power in their attempts to mobilize the backward elements against us. On this basis the defeated groups of the old countcr-revolutionary parities, the social revolutionaries, the mensheviki and the bourgeois nationalists can re- vive and resume their activities, as also can the remnants of the counter-revolu- tionary oppositional elements from the Trotzkyists to the right-wingers. That is certainly not a frightening prospect, bui everything must be taken into considera- tion if we wish to make an end of these elements as quickly as possible and with- out particular sacrfices. Therefore revolutionary vigilance is a quality which is particularly necessary for the Bolsheviki at the moment. * * * GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. would be an error to assume on the basis of the results and achievements of the last four years that everything in the Soviet Union is now favorable. There are enough mistakes and deficiencies in our work. Unfortiinately I cannot deal with these mistakes and deficiencies at the moment because the review I aw giving is not extensive enough to permic ttoi—.»e giant hydro-electric “plant this, However, this is not the main point. ‘The niain point is: that despite our. mis« takes and. deficientics, whose existence is denied by no one, we have achieved such considerable successes that the en- thusiasm of the workers of the world has been aroused, that we have won a victory which is so important as to be of world historical significance. What are the main forces which sc- cured us this historical victory uespite everything. Above all it was the activity, the self-sacrifice, the enthusiasm and the initiative of the million masses of the workers and coillectivized peasants who developed a tremendous energy and en-~ thusiasm together with our engineers and technical experis in socialist competition and the shock brigade movement. It cannot be denied that without this most important factor we could never have reached our aim, could never have ad<« vanced a step. Secondly, there is the firm leadership provided by the party and the Soviet government who appealed to the masses to advance and overcame ali difficulties met with on the way. And finally there was the special value and the advantages of the Soviet eco- nomic system which contains tremendous possibilities capable of overcoming all dif- ficulties met with. These are the three most important factors which secured the historical vic< tory of the Soviet Union in its great struggle. General conclusions: 1. The results of the first Five-Year Plan refute the state- ments of the bourgeois and social demoe cratic politicians that the Five-Year c.an was a fantastic and unrealizable dream. The results show that in fact the Five- Year Plan has already been carried out. 2. The results of the Five-Year Plan have destroyed the old dogma of the bourgeoisie according to which the work- ing class is able to destroy only and not build up anything new. The results of the Five-Year Plan show that the work- ing class is able not only to destroy the old, but also to build up the new. 3. The results of the Five-Year Plan have destroyed the social democratic the- ory that it is impossible to build up sn- cialism in one country alone. The results of the Five-Year Plan show that it is quite possible to build up a socialist order of society in one country alone, for the economic basis of such a socialist order of society has aiready been laid in the Soviet Union. j 4. The results of the Five-Year Plan refuted the statements of the bourgeois economists that the capitalist economic system is the best possible system and that all other economic systems would be unable to stand the stern examination put by the difficulties of economic devel- opment. The results of the Five-Year Plan have shown that the capitaliet eo-. nomic system is insolvent and bro!-., that it has already passed its rrime «id must now make way for another, higher form of system, the socialist Soviet sys- tem, the only system which has nothing to fear from crises and which is able to overcome difficulties which are insoluble for capitalism. 5. And finally, the results of the Five- Year Plan show that the Communist Party is invincible when it is thoroughly aware of the direction in which it is pro- ceeding and when it is not afraid of difficulties.” (Storms of protracted appladse. The assembled audience honors Stalin by rising to its feet.) ngs which wes receritly completed. Ib Dniepros' “is one of the bas c¢ achievements of the first Five-Year Plan