Kilde: Stalin om industrialiseringen - 19. november 1928

INDUSTRIALISATION OF THE COUNTRY AND THE RIGHT DEVIATION IN THE C.P.S.U.(B.)

Our theses proceed from the premise that a fast rate of development of industry in general, and of the production of the means of production in particular, is the underlying principle of, and the key to, the industrialisation of the country, the underlying principle of, and the key to, the transformation of our entire national economy along the lines of socialist development. 

But what does a fast rate of development of industry involve? It involves the maximum capital investment in industry. And that leads to a state of tension in all our plans, budgetary and non-budgetary. And, indeed, the characteristic feature of our control figures in the past three years, in the period of reconstruction, is that they have been compiled and carried out at a high tension. Take our control figures, examine our budget estimates, talk with our Party comrades -- both those who work in the Party organisations and those who direct our Soviet, economic and co-operative affairs -- and you will invariably find this one characteristic feature everywhere, namely, the state of tension in our plans. 

The question arises: is this state of tension in our plans really necessary for us? Cannot we do without it? Is it not possible to conduct the work at a slower pace, in a more "restful" atmosphere? Is not the fast rate of industrial development that we have adopted due to the restless character of the members of the Political Bureau and the Council of People's commissars? 

Of course not! The members of the Political Bureau and the Council of People's Commissars are calm and sober people. Abstractly speaking, that is, if we disregarded the external and internal situation, we could, of course, conduct the work at a slower speed. But the point is that, firstly, we cannot disregard the external and internal situation, and, secondly, if we take the surrounding situation as our starting-point, it has to be admitted that it is precisely this situation that dictates a fast rate of development of our industry.     

Permit me to pass to an examination of this situation, of these conditions of an external and internal order that dictate a fast rate of industrial development.     

External conditions. We have assumed power in a country whose technical equipment is terribly backward. Along with a few big industrial units more or less based upon modern technology, we have hundreds and thousands of mills and factories the technical equipment of which is beneath all criticism from the point of view of modern achievements. At the same time we have around us a number of capitalist countries whose industrial technique is far more developed and up-to-date than that of our country. Look at the capitalist countries and you will see that their technology is not only advancing, but advancing by leaps and bounds, outstripping the old forms of industrial technique. And so we find that, on the one hand, we in our country have the most advanced system, the Soviet system, and the most advanced type of state power in the world, Soviet power, while, on the other hand, our industry, which should be the basis of socialism and of Soviet power, is extremely backward technically. Do you think that we can achieve the final victory of socialism in our country so long as this contradiction exists?     

What has to be done to end this contradiction? To end it, we must overtake and outstrip the advanced technology of the developed capitalist countries. We have overtaken and outstripped the advanced capitalist countries in the sense of establishing a new political system, the Soviet system. That is good. But it is not enough. In order to secure the final victory of socialism in our country, we must also overtake and outstrip these countries technically and economically. Either we do this, or we shall be forced to the wall.     

This applies not only to the building of socialism. It applies also to upholding the independence of our country in the circumstances of the capitalist encirclement. The independence of our country cannot be up held unless we have an adequate industrial basis for defence. And such an industrial basis cannot be created if our industry is not more highly developed technically.     

That is why a fast rate of development of our indusry is necessary and imperative. 

The technical and economic backwardness of our country was not invented by us. This backwardness is age-old and was bequeathed to us by the whole history of our country. This backwardness was felt to be an evil both earlier, before the revolution, and later, after the revolution. When Peter the Great, having to deal with the more highly developed countries of the West, feverishly built mills and factories to supply the army and strengthen the country's defences, that was in its way an attempt to break out of the grip of this backwardness. It is quite understandable, however, that none of the old classes, neither the feudal aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, could solve the problem of putting an end to the backwardness of our country. More than that, not only were these classes unable to solve this problem, they were not even able to formulate the task in any satisfactory way. The age-old backwardness of our country can be ended only on the lines of successful socialist construction. And it can be ended only by the proletariat, which has established its dictatorship and has charge of the direction of the country. 

It would be foolish to console ourselves with the thought that, since the backwardness of our country was not invented by us and was bequeathed to us by the whole history of our country, we cannot be, and do not have to be, responsible for it. That is not true, comrades. Since we have come to power and taken upon ourselves the task of transforming the country on the basis of socialism, we are responsible, and have to be responsible, for everything, the bad as well as the good. And just because we are responsible for everything, we must put an end to our technical and economic backwardness. We must do so without fail if we really want to overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries. And only we Bolsheviks can do it. But precisely in order to accomplish this task, we must systematically achieve a fast rate of development of our industry. And that we are already achieving a fast rate of industrial development is now clear to everyone.     

The question of overtaking and outstripping the advanced capitalist countries technically and economically is for us Bolsheviks neither new nor unexpected. It was raised in our country as early as in 1917, before the October Revolution. It was raised by Lenin as early as in September 1917, on the eve of the October Revolution, during the imperialist war, in his pamphlet The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It. Here is what Lenin said on this score:     

You see how bluntly Lenin put the question of ending our technical and economic backwardness.     

Lenin wrote all this on the eve of the October Revolution, in the period before the proletariat had taken power, when the Bolsheviks had as yet neither state power, nor a socialised industry, nor a widely ramified co-operative network embracing millions of peasants, nor collective farms, nor state farms. Today, when we already have something substantial with which to end completely our technical and economic backwardness, we might paraphrase Lenin's words roughly as follows:     

The question of a fast rate of development of industry would not face us so acutely as it does now if we had such a highly developed industry and such a highly developed technology as Germany, say, and if the relative importance of industry in the entire national economy were as high in our country as it is in Germany, for example. If that were the case, we could develop our industry at a slower rate without fearing to fall behind the capitalist countries and knowing that we could out strip them at one stroke. But then we should not be so seriously backward technically and economically as we are now. The whole point is that we are behind Germany in this respect and are still far from having overtaken her technically and economically. 

The question of a fast rate of development of industry would not face us so acutely if we were not the only country but one of the countries of the dictatorship of the proletariat, if there were a proletarian dictatorship not only in our country but in other, more advanced countries as well, Germany and France, say. 

If that were the case, the capitalist encirclement could not be so serious a danger as it is now, the question of the economic independence of our country would naturally recede into the background, we could integrate ourselves into the system of more developed proletarian states, we could receive from them machines for making our industry and agriculture more productive, supplying them in turn with raw materials and foodstuffs, and we could, consequently, expand our industry at a slower rate. But you know very well that that is not yet the case and that we are still the only country of the proletarian dictatorship and are surrounded by capitalist countries, many of which are far in advance of us technically and economically. 

That is why Lenin raised the question of overtaking and outstripping the economically advanced countries as one of life and death for our development.     

Such are the external conditions dictating a fast rate of development of our industry. 

Internal conditions. But besides the external conditions, there are also internal conditions which dictate a fast rate of development of our industry as the main foundation of our entire national economy. I am referring to the extreme backwardness of our agriculture, of its technical and cultural level. I am referring to the existence in our country of an overwhelming preponderance of small commodity producers, with their scattered and utterly backward production, compared with which our large-scale socialist industry is like an island in the midst of the sea, an island whose base is expanding daily, but which is nevertheless an island in the midst of the sea.     

We are in the habit of saying that industry is the main foundation of our entire national economy, including agriculture, that it is the key to the reconstruction of our backward and scattered system of agriculture on a collectivist basis. That is perfectly true. From that position we must not retreat for a single moment But it must also be remembered that, while industry is the main foundation, agriculture constitutes the basis for industrial development, both as a market which absorbs the products of industry and as a supplier of raw materials and foodstuffs, as well as a source of the export reserves essential in order to import machinery for the needs of our national economy. Can we advance industry while leaving agriculture in a state of complete technical backwardness, without providing an agricultural base for industry, without reconstructing agriculture and bringing it up to the level of industry? No, we cannot. 

Hence the task of supplying agriculture with the maximum amount of instruments and means of production essential in order to accelerate and promote its reconstruction on a new technical basis. But for the accomplishment of this task a fast rate of development of our industry is necessary. Of course, the reconstruction of a disunited and scattered agriculture is an incomparably more difficult matter than the reconstruction of a united and centralised socialist industry. But that is the task that confronts us, and we must accomplish it. And it cannot be accomplished except by a fast rate of industrial development.    

We cannot go on indefinitely, that is, for too long a period, basing the Soviet regime and socialist construction on two different foundations, the foundation of the most large-scale and united socialist industry and the foundation of the most scattered and backward, small commodity economy of the peasants. We must gradually, but systematically and persistently, place our agriculture on a new technical basis, the basis of large-scale production, and bring it up to the level of socialist industry. Either we accomplish this task -- in which case the final victory of socialism in our country will be assured, or we turn away from it and do not accomplish it -- in which case a return to capitalism may become inevitable. 

Here is what Lenin says on this score:

 
    As you see, when Lenin speaks of the electriiication of the country he means not the isolated construction of individual power stations, but the gradual "placing of the economy of the country, including agriculture,[*] on a new technical basis, the technical basis of modern large-scale production," which in one way or another, directly or indirectly, is connected with electrification. 

Lenin delivered this speech at the Eighth Congress of Soviets in December 1920, on the very eve of the in troduction of NEP, when he was substantiating the so-called plan of electrification, that is, the GOELRO plan. Some comrades argue on these grounds that the views expressed in this quotation have become inapplicable under present conditions. Why, we ask? Because, they say, much water has flown under the bridges since then. It is, of course, true that much water has flown under the bridges since then. We now have a developed socialist industry, we have collective farms on a mass scale, we have old and new state farms, we have a wide network of well-developed co-operative organisations, we have machine-hiring stations at the service of the peasant farms, we now practise the contract system as a new form of the bond, and we can put into operation all these and a number of other levers for gradually placing agriculture on a new technical basis. All this is true. But it is also true that, in spite of all this, we are still a small-peasant country where small-scale production predominates. And that is the fundamental thing. And as long as it continues to be the fundamental thing, Lenin's thesis remains valid that "as long as we live in a small-peasant country, there is a surer economic basis for capitalism in Russia than for communism," and that, consequently, the danger of the restoration of capitalism is no empty phrase. 

Lenin says the same thing, but in a sharper form, in the plan of his pamphlet, The Tax in Kind, which was written after the introduction of NEP (March-April 1921): 
   

And further on he says: 

You see how bluntly Lenin puts the question: either electrification, that is, the "placing of the economy of the country, including agriculture, on a new technical basis, the technical basis of modern large-scale production," or a return to capitalism. 

That is how Lenin understood the question of "correct relations with the peasantry." 

It is not a matter of coddling the peasant and regarding this as establishing correct relations with him, for coddling will not carry you very far. It is a matter of helping the peasant to place his husbandry "on a new technical basis, the technical basis of modern large-scale production"; for that is the principal way to rid the peasant of his poverty. 

And it is impossible to place the economy of the country on a new technical basis unless our industry and, in the first place, the production of means of production, are developed at a fast rate. 

Such are the internal conditions dictating a fast rate of development of our industry. 

It is these external and internal conditions which are the cause of the control figures of our national economy being under such tension. 

That explains, too, why our economic plans, both budgetary and non-budgetary, are marked by a state of tension, by substantial investments in capital development, the object of which is to maintain a fast rate of industrial development. 

It may be asked where this is said in the theses, in what passage of the theses. (A voice : "Yes, where is it said?") Evidence of this in the theses is the sum-total of capital investments in industry for 1928-29. After all, our theses are called theses on the control figures. That is so, is it not, comrades? (A voice : "Yes.") Well, the theses say that in 1928-29 we shall be investing 1,650 million rubles in capital construction in industry. In other words, this year we shall be investing in industry 330,000,000 rubles more than last year. 

It follows, therefore, that we are not only maintaining the rate of industrial development, but are going a step farther by investing more in industry than last year, that is, by expanding capital construction in industry both absolutely and relatively. 

That is the crux of the theses on the control figures of the national economy. Yet certain comrades failed to observe this staring fact. They criticised the theses on the control figures right and left as regards petty details, but the most important thing they failed to observe.