Page THE MILITANT Lturday June 21, 1938 SQUEAK IN THE APPARATUS (A POPULAR EXPLANATION)
By TROTSKY In the March 30th Prayda there is Assume that this swing of collectivization an article by Yaroslavsky entitled From 1s a complete triumph of socialism we must Left to Right. The article is devoted to simultaneously state the fact of the comthe passage of the Left Opposition. over Opposition raised a voice ct warning, this After this to be exact, after February 15, What were our into the camp of social democracy. How time from the Right.
plete bankruptcy of the leadership because 1928) the belated and frightened leadership struck the Kulak with a hail of administraplanned economy pre supposes that the people, who for over two years have been considerations?
leadership foresees to a certain extent the jallod and exiled for counter revolutionary a) It is impossible that there are no tive repressions which immediately clogged the circulation of peasant commodities, basic economic processes.
activity, and even for the preparation of an disproportions in the project of the five armed struggle against the Soviet govern year plan. With the fulfilment of the Nevertheless there is not even suge practically liquidated the NEP and chased ment (the official motivation for Trotsky gestion of that. Bucbarin the new, the replan they will accumulate, and may mani the middle peasant up into a blind alley.
exile. how these old time counter fest themselves sharply, it not in the first When we say that this blind alley was constructed, completely collectivized and revolutionaries can only now begin to year then in the second or third year of the the starting point of the new chapter in the industrialized Bucharin admits in the Pravda pags into the camp of social democracy rethat the new stage of collectivization grew plan wbich would result in the arrest of collectivization we do not discover or inout mains a puzzle. But what is clear is that growth. Before industry takes on additional vept anything new. We simply repeat what of administrative measures in the Yaroslavsky still has to sweat at the task speed, we must, speaking in military terms, the official Soviet press has admitted many struggle for bread and that this stage was of Inding a scientific explanation for carefully examine all abutments or Junc times. If Yaroslavsky wails that not one not foreseen by the leadership in all its Article 58 of the Crimjpal Code on the basis tions, where all branches of industry in reactionary has come to thiok of such an concreteness. This is put not too badly.
of which the Opposition has been persecu terlap each other.
abominable explanation it merely shows The mistakes of tempo they made in the ted. This searcli of an explanation takes on b) The noticeable depreciation of the that being absorbed by the perusal of Opconsiderations of planning amount all in a particularly noisy character now, because all to one thousand percent. And in what quality of the products, which is extremepositionist correspondence, the poor man there is a squeak in the apparatus, and it spbere? Not in the production of thimbles Jy low as it is, is a great danger not only does not read the economic articles in the must be drowned.
but in the question of the socialist trang.
for the consumer but for industry as well, Soviet presg. Yaroslavsky is particularly It is no accident that it is Yaroslavsky formation of the whole of agriculture. It because industry itself is the chief consum agitated when we say that the middle peais clear that some of this concreteness who was let loose against the Opposition, er of products.
sants have been wavering between collecLow quality must ineytivization and civil war. He calls tig reStalin and Yaroslavsky really did not fore.
even though there are more literate and itably result in a drastic decline in the sce.
Wiser people in the Party, But at present, quantity of production.
mark complete renegacy (The vocabuElacharin is right here.
lary of this eavesdropper is not very rich. the more literate, the wiser, the more conThe question of the tempos of inAs is well known we never suspected c)
But the whole Soviet press is full of inscientious either do not want to be Yar dustrial development must not be separthe present leadership of an over abunoslavsky yes men, but still cannot, partly ated from the question of the living stanformation that the peasants, e. the mid dance of penetrating ability. But it could dare not speak their mind aloud, or else dards of the working masses, because the dle peasants rapaciously exterminate and never make this kind of mistake if collecare simply confused. The Yaroslavskys are proletariat 19 the main producing force, dispose of their live stock inventories. All tivization would in reality bave grown out not confused, for there is nothing in them to the leaders call this situation threatening.
and only the sufficient rise of the material of our conquering the conviction of the be confused. This is wby the defence of the and cultural standards of the proletariat The newspapers explain this matter, by peasants by experience of the advantages Stalinist policy from the Opposition is taken the influence of the Kulak. They certainly can guarantee the future bigh tempos of of large scale collective economy over in on by Yaroslavsky, and he gives, let us do not mean ideological influence but industrialization. We consider this quesdividual.
note in passing, a remarkable example of tion of supreme importance.
economic ties between the Kulak and the middle peasant, a certain interdependence Collectivization and Adventurism the rot the Party is now fed on.
These are the three chiet consideraof the whole peasant economy, market as or course we do not for a moment It in a way of exception we will this tions which prompted the Opposition to well as of commodities and finances. In the doubt the deeply progressive and creative time stop at Yaroslavky article, it is beraise its warning cry against the reckless wholesale selling of cattle as a mass phencause with all its insignificance it is gympsignifcance of collectivization. We are pursuit of tempos which replaced the economenon we have nothing else but a quiet tomatic, and shows very well in what place, omic lag of the preceding period. In ready conditionally to assume that in its sabotaging form of civil war. On the other According to the German expression, Sta 1923 28 the Political Bureau of the Party, scope it approximately corresponds to the hand, the movement of the farm Collec sweep of the Five Year Plan. But where lin boot pinches.
not understanding the tremendous possibtives (Kolkhoz) has a mass character also did the one thousand per cent additional Dities inherent in nationalized industry The Tempo of Industrialization Isn it clear that the double nature of success grow out of? That must be exand planned methods of production were the middle peasant who combines within plained! Let us assume that the work of Several months ago we wrote to the Teady to make peace with the idea of four bimself a toiler and a merchant has reach the Kolkhozes during the preceding twelve comrades in the that the signs or dine per cent of growth then now, not ed in the present stage the most contra years was so successful that it could conindicating the too great speed of industrialunderstanding the material limits of indictory expression? The middle peasant vince the whole peasantry, not only of the ization are multiplying. Quoting our Bulle dustrialization it makes a light minded wavers between collecsvization and civil advantages but of the feasibility of generUn, Yaroslavsky writes that this evaluation jump from twenty to thirty per cent, adwar and to a certain degree combines one al collectivization. It is clear that this le absolutely in no way different from venturously attempting to transform each with the other. This is where the acutewhat the Mensheviks write. Absolutely kind of conviction could only be developed partial and temporary achievement into an ness of the situation and its danger lies. by means of Kolkhozes base: on tractors In no way!
absolute rule, and completely overlooking It will increase ten fold if we do not under and other machinery. It may be assumed Yaroslavsky does not surmise that the the interdependency of different phases of stand it in time.
that the overwheln Ing majority of tue question of correct or incorrect realistic or the industrial process.
middle peasants actually recognizes today unrealistic tempos exists in itself indepenWhen we call for the abandonment of The Opposition Platform the advantages of working the land by the dently of what the Mensheviks say about it the formal pursuit of quantity and for an in the years when three quarters of the tractor. But from this, complete traetorand is decided in connection with material actual improvement of quality does this Polbureau and 90 per cent of the govern ization does not yet follow because we and organizational factors, and not newsmean that we call for retreat from actually ment apparatus bad their orientation on need not only the conviction of its ativan.
paper quotations, all the more when these achieved successes? When we demand the the mighty peasant that is on the Ku tages but the tractor itsell. Did the auare falsified.
utilization of a part of the accumulation for lak tho Opposition demanded energetic thorities warn the peasants of the actual In the period when we Oppositionists the actual needs of the workers does this measures for agricultural collectivization. situation in the sphere of technical materfough for higher tempog of industrialization mean that we endanger the industrializaLet us recall that in the Platform of the ial possibilities generally? No! Instead (1923 29. the bourgeois press of the whole tion? When we demand that before the 30 Opposition these demands found the fol of restraining panicky collectivization.
world together with the social democratic, per cent annual growth is turned into an lowing expression they extended it by their mad pressure.
followed in the foot steps of Stalin, repeat iron law, we should examine the inter To the growing farmer tendenIt is true that now in order to defend the ing the accusation that the Oppositionists relation between the different branches of cies of the village we must oppose a istake of the one thousand per cent tem were romanticists fanatics and super industry and national economy as a whole faster pace of collectivization. It is necpo a new theory bas been created making industrialists.
from the point of view of the productivity essary to make systematic, year inthe question of technical resources one of In 1923 25 we proved that even after the of labor, the production costs does this and year out allowances to aid the poor tenth rate importance and claiming that exhaustion of all the pre revolutionary mean that we call for a retreat to the Stapeasants organized in collectives.
xocjalist agriculture. the manufacturing means of production, Soviet industry will lin position of yesterday. Platform of the Russian Opposikind. can be created by catechism frbe able to have a 20 yearly growth. We If the question is really decided so tion, page 24. respective of the means of production. We supported this contention on economic con simply then why should we stop at thirty are however, determined to reject this myssiderations which we will not cite here (see per cent? Fifty per cent is still more, And further: tical theory We do not believe in such a Whither Russia Towards Capitalism or Whoever does not wish to pull back must We must invest greater means in conception of socialism. Moreover we de.
Towards Socialism. pp. 45 46, Russian ed inscribe on his banner at lenst seventy five the Sovkhoz and Kolkhoz (Soviet and clare a merciless war against this mythol.
collective farms. We must afford the ition. year after that a five year plan per cent. Or perhaps thiry percent is desogy because the unavoidable disappointe was worked out in the womb of the Gosplan tined to be the rule? Destined by whom?
maximum privileges to newly organized (State Planning Commission. ment of the peasants threatens to create According Destined how? The unfortunate leaders Kolkhozzes and other forms of collectiv severe reaction against socialism in gento this plan the development of industry was simply arrived at this rule by running into ization. No person deprived of electoral eral and this reaction may also embrace to proceed at the diminishing rate of speed, it blindly in the first stages of carrying out rights can be a member of a Kolkhoz.
considerable circles of workers.
from to a year. The Opposition con the twenty per cent plan, which they themAll the work of cooperation must be demned this plan mercilessly.
Stalin started his last retreat the inIt was ac selves fought against tooth and nail for penetrated with the task of transferring evitability of which he foresaw on cused of demagogy. Another year later the several years.
small production into large scale collecNow it appears that only the Polbureau approved a new five year pro thirty per cent is Leninism. Whoever says tivized production.
eve of it just as little as he foresaw comIt is necessary to Ject with a yearly growth. The Fifteenth plete collectivization ball a year earlier to the frightened opportunists: do not lose carry through a strictly class line in the Party Congress approved the correctness of your heads, do not push industry into supply of machinery particularly when he was busy with his trivial theor.
this rate and condemned the Opposition for izing about the untimeliness of a socialsevere crisis 18, don you see, absolute through a struggle with fraudulent ma. non belief and skepticism. This did ist regime for the peasant poultry.
ly in no way different from the social dem cbine owning groups.
The not stop the Opposition from irreconcilably latest dispatchey announce that Stalin has ocracy absolutely, in no way. Platform of Russian Opposition, succeeded in marching a considerable discondemning the new five year plan. An Aren these people josters?
page 26. other year and a half later the Gosplap finWe did not pre determine the tempo of tance not forward (oh, wise Yaroslavsky. Collectivization ally worked out a third five year plan with collectivization because it was for us (ft but backward. From sixty percent collectivization to forty per cont. yearly increase of 29. This growth co Matters are still worse it possible with still remains so) a derivative proposition We do not in the least doubt that he will still have to incided much closer than it could be ex the peasant policy. For a number of years in relation to the tempo of industrializapected with the hypothetical prognosis of retreat a considerable per centage more the Pol Bureau built its agrarian policy tion and a series of other economic and the Opposition in 1925, and fully refuted all always at the tail end of the actual proon the idolization of the mighty middle peacultural factory.
cess. Foreseeing this several months ago the preceding clamor about industrial ro sant and the individual peasant economy The Pol Bureau plan two years la that is in the very heat of the collectivizamanticism and demogogy. Such is the brief generally. The Kulak they simply did not ter outlined the collecte vization of ope Afth pre bistory of the question.
tion push we warned against the consenotice or declared insignificant until he of the peasants during the Five Year Plan, quences of bureaucratic adventurism. It The actual growth ot. Industry in the concentrated in his hands forty per cent We suppose this figure did not simply come the Party had read our warnings as they first year of the five year plan (1928 29. ex of the marketable bread and acquired the to Kryzhanovsky in a dream but was based truly were and not in the belated distorceeded the plan, however, by fully 10. The leadership over the middle peasant in ad on technical and economic considerations. tions of Yaroslavsky many mistakes would leadership immediately decided, basing it dition. Having created his own economic Was it so or not? Nevertheless during the have been, if not avoided, at least greatly selt on this success, to complete the five connections and channels the Kulak re first year and a half three fifths of the pea modifed.
maar plan in four years. Against this the fused bread to the government industry. Santry were collectivized. Even if we should (Continued on Page 6)