Bolshevik Leaders correspondence

Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.

No. 232

N. Osinsky (V. V. Obolensky) - A. I. Rykov, I. V. Stalin

December 12, 1927

Top secret.

Tt. Rykov and Stalin.

Dear comrades,

I present briefly, for the two of you only, my thoughts on our present economic situation, which (reviews) I do not consider it possible to express at the Party Congress 1 for two reasons: 1) their open statement could undermine our credit abroad and worsen the political situation for us , and the demand to consider them at a closed meeting has no chance of being accepted, but would act in the same sense harmful to us, 2) my speech could be understood [in] the current political situation as an attack on the former composition of the Central Committee, but, between However, in my opinion, it is very untimely and harmful to engage in such attacks.

I will be brief and stick to the abstract form.

1) T. Rykov stated in his report 2 that we are not experiencing any general crisis and that there is only a partial crisis in the field of grain procurements. In my opinion, on the contrary, we are at the beginning of a very deep economic crisis, much more severe than the autumn crisis of 1923 or the spring difficulties of 1925.

2) The crisis in the field of grain procurements cannot in any way be regarded as "partial" for the reason that it affects the main economic nerve and reverberates in all directions. If the supply of grain is weakened, then a) the production of flax and cotton in 1928 will also weaken along with an increase in grain prices (which is already happening in the consuming provinces), b) exports and foreign exchange earnings will fall, c) interruptions in the grain supply will disrupt the economic the life of cities, d) we can approach a low-yielding year completely unprepared, which next year has a great chance of turning out to be.

3) The course of our grain procurements inspires me with the greatest apprehensions. The point here is not in comparisons of the total order (“since the beginning of the season, so much has been harvested this year, so much in the past”, “there is a decrease, but it is not so great”), but in the comparative movement of the harvest curve of the past and this year . Those who worked in the People's Commissariat of Food can see that if the curve broke off in September-October and went along such a deep “bottom” in November, then the campaign is already half broken. And if only in December it continues to move along the same “bottom”, then the campaign has already been completely lost, because the second half of the year can no longer improve things, even despite the increase in procurement prices, if such were undertaken. Such a price increase, moreover, there is already a defeat,

4) The immediate economic causes (leaving aside the political ones) are, of course, a) low prices for bread and b) the lack of goods that are popular in the countryside and are sold at low prices. Three times (in January 1927 in the P[olit]B[yuro], in the summer of 1927 at one of the plenums of the Central Committee, and in the early autumn of 1927 following Comrade Mikoyan’s report on the grain procurement plan in the PB) I pointed out to my comrades that prices you need to raise it for bread. I think that I was absolutely right. Also in June 1927, when reviewing the results of the campaign to reduce prices, I drew attention to the high prices of textiles and leather goods and, in particular, emphasized that the position of weakened capital investment in the textile industry, which was clearly manifested then in the assumptions of the Supreme Council of National Economy, was wrong.

5) When they say that our grain procurements have fallen, while the procurements of industrial crops have increased, and that the turnover between town and country has also increased due to the growth of the incomes of the peasantry from seasonal industries, then we can say: a) but, after all, procurements of "prosperous" products and went at relatively higher prices, and b) the growth of turnover due to seasonal trades is a factor of an impeding order, and not vice versa; a factor that increases only the demand, but not the supply of the village, which is a liability of the city, and not its asset. The increase in turnover due to the growth of the city's liabilities complicates the situation - and nothing more.

6) I believe that the more fundamental reasons for the disruption (so far halfway) of our main procurement campaign, a disruption that will inevitably turn into deep general difficulties, is the expansion of our production at a pace and in directions that do not correspond to the real possibilities of the country.

Comrades know that I am an energetic supporter of the "building of socialism in one country." This, by the way, means that I consider it possible, at the expense of the resources of the country itself, to develop in it a large-scale socialist industry that will oust non-socialist elements. This also means a course towards the gradual development in the country of the production of means of production on an ever-increasing scale.

7) The question of pace and directions is, however, of the greatest importance. You can take such a pace and move in such directions that the real possibilities will be surpassed. First, too many resources may be invested in the form of long-term costs; secondly, among these costs there may be investments that give a product that is very slow to be realized and, moreover, in too large a volume, so that the economy is not able to digest it. I explain specifically: it is possible to "drive" too much money into capital construction in general, and thus, for example, slow down the purchase of raw materials for already existing enterprises; it is possible to drive money into expanding the production of means of production and thereby delay the deployment of finished products, and also, subsequently, to make it difficult for the manufacturing industry to absorb the mass of machines and materials prepared for it by heavy industry; Finally, too much money can be put into "great work" in transport, electrification, etc., and thereby destroy the necessary proportionality in the development of the economic organism.

I note that it is precisely this kind of disproportion, created spontaneously, that is the main driving force behind cyclical crises under capitalism.

8) I believe that these disproportionalities are already beginning to take shape in our country (not spontaneously) as a result of an incorrect calculation of the possible pace and necessary areas of investment. We needed to develop on a much larger scale the branches of production that produce finished products, and we needed to invest more money in rationalizing them, in making their products cheaper. We have been able to reorganize the oil industry in such a way that the prices of kerosene are equal to pre-war prices. And we could achieve approximately the same in the textile or leather industry if we followed this path here as well. And we put too much pressure on heavy industry, hurried the pace here (in relation to our total capabilities). Moreover, we decided to immediately take on the three largest works: the Dneprostroy, the Semirechensk road and the Volga-Don3 . When in the fall of 1926 I expressed doubts in the Council of People's Commissars that we could now tackle the first two at once, Comrade Rykov ridiculed me for my "tailism." I am afraid that the results of underestimating the possible rate of deployment from internal resources are already beginning to show, and that they will have an even more acute effect in the future.

9) Do I speak out against the planned plans and pace in general? Far from it. We have to admit that they are still too small and slow in comparison with the demands arising from a revolution in the consciousness and needs of the masses, as well as with the pace developed in certain areas by the capitalist states. But the question, in my opinion, is put like this: either we need to very carefully balance the pace and directions, based on our own resources, or we need to attract resources from outside and, moreover, on a very large scale. Otherwise, the transformation of the crisis into a deep and protracted one is inevitable.

It is necessary to do, obviously, both that, and another. But since in the second direction there are opportunities not only of a “qualitative” (as in the first), but also of a “quantitative” order, the possibility of adding new resources, this second direction is now acquiring a purely important significance. And if we are making, in Comrade Stalin's opinion, a "turn", then in the economy it must apparently be a turn towards a greater use of resources from outside and towards organized preparations for such use. At the same time, the question of claims against us and our counterclaims becomes full-blown. By the way, the materials collected by the American PB Commission show that the resolution of this issue is apparently much simpler than it is usually imagined.

11) Another general cause of the crisis we are experiencing is, in my opinion, the excessively rapid movement towards the centralization of our entire economic administration and the weakening of the principle of cost accounting in individual economic units. Agricultural cooperatives in their procurement functions are increasingly becoming in our country an appendage to the state apparatus. Separate factories are transformed into departments of trusts. Special banks exist "for the time being" and more and more feel like future branches of the State Bank. The principle of work “according to the estimate” is increasingly being introduced into our economic cells, in the sense that any commissariat works according to the estimate. Manoeuvrability, adaptability to demand requirements and market changes is weakening. The elements and psychology of war communism begin to revive,

It is absolutely necessary to make a certain shift in favor of decentralization, giving more economic initiative to the operational units themselves and awakening in them again the psychology of "economic calculation".

I stress most energetically that I do not at all consider it necessary to develop private "economic initiative" in industry and trade. It seems to me that the result of our recovery period in this direction is that private capital did not turn out, and could not turn out to be, a living and socially useful independent link in the Soviet economic system. Its role is to fill the spaces still unfilled by the collective economy and to be a negative stimulus for this economy, preventing it from losing its market flexibility.

12) Another conclusion to be drawn from the current crisis is that it is necessary to go over on the widest scale to economic and organizational work in the countryside in order to fight private capital there and develop all the elements of a collective, cooperative and planned-regulated economy. During my stay (in April 1927) at a trial census in the Voronezh province, I was struck by how ripe the possibilities and prerequisites for this were. The village (the poor, first of all) is really waiting for the organizers, who should be sent there in tens of thousands and who can achieve unprecedented results there.

With regard to the kulak, one must take the same position as with respect to private capital in the city: let it fill the unfilled space and serve as a negative stimulus. It should not be “cancelled” by administrative measures and it is harmful. You should not in any way stake on him when organizing agricultural [agricultural] cooperatives, for example, try to attract his contributions by granting him any rights there (because without granting rights he will not go there). Kulak money can be voluntarily received only in the form of interest-bearing deposits in credit and savings institutions - if the state ensures their reliable return. Rural economic organizations, on the other hand, must be organizations of the middle peasants and the poor, or organizations for the middle peasants and the poor. This is also a clear result of the restoration period in the countryside,

Here are a number of considerations which I considered it necessary to set forth, in fragmentary and incomplete order.

12/XII.27.

Osinsky.

GARF. F. R-5446. Op. 55. D. 1338. L. 1-4. Typewritten text. The signature is an autograph.

Notes:

The 1st XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was held from December 12 to 19, 1927.

2 Rykov spoke at the congress with a report on directives for drawing up a five-year plan for the development of the national economy.

On November 25, 1926, the Politburo recognized the construction of the Semirechensk railway and the Dneprostroy as priority work from the plan for large-scale construction for 1926/1927 presented by the State Planning Commission. With regard to the Volga-Don Canal, it was considered expedient to confine ourselves to the completion of surveys and the continuation of work in the port of Azov (Industrialization of the USSR. 1926-1928. Documents and materials. M., 1969. S. 511).