to Stalin from Dzerzhinsky

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

Stalin Correspondences

F. E. Dzerzhinsky to I. V. Stalin

August 3 [1923]

Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), Comrade Stalin.

Today, 3/VІІІ, at the meeting of the SRT, I had a major clash with the chairman, Comrade Rykov.

The STO, with my objections, was accepted for hearing the question, introduced not by a member of the STO and not by the head of the department, but by a member of the collegium (headed by members of the STO, comrades Rykov and Pyatakov), comrade Chubarov, about the debt of the NKPS to Donbass, Kuzbass and Cherembass. I objected, because this issue was not included in the agenda, and I was not notified before the meeting that it would be included in the agenda, and therefore I was not acquainted with this proposal. When considering the issue of Donbass, the proposal was accepted with my amendments, guaranteeing the NKPS the opportunity to pay the debt 1. When considering the debt of the Siberian roads to Kuzbass, I asked to consider the issue of the debt to the Siberian roads of Chelyabkopey. Since neither the Siberian roads nor the NKPS are able to cover their debts without paying our debts - and that therefore it is useless to adopt a resolution on the payment of debts, which we do not deny. We do not want, but we cannot pay. My request - unlike Chubarov's - was not accepted, and the STO decided to oblige the NKPS to pay 305,342 commodity rubles within 7 [th] days. My statement that I could not pay was not taken into account, and no one (RKI - Central Control Commission - Gosplan) was instructed to check my statement. With its resolution, the STO discredits me both as a member of the STO and the Council of People's Commissars (strangers were present in the meeting room), and as a member of the Central Committee. T. Krzhizhanovsky even considered it necessary to state2 .

In such a situation of struggle, complete disregard and distrust of me on the part of the chairman and members of the SRT, I am not able to work directly due to my physical properties - these properties are known to you. I am not fit to be a statesman, and therefore my request is to remove me from the Narkomputevstvo, from the service station and the Council of People's Commissars, either by leaving me in the NKPS as a member of the collegium, or, if this is impossible, completely remove me from there, instructing me to deal entirely with the GPU.

There are other reasons for this request. I am not able to find the right way to solve the question of wages and I am afraid that I will not be able to cope with this task. I am deeply convinced that our party, and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in the first place, are in practice pursuing an incorrect, insufficiently active policy in this matter. What we are doing is breaking the unity of the working class, is giving everything to the elements, whoever manages to get as much from his "employers" himself. This element has already penetrated into our transport system and threatens to shatter all calculations and shatter the unity of the transport proletariat. The river began - with the support of the Gubkoms and Gubprofsovets - up to the support of the announcement of a strike.

From the river it goes to the railroads. With the help of pressure on our business executives from not only professional, but also party organizations, they are forced to conclude local collective agreements, according to which, based on the estimate of the STO, we cannot pay. Fermentation starts. The Politburo approves the principle of managing heavy industry, but we do not receive funds for this, because the growth rate of the metalworkers is stronger than ours. The same NKFin (Vladimirov), which cuts down our estimates by coefficients in the arbitration court, agrees to pay with chervonets - metalworkers, whose pay is much higher than transport workers. What is my position on this issue? In the SRT, in the P / Bureau, ask and prove what follows, that is, what needs to be equalized, give us more, that is, give others less. Only in this way can we equalize our poverty.

To tell the masses that we (NKPS) are in short supply, that we cannot live off the reparations of the muzhik, that the source of our increase in wages is the fight against mismanagement in our transport, which is still terribly much, and we are waging with it, with this mismanagement , fierce fight. I dare say that in no department there is such a pace of struggle and success as we have, and that we did not sow panic before the Central Committee even when the Saratov Provincial Committee blessed the strike, and when all sorts of leaflets were distributed, and when the water workers launched a frenzied campaign .

I thought that the wage policy should be directed by the party through the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the STO (finances) - systematically, according to the program of the Twelfth Congress, according to the correct distribution of the meager funds of the Republic, consistent with the unity of the proletariat.

It is the business of the business executive and the trade union in transport to give the maximum to the state and to fight against bureaucratic perversions in this matter, up to and including a strike, but the main distribution of funds is the business of the highest organs of the party and the state.

But I got into a dead end with my line and was the reason why the pace of raising the salary of a transport worker is so slow and hard that it can result in serious complications.

My arguments, for example, in SRT, 27/VII, when Comrade Kamenev presided, were a crying voice, although they were irrefutable. The NKPS was credited with 3,400,000 commod[ary] rubles [lei] as a net income from state river shipping companies (when calculating the gross consumption of 7,900,000 t[ovar] rubles [lei]), although I argued, not out of a desire to deceive, that in a real mood waterway workers (workers on strike with our administration headed by Ishchenko) I will not be able to get this money (Proof later followed - the threat supported by the Gubernia Committee of the strike of workers on the waterway, to whom the state shipping companies, with the support of the workers, did not give out money, since they themselves needed it).

At the same service station - in addition to this - they reduced our subsidy against the cut down estimate by Tsyurupa and the cut down by Pyatakov by 3 million 3 .

And so we - the NKPS - are cut completely, on every occasion.

But after all, with my weak voice - not reaching the goal - the voice of another must rise. But then there will be cracks in our Soviet building.

And I, as the head of transport, got into a dead end. And because of this, I myself personally turn into some kind of hysteria who “fries” about his “horse” - transport and excites grins and receives not only a refusal, but also, even at official meetings, reprimands.

I must either get support or leave.

3/VІІІ

F. Dzerzhinsky.

PS Only by taking control of the elements of the movement to increase wages, it will be possible to avoid political cracks and achieve maximum results while spending a minimum of funds. Now the alignment is on the strongest. It is necessary to hold back the growth of the wages of the strongest and, gradually, according to a plan that is feasible and recognized by all cells of the Party (primarily in the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, in the Central Committee of the unions, in the Gubernia Trade Union Councils and in the Gubernia Committees), to raise the wages of those who lag behind .

RTSKHIDNI. F. 76. Op. 2. D. 103. L. 103 - 113. Autograph.

Notes:

1 The resolution of the STO of the USSR on the issue of settlements of the NKPS for fuel with the Donbass provided for both the obligations of the NKPS to cover its debts and the payment of debts of state bodies to the NKPS itself (GARF. F. R-5674. On. 1. D. 1. L. 92) .

2 On the issue of the debt of the NKPS to the Kuznetsk and Cheremkhovo coal basins, the STO decided: “a) To propose the NKPS to pay Kuzbasstrest and Cherembasstrest its debt for the supply of planned fuel in the amount of 305,342 commodity rubles [l] within 7 days. b) Offer Comrade. Dzerzhinsky to submit the issue of debts of the People's Commissariat of Commissariat of Commissariat from the side of state bodies in the prescribed manner” (Ibid., L. 93).

3 At the STO meeting on July 27, 1923, the budget plan for August 1923 was considered (Ibid. L. 79-80).

4 On the letterhead: "People's Commissar of Communications." On the first page of the letter, at the top, in red pencil, Dzerzhinsky's note: "not sent."