Speech On Addenda To The Bill Of The C.P.C.

“On Measures To Consolidate And Develop

Peasant Farming”

Delivered To The B.C.?. Group

Of The Eighth Congress Of Soviets

December 27

Comrades, the Central Committee today has examined the decision adopted
by the group concerning the deletion of the words “individual
householders” from the point of the resolution on agriculture which deals
with improvement and premiums. The C.C. has passed the following resolution
and authorised me to defend it. [14] ( Reads .) There, comrades, you have the text of
the C.C.’s decision. Allow me now to give the reasons why we simply could not agree with the group’s
decision. We had no doubts, and this was particularly stressed at the
C.C. meeting, that the principal reasons the group was guided by in its
decision to reject the idea of premiums for individual householders were
the fear that we would give premiums to the kulak, and the desire to give
priority to the village commune, the volost, the collective unit—to
common labour, not the individual. With this we are in perfect
agreement. We consider, however, that it would be wrong to let ourselves
reject altogether the idea of premiums for individual farmers for reasons,
which in themselves are quite correct, fundamentally indisputable to any
Marxist and especially valuable from the point of view of the
peasantry.

Allow me to give you some information from the history of the origin of
this bill. I have been following its progress through the Council of
People’s Commissars fairly closely and must say that in the first draft,
tabled by the Food Commissariat, the main accent, generally speaking, was
on the hardworking farmer. The gist of Comrade Sereda’s proposals was that
it would be wrong to stake on the hard-working farmer, and that we should
stake on the village commune, the collective body. The Council’s attitude
on this question-at least, mine-was that we had to weigh all the pros and
cons and consult the local people. Indeed, it seemed wrong to me to reject
premiums for individual farmers, but that the village commune had to be
given priority-this might be all right if the local people with practical
experience confirmed that it could and should be done. From this conflict
of two points of view there emerged the formulation that was adopted for
the bill of the Council of People’s Commissars, namely, that both be
retained and a ratio established between the two kinds of premiums. The
details, as defined in the Council, were to be covered by instructions. In
fact the decision of the Council says that the instructions are to be drawn
up within a definite stated period by the Commissariat for Agriculture,
co-ordinated with the Commissariat for Food and endorsed by the Council of
People’s Commissars. As an exception to the general procedure, when
instructions are endorsed by a single order of the People’s Commissar
concerned, we arranged not only for verification—the participation of two People’s
Commissars-but specially added that the Council of People’s Commissars
demanded that the instructions be submitted to it for endorsement. Obviously, a great deal depended on the instructions.

After certain explanations given by comrades your decision not to give
premiums to individual farms became clear to us. The Central Committee saw
the point. The point is fear of unfair premiums, the giving of premiums to
kulaks. Obviously, the best-run farms are those of the well-to-do peasants
and the kulaks, and there are still plenty of these in the villages, on
that score we haven’t the slightest doubt. If we, in paying a premium for
an efficient farm, did not take care to find out how that efficiency was
achieved, then, naturally, the kulak would prove to have the best-run
farm. And if we ignore the question as to how, at what price, economic
improvement is achieved, we shall find the kulak receiving unfair
privileges. If we reward him with the means of production, that is, with
things that make for farm expansion, we shall find ourselves indirectly,
and perhaps even not quite indirectly, boosting the kulaks, because, in
rewarding an industrious farmer without considering whether or not he
achieved his good results by kulak practices, and what is more, rewarding
him with things like the means of production, that is to say, things he can
use to strengthen his influence with, we shall, of course, be running
counter to the basic provisions of not only the agrarian, but of all Soviet
policy, and infringing the basic principle—that of supporting the
interests of the working people against those of the kulaks. In doing so we
shall really be seriously undermining the principles and foundations of
all Soviet policy in general, and not only of agrarian policy.

But if we are to draw from this the conclusion that individual farmers
should not be rewarded, then take the following example: we give bonuses to
individual workers at factories and mills, where collective, socialised,
labour has reached an incomparably higher level than in agriculture. What
is to be done about the peasantry then? In a peasant country, where
individual peasant labour predominates to the extent of nine-tenths,
probably ninety-nine per cent, where we have twenty million peasant farms, we want to promote these farms and we
must do so come what may. We know that their efficiency can he raised only
after several long years of radical technical reform. We have learned
something in our three years of practical work. We know how to build up the
foundations of communism in agriculture—this can be done at the cost of a
tremendous technical evolution. We clearly visualise that elaborated plan
with located electric stations, we know the minimum-programme, the
programme for the next ten years, but in this book on electrification we
also have a maximum-programme, in which gigantic work is planned for years
ahead. But now we have twenty million separate farms, which are run
separately and cannot be run in any other way; and if we don’t encourage
them to raise productivity this would be grossly wrong, it would be clearly
overdoing it, it means a refusal to see facts of reality that strike the
eye, facts that we have to reckon with and be guided by. It would be
desirable, of course, to have these farms rise through collectivism, by
whole volosts, communes, etc. But how far that is possible at present is a
thing we have to reckon with. If you, working in the local areas, support
progress in this direction and raise a whole commune or a whole
volost—all the better; in that case give them all that is best in premium
payments. But are you sure that you will manage it, that it is not sheer
fantasy, which in the practical work will lead to the greatest blunders?

That is why we propose to you the last part of the

C.C’s resolution reworded or amended as the practical workers may deem fit for inclusion in
the resolution of the Congress of Soviets, so that this question should be
decided by you and you should say here: premiums and rewards for individual
farmers are acceptable under three known conditions. First, premiums for
rural communes first and foremost, with householders coming second and
receiving what remains—to this we agree. The second point says individual
farmers who have achieved economic success by kulak practices should not be
rewarded; it should not be a case of-you have made a go of it economically,
you are to be rewarded. If anyone has achieved economic success, but
employed a kulak method in doing so, whether in the form of a loan, the hiring of labourers, or profiteering—kulak practices
sometimes dodge the law-if anyone has employed the slightest kulak method
to achieve success, he is to forfeit reward of any kind. This is the second
restriction which goes still further to meet your principled point of view
as to combating the kulaks and supporting the working middle peasants and
poor peasants. The third restriction—what is to be issued as
premiums. They may be given in the form of means of production—things
like implements and machines that serve to expand and improve the farm;
articles of consumption may be issued, household articles of adornment,
things that make the home brighter and life more beautiful. We say: “Give
the individual farmers only consumer and household goods, and, of course,
medals.” You have already accepted the Order of the Red

Banner. [15] As to the means of production, these may be given to
individual farmers, but of such a type and on such conditions that they
should not be usable for kulak purposes. No machines should be given, not
even to the most hardworking farmer, not even if he has achieved success
without the least resort to kulak practices. Machines should not be given,
because by the very nature of their employment they require collective
labour, and a farmer who receives a machine will not be able to use it by
himself.

These are the considerations the C.C. was guided by and on the basis of
which we have asked you to reconsider your decision, exchange opinions, and
alter your decision if you deem it possible so as to allow individual
farmers to be rewarded on the three conditions set forth above. If we do
not accept this, we may not achieve needed results, since farm improvements
cannot be carried out in a tired and ruined country without a special
effort, and the hardworking farmers have to be rewarded. All hard work that
contains no element of kulak practices should be rewarded. That is why we
think that on considering these reasons you will agree to premiums subject
to the three restrictive conditions mentioned above, which we think are
really necessary in the interests of our economic development.

| First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI | |
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| Printed from the shorthand record | |