I only managed to familiarize myself somewhat with both resolutions yesterday evening and today. I think that the resolution of the commission's minority is more correct. Comrade Milyutin attacked it with a great arsenal of terrible words, discovered in it both half-measures and even quarter-measures, accused it of opportunism. But it seems to me, the devil is not as fearsome as he is painted. If one examines the substance of the matter, then precisely Milyutin's arguments—who attempted to place the matter on a principled footing—reveal the very incorrectness and unsuitability from the standpoint of practice, practical business, and Marxism of the resolution which Comrade Milyutin was defending. This incorrectness amounts to the following: Milyutin pointed out that in his resolution, the resolution of the commission's majority, there is talk of merger with the volispolkom, of subordination to the volispolkom, and in this he sees the directness and decisiveness of his resolution as compared with the insufficient revolutionary character of the minority resolution. We have already seen over the long course of our revolutionary campaign that when our revolutionary actions were prepared, they crowned themselves with success; when they were only imbued with revolutionary fervor, they ended in collapse.

What does the minority resolution of the commission say? The minority resolution says: direct your attention to strengthening communist work in consumer societies and acquiring a majority in them, prepare those organs to which you wish to transfer and will subsequently transfer them. Compare this with the line which Milyutin conducts. He says: cooperation is bad, therefore transfer it to the volispolkoms. But do you have a communist base in this cooperation which you wish to transfer? The essence of the matter—preparation—is being bypassed, only the final slogan is given. If this communist work is prepared and those organs are created which will be able to take it up and conduct it, then the transfer is understandable, then there is nothing to proclaim this at the party congress. But you have made so many lunges with respect to the peasants! The same VSNKh has made so many lunges at the peasantry and at cooperation in the matter of collecting flax! If you recall the practical experience of our local and sovnarkhoz work, you will say that this is an incorrect approach to the matter, and correct is that resolution which says that communist education work is necessary and the preparation of a cadre of workers is necessary, without which transfer is impossible.

The second fundamental question is the connection with consumer cooperation. Here Comrade Milyutin displays extraordinary inconsistency. If consumer cooperation does not fulfill all its assignments, i.e., that which was spoken of two years ago in a whole series of decrees directed against the kulak, then one must remember that those means of power which we possess against the kulak are also given against consumer cooperation. This is being carried out in full measure. Right now the most important thing is to increase production and the quantity of products. If consumer cooperation does not manage to fulfill this, then it will be punished for it. If, however, it, being connected with production cooperation, gives even a small increase in products, one must bow to it and develop its initiative. If consumer cooperation, despite closer local living connection with production, is unable to give an increase—that means it has not fulfilled the direct task of Soviet power. If there are even two or three energetic comrades in a district ready to struggle against kulaks and the bourgeoisie, then the matter is won. Where was Comrade Chuchin's initiative suppressed? He did not cite a single example. But the idea that one must connect production cooperation with consumer cooperation and make all manner of concessions, only to increase the quantity of products in the near future—this idea flows from our two-year experience. It does not in the least constrain either communist or Soviet workers in the struggle against the kulak, bourgeois type of cooperation. It not only does not constrain, but it gives new weapons into their hands. If you know how to organize something, we will give you a reward, but if you do not fulfill this assignment, then we will beat you not only because you are counterrevolutionary—for that there is the Cheka, as was correctly stated here—no, we will beat you because you do not fulfill the assignment of state power, Soviet power, and the proletariat.

Against the unification of consumer cooperatives Comrade Milyutin cited not a single practical argument—only indicated that it seems to him to be opportunism or half-measures. This is strange to hear from Comrade Milyutin, who together with Comrade Rykov was preparing to take great steps and became convinced that he cannot even take one tenth of a step. From this side, connection with consumer cooperation is a plus, it gives the opportunity right now to take up production. Against interference in political work all means are given, while subordination in production and economic matters depends entirely on the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, on the VSNKh. You have all these means in the measure in which you are able to control cooperation.

Now we approach the third question—on nationalization, which Milyutin defended so that it was strange to listen to. A commission was created, and Comrade Krestinsky remained in the minority in the commission, while Comrade Milyutin came out the victor, but now he says: "As for nationalization, I agree not to dispute it." Why then did the commission dispute it? If you look at it as Comrade Chuchin looks at it, then you are wrong in refusing nationalization. It was said here: if capitalists were nationalized, then why cannot kulaks be nationalized? But this argument for good reason met with laughter here. In fact, however you count wealthy peasants who get by not without exploitation of others' labor, there are still no fewer than half a million, or perhaps even about a million of them—how will we be able to nationalize them? That is fantasy. We do not have the forces for this right now.

Comrade Chuchin is completely right when he says that in cooperation there sits a whole series of counterrevolutionaries, but that is not the issue at hand. It was correctly spoken of here about the Cheka. If owing to your myopia you cannot expose individual leaders of cooperation, then place one communist there so that he will point out this counterrevolution, and if this is a good communist, and a good communist at the same time is also a good Chekist, then placed in a consumer society, he should drag in, at the very least, two cooperative counterrevolutionaries."

That is why Comrade Chuchin is wrong when he preaches immediate nationalization. That would be fine, but it is impossible owing to the fact that we are dealing with a class less accessible to us and in no way susceptible to nationalization. We have not even nationalized all industrial enterprises. As long as an order from the name of the glavki and centers reaches the locality, it turns out to be completely powerless: it drowns completely in a sea of papers, or rather impassable roads, absence of telegraph, etc. Therefore, to speak now of nationalization of cooperation is not possible. Comrade Milyutin is wrong both in principle: he feels that he is weak, and thinks that one can simply strike out this point. But then you, Comrade Milyutin, are cutting off your own resolution, then you are issuing a certificate that the minority resolution is right, because the spirit of your resolution—to subordinate to the volispolkom (in the first point it is stated right there—"to take measures")—is the spirit of a Chekist, incorrectly introduced into an economic question. The other resolution says that first of all it is necessary to increase the number of communists, to strengthen communist propaganda and agitation, that it is necessary to create a basis. There is nothing particularly grandiose about this, there are no promises of rivers of milk and banks of jelly right away. But if there are communists on the spot, then they know what to do, and Comrade Chuchin will not need enlightenment as to where to drag counterrevolutionaries. Second, it is necessary to prepare an organ. "Prepare an organ and test it in practice, test whether production is increasing,"—that is what the minority resolution says! First of all create a base, and then—then we shall see. What is needed, from that it will take shape of itself. Decrees about the fact that counterrevolutionaries must be sent to the Cheka, and if there is no Cheka, then to the Revolutionary Committee, are issued in sufficient abundance. One must do less of this waving about. One must adopt the minority resolution, which gives the basic line.