Translated from the Russian by Kristine Bushnell
Designed by Maximilian Shlosberg
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CONTENTS
FOREWORD.
CHAPTER ONE. THE OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD (1917--1918)
Dual Power. Towards the Socialist Revolution. The July Crisis and the Establishment of the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. Preparing the Armed Uprising. The Triumph of the Socialist Revolution. The Creation of a New State Apparatus. The Triumphant Sweep of Soviet Power. The Formation of the RSFSR. The Beginning of the Creation of a Voluntary Union of Nations. Withdrawal from the Imperialist War. The October Revolution and the World Revolutionary Process .............................................................
CHAPTER TWO. THE STRUGGLE OF THE SOVIET REPUBLICS AGAINST FOREIGN INTERVENTION AND DOMESTIC COUNTERREVOLUTION (1918--1920)
Intervention Begins. Soviet Russia Becomes a United Military Camp. Building the Red Army. First Victories. The Entente Steps Up Its Intervention. Strengthening the Alliance Between Working Class and Peasantry. Destruction of the Body of Kolchak's Forces. The MilitaryPolitical Alliance of the Soviet Republics. Denikin Defeated. Victories on Other Fronts. A Breathing Spell. The Last Campaign of the Interventionists Is Broken Up. The Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Liberation of the Borderlands. Formation of New Autonomous Republics. The Sources of Victory and Its Significance ...............................................................
CHAPTER THREE. REHABILITATING THE ECONOMY. THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE USSR (1921--1925)
The New Economic Policy (NEP). The Tenth Party Congress. The Creation of a Fraternal Union of Equal Republics. Rehabilitating Agriculture and Large-scale Industry. Public and Political Life. Military Reform. Lenin's Plan for Building Socialism. The Fourteenth Party Congress. First Successes in Soviet Foreign Policy .....................................................................
69 [3]CHAPTER FOUR. BUILDING SOCIALISM. THE FURTHER STRENGTHENING AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALIST SOCIETY (1926--1941)
Socialist Industrialization. The Fifteenth Party Congress. Social Revolution in the Village. The USSR---the First Country in which Socialism Triumphed. The New Constitution of the USSR. Strengthening Socialist Society. The Eighteenth Party Congress. Growth of Country's Economic Might. The Soviet Republics Blossom. New Republics. Strengthening the Country's Defenses. The USSR's Struggle for Peace and Collective Security .........................................................................................173
CHAPTER FIVE. THE GREAT TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE CULTURAL LIFE OF THE WORKING PEOPLE.
The October Revolution and Cultural Progress. Eliminating Illiteracy. Creating a New School. The Emergence of a Socialist Intelligentsia. Literature and Art Belong to the People ................................................ 268
__NOTE__ Missing "Chronology" here. __NOTE__ Missing "Name Index" here. [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ FOREWORDPart two of History of the USSR is a survey of the history of the peoples of the Soviet Union over a period covering almost a quarter of a century---from the triumph of the October Socialist Revolution to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
After the victory of the October Revolution, the Soviet people made major advances in constructing socialism, but great difficulties had to be overcome to achieve this end. During the Civil War, the working class and the laboring peasantry defended, gun in hand, the great achievements of the revolution, repulsed the onslaught of international imperialism and domestic counterrevolution, overcame devastation and famine and carried out radical socio-economic reforms.
In its political and socio-economic consequences, the formation in 1922 of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was of outstanding importance. It was within the framework of the Soviet state that the peoples of the country, in close and fraternal alliance, put an end to their economic and cultural backwardness---the heritage of tsarism and capitalism---and achieved monumental social, economic and cultural progress.
Having carried out the industrialization of the country, the collectivization of agriculture and revolutionary changes in the realm of culture, the USSR had by the end of the 1930s built what was, for all practical purposes, a socialist society. The transitional period from capitalism to socialism, a period that began with the victorious October Revolution, had been completed. The socialist economic system had come to prevail in the country's economy. Exploiting classes and antagonistic class contradictions had been eliminated. National enmity and distrust had disappeared, in their stead were firm friendship and cooperation among the peoples of the USSR, moral and political unity, and a unity of efforts in creative labor. A new historical community of people had come into being, the Soviet people. The USSR had entered a period in which it would complete the construction of a non-class socialist society and would move gradually from socialism to communism. The triumph of socialism had been given legislative force in the Constitution of the USSR, adopted in 1936.
Developing the economy for the purpose of creating the material and technical base for a socialist and communist society, improving the life 5 of the people, the USSR at the same time took important steps to strengthen its defense capacity. In the realm of foreign policy, the state made enormous efforts to preserve the most favorable conditions for peaceful economic development.
From the first days of its existence and over the entire course of its subsequent history, the Soviet state has unceasingly worked---as it continues to do so---for peace and friendship among nations, for the development of fruitful cooperation among them on the basis of the Leninist policy of the peaceful coexistence of states with differing socio-political systems.
The formation of the Soviet Union raised the country's international prestige, strengthened its position in the international arena and increased its power of attraction among peoples working for freedom and independence. The consistent foreign policy that the Soviet Union pursued with the support of the international working class and the progressive forces of the world secured the Soviet people peace during the twenty years following the conclusion of the Civil War.
__*_*_*__The following authors are responsible for the book's chapters and sections: Chapter I, A. P. Nenarokov; Chapter II, Yu. I. Korablev and A. P. Shurygin; Chapters III and IV (with the exception of the sections on foreign policy), D. A. Kovalenko (head of the group of authors); Chapter V, V. A. Kumanev. The section on the agricultural development during the 1930s was written by N. A. Ivnitsky. The sections on foreign policy in 1917--1918 and 1920--1932 were written by A. O. Chubaryan, the section on foreign policy in 1933--1941 by I. S. Kremer.
[6] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION.Dual Power. Towards the Socialist Revolution. The July Crisis and the Establishment of the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. Preparing the Armed Uprising. The Triumph of the Socialist Revolution. The Creation of a New State Apparatus. The Triumphant Sweep of Soviet Power. The Formation of the RSFSR. The Beginning of the Creation of a Voluntary Union of Nations. Withdrawal from the Imperialist War. The October Revolution and the World Revolutionary Process.
Dual Power. The overthrow of tsarism in Russia in February, 1917, did not extinguish the class struggle in the country. The revolutionary movement continued to grow. The Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies took a number of most important steps toward establishing political freedom and carrying out fundamental reforms in social, political and cultural life. They reinstituted democratic organizations broken up by tsarism during the war; they assisted in the establishment of trade unions and factory committees; they dealt with problems of food supply and providing bread for working people; they introduced, de facto, the 8-hour working day; they combated capitalist lockouts; moved to establish workers' control over production; created a workers' militia; imposed the democratization of zemstvos, city dumas, judicial organs and so on. Relying on armed workers and soldiers, they countermanded the decrees of city authorities and the higher military commanders, carried out searches in police stations and among the gendarmes and arrested those who had previously taken part in suppressing the revolutionajy movement.
The Soviets did not at first have nationwide leadership organs. This role was performed until the end of May by the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Only in May, at the First All-Russia Congress of Peasants' Deputies, was a Central Executive Committee of Peasants' Soviets elected; in June, the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies elected a Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
The Soviets consisted only of representatives of workers and peasants. They were organs of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the laboring classes.
The Soviets' revolutionary role was reduced by the fact that they were headed by representatives of the Menshevik and SocialistRevolutionary (SR) parties, who were pursuing a compromise with the bourgeoisie. Mensheviks and SRs seized the leadership because, during the revolutionary February days, the Bolsheviks directed their basic attention to work directly among the masses, to armed struggle. The Russian Euro of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (B) underrated the importance of giving organizational form to the victory. Bolsheviks 7 and many politically conscious workers had been mobilized into the army, their place in the city taken by peasants who were newcomers and as yet poorly understood the crux and the goals of political struggle. Moreover, in February, 1917 these broad strata of the people, as Lenin put it, awoke and reached out towards politics, setting in motion the immense petty-bourgeois wave that carried the petty-bourgeois Menshevik and SR parties to the upper reaches of political life. The leaders of these parties assisted in the formation, on March 2, 1917, of the bourgeois-landowner Provisional Government, headed by Prince G. Y. Lvov. And they then obtained the support of the Soviets for this government. Dual power emerged. The Provisional Government, which possessed no real force for suppressing the masses, maintained itself in power thanks only to the agreement with the Soviets.
The Soviets that had arisen everywhere possessed genuine power and authority. Hundreds and thousands of resolutions adopted by the deputies of Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets expressed genuine popular aspirations by demanding resolution of the top priority questions: land, peace, political freedoms, the form of the country's state system, the 8-hour working day.
The Soviets' SR and Menshevik leaders could not but take the will of the armed people into account. It is this that explains, for example, the appearance of the renowned Order Number One of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, an order of which the SR Minister of Justice, A. F. Kerensky, said later that he would have given ten years of his life that this order hadn't been signed.
Order Number One, which placed at the political disposal of the Soviet the military units of the Petrograd Military District, with all their arms and equipment, and established civil rights for soldiers, was taken up by Soviets in other cities. On March 3, the Organizing Committee of the Moscow Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies, which had decided on joint work with the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, took note that this work would be based on "the implementation of the order in the Petrograd District regarding the judicial status of enlisted men."
Under these circumstances, the authority of the Provisional Government was more than illusory and depended entirely upon the support of the Soviet's leaders. And they gave their support. In an appeal of March 5 to the citizens of Russia, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies emphasized that insofar as the new (Provisional) Government had announced a political amnesty, preparations for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, the implementation of civil liberties, the abrogation of restrictions based on nationality and intended to carry on the struggle against the old regime, "the democracy must lend the government its support''. It is indicative that none of the major issues giving rise to heated conflicts---land, peace, the 8-hour working day---was among the questions whose resolution was to ensure the support of the Soviet for the Provisional Government. The leaders of the Soviet, in the name of "the success of the revolutionary struggle'', cautiously called for the renunciation of what had been an imposing victory by the masses. Alluding to Order Number One, they wrote: "It is necessary to show patience and obliviousness to the inconsequential abuses of democracy by those 8 __CAPTION__ V. I. Lenin. [9] officers who have joined in the decisive and final struggle that you are waging against the old regime.'' Later, they provided outand-out support to the Minister of War, A. I. Guchkov, in abrogating the order.
Taking the post of Minister of Justice, Kerensky greatly furthered the ruling circles' tactics of, on the one hand, making demagogic promises and, on the other hand, making concessions to counterrevolution.
To win time, the Provisional Government resorted to various tricks and maneuvers. Where possible, it gave the appearance of meeting the demands of the masses. For instance, one of the first dispositions by the Ministry of Justice was a directive to the Governor of Yenisei Province in Krasnoyarsk and the Military Governor in Irkutsk demanding the liberation of the exiled Bolshevik deputies to the Duma: G. I. Petrovsky, M. K. Muranov, A. Y. Badayev, N. R. Shagov and F. N. Samoilov. The death penalty was abolished on March 12. An apppearance of progress in dealing with the nationality question was created, too. On March 8, the newspapers published an "Act on the Confirmation of the Constitution of the Grand Duchy of Finland and on Its Full Implementation.'' In fact, this "full implementation" meant only that the government was compelled to restore Finland's autonomy, but it in no way satisfied the demands of the Finnish masses for self-determination.
A proclamation to the Poles appeared on March 17. Recognizing the need for establishing an independent Polish state, the Provisional Government postponed consideration of this question until the Constituent Assembly. On March 20, a resolution was adopted abolishing religious and national disabilities instituted by tsarism.
The essence of the Provisional Government's policy on the nationality issue was the adoption of half-measures that changed nothing fundamentally and basically continued the policy of the old regime. This is evident not only in the documents mentioned above. For example, the Special Transcaucasus Committee formed early in March in its initial policy statement forbade the creation of political organizations in the army and did not even permit the question of agrarian reforms to be raised, thus demonstrating its counterrevolutionary spirit. With respect to Central Asia, the Provisional Government's statement of March 18 that it was ending the investigation of brutalities perpetrated by tsarist authorities during the national disturbances of 1916 in Turkestan spoke for itself.
The Provisional Government, though dissociating itself from the most reactionary manifestations of autocracy's nationalities policy, delayed the implementation of the minimum demands of the oppressed nations. Striving to preserve the great power principle of "Russia one and indivisible'', both the government and the leaders of the pettybourgeois parties tried to show that the national movement would lead "to the disintegration of the state'', to the destruction of the revolution.
With respect to one' of the fundamental issues---the agrarian question---the government declared in a statement of March 19 that the solution of the land question "is the most serious socio-economic task of the historical moment that we are now living through.
10"The sacred dream of many generations of the entire agricultural population of the country---land reform---is the principal demand in the programs of all the democratic parties. Without question, it will be on the agenda in the forthcoming Constituent Assembly.'' At this point, the government deemed it necessary to emphasize: "The land question cannot be put into life through seizures of any sort. Violence and pillage are the worst and most dangerous method in the realm of economic relations.'' This was an open warning to the peasants that they should not take matters into their own hands. To deal with the agrarian question, it was proposed to form, under the Ministry of Agriculture, a committee that would gather materials, inventory land reserves, elucidate conditions and types of land tenure, and so on. Fore the nonce, all was to remain as before.
On April 11, the Provisional Government adopted a law "On the Protection of Crops''. Landowners' crops were taken under the protection of food committees. The latter were given the right to rent (for a specified sum, which went to the landlords) unworked land from landed estates to peasants. In addition, the law guaranteed to^ the landowners compensation at state expense for losses stemming from peasant disturbances. On April 13, all province commissars were sent a circular on the inadmissibility of agrarian disorders; the circular directed the commissars to suppress all disturbances in the village by any means, "up to and including the summoning of military detachments''. All this testified to the anti-popular character of the Provisional Government's agrarian policy, which aimed at defending gentry landed property.
The Provisional Government adopted no laws changing the social position of the population. The government did not even lay down the 8-hour working day; it was introduced without any formal permission. A law of April 12 on meetings and unions---which formally proclaimed the freedom to form trade unions---granted unions juridical rights only after they had registered specially with judicial organs. Workers' representatives, naturally, did not agree to this. Introducing a grain monopoly that was supposed to put an end to speculation, the Provisional Government strove in every way possible to defend the interests of the proprietors of grain supplies: they were given the right to decide for themselves how much grain they should turn over to the government at the fixed price; registration was to be carried out on the basis of information supplied by the grain owner himself. While bourgeoisie-oriented laws were drawn up comparatively rapidly, examination of the cardinal question, raised on the workers' initiative, the working day, was in effect sabotaged.
Promising everything and giving nothing was the Provisional Government's tactics. It called on working people to wait for the Constituent Assembly, which supposedly alone had the right to meet the vital aspirations of the people. At the same time, the convocation of the Constituent Assembly was put off for an indefinite period.
If we add to all this that the new government's announced program contained not a word about ending the imperialist war---and the intent to continue the war "to a victorious conclusion" was masked by phrases on the need to defend the revolution's achievements---it is abundantly clear that the policy of the Provisional Government, which was defending the 11 interests of the bourgeoisie and landowners, differed little from trie policy of the old regime.
Some reforms could be carried out only by the Soviets. For one, the renewal of work in factories and shops in Petrograd, Moscow and other cities was possible onjy after the Soviets had given their sanction. Without their participation, it was impossible to solve the food problem, either.
Understanding well that the Provisional Government did not enjoy the influence among workers that the Soviets enjoyed, even the Society of Manufacturers appealed to the Petrograd Soviet to take extreme measures to calm the workers' masses. Speaking at meetings, Duma leaders were forced to make a bow to the Soviet.
Power was in the hands of the Soviets. This frightened the Provisional Government which, however, hoped to establish its own undivided authority. It was for this reason that as early as March the Provisional Government Herald began to publish telegrams, letters and appeals from meetings of officers, doctors, military officials, military chaplains and individual units and garrisons not to establish dual power, which was dangerous for the country and fatal for the front.
But dual power was a fact that had to be taken into account. The Commander of the 25th Army Corps, Lt. General L. G. Kornilov, who had been named Commander of the Petrograd Military District in early March, several days after his arrival in Petrograd twice (March 9 and 10) visited the Soviet, where he explained his relations with the military authorities and answered questions put to him. In turn, on March 30, Kerensky, at the time chairman of the cabinet (in place of Prince Lvov, who had gone to General Headquarters), received in the Taurida Palace representatives of the executive committees of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of Kamyshin, Taganrog, Yenakiyevo, Moscow and Yekaterinoslav; these delegations had come to find out about relations between the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and other social organizations with respect to the attitude toward some local gentry who were opposing the achievements of the revolution.
The Mensheviks and SRs who led the Soviets repeatedly deflected from the Provisional Government the blows of the alarmed masses. On March 7, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet set up a special Contact Commisson, composed of N. S.. Chkheidze, Yu. M. Steklov, N. N. Sukhanov, V. N. Filippovsky and M. I. Skobelev, "for the purpose of informing the Soviet of the intentions and actions of the Provisional Government, informing the latter of the demands of the revolutionary people, for exerting pressure on the government to satisfy these demands and for continuous supervision of their implementation''. In fact, the Contact Commission helped the Provisional Government to keep the masses' discontent in check.
When the text of the Provisional Government's proposed military oath became known, the Soviet, with an eye on the people's indignation, on March 12 informed the government that the Soviet considered the text of the oath, which contained not a word about the revolution, unacceptable. But this was qualified by the observation that rejection of the oath did not constitute a call for insubordination.
The leaders of the Soviet helped conceal the aggressive character of 12 the Provisional Government's foreign policy with ``democratic'' slogans in which the war for plunder was justified as defense of the revolution and defense of the revolutionary homeland.
Only one party---the Bolshevik Party---could explain to the workers and peasants the true nature of the war, could unmask the conciliators' high-flown revolutionary phrases on revolution, on defense of "free Russia" and the "great democratic achievements''. In order to move forward, it was necessary to expose the quite remarkable feature of the Russian revolution---dual power, which meant the interweaving in the country of two dictatorships, the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, and the authority of the bourgeoisgentry government, and at the same time reflected the transitional nature of this period of the revolution, when the revolution had gone beyond the ordinary bourgeois-democratic revolution, but had not yet reached the stage of a ``pure'' dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.
__NOTE__ 2nd missing bold. Probably all are missing bold. CHECK! __ALPHA_LVL2__ Towards the Socialist Revolution.Towards the Socialist Revolution. = Telegrams reporting the revolutionary developments in Russia, the make-up of the Provisional Government and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies reached Zurich, where Lenin was living at the time, only on March 2(15). But in his first draft theses on the tasks of the proletariat in the Russian revolution, a draft completed by the evening of March 4 (17), Lenin emphasized:
"Only a workers' government that relies, first, on the overwhelming majority of the peasant population, the farm laborers and poor peasants, and, second, on an alliance with the revolutionary workers of all countries in the war, can give the people peace, bread and full freedom.
"The revolutionary proletariat can therefore only regard the revolution of March 1 (14) as its initial, and by no means complete, victory on its momentous path. It cannot but set itself the task of continuing the fight for a democratic republic and = socialism."^^1^^
The theses termed the Provisional Government a government of bourgeoisie and landowners, a government that had wrested power from the hands of the proletariat, while the Mensheviks and SRs were described as petty-bourgeois politicians led on a leash by the bourgeoisie and landowners.
The theses contained a clear statement that democratic reforms in Russia could occur only under the leadership of the working class, i.e., only in the course of a socialist revolution. "Today it is clear to everyone,'' noted L. I. Brezhnev in a report at the Joint Celebration Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the USSR and RSFSR Supreme Soviets of 21 April, 1970, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth, "that the bourgeois-democratic revolution was bound to grow into a socialist revolution. However, we should bear in mind the highly confused and contradictory situation at that time, and the great diversity of views then concerning the further way the revolution was to take in order to appreciate afresh Lenin's wisdom, perspicacity and strength of purpose, and to sense the real proportions of his achievement."^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 289--90.
~^^2^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Lenin's Cause Lives On and Triumphs, = Moscow, 1970, p. 15.
13Giving a concrete basis for his conclusion, Lenin in articles and letters in March and April 1917, demonstrated that this outcome was a function of the nature of the economic and class structure of Russian society and of the sweep of the revolutionary creativity of the masses, a sweep that had given the masses victory in the February Revolution.
The transition from capitalism to socialism is a predictable, historically determined process in the development of society. At the beginning of the 20th century, both the objective conditions and the subjective prerequisites for a victorious socialist revolution had taken shape in Russia. The Russian Empire --- one of the world's greatest powers --- had entered the imperialist stage of development almost simultaneously with other developed capitalist countries, having achieved a relatively high overall level of industrial organization (Russia was fifth in world industrial output, accounting for 4 percent of the total) and a rapid rate of industrial development. Russia was passing developed capitalist countries in the rate of development of heavy industry: while in the last decade of the 19th century Russia had, for instance, tripled her production of cast iron, Germany and the United States had required almost 20 years to do the same, England had required more than 20 years and France 35 years.
However, capitalism's rapid development in Russia had not eliminated her age-old backwardness. A country with an intermediate level of capitalist development, Russia's economic and political structure retained vestiges of the serf system. Lenin wrote of Russia: "the most backward system of landownership and the most ignorant peasantry on the one hand, and the most advanced industrial and finance capitalism on the = other!"^^1^^
The existence of different economic structures side by side left its imprint on the relations among classes and parties and impeded Russia's progressive development. Cruel exploitation of workers, land hunger and poverty among peasants, the people's lack of political rights, the oppressed status of national minorities, remnants of the feudal serf and patriarchal system, dependence on international capital---all this made Russia the focus of social and national oppression, a focal point of contradictions and the weakest link in the entire imperialist system. General backwardness could not be overcome by half-measures or gradualist reforms; revolutionary changes were indispensable.
The working class led the general struggle for social progress. According to approximate calculations, the proletariat and semiproletariat of city and village taken together made up in 1913 64.4 percent, or two-thirds, of the total population, i.e., two of every three inhabitants of the country were proletarians or semi-proletarians. The advance detachment of the working class---the industrial proletariat---grew in the 20th century more rapidly than the other groups of the proletariat and reached an imposing total (3,643.3 thousand persons), but nevertheless made up less than one-fifth of the total proletariat. However, the political role of the working class---the principal engine of the communist revolution---was far greater than its number would seem to indicate.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 442.
14Tempered in rigorous class battles, enriched by the experience of the revolution of 1905--1907, the Russian proletariat, led by the Bolshevik Party, was distinguished by a high level of political consciousness, of organization and steadfastness in the struggle against all types of exploitation and oppression. It embodied the revolutionary traditions of the people, it was the heir and continuer of the famed pleiad of champions of the well-being of the people and was able to bring the laboring peasantry along with it.
Within the peasantry (according to the 1897 census, of the total population of 125.6 million persons 97 million were peasants) a process of class differentiation was underway: 12 percent of peasant households had no land, 16 percent had no land under cultivation, 23 percent had no cows and 30 percent had no horses. Relations between peasants and landowners were increasingly strained. In Russia in 1917, 78.8 thousand private farms in 38 provinces totalled 23.4 million dessiatines, for an average of 300 dessiatines per farm, while 13 million peasant farms had at their disposal 108.4 million dessiatines, for an average of 8 dessiatines per farm. The struggle to eliminate gentry landownership provided the basis for an alliance between the working class and the entire peasantry during the bourgeois-democratic revolution, while the existence of class differentiation in the village permitted the proletariat to establish an alliance with the poor peasantry during the socialist revolution.
From the outset of its struggle, the proletariat in Russia was an internationalist class, raising high the banner of the International Working Men's Association---the First International---and exalting the heroes of the Paris Commune. The Bolshevik Party, the first to join scientific socialism to the workers' movement, made the teaching of Marx and Engels the world view of the advanced workers of Russia. Bolsheviks defended the purity of this teaching and applied it to new historical conditions---the conditions of imperialism---and to the concrete tasks of their revolutionary struggle.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin---the leader of the proletariat of Russia--- creatively developed Marxist theory in the new historical circumstances of the era of imperialism and armed the Bolshevik Party and the working class ideologically in their struggle against the domination of the bourgeoisie, in their struggle for political power.
In his "Letters from Afar'', written between March 7 and 13 (March 20 to 26) in Switzerland, Lenin evaluated the moving forces, the character and prospects for the development of the revolution in Russia, and he set the goal of moving forward to the socialist revolution.
At the call of the Russian Buro of the Central Committee, Bolshevik Party organizations agitated among the masses for the development of the revolution, for rallying the forces of revolution around the Soviets for the struggle against counterrevolution; they created the Red Guard and the workers' militia and continued the struggle for the transfer of gentry land to the peasants and for the satisfaction of all the democratic demands of the people.
The day-to-day leadership of the Party when it emerged from the underground was exercised by the Russian Buro of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (B). It included A. I. Yelizarova, K. S. Yeremeyev, M. I. Kalinin, M. I. Khakharev, V. M. Molotov, 15 M. S. Olminsky, K. I. Shutko, K. M. Shvedchikov, A. G. Shlyapnikov, Y. D. Stasova, M. I. Ulyanova, V. N. Zalezhsky and P. A. Zalutsky. On March 25, G. I. Boky and M. K. Muranov were made members of the Russian Euro, while J. V. Stalin was given a consultative vote.
Some Bolshevik committees and a number of Party leaders called for "supervision by the masses" over the activity of the Provisional Government; they did not raise the question of transferring all power to the Soviets. In the second half of March, the editorial board of Pravda, in which L. B. Kamenev and J. V. Stalin then played a leading role, backed this position. Kamenev took what was in effect a Mensheyik position, defending the policy of conditional support by the Bolsheviks for the bourgeois Provisional Government, and in evaluating the war he slipped toward defensism. Before Lenin's arrival, Stalin, too, supported the tactic of pressure by the Soviets on the Provisional Government---though he later admitted his error. Only the policy documents elaborated by Lenin armed the Bolshevik Party and the working class of Russia with a scientifically grounded, precise and clear plan for the transition from a bourgeois-democratic to a socialist revolution.
Overcoming enormous difficulties, after long years in the emigration Lenin returned to Russia on April 3, 1917, with a group of Bolsheviks. Workers, soldiers and sailors triumphantly and joyfully met the leader of the revolution in Petrograd. Early in the morning of April 4, Lenin spoke to a meeting of Bolsheviks---members of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies---at the Taurida Palace; the theses he outlined have become known as the April Theses. In them, Lenin gave a clear estimation of the situation and outlined both the goals that should be pursued and the path that had to be followed. The Mensheviks, meeting one floor below, sent a messenger asking Lenin to speak to them. The Bolshevik meeting resolved that Lenin should repeat his report to a joint meeting of Menshevik and Bolshevik delegates.
The delegates gathered in the main auditorium of the Taurida Palace. And Lenin again dwelt first on the thesis dedicated to the war, focusing on three principal considerations: 1) the continuing imperialist character of Russia's participation in the war, even after autocracy had been overthrown; 2) the impossibility of ending the war with a truly democratic peace, one not involving coercion, unless capitalism were overthrown; 3) the need to combat revolutionary defensism. It was not accidentally that the question of the war and defensism was raised first. "Those who confine themselves to 'demanding' that the bourgeois governments should conclude peace or 'ascertain the will of the peoples for peace', etc., are actually slipping into reforms,'' wrote Lenin a week after his speech at the Taurida Palace. "For, objectively, the problem of the war can be solved only in a revolutionary = way.''^^1^^ And he emphasized further: "There is no possibility of this war ending in a democratic, non-coercive peace or of the people being relieved of the burden of billions paid in interest to the capitalists, who have made fortunes out of the war, except through a revolution of the = proletariat."^^2^^
The specific feature of the current situation, as Lenin defined it _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 80.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
16 in his second thesis, was that the country was "passing from the first stage of the revolution---which, owing to the insufficient classconsciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie---to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the = peasants".^^1^^ Developing this position in subsequent writings, Lenin explained: "The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has already been realized.... There has been an extremely original, novel and unprecedented interlacing. We have side by side, existing together, simultaneously, both the rule of the bourgeoisie (the government of Lvov and Guchkov) and a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, which is voluntarily ceding power to the bourgeoisie, voluntarily making itself an appendage of the bourgeoi- = sie."^^2^^ With a view to the most typical features of the transitional period---a maximum of legally recognized rights in Russia, the absence of violence towards the masses and their unreasoning trust in the bourgeois government---Lenin demanded a renunciation of any support whatsoever for the Provisional Government, exposure of the utter falsity of all its promises (thesis three), and the explanation to the masses of the fact that the Soviets were the only possible form of revolutionary government (thesis four).Generalizing from his study of the Soviets as a ready-made type of proletarian state, Lenin in the April Theses made an advance in principle in the development of Marxist teaching on the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat: "Not a parliamentary republic---to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers' Deputies would be a retrograde step---but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies throughout the country, from top = to bottom."^^3^^
The April Theses stressed the need for patient, persistent, " ' explanatory' work 'adapted to the practical needs of the = masses'\thinspace"^^4^^
The principal slogan in the political realm---"All Power to the Soviets"---made it possible to eliminate peacefully the situation of dual power in the country. Criticizing the Soviets' mistakes, changing their composition through reelections, would gradually lead to a change in their policy and in their essence as organs of power. From organs of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry they would become organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat and poor peasantry, the only authoritative organs of power in the country, carrying out the demands of working people. Deprived of the support of the masses, the Provisional Government would yield power to the new, revolutionary government of the Soviets.
Parrying the reproaches of some dogmatists that the Bolsheviks, advancing this slogan, had disavowed their own demand for turning the imperialist war into a civil war, Lenin remarked: "But the first civil war in Russia has come to an end; we are now advancing towards the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 22.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 45--46.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 23.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 49.
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2--161 17 second war---the war between imperialism and the armed people. In this transitional period, as long as the armed force is in the hands of the soldiers, as long as Milyukov and Guchkov have not yet resorted to violence, this civil war, so far as we are concerned, turns into peaceful, prolonged, and patient class = propaganda.''\thinspace^^1^^ And further: "One must be able to uphold the Marxist point of view, which says that this conversion of imperialist war into a civil war should be based on objective, and not subjective, conditions. For the time being we withdraw that slogan, but only for the time being. It is the soldiers and the workers who possess the arms now, not the capitalists. So long as the government has not started war, our propaganda remains = peaceful."^^2^^Lenin's sixth, seventh and eighth theses set forth the tasks of the Bolshevik Party in the realm of economic relations: in the agraria program, shifting the weight of emphasis to Soviets of Agricultur; Laborers' Deputies, confiscation of all landed estates, nationalization < all land and placing it at the disposal of local Soviets of Agricultur; Laborers' and Peasants' Deputies; the demand that all banks t amalgamated into a single national bank and the institution of contn over its activities by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies; and the exercise by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies of control over social production and the distribution of products. This "is not yet socialism, but it is a step towards socialism'', wrote Lenin in his "Letters on = Tactics".^^3^^
Lenin's ninth and tenth theses were devoted to intra-Party tasks (the immediate convocation of a Party congress; alteration of the Party Program in order to amend the outdated minimum program, to take imperialism and the imperialist war into account, to define the attitude towards the state and demand a "commune state''; changing the name of the Party---Communist instead of Social-Democratic, for the leaders of Social-Democracy throughout the world had betrayed socialism) and the question of the International.
While the Mensheviks listened to the beginning of Lenin's report rather calmly, the farther he proceeded in outlining the plan for passing on to the socialist revolution the more they uttered exclamations of protest. The conciliators understood: a crushing blow had been inflicted to their design to use the inclinations toward unity felt by some Bolshevik delegates to the All-Russia Congress of Soviets who had not yet oriented themselves in the situation and to raise the question of unifying Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in a single party. Lenin's theses contained not a single point that coincided in any particulars with the Menshevik platform.
One of those taking part in the debate, I. P. Goldenberg (Meshkovsky) who had moved from the Bolsheviks over to the Mensheviks during the war, maintained that Lenin had raised the banner of civil war within revolutionary democracy. G. V. Plekhanov, in his paper Yedinstvo (Unity) termed Lenin's theses ``nonsense''.
But events soon showed that Lenin was right both in judging the policy of the Provisional Government and about the character of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, pp. 236--37.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 53.
18 __CAPTION__ The April Demonstration in Petrograd. 1917. continuing war, as well as in his definition of the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat in the situation that had emerged.On April 18 (May 1), 1917, the revolutionary people for the first time openly celebrated the day of international proletarian solidarity. Thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets carrying banners with the slogans: "Long Live the Brotherhood of Nations!'', "Peace without Annexations or Reparations!'', "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!"
On that very day the Provisional Government issued an explanation of its foreign policy. Milyukov sent a note to the allied powers in which he assured them of the nationwide resolve to pursue the world war to a decisive victory. Simultaneously, the bourgeois press stepped up its slander of the Bolsheviks. Lenin termed all this a counterrevolutionary paroxysm, the purpose of which was to provoke a spontaneous outburst °y the masses and to use this latter as a pretext for dispersing the Soviets and repressing the revolutionary parties, the Bolsheviks in first order.
__PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19On April 20, the day the text of the provocative note was published in the papers, the apartment of War Minister Guchkov was the site for a gathering of the new Commander in Chief, Alexeyev, the Commander of the Petrograd Military District, General Kornilov, and the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Kolchak. They discussed the possibility of taking energetic measures, at the appropriate time, to restore ``order''. After the meeting, Alexeyev left for General Headquarters to organize action by the army, if such should be necessary, to support the government.
Immediately after the publication of the note, meetings of protest against the Provisional Government's foreign policy began in the capital's factories and barracks. By the afternoon of April 20, a mass demonstration of workers and soldiers marching under the slogan "Down with Milyukov!" had developed spontaneously. In the early morning and during the day of April 21, mass demonstrations and meetings of soldiers and workers went on continuously. The protest movement began to take hold in the provinces and army. At the same time, supporters of the government organized their own demonstrations. And the Provisional Government, which had itself sworn that it would not use arms against the people, in fact wished to disperse "the mob'', as it called the demonstrators, by armed force, but was unable to do so. Kornilov ordered the artillerists to fire on the demonstration. However, the soldiers refused to carry out the order, declaring that without the sanction of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies the order was inoperative.
The Petrograd Soviet had a chance to take power into its own hands by peaceful means. But the Menshevik-SR majority in the Soviet failed to resist the pressure from the government. The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet was satisfied by the Provisional Government's ``explanation'', which carried no obligations with it, and did everything to quell the movement of protest in the capital and the country. Taking this into account, the counterrevolution prepared for a new test of strength. On April 21, the judicial authorities were instructed to begin an investigation of alleged shooting on the demonstrators by Lenin's followers. On April 22, Kornilov issued an order that, on the pretext of a German threat to Petrograd, called for the reorganization of the military district's reserve units so that they be "ready to defend civil liberties, and should the enemy move on Petrograd to meet and smash the enemy on the approaches to the capital''. However, Kornilov's efforts to effect a military coup were checked by the vigilance of the revolutionary people. That same day, a meeting of representatives of the Petrograd garrison resolved to subordinate the garrison only to the Petrograd Soviet, while the Vyborg District Soviet demanded that the Executive Committee investigate the matter of Kornilov's order to fire on the demonstration on Palace Square. The leaders of the Petrograd Soviet were forced to raise the question of control by its representatives over Kornilov's decisions and orders.
The Provisional Government's attempt to appeal to the army also fell through. Alexeyev not only was powerless to find trustworthy units for a march on Petrograd, he was unable even to provide the government with moral support in the guise of a special appeal from the generals. 20 Guchkov then resorted to the ultimate ploy---demonstrative retirement, declaring that he was doing this as a sign of protest against the impossibility of restoring discipline in the army. Guchkov counted on provoking a government crisis, which with the assistance of the allies and generals could be used to strengthen the government's authority. Milyukov left hurriedly for General Headquarters, thinking to sway Alexeyev to review the decision to delay the intended offensive on the German front. The immediate activization of military undertakings would, so he thought, return the favor of the allies and would be the best means "for normalizing the situation in the country, particularly in the capital''. The army could not attack. Milyukov's behind the scenes negotiations with Germany, held in Stockholm in March and April, 1917, fell through, too. Three days after Guchkov's resignation Milyukov followed suit.
Such was the first political crisis, which reflected, in a spontaneous and entirely unorganized outburst on April 20--21, the masses' mounting dissatisfaction with the bourgeois policy of the Provisional Government. The reaction of the Mensheviks and SRs was typical. At first they abused both Bolsheviks and Cadets for obstinacy, for extremism, for exacerbating the situation and even went so far as to accuse the Bolsheviks (no matter how absurdly) of firing on Nevsky Prospekt---and when the movement had run its course, these same SRs and Mensheviks, in their joint and official organ, hvestiya, wrote that "the popular movement" "had swept away Milyukov and other imperialists'', i.e., they extolled the movement.
On May 5, the Mensheviks I. Tsereteli and M. Skobelev and the SR V. Chernov entered the government. M. Tereshchenko was named Minister of Foreign Affairs, A. Kerensky Minister of War and Navy. Entering the government, the SR-Menshevik leaders strengthened their position. The crisis was over, but as Lenin observed on this score, the "causes of the crisis have not been removed, and the recurrence of such crises is = unavoidable".^^1^^
In the resolution of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B), written by Lenin and adopted on the morning of April 22 (May 5), 1917, it was observed that "the organization of our Party, the consolidation of the proletarian forces, clearly proved inadequate at the time of the crisis".^^2^^ Lenin considered the principal operative slogans of the moment to be: 1) explanation of the proletarian policy and the proletarian way to end the war; 2) criticism of the petty-bourgeois policy of trust in and conciliation of the government of the capitalists; 3) propaganda and agitation from group to group in every regiment, at every factory, especially among the most backward masses, unskilled workers, etc., for the bourgeoisie had tried especially to rely on them during the days of the crisis; 4) most important---the organization of the proletariat.
On April 24 the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(B) began. Lenin was elected chairman. He delivered reports on the present situation, revision of the Party Program and the agrarian question. In these reports Lenin provided answers to the basic questions _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 210.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 211.
21 of the Party's strategy and tactics during the period in which the bourgeois-democratic revolution was passing into a socialist revolution. The Conference adopted the guidelines offered by Lenin as the Party's platform.The precise and clear stand taken by the Bolsheviks attracted the attention and sympathy of the masses. Ever more people were won over by Lenin's ideas and understood how correct Lenin was to link the solution of the most important problems with the transfer of all state authority into the hands of the Soviets.
In Russia, wrote Lenin, "capitalists could not resist the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' = Deputies".^^1^^
And in fact, when in May the Kronstadt Soviet took power into its own hands no one could interfere. On May 27, in an appeal to the population of Petrograd and all Russia, the Kronstadt Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, brushing aside accusations of anarchy, stated firmly and definitely: "What a senseless lie, what pitiful and shameful slander! Here in Kronstadt we have introduced not anarchy, but honest and firm revolutionary order. Our Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies has taken power into its hands on all local, Kronstadt, matters."
The reelections that took place in May and June gave the Bolsheviks a decisive role in some Soviets. In the district Soviet of Vasilyevsky Ostrov, as well as in the First City and Petrograd district Soviets of the capital, Bolsheviks became chairmen of the executive committees. In the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies, 230 of the 700 seats went to Bolsheviks and their sympathizers, and six of the ten district Soviets in the city were under their influence. Bolsheviks won control of the workers' sections of the Saratov, Yekaterinburg and Syzran Soviets.
But the conciliator majority of the Soviets supported the Provisional Government and approved its policy. It was the SRs and Mensheviks of the Petrograd Soviet who labelled the May events in Kronstadt a "break with revolutionary democracy and the result of the dominance of anarchist elements''. Therefore, advancing and supporting at every opportunity the slogan of "All Power to tjie Soviets'', the Bolsheviks at the same time called on workers and soldiers to pressure the Soviets to change their policy, to renounce their trust in the Provisional Government and to reelect delegates to the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The "Instruction to the Factory and Regimental Deputies to the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies'', written by Lenin in May, 1917, emphasized that the new deputies must be opponents of the imperialist war and must advocate that the Russian government immediately propose peace to all warring countries on the condition that they liberate all peoples whom they had oppressed or to whom they did not grant full rights.
The people longed for peace, land and bread, but out of all the parties only the Bolsheviks stood firmly for these popular demands. Dissatisfaction with the policy of the Provisional Government and with the conciliatory policy of the Mensheviks and SRs stirred and grew in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 55.
22 masses. The laboring people increasingly heeded the voice of the Bolsheviks. The slogan "All Power to the Soviets" was heard with increasing frequency.The conciliators, too, called for action. "The way to peace lies through the trenches of the enemy"---in the summer of 1917, this slogan united the so-called socialists in the government and the representatives of the bourgeoisie. Everywhere could be seen the government's appeal in connection with the issue of the "loan for freedom''. "In the name of saving the revolution, we today urgently appeal: citizens, support the loan!"---wrote the conciliator leaders of the Petrpgrad Soviet for their part. "Citizen capitalists..., open your treasuries and hurry up to contribute your money to the needs of free Russia'', proclaimed Minister of War and the Navy Kerensky.
Capitalists did not, however, hasten to purchase the new bonds. Doubting the Provisional Government's "credit rating'', they demanded a hard line policy. And the workers and peasants saw where the ministerial stewards were rushing in calling for the continuation of the hated imperialist war. The gulf between the Provisional Government and the people opened wider with every passing day.
The question of power was one of the fundamental issues at the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies that opened on June 3. At the Congress, 822 delegates had casting votes, 268 had consultative votes. Seven hundred and seventy-seven delegates indicated their party affiliation: 105 were Bolsheviks, 285 were SRs, 248 were Mensheviks. The rest belonged to various minor groups and factions.
The Mensheviks and SRs felt themselves the masters of the situation. They rejected the idea of the transfer of power to the Soviets. The Menshevik leader, I. G. Tsereteli, assured the Congress that at the present moment there was no political party in Russia that would say: give us power, take your leave, we will take your place.
"There is no such party in Russia!" insisted Tsereteli loudly in the hushed auditorium.
``There is such a party!" Lenin interjected decisively from his seat.
"He said,'' remarked Lenin speaking to the Congress, "there was no political party in Russia expressing its readiness to assume full power. I reply:^ 'Yes, there is. No party can refuse this, and our Party certainly doesn't. It is ready to take over full power at any = moment.'\thinspace''^^1^^
Lenin juxtaposed the bold, firm line of the Bolsheviks to the unprincipled, cowardly, dissimulating policy of the Mensheviks. Many delegates knew of Lenin only from slanderous articles in bourgeois and SR-Menshevik papers. They were 'interested in hearing the Bolshevik leader of whom the conciliator papers had written so much and so bitterly. They wished to hear an outline of Bolshevik views from Lenin himself.
The managers of the Congress, noticing this, greeted Lenin's statement with laughter and interjections of criticism.
"You can laugh as much as you please,'' responded Lenin, "but if the Minister confronts us with this question side by side with a party of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 20.
23 Right, he will receive a suitable reply.... Give us your confidence and \\e shall give you our programme."This programme was given by our conference on April 29 Unfortunately, it is being ignored and not taken as a guide. It seems to need a popular = exposition.''^^1^^
And Lenin proceeded to outline the basic decisions of the April Conference of the Bolshevik Party in popular terms. As his speech progressed, the mood of the delegates---especially of the soldiers---gradually changed. They listened eagerly to Lenin's remarks on the predatory war that the government was continuing, to Lenin's remarks on peace. Step by step, Lenin cut through the fog of lies and slander, developing a balanced and comprehensible program.
The time allotted to Lenin expired. A voice rang out from the front rows: "Don't give him any more time.'' An unbelievable uproar seized the auditorium. Protests and demands that Lenin's time be extended were heard. Applause rang out. The applause grew, taken up by an ever greater number of delegates. Under pressure, the Presidium had to extend the time allotted to Lenin. The issue had been decided by rank-and-file delegates---soldiers and workers---who had been reached by Lenin's calm and confident exposition.
Accompanied by the applause of this section of the Congress, Lenin ended his speech as follows: "Power transferred to the revolutionary proletariat, supported by the poor peasants, means a transition to revolutionary struggle for peace in the surest and most painless forms ever known to mankind, a transition to a state of affairs under which the power and victory of the revolutionary workers will be ensured in Russia and throughout the = world."^^2^^
All the speakers from the conciliator parties who followed Lenin, above all Kerensky, Chernov, Skobelev, and others, tried in every way possible to frighten the delegates with gloomy forecasts of the situation that would arise in the event of a break with the Provisional Government. They held the revolution to be over, and in their opinion it was wrong even to talk of extending it.
Lenin's second speech at the Congress dealt with the issue of war and peace. Criticizing hypocritical, pseudo-revolutionary phrases, he reminded the Congress of the Petrograd Soviet's March 14 appeal to the peoples of the world, an appeal that said: "Refuse to serve as tools of aggression and violence in the hands of kings, gentry and bankers.'' Lenin asked the SR-Menshevik leaders of the Soviet: "...if you say: 'Refuse to serve as tools in the hands of your bankers' but admit your own bankers into the Ministry and give them a seat next to socialist Ministers, you are reducing all your appeal to nothing, and in fact you are refuting your whole = policy."^^3^^
In another passage of this speech, Lenin emphasized once again: "You have got yourselves mixed up in hopeless contradictions... You talk of war against annexations and of peace without annexations, but in Russia you continue the policy of = annexations."^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 20.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 28.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 30.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 37.
24This contradiction was felt, too, in the resolutions of the Congress. The resolution adopted criticized the war on paper but in practice gave the ruling classes a free hand to continue the imperialist policy. The Provisional Government was granted the right to begin an offensive at the front if this was necessitated by strategic considerations.
Yet dissatisfaction with the policy of the coalition government grew with every passing day. In Petrograd, pressure for a demonstration of protest was building. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party decided "to channel the movement into an organized and peaceful demonstration against counterrevolution''. The demonstration was set for June 10. However, the Menshevik and SR leaders, feeling their loss of influence among the masses and the increasing authority of the Bolsheviks, did everything they could to cancel it. They were able to obtain a decision by the First Congress of Soviets forbidding the demonstration. The Provisional Government adopted the same decision. The Bolsheviks submitted to this and reported the cancellation of the demonstration. This did not prevent those who sought to slander the Bolsheviks from spreading the monstrous fiction of a "Bolshevik military conspiracy" threatening "the revolution's achievements".
But even the SR-Menshevik managers of the Congress understood that it was impossible to cancel the demonstration entirely. Trying to maneuver themselves out of their difficulty, they set June 18 as the day for the demonstration, calculating that they would be able to organize this new demonstration under the slogan of confidence in the Provisional Government. Seeking somehow to weaken the Bolsheviks' growing influence with the masses, the Provisional Government began hurriedly to prepare an offensive at the front, hoping that the first rumors of the success of Russian troops would throw the ranks of the opponents of an offensive into disorder, while the demonstration would take the form of unconditional support for the government and the conciliator parties.
However, when on June 18 the endless columns of demonstrators converged from various directions on the Field of Mars, where those who had fallen during the days of the February Revolution were interred, not a single regiment, not a single factory displayed the slogan of confidence in the Provisional Government. Over the sea of human heads (about one half million people took part in the demonstration) fluttered thousands of banners and placards with the slogans: "All Power to the Soviets!'', "Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers!'', "Neither Separate Peace with Wilhelm nor Secret Treaties with the Anglo-French Capitalists!'', "Long Live Control and Organization of Production!" Lost among them were isolated slogans with a call for confidence in the Provisional Government.
The Petrograd demonstration elicited a powerful response throughout the country. In Moscow, Kiev, Riga, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and other cities, workers and soldiers took to the streets on June 18. The demonstrations showed the growth of the Bolshevik Party's influence among the masses and was a fighting review of its forces. Lenin stressed: "The demonstration in a few hours scattered to the winds, like a handful of dust, the empty talk about Bolshevik conspirators and snowed with the utmost clarity that the vanguard of the working people 25 of Russia, the industrial proletariat of the capital, and the overwhelming majority of the troops support slogans that our Party has always advocated."^^1^^
The impression left by the demonstration was enormous. Lenin observed: "As the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks themselves admitted on the evening of June 18, a political crisis would certainly have broken out had it not been for the offensive at the = front."^^2^^
The offensive began on June 16 and at first proceeded successfully.
Then, under the answering blows of the German troops, who had
received reinforcements from the Western Front, the Russian troops
began rapidly to stream back without offering any opposition. Between
June 16 and July 6, when the Russian front was broken, the Russian
Army lost more than 58 thousand men, 7 thousand of those killed and
more than 36 thousand wounded. By the middle of July, the enemy had
thrown the Russian troops far back from the initial lines and had seized
all of Galicia and Dobruja. As a result of the Provisional Government's
reckless adventure, which ended in complete collapse, the Russian Army
was in a short period deprived of the fruits of the victories that had been
achieved at the cost of immense casualties over the preceding three
years of the war. The Provisional Government itself described what had
occurred as a catastrophe that had cost the country "great human
casualties and territorial losses".
~
The July Crisis and the Establishment of the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. = The Right wing of the government decided, however, to extract some benefit even from defeat, to put an end to dual power. Representatives of the Cadet Party resigned. They calculated that the conciliator parties would fear to remain alone in the government and would proceed to disarm the Red Guard, withdraw the revolutionary units of the garrison from the capital, and outlaw the Bolshevik Party.
The revolutionary masses thought otherwise, however. They held that once the Cadets had left the government and the latter had once again revealed its utter helplessness, power should pass completely into the hands of the Soviets.
All this led on July 3 to a spontaneous demonstration in Petrograd, a demonstration that threatened to grow into an armed attack on the Provisional Government. The third political crisis had come to a head, and as even the SR party paper, Dyelo Naroda (The People's Cause) admitted on July 6, it had deep-seated economic and political roots.
The Bolsheviks considered an uprising premature and therefore called on the masses to refrain from a demonstration of force. At that moment, the workers and soldiers of the capital would have had the strength to take power in their own hands. But they would not have been able to keep it: the nationwide crisis had not yet ripened; the majority of working people still followed the Mensheviks and SRs. On July 4, Lenin spoke to sailors from the balcony of the building that housed the Central Committee of the Party, and he called for restraint, steadfastness and vigilance.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 109.
~^^2^^ Ibid, p. 170.
26More than 500 thousand people joined the demonstration. They demanded that the Soviets take power. The SR-Menshevik leadership of the Soviets not only could not make up their minds to this, they also sanctioned the Provisional Government's use of arms against the demonstrators. The shooting of the July 4 manifestation by the troops taken from the front was the end of the peaceful stage of the revolution. Opposing the people and issuing an order for the disarmament of workers, soldiers and sailors, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets thereby not only supported the government, it in effect gave the government the full plenitude of power. Dual power had come to an end. The counterrevolution was advancing. The third political crisis, because of the treachery of the SR-Menshevik leaders of the Soviets, led to the undivided rule of the bourgeoisie.
Summing up the political crises of the spring and summer of 1917, Lenin wrote: "The common cause, the common origin, the deep common root of the three above-mentioned political crises is clear ... common to all three is a mass dissatisfaction overflowing all bounds, a mass resentment with the bourgeoisie and their = government.''\thinspace^^1^^ Common to the three crises, too, was the fact that they gave evidence of a historically new revolutionary form of demonstration, a simultaneous outburst of revolution and counterrevolution attended over a more or __CAPTION__ Firing on the July Demonstration in Petrograd. 1917. _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 171.
[27] less prolonged period by the erosion of in-between elements and the rapid emergence of proletarian and bourgeois elements. Lenin considered this phenomenon "something considerably more than a demonstration, but less than a = revolution".^^1^^ The unique elements in these crises, in Lenin's view, were the following: the masses' tempestuous, spontaneous manifestation of discontent in the first crisis in April; the degree of organization in the demonstration in the second crisis in June, an unresolved crisis, and a fundamental change in the history of the revolution---the establishment of a counterrevolutionary military dictatorship---in the third, July, crisis.The Provisional Government repressed the Bolsheviks with a vengeance. Pravda, Soldatskaya Pravda (Soldiers' Truth) and other Bolshevik papers were closed. The Trud (Labor) press, acquired with money donated by workers, was destroyed. Military units that, in the government's opinion, were "infected with the bacillus of Bolshevism" were sent to the front. Workers' detachments were disarmed. Searches and arrests began. On July 7 an order was issued for Lenin's arrest. The press conducted an unbridled campaign of slander against the Bolsheviks.
Recalling how the reactionary monarchist French military circles at the end of the 1890s had tried no matter what it took to accuse Dreyfus, an officer on the French General Staff, of state treason, Lenin underlined that it was in just this manner that attempts were now being made to accuse any convenient Bolshevik of spying. He remarked angrily: "It is a veritable Dreyfusiad, a campaign of lies and slander stemming from fierce political = hatred."^^2^^
The Bolsheviks went underground. Persecuted by the Provisional Government, Lenin on July 9 went illegal and moved to the shores of Lake Razliv, not far from Petrograd. Here he wrote 11 articles, not to mention letters and short commentaries, and worked on his The State and Revolution. In early August he moved illegally to Finland and went into hiding in the village of Jalkala, living with the family of the Finnish worker P. Parviainen and keeping in constant touch with Petrograd.
In the meantime, the counterrevolution attempted to put its dreams of strong authority into practice. General Kornilov, named Supreme Commander in Chief of the Russian Army, became the idol of reactionary forces. Kornilov's goal was to establish a military dictatorship.
The Provisional Government was aware of all that the Supreme Commander was preparing. But when Kornilov moved troops on Petrograd on August 27, Kerensky, who had replaced Prince Lvov in the post of Minister President, became afraid that the masses would baste him together with the mutineers. He dissociated himself from the General, whom he called a rebel. Kerensky and Kornilov---two candidates for dictator --- in identical phrases declared each other enemies of the people. But contemporaries of the events came to the conclusion expressed by the reactionary paper Obshcheye Dyelo (The Common Cause) that, strictly speaking, there was no "Kornilov _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 171.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 167.
28 conspiracy'', but rather an unsuccessful "collusion between Kerensky and Kornilov''. Neither one nor the other enjoyed the support of the people in whose name and to whom they appealed. To their horror, it turned out that the masses were following the Bolsheviks.The Party's appeal to workers and soldiers to take the defense of the revolution into their own hands met with a fervent response. The Bolsheviks not only brought the masses into the struggle against Kornilov, they also fully exposed Kerensky as a secret Kornilovite who was pursuing by different means the same counterrevolutionary program.
The few days spent fighting the Kornilov conspiracy appreciably accelerated the political education of the people. The Dreyfusiad collapsed. Both in the central areas and in the provinces, Bolsheviks won a dominant position in the mass organizations of the proletariat. The intense struggle against counterrevolution not only routed the conspiracy, it was at the same time an important factor in preparing the socialist revolution.
__*_*_*__The temporary victory of the counterrevolution after the July events not only failed to halt the growth of the Bolshevik Party, it brought an increased flow of workers and peasants into the Party's ranks. Since April, the number of Party members had tripled, and the number of party organizations had more than doubled. The Party grew especially rapidly in industrial centers. The Petrograd organization, for example, increased from 16 thousand to 36 thousand members from April through June, the Moscow organization from 7 to 15 thousand members in the same period. By the end of July, there were more than 50 thousand Bolsheviks in the Central Industrial Region, more than 25 thousand in the Urals, 16 thousand in the Donets Basin. In this period, the Party grew to 240 thousand members.
Between July 26 and August 3, the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party met in semi-legality in Petrograd. Though Lenin did not attend the Congress, it was guided by his tactical program. Lenin wrote the principal resolutions and the theses of the report on the political situation and of the political report of the Central Committee. He was elected honorary chairman of the Congress.
The Congress devised the Party's tactics for the post-July situation in full accordance with Lenin's instructions. Since there was no longer any possibility of the revolution developing peacefully, the Congress, adopting Lenin's proposal, temporarily withdrew the slogan of "All Power to the Soviets!''. This did not mean of course that the Bolshevik Party renounced the struggle for control of the Soviets. What was at issue was not the Soviets in general, but only the conciliator Soviets, which had acted in those days as accomplices of the Provisional Government. The Congress called on Bolsheviks to remain in the Soviets and work to obtain a majority for-their position.
The resolution of the Congress set the course for an armed uprising to overthrow the bourgeoisie. It emphasized: "At present, peaceful development and a painless transfer of power to the Soviets has become 29 impossible, for power has in fact already passed into ttye hands of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie. The appropriate slogan ... can only be the complete elimination of the dictatorship of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie."
A distinctive feature of the Bolsheviks' political line in 1917 was that peaceful and non-peaceful forms of struggle for socialism were not mutually exclusive. The Party was ready to substitute rapidly one form for another depending on objective conditions. During the period of dual power, when Lenin advanced his April Theses---the first program in the history of the revolutionary movement that outlined realistic ways to achieve a peaceful transition to a socialist revolution---there was in Russia no class that could successfully withstand the will of the armed people, of the Soviets. The program for a peaceful transition consisted of the transfer of the full plenitude of power to the Soviets, which would unite the working class and the poor peasantry under the banner of socialism, and the gradual conquest of a majority in the Soviets by adherents of Lenin's policy. The decisions of the Sixth Congress, which ascertained that after the July crisis peaceful development of the revolution was no longer possible, oriented the Party to a new form of struggle. But this did not prevent Lenin in September from again attempting to use the original tactic when there was another brief opportunity for a peaceful transition.
On September 1, the day on which Russia was at last proclaimed a republic, it was reported that a Directory headed by Kerensky had been established. One of the reasons for this was the refusal of the Mensheviks and SRs to enter a new government that would include Cadets. They feared that they would lose for good the trust of the masses, a trust that had been considerably shaken by the July events.
For several days a singular situation took shape, and Lenin remarked that the Russian revolution was experiencing an "abrupt and original ... turn".^^1^^ There again emerged an extremely rare and extremely valuable opportunity for a peaceful development of the revolution. The Bolsheviks were ready to reach a compromise with the parties that at that moment constitute^! the majority in the Soviets; the Bolsheviks proposed that the Mensheviks and SRs form a government that would be responsible to the Soviets. The Soviets should also take over local power. Making no claims to participation in the government, the Bolsheviks were ready to renounce the demand for an immediate transfer of power to the proletariat and poor peasants, to renounce revolutionary methods of struggle for the realization of this demand. The condition that the Bolsheviks set for this compromise was complete freedom of agitation and the calling, without any further delays, of the Constituent Assembly.
Freedom of agitation and the immediate introduction of complete democracy, given the reelection and continued operation of the Soviets, would, in Lenin's opinion, in and of itself assure the peaceful development of the revolution, would assure that party conflict within the Soviets would subside peacefully.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 306.
30Lenin wrote all this on the same day, September 1. The article was entitled "On Compromises" and was intended for the paper Rabochy Put (The Worker's Way)---one of the titles under which Pravda appeared after the July days. The article did not reach the editors that day, however, since Lenin was in the underground outside Petrograd. Two days later, in a postscript to the article, he wrote: "After reading Saturday's and today's (Sunday's) papers, I say to myself: perhaps it is already too late to offer a compromise.... Yes, to all appearances, the days when by chance the path of peaceful development became possible have already = passed."^^1^^
In these days the government had again taken the offensive against the revolutionary masses, while the Menshevik and SR leaders yet again capitulated to the government. A nationwide crisis was coming to a head, a crisis creating the objective conditions for an armed uprising. Lenin saw the symptoms of this crisis in economic chaos, in the upsurge of the revolutionary movement, in the exacerbation of the national liberation struggle, in the fact that the army had wholly deserted the government.
By the autumn of 1917, the economy was slipping toward chaos because of the mounting state debt, the almost total devaluation of the rouble, the increase in prices for necessities, increased taxes, famine, chaos in transport and falling industrial output. The upsurge of the revolutionary movement affected not only the workers who were moving from uncoordinated, often spontaneous strikes to organized manifestations of a sector-wide or regional character, but also the peasants, whose disturbances not infrequently grew into armed uprisings against the Provisional Government. "It is obvious,'' wrote Lenin on this score, "that if in a peasant country, after seven months of a democratic republic, matters could come to a peasant revolt, it irrefutably proves that the revolution is suffering nationwide collapse, that it is experiencing a crisis of unprecedented severity, and that the forces of counterrevolution have gone the = limit."^^2^^ The soldiers who were sent to suppress the peasant movement often sided with the peasants, supporting their demands for land. The army slipped the traces of obedience to the government and ceased to serve as a tool of oppression and violence.
Indicative, too, was the increasing degree of organization and political activism of the oppressed peoples of the former Russian Empire: the strike movement and peasant disturbances in the Ukraine, in Byelorussia and the Baltic area, the peasant rebellions in the Semirechensk and Turgaisk areas, the movement in the North Caucasus, the demands for granting national independence to Finland.
The decisive shift in the political consciousness of workers, soldiers, peasants and working people in the national borderlands was witnessed by their withdrawal during this period from the petty-bourgeois parties and the progressive Bolshevization of the Soviets. Early in September, the composition and policy of the greater part of the Soviets---above all in Petrograd and Moscow --- changed. As a result of Bolshevik dominance in them, they became combat organs of the masses.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 310.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 79.
31Analyzing the totality of these events, Lenin came to the conclusion that it was necessary immediately to prepare an armed uprising. "We have the following of the majority of a class,'' he wrote, "the vanguard of the revolution, the vanguard of the people, which is capable of carrying the masses with it. We have the following of the majority of the people."^^1^^
As the revolution developed, the Party had been able to unite and bend to a common goal different revolutionary currents: the socialist movement of the working class for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the revolutionary struggle of the peasantry against the gentry, the national liberation movement for the equality of peoples, the nationwide demand for peace and the cessation of the sanguinary imperialist war.
A revolutionary situation indispensable for an uprising had emerged: the ``top'' could no longer govern as of old, while the ``bottom'' had become conscious of the impossibility of living in the old way.
"The Bolsheviks must assume power,'' wrote Lenin on September
12. "The crisis has matured. The whole future of the Russian revolution
is at stake,'' he warned on September 29. And on October 1 he repeated:
"To wait would be a crime to the =
revolution."^^2^^
~
Preparing the Armed Uprising. On a gloomy day at the beginning of October, 1917, two men walked from Udelnaya Station toward Petrograd. They were Lenin, carefully disguised, and Eino Rahja, his contact with the Central Committee of the RSDLP (B). They had just completed a dangerous journey that had begun in Vyborg early in the morning. They had first gone by train to Raivola Station, then moved into the coal car of Engine 293, whose driver was G. E. Jalava, already known to Lenin. Jalava brought Lenin and Rahja to the revolutionary capital. Here Lenin moved into the conspiratorial apartment of M. V. Fofanova (1/92, Serdobolskaya Street, on the Vyborg side of the city), already prepared for him. This was the last underground haven of the Bolshevik leader.
"...The transfer of power to the Soviets now means armed uprising,'' wrote Lenin on October 8 in a short article entitled "Advice of an Onlooker''. "...To repudiate armed uprising now would mean to repudiate the key slogan of Bolshevism (All Power to the Soviets) and proletarian revolutionary internationalism in = general."^^3^^ On the same day, Lenin wrote "Letter to the Bolshevik Comrades Attending the Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region''. "The situation is such,'' he emphasized in the letter, "that, in truth, delay would be fatal.'' He wrote further: "And the blame will be wholly and undoubtedly ours, if we, who for months have been calling upon the people to revolt and repudiate compromise, fail to lead them to revolt on the eve of the revolution's collapse, after the people have expressed their confidence in = us."^^4^^
On October 10, Lenin participated in a meeting of the Central Committee of the Party. "At the time we received information of the calling of the October 10 plenary session of the Central Committee," _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 24.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 82, 19.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 179.
~^^4^^ Ibid., pp. 182, 185.
32 recalled V. N. Yakovleva, a Party member since 1904, "the Moscow Regional Euro was represented in the Central Committee by G. I. Lomov while I was a candidate member. Since there was always a great deal of work, I never attended the meetings. This time, however, the Secretary of the Central Committee, Ya. M. Sverdlov, sent a telegram demanding that Lomov come immediately and summoning me as secretary of the regional buro. This telegram gave us to understand that the question of a decisive step, of a coup, would be raised. If memory does not fail me, we arrived in Petrograd on October 10, and Sverdlov told us that the plenum had been called to decide on one and only one question: should the Party hold to a course leading to an armed uprising in the near future. He also told us that Vladimir Ilyich [LeninJ, who had arrived secretly from Finland, would be coming to the session. Vladimir Ilyich arrived when everyone else had gathered, and he entered in a completely unrecognizable guise: clean-shaven, and in a wig. Immediately after Lenin entered, the meeting began. Lenin reported briefly on the matter at hand, framed the issue, and then proposed that we hear the report of the Secretary of the Central Committee on the information that the Central Committee had on the mood of the masses __CAPTION__ Disarming the 1st Revolutionary Machine-Gun Regiment. Petrograd, July, 1917. [33] and the state of affairs outside the capital. Late at night... it was decided (against the opposition of two, Zinoviev and Kamenev) that the Party would hold to the course of art armed uprising in the near future."At this session, the Central Committee setup a Politburo, headed by Lenin, for the political leadership of the uprising. The resolution on the armed uprising observed: "Considering that an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe, the Central Committee instructs all Party organisations to be guided accordingly, and to discuss and decide all practical questions (the Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, the withdrawal of troops from Petrograd, the action of our people in Moscow and Minsk, etc.) from this point of = view.''^^1^^ The resolution of the Central Committee determined the practical actions of the Party in these decisive days. The Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Northern Region, which met in Petrograd from October 11 to 13, operated under Bolshevik leadership. On October 14, the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was elected exclusively from Bolshevik ranks. On October 16, the Congress of Soviets of the Volga Region in Saratov passed a resolution on the transfer of power to the Soviets. On the same day, the Congress of Soviets of Vladimir Province elected a Bolshevik Executive Committee. Between October 16 and 24, the first All-Siberia Congress of Soviets met in Irkutsk. It passed a resolution on the transfer of power to the Soviets, and elected the first Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Siberia (Tsentrosibir). On October 17, the regional conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Southwest, meeting in Kiev, passed a resolution on the transfer of power to the Soviets.
The change in the composition and policy of the overwhelming majority of Soviets, their conversion into a combat organ of the masses, created the objective prerequisites for the Bolshevik Party again to advance the slogan of "All Power to the Soviets.'' But the slogan now had a different meaning, its substance had changed: while before the July days this was a slogan for the peaceful development of the revolution, it was now a slogan for an uprising.
The Provisional Government attempted to apply force against the Bolshevized Soviets. Thus, on October 19 it tried to break up the Kaluga Soviet with the aid of soldiers, but the Bolshevik-leaning garrison of Kaluga would not permit it. At the same time, A. I. Konovalov, a minister in the Provisional Government, publicly stated that the government disposed of a sufficient amount of organized force to "suppress a possible action at the roots''. The leaders of the Petrograd Military District categorically affirmed in their reports to the Deputy Minister President that all the rumors as to the untrustworthiness of the Petrograd garrison were totally false. However, publishing these assurances, the newspaper Dyen (Day) on October 17 emphasized at the same time: "For all that, one can state that the government awaits the forthcoming Bolshevik move with great anxiety."
The preparations for the uprising entered their final stage. Implementing the instructions of the Central Committee on creating a legal _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 190.
34 staff headquarters for the armed uprising, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet formed a Revolutionary Military Committee (RMC). It included representatives of the Petrograd Soviet, the Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet (Centrobalt), the Regional Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers of Finland, the Military Organization of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B), factory committees, trade unions, and others.On October 15, at a closed session of the Petrograd Committee of the Bolshevik Party, A.S.Bubnov, a member of the Central Committee, presented questions relating to the preparation of the armed uprising. On October 16, on the premises of the -Lesnovsk District Duma, the chairman of which was M. I. Kalinin, an enlarged meeting of the Central Committee was held, with representatives of the Executive Commission of the Petrograd Committee, the Military Organization of the Central Committee, the Petrograd Soviet, the trade unions, factory committees, railroad workers and the Petrograd Regional Committee participating. Reading the resolution adopted by the Central Committee on October 10 Lenin stressed that from a political analysis of the class struggle in Russia and the situation in Europe there followed the necessity to take up the most decisive, most active policy, which could only be an armed uprising. Again opposing Lenin, Kamenev and Zinoviev attempted to depict the situation as one in which the Bolsheviks allegedly had ``inadequate'' force for a victorious uprising and that it was therefore necessary to await the Constituent Assembly. "The facts showed that ours were superior to the enemy. To reject the resolution of the Central Committee it would have to be proved that there was no economic ruin and that the international situation would not lead to complications,'' said Lenin. "Some were afraid that Bolsheviks would not be able to maintain power, but at that moment there was a better chance than ever that they would be able = to."^^1^^ Lenin took floor three times. He was supported by Ya. M. Sverdlov, Eino Rahja, N. V. Krylenko, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, M. I. Kalinin and others. The resolution of the Central Committee of October 10 was approved by a vote of 19 to 2, with 4 abstentions; all Party organizations, all workers and soldiers were called on to undertake thorough and stepped-up preparation for the armed uprising, and the conviction was expressed that the Central Committee and the Petrograd Soviet would in good time indicate a favorable moment and appropriate means for that.
At a closed session, the Central Committee created a Revolutionary Military Center for the direction of the uprising; it consisted of A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, J. V. Stalin, Ya. M. Sverdlov and M. S. uritsky. The Central Committee resolution specified that the Center was to enter the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. In the early morning of October 18, at the apartment of the worker D. A. Pavlov (35 Serdobolskaya Street, apt. 4), Lenin met with the members of the Revolutionary Military Committee and leaders of the Military Organization'of the Central Committee, N. I. Podvoisky, V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko and V. I. Nevsky. He was given a report on the course of preparations for the armed uprising in Petrograd and gave _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 192--193.
35 instructions on this matter. He talked with representatives of the Moscow Bolshevik organization, G. I. Lomov (Oppokov) and O. A. Pyatnitsky, wishing to know how preparations for an uprising were going in Moscow. The Moscow Regional Euro of the Central Committee had as early as October 14 adopted without debate the directive of the Central Committee on the armed uprising and had instructed local organizations "to time the beginning of their move with the action in the center".During these weighty and decisive days of preparing the armed uprising, Zinoviev and Kamenev resorted to open betrayal. On October 18, the semi-Menshevik paper Novaya Zhizn (The New Life) published an article entitled "Yu. Kamenev on the 'Action''', in which Kamenev, in his own and Zinoviev's names, blurted out the Central Committee's decision on immediate action. In letters to Party members, Lenin angrily and indignantly demanded the exclusion of the traitors from the Party; by the Central Committee decision Kamenev was excluded from its membership; Zinoviev and Kamenev were instructed to make no statements against the decisions of the Central Committee and the policy it set forth.
Practical preparation for the uprising continued. In the predawn hours of October 21, the Revolutionary Military Committee appointed commissars to all units of the Petrograd garrison. On the following day, a meeting of representatives of the regimental committees of the Petrograd garrison adopted a resolution promising complete support for the Revolutionary Military Committee and calling for the immediate convocation of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets. The meeting proposed to conduct a review of the forces of the Petrograd soldiers and workers on the "Day of the Petrograd Soviet" which was set for October 22. The review of forces on October 22 was highly successful. There were enormous meetings in military units and at plants and factories. The "Day of the Petrograd Soviet" demonstrated the real strength of the Bolsheviks. On October 23, the Revolutionary Military Committee likewise sent commissars to especially important points in the capital and its environs. On the order of the Revolutionary Military Committee, all military units and detachments of the Red Guard (which numbered more than 20 thousand men) were readied for battle.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Triumph of the Socialist Revolution.The Triumph of the Socialist Revolution. = The Provisional Government tried to avert the uprising. On October 24, pickets of military school cadets occupied the most important points in the city. Attempts were made to close the Bolshevik papers Rabochy Put (The Worker's Way) and Soldat (Soldier). Orders went out for the immediate arrest of the Bolshevik participants in the immense July demonstration. The headquarters of the military district ordered that RMC commissars in the military units be removed and bound over for trial. The Commander of the Petrograd Military District issued an urgent order that the telephones in the Petrograd Soviet be disconnected and that the bridges be raised so as to cut the proletarian districts off from the center.
In "Letter to the Central Committee Members,'' Lenin wrote that "in fact it is now absolutely clear that to delay the uprising would be = fatal,"^^1^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 234.
36 and he proposed that the Provisional Government be arrested immediately and power seized. Late on the night of October 24, he arrived illegally at Smolny Institute (the premises of the Petrograd Soviet) and took into his own hands immediate leadership of the uprising that was beginning.At 1:25 a.m. on October 25, a combat detachment of sailors, Red Guardsmen and soldiers occupied the Main Post Office. At 2 a.m., soldiers from the Izmailov Regiment and sailors occupied the Baltic Station, while soldiers from the 6th Reserve Sapper Battalion occupied Nikolayev Station. At the same time, a commissar of the Revolutionary Military Committee arrived at the city power plant. The factory committee of the plant, which had taken upon itself the protection of the enterprise, approved his appointment. On the proposal of the commissar, light was cut off in government buildings.
At 3 a.m., the commissar of the Keksgolm Guard Reserve Regiment demanded that the director of the Central Telephone Station cut off the telephones of the Provisional Government and the military district headquarters. When the director refused the station was occupied by men of the Keksgolm regiment, and most of the phones used by the headquarters and the government were cut off.
At 3:30 a.m., the cruiser Aurora dropped anchor by the Nikolayev Bridge. On the order of the Petrograd Revolutionary Military Committee, preparations for moving an 8000-man detachment of sailors from Helsingfors, Kronstadt and Revel to the capital were begun.
Around 6 a.m., Red Guardsmen, soldiers and sailors occupied the State Bank and the offices of the central newspapers, and an hour later they occupied the Palace Bridge. This made it possible for destroyers arriving from Helsingfors to enter the Neva and take up positions opposite the Winter Palace.
Thus, by morning of October 25 almost the entire city, with the exception of the area around Palace and St. Isaac's squares was in the hands of the rebellion. In this situation, when the revolutionary forces already had control of the most important strategic points of the capital, Lenin, in the name of the Revolutionary Military Committee, wrote an address "To the Citizens of Russia!" At 10 a.m. it was broadcast by the RMC.
"The Provisional Government has been deposed,'' read the address. 'State power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies --- the Revolutionary Military Committee, which heads the Petrograd proletariat and the garrison.
"The cause for which the people have fought, namely, the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers' control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power---this cause has been secured.
"Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers and = peasants!"^^1^^
At 1:35 p.m., an emergency session of the Petrograd Soviet began in jne Main Auditorium at Smolny Institute. The Soviet heard a report from t»e Revolutionary Military Committee on the overthrow of the "ovisional Government and the victory of the revolution. Reporting on n
Soviet power, Lenin said: "We have now learned to make a _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 236.
37 concerted effort. The revolution that has just been accomplished is evidence of this. We possess the strength of mass organization, which will overcome everything and lead the proletariat to the = world revolution."^^1^^At 10:40 p.m., the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened at Smolny. By the time the Congress began its work, 649 delegates had arrived, including 390 Bolsheviks, 160 SRs, 72 Mensheviks and 14 Internationalist Mensheviks. More delegates came when the Congress was in session. The Presidium was composed of Bolsheviks, Left SRs and one representative of the Ukrainian Socialist Party. When the Mensheviks, Right SRs and Bundists saw that the majority of the Congress stood with the Bolsheviks they demonstratively quit the session.
As the Congress was beginning its work, the Aurora fired a blank shell as a signal to storm the Winter Palace---the last outpost of the Provisional Government.
"This was a heroic moment of the revolution,'' N. I. Podvoisky later recalled, "terrible, sanguinary, but fine and unforgettable. In the dark of night, lit by the lighting flashes of shots, lines of Red Guards, sailors and soldiers advanced from all the adjacent streets and from behind nearby corners like threatening shadows, stumbling, falling and rising again, but not for a second ceasing their advance, as insistent as a hurricane."
Revolutionary soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, led by V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko and G. I. Chudnovsky, representatives of the Revolutionary Military Committee, broke through into the Winter Palace. In one of the halls the attackers were blocked by a line of military school cadets, their rifles at the ready. They were disarmed. In the next hall---another line surrendered its arms without a fight. The door leading to the room where the ministers of the Provisional Government were sitting was opened. At 1:50 a.m. on October 26, the Provisional Government of Russia was arrested. The Minister President, A. F. Kerensky, had fled the city on the morning of the 25th, on a car under cover of the American flag, to mobilize forces against the Bolsheviks.
At 3:10 a.m., a telegram from V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko was read to the delegates to the Second Congress of Soviets, which said that the members of the cabinet of the Provisional Government had been sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the military school cadets and officers had been disarmed, and Chudnovsky had been appointed Commandant of the Winter Palace. After this, the delegates heard a number of reports on the cyclists and other military units going over to the side of the people.
In the name of the Bolshevik faction, A. V. Lunacharsky read an appeal "To Workers, Soldiers and Peasants!'', written by Lenin and proclaiming the passage of all power to the Soviets, which were directed to ensure genuine revolutionary order. The appeal ended with a call to vigilance and staunchness.
The reading of the appeal was repeatedly interrupted by stormy applause. At 5 a.m., the Congress almost unanimously (with 2 votes against and 12 abstentions) ratified this document; signifying that the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets had accepted state power from the RMC and had announced the passage of all state power in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 240.
38 __CAPTION__ V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko. country to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.At 9 p. m. on October 26, the second session of the Congress opened. Lenin delivered the reports on the two fundamental issues--- peace and land.
Around 11 p. m., the Decree on Peace was' adopted, by which the worker-peasant power declared its resolve immediately to conclude a peace without annexations or reparations. The Decree labelled the imperialist war a monumental crime against humanity and called on the peoples and their most advanced strata---the working class---to intervene in the struggle for peace.
Representatives of the Left SRs, Internationalist Mensheviks, Polish Socialist Party, Popular Socialists of Lithuania, Social-Democrats of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia stated their wholehearted support for the Decree on Peace. After announcement of the results of the vote, the auditorium rose to its feet in a burst of enthusiasm. The delegates sang the Internationale and then = You Have Fallen Victim, paying tribute to the memory of those killed and maimed in the war.
At 2 a.m. on October 27, a second historic document, expressing the aspirations and interests of millions of peasants---the Decree on Land, abolishing private property in land---was adopted. Land was proclaimed the property of the entire nation. The Decree included instructions to the land committees, based on 242 peasant mandates from the summer of 1917. The instructions established egalitarian land tenure, proclaimed the right of everyone to land and forbade the employment of hired labor in agriculture. This was one of the principal tenets of the SR agrarian program. The Bolsheviks felt it possible to support this measure because at that moment it reflected the demands of the peasants. Peasants were thereby assured that they now had the opportunity to organize their lives as they saw fit. John Reed, present at this session of the Congress, noted «je frantic joy of the peasant delegates after it was announced that the Decree had been adopted.
The Congress formed a worker-peasant government---the Council of Jjeople's Commissars. The Left SRs, who supported the Bolsheviks at ">e Congress, refused to participate in the Soviet government, so the government was at first composed entirely of Bolsheviks. Lenin was 39 elected Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. The Council included A. I. Rykov, People's Commissar for Internal Affairs; V. P. Milyutin, agriculture; A. G. Shlyapnikov, labor; V. P. Nogin, industry and commerce; A. V. Lunacharsky, education; L. D. Trotsky, foreign affairs; G. I. Oppokov (Lomov), justice; I. A. Teodorovich, food supply; N. P. Avilqv (Glebov), post and telegraph; J. V. Jugashvili (Stalin), national minorities; and for military and naval matters, a committee composed of V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko, N. V. Krylenko and P. Y. Dybenko.
At about 6 a.m. on October 27, the historic Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets concluded its work. In the space of two days, it had carried out a historically important task: it had reinforced the victory of the armed uprising and had proclaimed the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, having made a beginning in turning the Soviets into a system of organs of state power.
The first decrees of the Soviet power were revolutionary laws meant to break decisively with old socio-economic relations and to establish new relations in all areas of public life. They outlined guidelines for socialist construction and showed the masses what had to be done. At the same time, the decrees were a way to extend new ideas.
__*_*_*__"To All! To All! To All!"---so the new government began its most important communications. An urgent radiogram from the Council of People's Commissars read: On October 29 began an uprising by military school cadets who had been freed on parole on the 25th. The uprising was crushed on the same day. Part of the cadets and Cossacks have grouped around Kerensky at Tsarskoye Selo. The Soviet government has taken all possible measures to avert bloodshed.
If the Cossacks do not arrest Kerensky, who has deceived them --- warned the central Bolshevik papers --- and move on Petrograd, the troops of the revolution will with all the force of their arms move to the defense of the precious achievements of the revolution---peace and land.
Kerensky's main striking force was General Krasnov's detachment, which by the evening of October 27 numbered around 500 men with 8 machine guns and 16 field pieces. This detachment was later joined by several other units, including the cadets at the Gatchina school for ensigns. Kerensky also disposed of an armored train and an armored car seized by Cossacks in Pulkovo. When he began his advance on Petrograd, Kerensky had no fewer than 5,000 men. In the capital itself, Mensheviks and SRs, who together with Cadets, monarchists and other opponents of Soviet power had formed a Committee for the Salvation of the Homeland and the Revolution, prepared to support the counterrevolutionary march on the city with an anti-Soviet mutiny. The revolution was seriously endangered.
Liquidation of the military cadets' mutiny of October 29 put an end to the hopes for an unexpected blow to the revolutionary forces from the rear. But the situation remained extraordinarily disquieting. By October 30, Krasnov had taken Tsarskoye Selo with the forces of the 3rd Mounted Corps. It was less than 22 miles to Petrograd.
40A staff headquarters including N. I. Podvoisky, V. A. AntonovOvseyenko, K. S. Yeremeyev, P. Y. Dybenko was established to direct combat operations in defense of the revolutionary capital. Lt. Col. M. A. Muravyov, a Left SR, was named Commander in Chief for the Defense of Petrograd, K. S. Yeremeyev was appointed commissar, and Col. P. B. Valden, commander of the reserve regiment stationed in Tsarskoye Selo, was appointed Chief of Staff. In these difficult days he was elected, at a meeting of representatives of the regiment and garrison, commander of the troops around Pulkovo and Tsarskoye Selo.
On Lenin's initiative, the combat ships of the Baltic Fleet were brought to the defense of Petrograd. The Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government, relying on workers, soldiers and sailors, mobilized the masses to rout the counterrevolution. In the early morning hours of October 29, Lenin visited the Putilov workers who had formed Red Guard detachments and provided important assistance in supplying arms and ammunition to the units fighting Kerensky and Krasnov. On the afternoon of the 29th, Lenin spoke to a conference of regimental representatives of the Petrograd garrison. The enormous preparatory work carried out under Lenia's personal supervision allowed an overwhelming superiority of forces to be deployed against the enemy. On the afternoon of October 30, revolutionary forces began to turn the flanks of Krasnov's troops and threatened to break through the enemy's rear. By evening, Tsarskoye Selo had been liberated.
Kerensky still counted on the support of Vikzhel (the Executive Committee of the All-Russia Union of Railroad Workers). During the October days, Vikzhel---a majority of which consisted of SRs and Mensheviks --- was one of the centers opposing the revolution. Hiding behind phrases of neutrality, it sent in telegram No.~1163 an ultimatum demanding that the Council of People's Commissars immediately discontinue military operations and create a government including representatives of other socialist parties. Otherwise, Vikzhel threatened to stop all movement on the railroads.
Receiving a Vikzhel delegation early on the morning of October 30, Kerensky declared that before deciding the question of an armistice he would like to consult with those who supported him. On November 1, having come to understand that there was no longer anyone on whom he could count, he attempted to find salvation in the Vikzhel proposal, which had in effect been left unanswered. Kerensky sent the following telegram: "I have suspended operations against the rebel troops and have sent a representative --- Stankevich, commissar attached to the Supreme Commander in Chief---to enter negotiations. Take measures to halt useless bloodshed."
But everyone already knew that the "Supreme Commander in Chief" had no army and that he was unable either to conduct or to suspend military operations. His maneuver failed. Kerensky, disguised as a sailor, fled with a Serbian troop train to Murmansk, while General Krasnov was arrested by the Red Guards. The suppression of Kerensky's and Krasnov's armed action meant that the first onslaught of the reactionary forces, undertaken the day after the proclamation of the republic of Soviets to wrest power from the working class, had been beaten back; the first anti-Soviet mutiny had been routed.
41At dawn on November 3, Soviet power sustained a total victory in Moscow, too, which was of great importance for consolidating the proletarian revolution throughout the country. The protracted character of the uprising in the second capital stemmed from two basic causes: first, the counterrevolution, suffering defeat in Petrograd, counted on establishing in Moscow a national center for the struggle against Soviet power; second, the leaders of the uprising, above all the Moscow RMC, made a number of blunders of a political and military order: they permitted Mensheviks to join the RMC; they put their stakes on a peaceful understanding with the counterrevolutionary Committee of Public Safety; they violated Marxist-Leninist teaching on uprising as an art, which says that, beginning an uprising, it is essential to act with the greatest determination and immediately go over to the offense. As a result, the enemy was not taken by surprise and had a chance to organize his forces.
The order of the Moscow RMC reporting the victory of the armed uprising in Petrograd was published on October 26. The order contained a call to the workers and soldiers of Moscow to support the workers of Petrograd. The RMC demanded that the garrison be readied for battle and ordered that no orders or decisions be obeyed without the sanction of the RMC. That evening, a conference of district commissars adopted an instruction stressing that the commissar was the supreme and fully empowered representative in his district. To strengthen the Kremlin garrison, which consisted of the 56th Infantry Reserve Regiment, the RMC moved in a company of the 193rd Infantry Reserve Regiment.
For their part, the counterrevolutionary Committee of Public Safety, working in the City Duma, concentrated its forces around the Kremlin. Military cadets occupied the Manege and surrounded the Kremlin. The Commander of the Moscow Military District, Col. Ryabtsev, demanded that the RMC withdraw the 56th Regiment and the company of the 193rd Regiment from the Kremlin. An agreement was achieved under which the revolutionary troops were withdrawn from the Post and Telegraph office that they had occupied, the company of the 193rd Regiment was withdrawn from the Kremlin, and the military cadets raised their siege of the Kremlin.
On the morning of October 27, the company of the 193rd Regiment was withdrawn from the Kremlin---and in the evening, violating the conditions of the truce, Ryabtsev again surrounded the Kremlin. proclaimed martial law for the city, demanded the immediate dissoluti i of the RMC, the withdrawal of the 56th Regiment from the Kremlin a .1 the return of weapons taken from the Kremlin arsenals. The ultimati : had a 15-minute time limit. In answer to the ultimatum, the RMC order i revolutionary troops to begin military operations and called on worke to declare a general strike and to join the struggle for Soviet power, in the evening, the RMC brought a Dvina detachment from the Khamovreki barracks to the building of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. On Red Square military cadets blocked the route of the revolutionary soldiers and ordered the latter to lay down their arms. The soldiers refused ana, seeking to avoid bloodshed, demanded that the cadets clear the way. The cadets opened fire, but the detachment fought through the cadet line avd reached the Soviet.
42On October 28, the RMC categorically rejected the demand of Vikzhel and the Left SRs to negotiate with the Committee of Salvation and dissolve the RMC. It was decided to establish close contact with the districts.
On October 29, counterrevolutionary forces, having taken the Kremlin, wreaked bloody vengeance on the soldiers of the 56th Regiment. Revolutionary troops started a determined attack on the military cadets and bourgeois guard. By evening, most of the city districts had been liberated.
The SR-Menshevik Vikzhel came to the assistance of the counterrevolution, declaring that it would call a general railroad strike if combat operations on the streets of Moscow were not brought to a halt. The RMC announced the cessation of military operations and proclaimed a 24-hour truce, until midnight on October 30. The conclusion of a truce was a serious mistake by the RMC and merely prolonged the struggle of the revolutionary forces against counterrevolution.
In the early morning hours of October 31, the RMC announced the end of the truce and called on the revolutionary soldiers and Red Guards to undertake determined action. Desperate battles for the liquidation of the strongpoints of counterrevolution began in the center of the city. By the end of November 1, the revolutionary forces had made important __CAPTION__ Barricade on Arbat Square in Moscow. October, 1917. [43] gains: a number of train stations, the Krutitsk barracks and the cad school buildings in the Lefortovo district had been taken. During th night, the Metropole Hotel and the Food Board were taken. At dawn o November 3, the Kremlin was liberated.
For all the complications and difficulties, the working class of Moscow, together with the revolutionary soldiers, led by the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B) and the Moscow Bolshevik
__ERROR__litical parties and unions to rally their forces and organize a "national gwer^ consjsting Of soldiers from the Lithuanian Regiment A lors from the Baltic Fleet was sent from Petrograd to Mogilev to and s Qenerai Headquarters. Western Front army units came out to ^T them Dukhonin was removed from his post, and N. V. Krylenko, aSn«khevik ensign, was named Supreme = Commander. I the predawn hours of November 20, warned by Dukhonin that the c viet detachment was approaching General Headquarters, the counfrrevolutionary Generals Denikin, Lukomsky, Erdeli, Markov and thers headed by the leader of the August mutiny, Kornilov, fled from Rvkho'v They headed south, where the convinced monarchist and one of the organizers and participants in the Kornilov affair, General Kaledin, had refused to recognize Soviet power and had put the Don region, inhabited by Cossacks, under martial law. Here, too, came General M. V. Alexeyev, M. V. Rodzyanko and P. N. Milyukov, among others. Another national center for the struggle against Soviet power was formed here.
By this time, the situation m the country had changed markedly. The Bolsheviks had strengthened the revolutionary power of the Soviets. During these days, the Council of the Petrograd Railroad Junction had been set up as a counterweight to Vikzhel. This Council included members of the local committees of the Baltic, Warsaw, Tsarskoye Selo, Finland and Northern railroads. The new Council of railroad workers gave total and active support to the Soviet power. Negotiations with Vikzhel were broken off. The opposition minority in the Bolshevik Party, a minority that had grossly violated the instructions of the Central Committee (e.g., L. B. Kamenev, who had agreed not only to the formation of a government in which the Bolsheviks would have had only half the seats but had not even objected to the SR-Menshevik proposal for Lenin's exclusion from the government) had been sharply condemned. When on November 2 the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B) adopted a special resolution on this issue, Kamenev and Zinoviev carried their opposition into the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets. The majority of the Central Committee then issued an ultimatum demanding submission to Party discipline. In response, Kamenev, /Jnoviev, Rykov, Milyutin and Nogin resigned from the Central Committee, and the latter three, joined by Teodorovich, resigned from tneir posts as People's Commissars. Ryazanov, Larin and some others pined m their declaration. In a circular to all Party members and to all laoonng classes of Russia published on November 7, this move was condemned as desertion.
__ERROR__CentM £reati°n of a New State Apparatus. On November 8, 1917, the Chair Lom.mittee proposed the removal of Kamenev from his post as
,
organization, had made their contribution --- in many ways a decisive one --- to the victory of the revolution. The October-November events in Moscow demonstrated the high level of political consciousness of the Moscow proletariat and its solidarity with the Bolshevik Party. Ret) Guard detachments from the Zamoskvorechye, Khamovniki, Presnya Simqnov, Rogozhski, Gorodskoi, Sokolniki and Zheleznodorozhny districts fought heroically on the streets of Moscow. The workers of the Butyrki, Sushchevsko-Marinsk, Blagushe-Lefortovo and Basman districts provided important assistance. The Dvina detachment played an exceptionally important role in the combat operations. Many of them were genuine heroes of the revolution. They fought bravely on the streets of Moscow and then during the years of civil war. Among them were Y. N. Sapunov, M. Y. Letunov, A. P. Vorpnov, N. R. Trunov. During one of the attacks on the Alexeyev Military School, Pyotr Shcherbakov, a 26-year-old Boshevik who had gone through the underground, was an important Party worker and was loved by the workers, died. Killed during the fighting on the Ostozhenka were the 23-year-old turner from the Moscow Telephone Works, commander of the Ostozhenka sector, member of the Central Staff of the Red Guard, Pyotr Dobrynin; a young propagandist from Zamoskvorechye, Lyusik Lisinova; and the youngest of the Red Guard fighters, Pavlik Andreyev, son of a smith at the Michelson Works.
Speaking a year later on Red Square at the unveiling of a memorial plaque to the fighters for the October Revolution, on November 7, 1918, Lenin remarked: "The best sons of the working people laid down their lives in starting a revolution to liberate nations from imperialism, to put an end to wars among nations, to overthrow capital and to win socialism....
"Those comrades who fell last October brought the magnificent happiness of victory. The greatest honour of which the revolutionary leaders of mankind dreamed was won by them: over the bodies of those comrades who gallantly fell in battle passed thousands and millions of new and just as fearless fighters who won victory by their = mass heroism."^^1^^
After the suppression of the Kerensky-Krasnov mutiny, General Headquarters at the front became the new center of the struggle against Soviet power. General N. N. Dukhonin, Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander, supported by Right SRs and Mensheviks and by representatives of the allied military missions, refused to carry out the November 7 directive of the Council of People's Commissars on an immediate truce and the opening of negotiations with the warring countries for jn purpose of concluding a peace treaty. On November 12, Dukhonin called _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 167.
44 __ERROR__ __MISSING__abcdefg
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Creation of a New State Apparatus.abcdefg
__ERROR__ __MISSING__ 45 tion, he was irreplaceable. Moreover, there lay ahead of us enormous work in the organization of a state of a new type, and we needed ah organizer of the best sort. Yakov Mikhailovich was just such = an organizer."^^1^^ To Sverdlov, as Lenin noted, fell the task of finding practical solutions for the intricate questions connected with a new, Soviet state apparatus.The new power was based on the system of Soviets in the center and locally, where they worked together with mass organizations of working people: trade unions, factory committees and so on. The supreme organ of authority was the All-Russia Congress of Soviets. In the intervals between congresses, these functions were performed by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee (ARCEC). The Council of People's Commissars was responsible to the All-Russia Congress of Soviets and the ARCEC.
The most characteristic and original feature of the new authority that distinguished it for the better from all forms of parliamentarism known at the time, was the unity of legislative and executive powers. The ARCEC, through its departments, directed the various sectors of state construction and the political life of the country. The Council of People's Commissars, empowered to take measures against counterrevolution directly, i.e., without preliminary consideration by the ARCEC, acquired the right to initiate legislation. This did not in any way mean that either of the supreme Soviet organs---the ARCEC and the Council of People's Commissars --- sought to legislate or function independently of the other. On the contrary, unity of legislative and executive functions presumed unity in the activity of all organs of Soviet power.
The resolutions of the Second All-Russia Peasant Congress were of great importance for further strengthening the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, for rallying the peasant masses around the proletariat and for organizing and strengthening Soviet power in the center and locally. The Congress, which met from November 26 through December 10, 1917, in Petrograd, expressed, contrary to the wishes of the Right SR leaders, complete confidence in Soviet power, approved its decrees and elected the Congress Executive Committee---which now included 81 Left SRs, 20 Bolsheviks, 1 SR-Maximalist and 6 with no party affiliation. The new Executive Committee of the Peasant Congress entered the All-Russia Central Executive Committee in its entirety. The Left SRs, who had earlier intentionally delayed reaching a government agreement with the Bolsheviks and expressed their adherence to "pure democracy" by publicly issuing numerous protests and interpolations, entered the worker-peasant government. A. L. Kolegayev became People's Commissar for Agriculture, P. P. Proshyan---People's Commissar for Post and Telegraph, I. Z. Shteinberg---People's Commissar of Justice. At the Third Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, M. A. Spiridonova was elected Chairman of the Peasant Section of the ARCEC.
The creation of a new and the dismantling of the old apparatus of power proceeded simultaneously. In the wake of the deposed Provisional Government, the old local authorities and various bourgeois and _-_-_
~^^1^^ N. K. Krupskaya, Memories of V. I. Lenin, Moscow, 1957, p. 330 (in Russian)
46 __CAPTION__ A meeting of the Soviet Government chaired by V. I. Lenin. February, 1918. landowner organizations---committees of safety, civic committees, etc.--- were dissolved. Eliminated, too, were the Chancellory of the Provisional Government, the Main Economic Committee and the Council under the Provisional Government, and the Chancellory for Receiving Petitions to His Highness.On November 23, 1917, a decree was published establishing the right to recall from the Soviets deputies who had not justified the trust of the people. In correspondence with this decree, a number of peasant and army congresses decided to recall deputies from the Constituent Assembly --- Cadets, Right SRs and Mensheviks, including Avksentyev, Gots, Milyukov and others.
The Soviets were established in gubernias, uyezds, volosts and villages. On December 24, an instruction on local Soviets was published, which established their structure, rights and duties with respect to the central organs and electors. Departments for directing economic and cultural life were established under the Soviets.
On November 14, the ARCEC ratified a "Statute on Workers' Control'', drafted by Lenin. The establishment of workers' control over production and the distribution of industrial output was an important step on the road to the nationalization of industry.
__ERROR__Of immense significance for eliminating post-war chaos and improvind co.untry's economic situation was the question of demobilizing naustry, i.e., converting military plants to the production of consumer onM' a meetin8 of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) on November 27, one of the provisions of a resolution calling for a real commission for implementing a socialist policy in the economic realm---a resolution drafted by Lenin---noted: "Two or three engineers 47 shall be sent to the Special Defence Council for the purpose of control and the drafting of a general plan of industrial = demobilization.''^^1^^
On December 2, the ARCEC and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the establishment of a Supreme Economic Council---an organ for regulating the economic life of the young country.
On December 14, in view of the sabotage by bankers, all banks and credit institutions in Petrograd were occupied by detachments of workers and Red Guards. The same day, the ARCEC adopted a decree "On the Nationalization of Banks".
A special organ under the Council of People's Commissars was established for fighting counterrevolution---the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation (the Cheka). At its head the Party placed the tested Bolshevik and Leninist, F. E. Dzerzhinsky.
Defense of the socialist state was impossible without a strong military organization. The democratization in the army in the weeks after October was the Soviet form of dismantling the old army. Simultaneously, a search was undertaken for ways to create new armed forces. On January 15, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree creating a Worker-Peasant Red Army, and on January 29 a decree on the formation of a Worker-Peasant Red Navy.
At the beginning of 1918, the counterrevolution undertook a new and desperate attempt to overthrow Soviet power, which was linked to the Constituent Assembly. For the Bolshevik Party and the advanced workers, the slogan calling for a Constituent Assembly had become outmoded both politically and practically after the establishment of the Soviet power. However, the Soviet government, taking into account the masses' continued faith in the Constituent Assembly, decided to convoke it, show the masses the true counterrevolutionary face of this assembly and thereby give them the chance to overcome their illusions with respect to the Constituent Assembly through their own experience. Local Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, taking into account that elections to the Constituent Assembly had been carried out with lists of candidates drawn up before the October Revolution, sought not only to use the electoral campaign to expose the fetishizing of the Constituent Assembly and to propagandize the first decrees of Soviet power among the masses, they also actively implemented the decree on the right to recall delegates.
The results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly settled the Assembly's fate: the make-up of the deputies (of 715, there were 175 Bolsheviks, 40 Left SRs and 86 representatives from national groups; the rest were Right SRs and Mensheviks) did not reflect the actual balance of class forces in the country, a balance that had taken shape after the October overturn. The Constituent Assembly was part of the revolution's past.
Actively preparing for the Assembly's opening, the counterrevolution simultaneously gathered forces for an armed anti-Soviet rebellion in _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 40.
48 __CAPTION__ Ya. M. Sverdlov. Petrograd. On January 1, 1918, after Lenin had spoken in the Mikhailov Manege to Red Guards setting out for the front, an attempt was made to assassinate him. The car in which Lenin, his sister M. I. Uly_anova and the Swiss revolutionary Fritz Flatten were riding was fired on while it was crossing the Semyonov Bridge over the Fontanka River. The bullets struck the body of the car and shattered the windscreen. Fortunately, Lenin was unharmed. Because the Bolsheviks took timely action, the armed uprising by Right SRs did not take place. The few demonstrations that occurred in various areas of the city on the day the Constituent Assembly opened were easily broken up by the Red Guard.Opening the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, Sverdlov, in the name of the ARCEC, expressed the hope that the Assembly would recognize fully the decrees of Soviet power and proposed that the Assembly ratify the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People"---in effect, the first constitutional act consolidating the great achievements of the socialist revolution---that had been adopted by the ARCEC on January 3. When the counterrevolutionary __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4--116 49 majority of the Contituent Assembly refused to discuss it, the Bolsheviks and Left SRs demanded an intermission for consultation by factions. Lenin delivered a short speech to the Bolshevik faction, proposing that, after reading a special declaration, the Bolsheviks quit the Constituent Assembly. This proposal was adopted.
The Left SRs, wavering in their attitude to the Constituent Assembly, proposed after the Bolsheviks had left that the Assembly immediately vote on the peace policy being pursued by the Soviet state. When the right benches of the Constituent Assembly rejected this proposal, too, the Left SRs also quit the hall. In the early morning hours of January 7, the ARCEC adopted by a majority vote a decree on the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly.
On January 10, 1918, the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened in Petrograd; on January 13, the Third All-Russia Peasant Congress opened. At their first session, the delegates to the Peasant Congress decided to join the Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, and from then until January 18 the sessions were joint. The Congress became a truly national forum. It represented the working people of Russia and of all the national regions and played an enormous role in giving legislative form to and strengthening the Soviet state order.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Triumphant Sweep of Soviet Power. The Formation of the RSFSR. The Beginning of the Creation of a Voluntary Union of Nations.The Triumphant Sweep of Soviet Power. The Formation of the RSFSR. The Beginning of the Creation of a Voluntary Union of Nations. = The working people of all the nationalities of the former Russian Empire fought to put into practice the new government's program as formulated by Lenin. This was the ultimate reason for the triumphant extension of Soviet power across the territory of the enormous country.
All the counterrevolution's attempts to bring the soldiers of the old army into the struggle against the Soviet power failed: the soldiers of the Northern and Western fronts immediately sided with the revolution. On the Southwest, Romanian and Caucasus fronts, the struggle for the victory of the revolution lasted somewhat longer, but by the end of November and the beginning of December most of the soldiers had taken the part of the Soviet state there, too.
In the course of January and February, 1918, the revolution triumphed in the Cossack territories of the Don, where the revolutionary elements of the front-line Cossacks, supported by Red Guard detachments from Petrograd, Moscow and other cities broke up the mutiny led by Ataman Kaledin of the Don region. In January, 1918, Red Guards, soldiers and sailors wiped out the mutiny raised by Ataman Dutov in Orenburg.
The socialist revolution put an end to the bourgeois and landowner policy of national oppression. This was of enormous import for the triumph of Soviet power in the national borderlands, for the establishment of relations between the peoples of Russia that were new in principle.
In achieving its fundamental goal---the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat---the socialist revolution at the same time carried out reforms that had been the task of the bourgeois-democratic revolution but had not been implemented by the latter. Remnants of the 50 __CAPTION__ F. E. Dzerzhinsky. medieval socio-political order were eliminated: gentry landpwnership, the residue of old, pre-revolutionary institutions, and the division of the Population into estates; the Church was separated from the state and the school from the Church, new laws on the family and marriage were introduced, and national inequality was abolished. These reforms were earned out within a few months after the triumph of the October Evolution.
From the first days after the revolution, the Soviet state called for the reation of a voluntary union of nations that would permit no coercion of one nation by another---a union that would be based on complete trust, __PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51 on a clear consciousness of fraternal unity, on absolutely voluntary consent.
The first step in this direction was taken by the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which declared that the Soviet state guaranteed to all nations inhabiting Russia the genuine right of self-determination. The Congress announced a complete break with the policy of oppressing peoples pursued by imperialism. To implement the nationalities policy in practice, the Congress established a People's Commissariat for Nationalities, which was placed under J. V. Stalin's charge. The second step toward the creation of a voluntary and firm union of the peoples of Russia, a union based on mutual trust, was the proclamation on November 2, 1917, of the Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which announced the total emancipation of the peoples of Russia from national oppression and formulated the principles on which relations were henceforth to be based: equality and sovereignty, the right to free self-determination up to and including secession and the formation of an independent state, the annulment of all national and national-religious privileges and disabilities, the free development of national minorities and ethnographic groups inhabiting the territory of Russia. The Soviet power thereby declared clearly and distinctly that its policy on the nationalities question had, indeed could have, nothing in common with the policies of previous governments.
On November 20, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars adopted an "Appeal to All Moslem Laborers of Russia and the East" that solemnly announced that henceforth the beliefs and customs and the national and cultural institutions of these peoples were free and inviolable; the full might of the Soviets was promised for the defense and protection of the rights of all the peoples of Russia. The Appeal also said that the Soviet state had torn up all the secret treaties entered into by the tsarist government and ratified by the Provisional Government with respect to the seizure of Constantinople and the partition of Persia and Turkey, and that the peoples of the East must rise in struggle against imperialism and become the masters of their future. These two documents laid the basis for establishing cooperation among the peoples of Russia, who had been freed from the oppression of landowners and capitalists; on the basis of these documents, the Soviet state returned to the previously oppressed peoples their national identity.
The Soviet government granted autonomy to the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva, which were Russian protectorates: Bukhara and Khiva were declared free of all obligations imposed on them in the past by the tsarist government. In December, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars and the ARCEC ratified decrees recognizing the state independence of Finland and the self-determination of the people of "Turkish Armenia''; S. Shaumyan, Commissar for Caucasian Affairs, was instructed to help the Armenian people to exercise their rights.
The Soviet state was the first to recognize the right of Poland to self-determination and an independent existence., Objects of art and antiquities earlier removed from Poland were returned to the Polish people. A special Polish Commissariat was established in the People s Commissariat for Nationalities; the Polish Commissariat dealt with 52 matters concerning Polish citizens living on the territory of Soviet Russia.
These were the first steps toward the liberation of the peoples of the former Russian Empire from national oppression. The nationalities policy of the Soviet state furthered the victory of the working people of the non-Russian borderlands over the native bourgeoisie and landowners and helped to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat on the vast territory of Russia, which had in the past been a prison for nations.
In the struggle against the bourgeois-nationalist counterrevolution, the working people of the national territories established Soviet power in their areas: at the end of October, 1917, Soviet power triumphed in Byelorussia, and it subsequently emerged victorious in the Baltic region (Estonia and Latvia).
In December, 1917, and January, 1918, Soviet power triumphed in the Ukraine. The bourgeois-nationalist Central Rada, seeking to retard the development of the revolution in collusion with foreign imperialism and domestic counterrevolution, declared war on Soviet Russia. The workers of the cities of the Ukraine rose and, allied with revolutionary detachments arriving from Russia, overthrew the nationalist regime and proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic, headed by the People's Secretariat. On December 4, 1917, the government of Soviet Russia recognized the independence of the Ukraine and agreed to its secession or the establishment of federal relations with it.
Events in Moldavia unfolded in close connection with the nationwide revolutionary process. From November, 1917, through January, 1918, workers and peasants established Soviet power in Kishinev, Bendery, Tiraspol and other cities and localities throughout Moldavia. However, Soviet power took firm hold only in eastern (on the left side of the Dniester) Moldavia; western part of the country, between the Prut and the Dniester, known as Bessarabia, was in March, 1918, occupied by Romanian troops in agreement with Moldavian bourgeois nationalists and the Entente countries.
The power of the working people also triumphed in the Crimea and the North Caucasus. In Transcaucasia, Soviet power was established only in Baku, where the Baku Commune headed by a Council of People's Commissars was proclaimed. In the rest of Transcaucasia, the petty-bourgeois parties of the Azerbaijan Mussavatists, the Armenian uasnnaks and the Georgian Mensheviks established a "Transcaucasian Lornrmssariat'', the purpose of which was to prevent the establishment oi Soviet power and to isolate Transcaucasia from Soviet Russia.
__ERROR__On October 31, 1917, an armed uprising of the working people overthrew the old regime in Tashkent; in the middle of November, the inird Territorial Congress of Soviets proclaimed Soviet power throughout Turkestan. However, the Congress did not resolve the issue of of th"al auto.nomy for Turkestan. Bourgeois nationalists took advantage i this and, in alliance with Russian counterrevolutionaries, proclaimed rkestan's autonomy at,a pan-Moslem congress in Kokand. Establishing contact with nationalists in other areas, the Kokand separatists enHI^ptud to overthrow Soviet power in Turkestan. These attempts were aea by detachments of local Red Guards. In February, 1918, the Autonomy of Kokand was brought to an end.
53Thus, in the three months after the October Revolution Soviet power was established throughout the country. Explaining the reasons for so rapid a triumph, Lenin remarked: "A wave of civil war swept over the whole of Russia, and everywhere we achieved victory with extraordinary ease precisely because the fruit had ripened, because the masses had already gone through the experience of collaboration with the bourgeoisie. Our slogan 'All Power to the Soviets', which the masses had tested in practice by long historical experience, had become part of their flesh and = blood."^^1^^
It should be noted that major battles had not been necessary to establish the power of the working people. Since the classes that h id been overthrown did not dispose of sufficient armed force to provde serious opposition, over the greater part of the territory of the former Russian Empire power passed to the Soviets through peaceful means. Of 84 province capitals and other major cities, only in 15 was Soviet power established by way of armed conflict. This speaks of the humane nature of the October Socialist Revolution, a revolution that sought to reach all of its objectives without bloodshed and succeeded in doing so until the classes that had been overthrown, obtaining the support of foreign capital, forced a bloody civil war on the working people.
__*_*_*__The Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets (January, 1918) drew up the first balance of the triumphant sweep of Soviet power. It passed important resolutions and ratified the Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People. Russia was proclaimed a Republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. All power in the capital and in the provinces was henceforth to be exercised by people's representative organs---the Soviets. The Soviet Russian Republic was established, on the basis of an alliance of nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics.
The Declaration gave legal force to all the reforms that the Soviet state had carried out to that time. It specified that the new society's fundamental goal was to eliminate all exploitation of man by man, to suppress mercilessly opposition by the exploiters, to eliminate completely the division of society into classes and to create a socialist society. The Soviet state's policy of abrogating secret treaties was ratified, and extensive fraternization among the soldiers of the warring countries for the purpose of achieving a democratic peace among nations, without annexations or reparations, was approved.
The Third All-Russia Congress passed a special resolution on J. V. Stalin's report on the fundamental principles of the Soviet federation. The supreme organ of authority of the federation was the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which elected the ARCEC and the government of the Federation, the Council of People's Commissars. Future members of the Federation were granted the right to decide on the question of participation in the federal government and in federal Soviet institutions.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 89.
54 __CAPTION__ The Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets. January, 1918.The conversion of the Soviet Republic into a federal union began after the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets. The first autonomous unity within the Russian Federation was the Turkestan Soviet Republic. In January, 1918, the Fourth Extraordinary Territorial Congress of Soviets of Turkestan adopted a resolution offered by Bolsheviks on the Soviet autonomy of Turkestan. However, work toward the formation of Soviet autonomy was not completed at this Congress. Only the following, Fifth Territorial Congress, which met at the end of April and the beginning of May, 1918, adopted the "Statutes of the Turkestan Soviet Federal Republic'', making it a constituent part of the Russian Federation. The government of the RSFSR approved this decision and proposed to begin the joint examination of relations between the central and local organs of power.
At the same time, autonomous republics were formed in the North Caucasus and in the Black Sea region. The Terek Territory, inhabited by Kabardians, Chechens, Ingush, and Terek Cossacks was formed in rebruary, 1918, at the Second Congress of the Peoples of the Terek; Vladikavkaz was established as the capital. The bourgeois Terekf£aghestan government, formed by local nationalists, was overthrown by we workers and the poor of the Terek region.
In May, 1918, the Third Congress of Soviets of the Kuban and the "lack Sea areas proclaimed the Kuban-Black Sea Soviet Republic as a constituent part of the RSFSR. At the same time, the Don Autonomous 55 Republic and the Soviet Republic of Taurida in the Crimea were formed. In the first half of 1918, preparatory work was carried out for the establishment of the Tatar-Bashkir Republic; however, the beginning of the civil war and foreign intervention prevented the completion of this work.
The establishment of autonomous republics in the south, in the Volga and Urals regions and in Central Asia was evidence of the implementation of the policy of the self-determination of peoples, a policy that ihi Soviet state pursued in practical affairs.
The experience gained in the field of cooperation among the peoples of Russia through the formation of autonomous republics and the=r federal union with the RSFSR was generalized in the Constitution of the RSFSR, adopted by the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets in July, 1918. The Constitution consolidated the new order that had resulted from the triumph of the October Revolution, as well as the relations among peoples that were new in principle. The basis for the new relations among the nations and nationalities of Soviet Russia was provided by the establishment of a historically unprecedented type of state power aimed at freeing working people from all exploitation and coercion. This was why the independent nations united around revolutionary Russia. Lenin was confident that this federation would grow and become invincible. As he observed: "The laws and the state system which we are creating over here are the best earnest of its invincibility."^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Withdrawal from the Imperialist War.Withdrawal from the Imperialist War. = "The question of peace is a burning question, the painful question of the day"---with these words Lenin began his October 26 report on peace at the historic Session of the Second All-Russia Congress of = Soviets.^^2^^
The sanguinary world slaughter was in its fourth year. Millions of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, Czechs, Austrians and Germans had died and been maimed for purposes and interests alien to them, millions of people in the rear had been left without shelter or hope for the future, Dozens of bourgeois parties in Europe and America daily appealed to the "patriotic feelings" of working people and sought to persuade them to lay their energy and lives "on the altar of the Fatherland''. Socialist parties, who were supposed to defend the interests of working people, had betrayed their interests and, together with the bourgeoisie, backed the imperialist, anti-national war of conquest.
Immediately after the war broke out the Bolsheviks and Lenin came out against chauvinists and sham patriots and proclaimed for all the world to hear that the war, which had spread over the entire world, had nothing in common with the interests of the peoples, that it was necessary to end the war and that this could be done by the working people themselves taking the matter of war and peace into their own hands. And on the day of its triumph, the Soviet power appealed to all countries immediately to begin negotiations for the conclusion of a general armistice and peace. "The government considers it the greatest _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 481.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 249.
56 of crimes against humanity to continue this war over the issue of how to divide among the strong and rich nations the weak nationalities they have conquered, and solemnly announces its determination immediately to sign terms of peace to stop this war on the terms indicated, which are equally just for all nationalities without exception,'' read the Decree on Peace.^^1^^This first act of the Soviet state in effect formulated the prime principles of Soviet foreign policy---socialist internationalism and the peaceful coexistence of states with different social structures.
The Soviet government announced that it was renouncing secret diplomacy, which decided vital questions of foreign policy behind the peoples' backs. The Soviet government immediately proceeded to publish the secret treaties concluded by the tsarist and Provisional governments with imperialist states. The personnel of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs selected around 100 treaties and agreements for publication. The documents were published in November and December, 1917. They revealed to the whole world the secret that had bred the war. The whole world saw the cause for which millions of lives had perished.
From the first days of its existence, the Soviet government struggled actively for the conclusion of peace. On November 8, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs sent an official note to the governments of the warring states proposing that peace negotiations be started. The note was handed to the ambassadors and emissaries of the allied states, published in the Soviet press and repeatedly broadcast over radio. A few days later, the Soviet Republic sent a note to countries not participating in the war (Sweden, Norway, Spain, Denmark and others) asking them to assist in beginning peace negotiations.
The Soviet government three times (November 28, December 6 and January 30) sent notes and appeals directly to the governments of the United States, Britain, France and other powers proposing that peace negotiations be commenced. However, the political leaders of the Entente countries and the United States responded to none of these notes. The ambassadors of Britain, the United States, France, Italy and other countries accredited to Russia, acting in conformity with instructions received from their governments, decided not to establish any relations with the Soviet government. For instance, on November 18 the US Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, instructed his ambassador not to respond to any of the Soviet peace proposals. The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, stated that the British government did not intend to recognize the government of Lenin but would support the Cossacks and the Ukrainians, i.e., Kaledin and the counterrevolutionary Central Rada. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pichon, announced at a session of the Chamber of Deputies that France would maintain no relations with the Soviet government and would not conduct negotiations toward peace.
The Inter-Allied Conference in Paris at the end of November, 1917, adopted the same resolution. The heads of the governments and the ^misters representing the interests of the financial and industrial circles _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol, 26, p. 250.
57 of Britain, France, the United States and other countries wished to have no dealings with the worker-peasant government of Russia, which had infringed upon the ``sacred'' right of private property; conclusion of a democratic peace without annexations or reparations---the banner under which they were conducting the war---did not suit them.In Washington, London and Paris, secret conferences charted the plans of the leaders of the Entente countries: to isolate the Soviet Republic and, with the assistance of counterrevolutionary forces within Russia, restore the old regime. Lansing presented the President of the United States a memorandum that proposed lending financial and armed assistance to General Kaledin, who was gathering forces in the south of Russia for a campaign against the Soviet power. President Wilson approved the memorandum and instructed Col. House to begin negotiations on this score in London and Paris. On December 21--22, British and French ministers came to an agreement in Paris on the partition of Russia into spheres of operations for Britain and France. Hundreds of American, English and French instructors, observers and members of missions were sent to Russia's south, north and east; banks in London, Washington and Paris opened accounts with sums in the millions for Generals Kaledin, Kornilov and Krasnov, the Transcaucasian and Ukrainian nationalists, for all who were waging a struggle against the Soviet government. British war ships moved close to Archangel and Murmansk harbors, American and Japanese ships---to Vladivostok.
Soviet Russia's proposals for peace were rejected by the governments of the Entente countries, but they were supported by the working people and many progressive organizations in Europe, Asia and America. Though the bourgeois press distorted the character of events in Russia, the decrees on peace and on land, the information on the Soviet state's peace proposals, became known and the sympathies of the working people for the Soviet Republic became ever more clear and definite.
In Britain---in London, Manchester, Sheffield and other cities---meetings of solidarity with Soviet Russia were held. On January 27, 1918, a meeting of engineering workers in London's Albert Hall demanded that the, British government immediately conclude a truce and begin negotiations for a peace without annexations or reparations. Early in 1918, the leadership of the British Independent Labour Party, under the pressure of the masses, issued a statement on the necessity of concluding peace. In France, the December, 1917, trade union congress passed a resolution calling for peace negotiations. The demand for peace spread to the French army, where soldiers' disturbances began. Meetings of workers at which sympathy for the Russian proletariat was expressed were held in a number of places in the United States at the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918.
In Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, even bourgeois and Right-wing socialist papers admitted the great power of attraction of Lenin's Decree on Peace. In November, 1917, there were imposing demonstrations demanding the acceptance of the Soviet peace proposals in Berlin, Hamburg and other cities. The revolutionary Spartacus League organized the translation and distribution of millions of copies of the 58 Soviet Decree on Peace. Dozens of leaflets and proclamations calling for an immediate cessation of the war were issued. The government of Imperial Germany, with a view to the country's difficult economic situation, the exhaustion of human and material resources and the mounting anti-war mood among workers and soldiers, decided to respond to the Soviet government's peace initiative. On November 14, 1917, Germany and her allies informed the Soviet government of their willingness to enter negotiations. However, the ends that the German imperialists were pursuing had nothing in common with a just and democratic peace. By concluding peace in the East, they calculated to transfer their troops to the Western front and so inflict a decisive blow on the Entente countries. With regard to Russia, Germany and her allies hoped to impose an extortionate peace treaty and establish economic and political dominance over her.
On the same day that it received information on Germany's agreement to begin peace negotiations, the Soviet government addressed proposals for peace to the Entente countries. London, Paris and Washington did not respond. Entente did not intend to finish the war. The Council of People's Commissars was then forced to negotiate a truce with representatives of the German-Austrian bloc while continuing efforts to conclude a general peace.
In the second half of November, a Soviet delegation headed by A. A. loffe went to Brest-Litoysk to conduct peace negotiations, which began on the 20th. The delegation included, in addition to Bolsheviks, Left SRs and some generals and officers of the old army who had sided with the revolution, including Admiral V. M. Altfater, General A. A. SamoilO and others.
The Soviet delegation read a declaration on the principles of a general, democratic peace without annexations and reparations and proposed that the German side invite the Entente countries to take part in the negotiations. The German-Austrian side stated that it was not empowered to decide such questions.
The Soviet conditions for and armistice on all fronts contained a ban on transferring German troops to the Western front. The Council of People's Commissars stated on this point: "Defending the interests of the allied peoples at the negotiations, the Russian government has established as one of the principal conditions for a truce the non-transference of the armies of the Eastern front to the Western front. The truce cannot and will not aid one militarism against the other."
As a result of the negotiations, an agreement was concluded halting military operations at first for 10 and subsequently for 28 days. The guns fell silent along the entire Russo-German front; millions of soldiers exhausted by the war obtained hope of their imminent return home.
__ERROR__After the conclusion of the truce, the Soviet delegation advanced, at negotiations on December 9, a concise program for the conclusion of a peace without annexations or reparations. The Austro-German delegation labored over a response to the Soviet formula for peace for three ^tys and was compelled to state its adherence to the Soviet terms. However, the refusal of the Entente countries to conduct negotiations for a general democratic peace activized the predatory activities of German politicians vis-a-vis Russia. The German Minister of Foreign 59 Affairs, von K\"uhlmann, who headed the German delegation, and General Hoffmann offered the Soviet side terms of peace that envisioned tearing from Russia more than 150 thousand square kilometers of her territory, including all of the Ukraine and parts of Byelorussia and the Baltic area. The Soviet delegation, adjourning the negotiations for ten days, returned to Petrograd. The Council of People's Commissars once more appealed to the Entente countries to take part in the negotiations. This time, too, no response was forthcoming. Negotiations resumed on December 27. The German delegation immediately resorted to threats and ultimata.
The young Soviet state was in an unusually difficult position. With the front disintegrating, the economy in ruins and the masses in a state of extreme weariness, the Soviet Republic could not continue the war. It was necessary to win a breathing spell at whatever cost---this was vitally necessary for the creation of the Red Army and Navy, for the country's economic recovery.
Heated arguments went on all over Russia. The advanced workers and peasants, understanding that the republic had no strength for a war, felt it necessary to sign even an onerous and annexationist peace. They accepted this with teeth clenched, hoping that the course of events would free Russia from the difficult terms of the peace. A part of the working people, however, outraged by Germany's insolent demands arid heady with the first successes of the victorious proletarian revolution, felt that the Soviet power and the international workers' movement could easily and quickly deal with all of international imperialism. At meetings they expressed their willingness to defend the Soviet Republic.
With the Germans levelling onerous demands, all the enemies of the Soviet power joined in the act. Cadets, Mensheviks and SRs sent up heart-rending cries that the Bolsheviks were "selling out" Russia and called for a war against Germany, hoping that German bayonets would crush the socialist revolution. The Entente countries also counted on destroying the Soviet Republic with Germany's assistance and then dictating their own terms to both Russia and Germany.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that within the Bolshevik Party itself a group of "Left Communists'', headed by N. I. Bukharin, opposed the peace. They considered any agreement with imperialism inadmissible and called for the declaration of a " revolutionary war" against imperialism as a whole. In effect, they were supported by L. D. Trotsky, who headed the Soviet delegation.
In this unusually complex situation, Lenin called for accepting the German terms of peace and ridiculed those who rejected in principle the conclusion of treaties with capitalist countries. Objective reality was forcing the Soviet state to sign the peace. One could utter fine words about defending the revolutionary homeland and about much else besides, said Lenin, but if there were no guns or machine guns, if soldiers were leaving the front by the thousands, there was neither the force nor the possibility to repulse the onslaught of the German armies. Lenin had a fine feeling for the mood and state of the peasants dressed in soldiers' greatcoats, he knew that they were weary of war and dreamed of peace. Lenin's position on this issue was supported by many Party and Soviet organizations and by the workers of most factories in 60 Petrograd, Moscow, the Urals and the miners of the Donets Coal Basin MISSING (Donbas).
The Central Committee repeatedly discussed the question of peace. Lenin, fighting the "Left Communists'', won a decision for drawing out negotiations on any pretext but, in the event that the Germans issued an ultimatum, signing the peace. Lenin (as he later recalled at the Seventh Party Congress in March, 1918) gave Trotsky corresponding instructions before the latter left for Brest.
Trotsky, however, did not carry out these instructions and, after the Germans had presented an ultimatum at a meeting of the Political Committee of the Brest-Litovsk Conference on January 28, 1918, stated that "Soviet Russia does not sign the peace, it ends the war and demobilizes the army".
Trotsky thus broke off negotiations, doing great damage to the Soviet Republic and putting it in mortal danger. He gave assurances that the Germans would not advance. But on February 18, the guns again spoke and tens of thousands of German soldiers advanced on Petrograd and Moscow.
Despite heroic resistance, the detachments of Red Guards, workers and sailors, unable to check the German army, rolled backwards. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government appealed to the people to bend all their efforts to the defense of the country. Detachments of the Red Army were formed from workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors of the old army in the heat of battle.
The Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars met daily. Lenin swayed the waverers and criticized sharply those who did not wish to conclude a peace. This was one of the most difficult periods in the life of the Soviet state, in the life of the Bolshevik Party. In bitter struggle with the "Left Communists'', Lenin's policy emerged victorious. The Central Committee of the Party, the Council of People's Commissars and the ARCEC, despite the opposition of Bukharin, Trotsky and others, decided to accept the German peace terms. True, Germany, taking advantage of the Soviet Republic's difficult position, now added a number of other territorial demands (in the Baltic area, in the Caucasus, etc.) and imposed reparations totalling six thousand million roubles.
On March 3, 1918, the peace treaty was signed in Brest-Litovsk. Three days later, on March 6, the Seventh Congress of the Party met in Petrograd. It supported Lenin's position on the question of peace and approved the conclusion of the treaty. On March 14, in Moscow (which had a few days earlier been made the capital of the RSFSR), the Fourth Extraordinary Congress of Soviets opened. Delegates were present from all provinces and districts of the Soviet Republic. On March 16, the Congress ratified the peace treaty.
The terms of the Brest Treaty were unbelievably onerous for Soviet Russia: vast expanses of territory had been torn from the country. Soviet Russia was required to pay enormous reparations and to conclude extremely unfavorable commercial agreements. But the Brest Peace Save the Soviet state a vitally necessary breathing spell.
Despite enormous difficulties, the Soviet power gave the peoples of Russia the promised and long-awaited peace. The leaders of the United 61 States, England and France had failed to obstruct the conclusion of th peace.
The Brest Peace had enormous international significance. Withdrav ing from the war, Soviet Russia gave all peoples an example of the struggle for peace and showed that it was possible to put an end to the hated war. The Soviet program of peace won the sympathy of the working people of the West and East and contributed to the development of the revolutionary movement among workers, peasants and soldiers.
__*_*_*__The socialist revolution in Russia confirmed one of the most important tenets of Marxism --- that the laboring masses are the vehicle of history and that their active and conscious role after liberation from oppression and exploitation will constantly grow.
The Soviet power established by the October Socialist Revolution is one of the forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The new state differed fundamentally from the bourgeois state not only in the forms of state organization, but above all in the historical role that it played.
The proletarian state was a state democratic in a new way (for the proletariat and the propertiless in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against the bourgeoisie). Democratic in a new way, for the proletarian state took the most decisive steps towards instituting genuine freedom, equality and democracy. Dictatorial in a new way, for, defending socialist democracy from sabotage organized by the classes that had ruled formerly, crushing their attempts to restore capitalism^ the proletarian state simultaneously began to implement universal labor conscription, which meant above all forcing the rich and propertied classes to perform their civic duty; the proletarian state considered this to be one of its priority tasks.
The essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat does not consist in compulsion. By transferring the means of production to the people, which made possible to plan the development of the economy proceeding from the interests of society as a whole and not from the interests of capitalists' profits, the proletarian state demonstrated to all its humanitarian character.
Conclusion of peace with Germany made it possible for the Soviet state to get down to the business of rebuilding the economy, to proceed to the building of socialism. The bases for a scientific plan for socialist construction were developed by Lenin in his "The Chief Task of Our Day'', "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government'', "'Left-Wing' Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality'', "Draft Plan of Scientific and Technical Work'', "Basic Propositions on Economic and Especially on Banking Policy".
This plan envisioned the socialization of the basic means of production, the creation of modern industry, the electrification of the economy, the reorganization of the small peasant farm along socialist .Mines and the implementation of a cultural revolution.
Setting the goal of creating a socialist social structure more advanced than capitalism, Lenin emphasized that this could be done only through a maximum increase in productivity and a high level of labor organization. 62 He considered that, along with the development of major industry---the material basis of socialism --- a prime guarantee for raising labor productivity lay in providing for a steady increase in working people's level of education and culture, in instilling a socialist attitude toward
"The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government" indicated the concrete ways to achieve a socialist organization of labor; introduction of the most stringent account for and supervision of the production and distribution of goods, the development of socialist competition, the implementation of the socialist principle of payment for labor, the establishment of one-man management, stronger labor discipline, use of compulsion with respect to loiterers, economizing on all resources, and so on.
The Soviet state did not repeat the mistake of the Paris Commune and immediately took over the State Bank. Control was established over private banks, and in the middle of December they were nationalized. Banking operations in the country were declared a state monopoly, all private banks were merged with the State Bank, and a single national bank of the Russian Republic was established. At the end of January, 1918, the share capital of the former private banks was confiscated. Following on that, the Council of People's Commissars published a decree cancelling foreign and domestic loans concluded by the tsarist and Provisional governments.
At the end ojf 1917, the Soviet state began nationalizing industrial enterprises, beginning with individual large factories and plants. The First All-Russia Congress of Economic Councils, called on May 26, 1918, at the initiative of the Central Committee of the Bolhevik Party, played an important part in deciding fundamental questions on the organization of the economy. The Congress stated that it was necessary to complete the nationalization of industry. On June 28, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree nationalizing the major enterprises belonging to joint-stock companies in the basic industrial sectors: mining, metallurgy, metal-working, textiles, the electrotechnical industry, lumbering, wood-working, tobacco, rubber, etc. By December, the nationalization of industry had, for all practical purposes, been completed.
Nationalization was a difficult and complex task. But it was even more difficult and complex to set the nationalized enterprises to functioning properly, to raise labor productivity, to train knowledgeable and able economic leaders from among the workers. The October Revolution, which had fundamentally changed the position of the working class, making it the dominant class disposing, together with other working people, of all the resources of the country, laid the basis tor a new attitude towards labor. Advanced workers were now conscious that working at socialist enterprises they work for themselves, for their own society.
__ERROR__Following Lenin's instructions, workers began to organize produc-
re'i *° Pro.ve labor discipline. They themselves worked out factory regulations aimed at strengthening discipline and at improving the Organization of labor. The example of the workers at the Bryansk Plant in Bezhitsa obtained wide renown. The work rules that they drew up 63 called for punishment for violations of labor discipline, payment only for work performed, emphasized the need for one-man management, and so on. Lenin gave high marks to the "Bryansk rules'', advising that they be extended to other factories.
Lenin repeatedly indicated that, to build socialism, the victorious working class must enlist and utilize the experience of bourgeois specialists---engineers, agronomists, etc. He ridiculed the arguments of the "Left Communists" that it was possible to build socialism without the use of specialists. As early as December, 1917, Lenin noted that educated people were corning forward, siding with the people, with the laboring masses, and helping to break the opposition of the servants of capital. At the same time, Lenin even then saw one of the most important tasks of the socialist revolution in training a new intelligentsia, new scientific and technical personnel from among the workers and peasants.
The victory of the October Revolution marked the beginning of a cultural revolution. The laboring masses, united in the Soviets, had overthrown capitalism, but this alone was not enough. Reforms in the field of culture included in first order such measures as eliminating illiteracy among the adult population, developing primary education so as to extend it to the entire younger generation, reforming institutions of higher learning and making use of all the knowledge that had been accumulated by mankind in the past.
It is indicative that even in 1918, despite all the objective and subjective difficulties, the Soviet government began preparing the first plans for the electrification of the economy and for developing the country's productive forces. At the beginning of 1918, a commission for studying Russia's energy resources set to work under the Supreme Economic Council. Committees were formed for the electrification of the Central Industrial Region and the Donbas. The best scientists in Russia were involved in drawing up plans for electrification. In July, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted, on Lenin's proposal, a resolution on the construction of the Volkhov hydroelectric plant. The first blueprints for this project had been drawn up by G. O. Graftio, a leading scientist and energeticist, in 1911. However, they were not executed before the revolution. The Soviet government allocated funds, and construction began. The Council of People's Commissars also adopted a resolution on the construction of the Shatura electric power plant. Programs were drawn up for the development of the UralsKuznetsk coal basin, for railroad construction and for the development of irrigation systems in Turkestan.
The success of socialist construction depended to a large extent on strengthening the position of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the village. It was necessary to curb the kulaks, who came out against the Soviet power, to consolidate the forces of the poor peasants, to secure the support of the middle peasants and thereby strengthen the alliance between the working class and the laboring peasantry. This task was inextricably bound up with the struggle for grain, for the solution of the food problem depended on whether the Soviet state was able to break the opposition of the kulaks and consolidate its influence over the laboring peasants.
64In the spring of 1918, the Communist Party and the Soviet state decided to send thousands of advanced workers to the villages to provide assistance to the village poor, to crush the kulaks and to organize the supply of grain to the hungry cities. The best workers from Petrograd, Moscow and other major industrial cities were, as a rule, sent into the food detachments. By the fall of 1918, more than 20 thousand workers were in the food detachments. They went to the village under Lenin's slogan: "The Struggle for Grain Is the Struggle for Socialism.'' The workers not only requisitioned grain from the kulaks, they also rallied the village poor for the struggle against the village bourgeoisie, the kulaks, passing on to the poor their experience in class struggle and in organizing the working class.
Lenin attributed great importance to the experience in socialist
construction acquired during the first half of 1918. "This experience will
never be forgotten,'' he wrote. "It has gone down in history as
socialism's gain, and on it the future world revolution will erect its
socialist =
edifice."^^1^^
~
The October Revolution and the World Revolutionary Process. = The October Socialist Revolution will forever be associated with a fundamental turn in the history of mankind---the turn from capitalism to socialism. It was the October Revolution that gave the world practical experience in the solution of the most fundamental social problems: the overthrow of the power of the exploiters and the establisnment of the dictatorship of the proletariat; the conversion of private, bourgeois and landlord property into public, socialist property; the just solution of the agrarian problem to the advantage of the peasantry; the liberation of dependent peoples from colonial and national oppression; the creation of the political and economic prerequisites for the construction of socialism.
The October Revolution was the first victory of the world socialist revolution, not only fundamentally changing the political and socioeconomic cast of one of the world's greatest powers but also raising the international liberation movement to a new, higher level; it showed the entire world, as Lenin said, the way to socialism and at the same time let the bourgeoisie see with its own eyes that the end of its rule was approaching. A new chapter in world history began.
In bourgeois historiography and literature, virtually the most widespread anti-communist interpretation of the October Revolution boils down to the assertion that the revolution in Russia occurred not according to the teaching of Marx but contrary to and in refutation of it. Marx is alleged to have viewed the socialist revolution as the result of the development of capitalism, as the consequence of laws immanent in capitalism. Yet the October Revolution occurred in Russia, in a backward country. From this follows the conclusion that the October Revolution was a purely Russian, national phenomenon, that its examples, its laws and its experience are of no general import and that jhe October Revolution does not confirm but contradicts Marx's teaching on the socialist revolution.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 413.
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5--161 65Objective study of history refutes such assertions. Russia, a country with a middling level of capitalist development, also had the most developed forms of capitalism existing at the time. The extraordinarily diverse conditions of social development in some areas and among some peoples in Russia made it a singular model of the heterogeneous world of the time. The October Revolution, for all its uniqueness, was a product of the contradictions characteristic not for Russia alone but for the entire world of the period of imperialism and the general crisis of capitalism. Therefore, it could not but anticipate a number of processes common to all countries making the transition from capitalism to socialism, and thus confirmed the truth of the Marxist theory of proletarian revolution.
The universal importance of the October Revolution is inextricably linked with the international character of Leninism. Lenin, as a continuer of Marx, was a true internationalist. In his theoretical and political activity he did not confine himself to his own country, rather devoting the most attentive study to the experience of other elements in the international workers' movement. With exceptional care, Lenin studied all the forms of struggle employed by the European proletariat, the national movements of the East, various democratic movements, comparing them with the specific situation in Russia, with the traditions of her revolutionary movement. He saw and understood which part of the revolutionary experience of every country was of a limited, transitional, specific character and which part was general, fundamental, the heritage of all; he was able to isolate local specific features, random historical zig-zags, never raising them to the level of a general law but on the other hand never ignoring general patterns relevant to all countries. This is why the significance of Leninism, of its immensely important scientific discoveries --- the possibility that the socialist revolution might triumph in a single country, the development of a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, the Republic of Soviets as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat---far transcend the Russian framework; this is why Leninism was a continuation of Marxism as an international doctrine and became a powerful theoretical weapon of the entire international working class.
The October Revolution was a triumph of Marxism-Leninism. It led to the overthrow of capitalism and the creation of a new society in which exploitation of man by man was absent. The victory of the October Revolution opened the era of the triumph of socialism and the downfall of capitalism; it confirmed the correctness of Lenin's proposition that the socialist revolution could emerge victorious first in a single country. In the course of the socialist revolution, the working class showed that it was the spokesman for social progress, the leading force in accomplishing the revolutionary changes dictated by the times. The revolution showed that it was both possible and necessary to bring other categories of the working population, above all the working peasantry, to the side of the working class. It was, indeed, the alliance of the working class with the poor peasants, supported by the entire laboring peasantry, that led to the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia.
The October Revolution vividly demonstrated the great role of the Party of the working class. The party of a new type created by Lenin proved to be the force that could unite all the currents of the 66 revolutionary movement and ensure the leading role of the proletariat in the struggle for socialist and democratic changes, for land, peace and national liberation. In this period, the political consciousness of the Communist vanguard, its fidelity to the cause of revolution, its tenacity, selflessness and utter heroism, were especially clear. Relying on these remarkable qualities, formed over the course of the history of Bolshevism, pursuing the correct strategy and tactics, the Bolsheviks won the masses to their side and organized them for the decisive contest for the power of the Soviets. The first steps taken to solve the most important political, economic and military tasks that faced the new power showed that leadership by the Party was the decisive condition for movement forward. The subsequent course of history was to show that the leading role of the Communist Party was one of the fundamental factors in the successful construction of the new society.
Putting into practice the principal ideas of scientific communism on the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the leading role of the Communist Party, on the worker-peasant alliance, the October Socialist Revolution enriched with its experience the world communist and workers' movement, demonstrating that the unity of the international tactics of the communist and workers' movement requires such an application of the fundamental principles of communism that provides for their correct modification in details, their correct adjustment to national and national-state differences.
The October Revolution has no equal in the degree of its impact on the course of world history. It roused to revolutionary movement the laboring masses of all continents and all countries. The increased level of organization of the popular masses was reflected above all in the growth and strengthening of the vanguard of the proletariat---Communist parties (in the two years after the October Revolution, Communist parties were created in 13 countries)---in the rapid growth of trade unions, youth and women's organizations.
The flames of revolution raged in the center of Europe for more than five years, destroying the German and the Austro-Hungarian monarchies; they were replaced by national republics. And though the bourgeoisie succeeded in maintaining itself in power, it could not restore the order that had existed previously. The October Revolution amplified social contradictions and the class struggle, accelerated the leftward movement of the masses and showed them a new historical perspective in their struggle for liberation and socialism. At the same time, it had an impact on bourgeois politics, forcing the bourgeoisie to make a number of economic and even political concessions that improved the position of the laboring masses and eased the conditions of their struggle against exploitation.
Under the impact of the October Revolution, the oppressed and enslaved peoples of the colonies and colonial dependencies rose against imperialism. The victory of the revolution provoked a chain reaction of mass national liberation, anti-imperialist uprisings: the March insurrection of 1919 in Korea, the revolutionary movement of May 4, 1919, in China; the revolutionary upsurge in India between 1918 and 1922; the war against British domination in Afghanistan in 1919; the liberation struggle of the Turkish people in 1919--1922; the patriotic uprising in __PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 67 Egypt in 1919, in Syria and Iran in 1920; the people's revolution in Mongolia; peasant uprisings in Tropical Africa; the strike movement among the South African proletariat. All these were links in a single national liberation movement that swept the colonial and dependent countries.
Since the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia^ all social processes and events in every part of the world have been affected by a new and powerful revolutionary factor: the division of the world into two systems, socialist and capitalist. In connection with the formation of the two systems in the world, the fundamental contradiction of capitalism---the contradiction between labor and capital---has taken on an expression new in principle. It has acquired a through-going character, manifest not only in politics, economics, the class structure of society, but also in other most important social spheres, in all areas of human activity: in ideology, culture, science, ethics and daily life.
The October Revolution opened a new phase in the development of the international economy, a phase typical of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, from the dominance of the economic laws of capitalism to the establishment of the laws of socialist economics. The triumph of the October Revolution established new laws of world development, laws stemming from the competition and interaction of the two social systems --- as Lenin pointed out. The capitalist and socialist systems, despite the antagonistic contradictions dividing them, are participants in the international division of labor, and the very logic of the development of productive forces requires the continual expansion of economic, scientific and cultural ties between them. Ignoring or underrating the crucial importance of economic competition between the two systems leads to a distortion of the prospects for the revolutionary transformation of the world, the beginning of which was set by the October Socialist Revolution.
With the formation of the Soviet state, which advanced the great slogan of peace and began to apply it in relations among peoples and countries, mankind found a trusty bulwark in its struggle against wars of conquest, in its struggle for peace and security of nations.
The October Revolution not only affepted the development of world history. Most important was the fact that it brought the working class, working people, oppressed peoples, all those who struggle against imperialism, who struggle for the building of a new, just and equitable society, advanced revolutionary theory and revolutionary experience. The worldwide historical significance of the October Revolution consists in the fact that it showed a way and revealed forms and methods of revolutionary change that have acquired an international character. The October Socialist Revolution contains inexhaustible riches in the theory and practice of revolutionary struggle, it is a model of scientific strategy and tactics.
[68] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE STRUGGLE OF THE SOVIET REPUBLICSIntervention Begins. Soviet Russia Becomes a United Military Camp. Building the Red Army. First Victories. The Entente Steps Up Its Intervention. Strengthening the Alliance Between Working Class and Peasantry. Destruction of the Body of Kolchak's Forces. The MilitaryPolitical Alliance of the Soviet Republics. Denikin Defeated. Victories on Other Fronts. A Breathing Spell. The Last Campaign of the Interventionists Is Broken Up. The Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Liberation of the Borderlands. Formation of New Autonomous Republics. The Sources of Victory and Its Significance.
Intervention Begins. The Communist Party and the Soviet government strove to prolong the breathing spell obtained at so onerous a cost. As Lenin observed, "it is our duty to do everything that our diplomacy can do to delay the moment of war, to extend the respite period; we promise the workers and peasants to do all we can for = peace."^^1^^ The Soviet government scrupulously observed the terms of the Brest Peace Treaty, addressed new peace proposals to the governments of the Entente countries, showed exceptional circumspection and restraint in foreign policy and at the same time stepped up military preparations to repulse imperialist aggression.
However, international imperialism and the counterrevolution within Russia---the deposed classes of the landowners and bourgeoisie, the clergy, the top-ranking generals and officers of the old army, the privileged segment of the bourgeois intelligentsia, the kulaks---could not reconcile themselves to the establishment of the first state in the world in which power belonged to the working people. With inadequate forces to organize a civil war, they turned to foreign capital for material and military assistance. The deposed classes of Russia thus entered into collusion with international imperialism, betraying the interests of the country in order to restore their class dominance.
The First World War continued for some time in the West, the two hostile groups of powers --- the Entente on the one side and the Austro-German group on the other---seeking to achieve victory and world primacy.
Soviet Russia, having concluded the Brest Peace, resolved to utilize the breathing space to carry out fundamental social reforms, revive the economy and give the people, exhausted by the long war, to rest and take up peaceful labor. Only thus was it possible to reinforce the economic and defense capacity of the young Soviet state.
Soviet Russia's international position in the spring and summer of 1918 was difficult. The imperialists of the Entente sought to draw the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 379.
69 country into the war against the Austro-German coalition and to introduce Entente troops into Soviet territory. The latter move was delayed for some time by disagreements among the Entente states--- between the United States and Japan in the Far East, especially.The Austro-German group, though it was interested in observing the terms of the Brest Peace, did not miss the opportunity to ``improve'' on those terms by seizing new territories from Soviet Russia. There was in Germany, too, a war party ready at any moment to tear up the peace treaty with Russia and renew the war in order by force to seize Russian resources---coal, oil, ores, grain.
The Soviet power had to show restraint and caution, to maneuver and retreat, in order to preserve peaceful conditions for the existence of the young Soviet state. The revolution was passing through enormous difficulties.
Soon after the October Revolution, the imperialists of the Entente declared a blockade of Soviet Russia so as to force the Soviet people, through economic pressure, to submit to the imperialists. At the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918 they drew up---and concealed from the public of their own countries --- plans for a criminal attack on the Soviet Republic. France was to secure the overthrow of Soviet power in the Ukraine, the Crimea and Bessarabia, Britain was to do the same in the north, on the Don, the Kuban and in the Caucasus, while the United States and Japan were to deal with the Far East and Siberia.
Woodrow Wilson, the American President, who gave himself out as a ``peacemaker'', in 1918 proposed that the allies tear from Russia the Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Baltic area and other Soviet territories. Siberia was to become an American colony. And Japan, which possessed a million-man, trained army, was not averse to seizing the Far East and Siberia, taking advantage of Soviet Russia's military weakness. Disagreements between Japan and the United States for a while delayed open Japanese intervention.
The Entente did not recognize the Peace of Brest-Litovsk. They decided to use it as a pretext for a military incursion into Russia and, together with the forces of domestic counterrevolution, to strangle the Soviet power and force Russia to continue the war for the benefit of Anglo-French and American capital.
The intervention by the states of the Entente began without a declaration of war and in fact the counterrevolutionary goals of this move were masked by hypocritical and false declarations of the allies' wish "to defend" Russia from "the German danger''. But the secret documents of the Entente stated plainly that the destruction of Bolshevism was the principal goal of the intervention. In March, 1918, British, American and French soldiers landed in Murmansk. Taking advantage of the weakness of Soviet troops in the area and the treason of some members of the local Soviets who announced the invitation of Anglo-French and American troops to the north, the Entente troops occupied Murmansk and Archangel and prepared to move to Moscow and Petrograd. The leaders of the Entente declared that their main purpose was to secure the sea lanes to Russia. In June, the Entente states increased the number of their troops in the area to ten thousand men and placed the British General F. C. Poole in command.
70Soviet detachments formed into the Sixth Army resisted the intervention in the north. Later the Northern Front was created and put under the command of M. S. Kedrov, a soldier and an old Bolshevik. A flotilla was created on the Northern Dvina and put under the command of the deputy chairman of the Archangel Soviet, the worker P. F. Vinogradov.
The Soviet Far East soon became the object of the Entente's intervention. As early as the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918 the American cruiser Brooklyn, the Japanese cruisers Iwashland Asahi and the British cruiser Suffolk appeared in Vladivostok harbor. They did not immediately undertake aggressive action, however. The delay was caused by lack of agreement on who would first land troops. This question was resolved at a conference of Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of France, Italy and Great Britain that met in London on March 15, 1918 and proposed that Japan send her troops to the Far East and Siberia, but stressed that the United States must take an active part in the intervention.
On April 4, 1918, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok. A provocation organized by Japanese agents---the murder of two Japanese citizens --- served as the pretext. A British landing party went to shore the same day.
__CAPTION__ The first volunteers for the Red Army. [71]In a note to the representative of Great Britain, the Soviet government demanded the immediate withdrawal of the troops that had landed. However, the British government responded that the landing at Vladivostok had been effected for the sole purpose of protecting the security and property of foreign citizens in Vladivostok.
Meanwhile the imperialist intervention increased. Japan provided assistance to the White detachments of Atamans Semyonov and Kalmykov who were operating in the Transbaikal and the Primorye areas; using American and British resources, Admiral Kolchak, who had been driven from the Black Sea Fleet, began to gather White troops in Harbin. In August, 1918, an American Expeditionary Force, under the command of General Graves, and new British, French and Italian units landed in Vladivostok.
The Soviet government called on working people to repulse the intervention. Siberia was placed under martial law: militaryrevolutionary staffs organizing armed detachments were established everywhere. Despite their lack of numbers, Soviet troops under the leadership of their young and talented commander, Sergey Lazo, drove back the offensive of White bands in May and June of 1918. In the Primorye area, Soviet troops fought Ataman Kalmykov.
Meanwhile, the SR and Menshevik parties established a " government of autonomous Siberia" in Vladivostok. Soviet power was overthrown. Supported by British, French, Japanese and American detachments, in July and August of 1918 the Whites took Irkutsk, Verkhneudinsk, Chita and other cities. On August 28, a conference of Party and Soviet officials of Siberia and the Far East, meeting at Urulga Station, with a view to the difficult circumstances of the struggle against the interventionists and the Whites, decided temporarily to suspend frontal combat and to switch over to partisan operations.
Simultaneously with intervention on Russia's borderlands, the imperialists attempted to strike at the Soviet Republic at its center. In May, 1918, agents of the Entente provoked a mutiny by the 40-thousand-man Czechoslovak Legion, which the Entente viewed as one of the links in the struggle against Soviet Russia. The Czechoslovak Legion had been formed in Russia from former prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian army prior to the October Revolution. The Entente at first proposed to transfer it to the Western Front against Germany. After Russia's withdrawal from the war, the Soviet government granted permission for the Czechs and Slovaks to withdraw through Siberia and the Far East to France. At the end of May, when 60 of the Legion's troop trains were spread out between Penza and Vladivostok, the command of the Czechoslovak troops rose in mutiny. With the active assistance of the Whites, SRs and Mensheviks, the mutineers in June and July seized an enormous expanse of Siberia and part of the Volga and Urals regions. Deceived by imperialist propaganda, the Czechoslovak legionnaires became interventionist troops used by the Entente.
After the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Legion, kulak-SR mutinies broke out in the Volga area, the Urals and Siberia. Soviet power was replaced by SR-Menshevik ``governments'': in Archangel, a "northern government" headed by the SR N. Chaikovsky; in Samara the 72 ``Komuch'' (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, who had fled there from Petrograd after the dispersal of the Assembly); in Omsk the "Siberian government'', in Yekaterinburg the "Urals government''; and, as already mentioned, the "government of autonomous Siberia" in Vladivostok. These governments were used to conceal the fact that the interventionists wielded the real power.
Foreign and domestic counterrevolutionary forces united in the summer of 1918. In the territories that they had seized, the working population was in a very grave situation. All the achievements of Soviet power were eliminated and a savage regime established. In the north, the American and Anglo-French invaders established a network of prisons and concentration camps. The Whites and interventionists wreaked mass violence against the population, tortured and shot people associated with the Soviets, destroyed entire villages and tormented imprisoned Red Army men.
Kulaks waged a desperate struggle against Soviet power. They refused to sell grain from their enormous reserves to the state. In the Volga area, Siberia and the provinces of Central Russia, kulak rebellions flared up.
The imperialists of the Entente hastened to seize the southern areas of the country with their enormous wealth, too --- the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia and Turkestan. For this purpose, the imperialists provided material aid to the White Generals Kornilov, Denikin and Alexeyev, who had created on the Don a 40-thousand-man Volunteer Army of officers and rich Cossacks for a campaign against the Soviet power.
At the beginning of 1918, Britain formed in Northern Iran detachments of British soldiers under the command of Generals Dunsterville and Malleson; this force was to seize Baku and Turkestan. To take control of Baku and the surrounding areas, the British made use of detachments of Terek Cossacks headed by Col. Bicherakhov, who gained the trust of the Baku Council of People's Commissars and opened the door to British troops.
The bourgeois-nationalist Mussavatist Party in Azerbaijan, the Dashnaks in Armenia and the Mensheviks in Georgia gave substantial assistance to the imperialists. It was the Dashnaks, Mensheviks and SRs who, on the pretext of seeking defense against the threat of a Turkish occupation of Baku, on July 25 passed a resolution in the Baku Soviet inviting the British. The Bolsheviks called on the masses to repell the enemy, but the forces were too unequal. On July 31, 1918, Soviet power in Baku fell; on August 4, British troops entered the city.
The British imperialists decided to seize Transcaspia and Turkestan as well. Local bourgeois-nationalist forces, supported by the British, mutinied in Transcaspia on July 11--12, 1918. Having overthrown Soviet power in a number of cities, they established a counterrevolutionary "government of Transcaspia" headed by the SR Funtikov. On August 19, the British government, on the pretext of combatting the danger of Bolshevism and a Turko-German offensive, concluded an agreement with the Funtikov ``government''. However, the British met stubborn resistance from Soviet troops and were unable to advance into the territory of the Turkestan Republic.
73Ataman Dutov of the Orenburg Cossacks, who engineered a counterrevolutionary mutiny in July of 1918, subsequently rendered great service to the interventionists. Taking Orenburg, he cut Turkestan off from the central territories of the country.
The presence of interventionists and Whites in Transcaucasia and Central Asia meant the plundering and annihilation of the peaceful population and reprisals against members of the Soviets and Party. The Commissar of Labor of the Turkestan Republic, P. G. Poltoratsky, was shot. The leaders of the Baku Commune, 26 commissars --- T. Amirov, A. Amiryan, B. Avakyan, M. Azizbekov, M. Basin, A. Berg, I. Fioletov, P. Japaridze, G. Korganov, I. Malygin, G. Petrov, S. Shaumyan, Ya. Zevin and others --- were seized and on September 20, 1918, shot in the desert sands of Transcaspia.
The Austro-German imperialists made their own not insignificant ``contribution'' to intervention against Soviet Russia. Signing a treaty with the bourgeois Ukrainian Central Rada on January 27, 1918, they moved a 300-thousand-man army of occupation into the Ukraine. In March of 1918 a supreme command of Soviet troops in the Ukraine was established with V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko, who had much experience in state military work, at the head. Soviet detachments put up fierce opposition to the advancing Austro-German troops, but because of their paucity in numbers they could not stop the interventionists. By the beginning of May, almost all of the Ukraine had been occupied. The Central Rada was required to deliver to Germany and the AustroHungarian Empire 60 million poods of grain, 2.75 million poods of livestock, 37.5 million poods of iron ore and many other foodstuffs and industrial raw materials. Having obtained these concessions, the occupying authorities no longer had any need for the Rada and soon broke it up, staging the proclamation of the Ukrainian landowner, P. Skoropadsky, as Hetman of the Ukraine. The restoration of the bourgeois-landowner order began in the Ukraine. The Ukrainian people did not accept rule by their landowners and capitalists headed by the Hetman and rose in a war of liberation for their social and national rights.
Simultaneously, violating the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, Austro-German troops made incursions into the Transcaucasus, the Don region and the Crimea. They gave support to the former tsarist Generals Krasnov and Mamontov, who had raised the Don Cossacks against Soviet power. In the summer of 1918, Krasnov's White Cossack army began an offensive against Tsaritsyn and Voronezh, threatening grain deliveries from the south.
The Austro-German occupying authorities established their rule over the captured territory of Byelorussia and the Baltic area.
Thus, although the states of the Austro-German bloc were at war with the states of the Entente, in the first half of 1918 they created what was in effect a united front for the struggle against the Soviet power.
From July 4 through 10, 1918, Moscow was the site of the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which dealt with the most important questions of domestic and foreign policy. The Congress adopted the Constitution of the RSFSR ---the first Constitution ever for the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Constitution secured democratic 74 rights and freedoms for the overwhelming majority of the people and deprived exploiters of voting rights.
On July 6, 1918, while the Congress was in session, the Left SRs, supported by foreign intelligence agents, rose in an anti-Soviet mutiny in MOSCOW for the purpose of seizing power. Attempting to provoke a war with Germany, they assassinated the German Ambassador, von Mirbach. The mutiny was suppressed within hours by the Latvian Rifles, detachments of internationalists, Red Army men and workers' detachments formed in the capital's districts. Up to ten thousand combatants--- workers and Red Army men---took part in crushing the mutiny; N. I. Podvoisky was in command. Lenin personally directed the rout of the mutineers. The Left SR adventure exposed them as an anti-Soviet party opposing the interests of working people. The Congress of Soviets approved the energetic action of the government in liquidating the criminal adventure of the Left SRs and called for the exclusion from the Soviets of those Left SRs who favored the attempt to draw Russia into a war with Germany.
All the decisions of the Congress served to strengthen the Soviet power and to mobilize all the people's energies to repulse the counterrevolution. The Congress approved the foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet government, confirmed the inviolability of the state monopoly on commerce in grain and fixed prices for it, approved the organization of committees of the poor in the villages and the policy of mercilessly suppressing kulaks who obstructed the delivery of grain for the urban population and the Red Army. The Congress outlined the methods for creating a strong, revolutionary, centralized Red Army capable of smashing the bourgeois-landowner counterrevolution and repelling the onslaught of the imperialists.
On July 14, the German government raised the question of bringing a battalion of German soldiers to Moscow to defend the German embassy. Lenin, at a meeting of the ARCEC of July 15, 1918, declared that such a wish could in no case and under no circumstances be satisfied, for this would be objectively the beginning of the occupation of Russia by foreign troops. The ARCEC unanimously seconded this statement and called workers and peasants to redoubled vigilance, caution and restraint.
The difficulties Soviet Russia was passing through were exacerbated by the vacillation of the middle peasants, who did not immediately understand the extent of the danger posed by foreign incursions.
The offensive of the forces of intervention merged with counterrevolutionary mutinies, conspiracies and subversion that the diplomatic missions and agents of the Entente helped to organize. Foreign diplomats --- Lockhart, Francis, Noulens --- together with counterrevolutionary terrorists intended in the summer of 1918 to overthrow the soviet power, arrest the government and kill Lenin. During July of 1918 there were counterrevolutionary mutinies in Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Murom and other cities.
The SRs adopted terrorist tactics against Soviet and Party leaders. In Petrograd they assassinated V. Volodarsky, a leading figure in the Party, and on August 30 they attempted to assassinate in Moscow the head of the Soviet government, V. I. Lenin. On the same day, the 75 Chairman of the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle against Counterrevolution, M. S. Uritsky was murdered. On September 2, the ARCEC, in response to the actions of the counterrevolution, made the decision to introduce the Red terror.
Thus, a special period in the development of Soviet Russia began in the summer of 1918, a period in which the military question became overriding for the Party, the government and the entire people "Whether we like it or not,'' said Lenin in July of 1918, "the question stands as follows: we are in a war, and on the outcome of that war hangs the fate of the = revolution.''\thinspace^^1^^
From the class point of view, the almost three years of bloody war
forced on the Soviet Republic was an attempt by international
imperialism to liquidate the "Russian breakthrough" in the world system
of imperialism and to destroy the base of the international proletarian
revolution. For the working people of Russia, this was a just war in
defense of the socialist fatherland, a war for the preservation and
strengthening of the world's first state of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, for the Soviet Republic as the leading detachment in the
world army of socialism.
~
Soviet Russia Becomes a United Military Camp. = Soviet Russia was passing through an exceptionally difficult time. The destruction and ravages of the imperialist war were exacerbated by the reign of the interventionists and Whites in the captured territories. The country's richest areas --- the Ukraine, the Urals, Siberia, the Don, the Kuban --- were in the hands of the enemy. The interventionist and White ring cut Soviet Russia off from her most important food, raw materials and fuel resources and from the outside world. Factories ground to a halt, transport stopped, the cities were left without fuel, there was not enough bread, meat, sugar or other necessities for the workers and the Red Army that was being formed. There were days when the workers of the central provinces had no bread at all. At the same time, the countries of the Entente, with large material resources and powerful war industry, provided the interventionist troops and Whites with arms, ammunition and supplies in abundance.
All the country's energies and resources had to be mobilized and concentrated to repulse, in these terribly difficult circumstances, the united onslaught of the intervention and domestic counterrevolution. To this end, the Party and the Soviet government took measures to turn the republic into a united armed camp.
The Party and the Soviet government called the workers and peasants to a patriotic war to defend the proletarian dictatorship and socialism. On July 29, 1918, a joint session of the ARCEC, the Moscow Soviet and the factory committees and trade unions of Moscow, on Lenin's proposal declared the fatherland in danger and demanded that all energies be bent to repulsing foreign intervention and domestic counterrevolution.
On September 2, 1918, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee (ARCEG) adopted a resolution on turning the Soviet Republic into a _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 30.
76 military camp and demanded that all the activity of Party, trade union and other organizations be restructured under the slogan "Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory over the Enemy!'', that all resources at hand be mobilized for the defense of the country and for speeding up the formation of the Red Army. All citizens, irrespective of their age and occupation, had unquestioningly to carry out those duties jn the defense of the country that the Soviet state would impose on them.The organization of the defense of the Soviet state was entrusted to the Central Committee of the Party, which---led by Lenin---became a fighting, collective organ deciding on all the important questions in the conduct of the war and military construction, providing the men and materiel for carrying out major combat operations and for developing and implementing strategic plans. Lenin himself provided the immediate leadership in putting the life of the country on a war footing. Supported by the working class and the village poor, the Soviet government organized a massive campaign for grain under the slogan "The Struggle for Grain Is the Struggle for Socialism!'', crushed the furious opposition of the kulaks and strengthened the dictatorship of the proletariat in the villages. In response to the White terror, the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission, headed by F. E. Dzerzhinsky, dealt shattering blows to the counterrevolutionary conspirators and the agents of imperialism in the rear.
Turning the country into a united armed camp necessitated the creation of a special organ to unite and direct the activity of all departments, of the entire state and economic apparatus, in organizing the defense of the country and the creation of the Red Army. This organ was the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, established by the ARCEC on November 30, 1918, under Lenin's chairmanship. This was the emergency supreme organ of the Soviet state, an organ that enjoyed the full plenitude of power in the matter of mobilizing the energies and resources of the country for the purpose of defense.
The activity of Lenin's Council of Defense played an enormous role in accelerating the reorientation of the country's economy towards military needs, in supplying the Red Army, in organizing new formations and units and in providing the material resources for the victory over the interventionists and Whites. The Council of Defense was the prototype of the State Committee of Defense during the Great Patriotic War.
The war against superior enemy forces in conditions of blockade, isolation, the exhaustion of the country's resources and the loss of extremely important economic regions, forced the Soviet government to alter its economic policy. Industry was entirely subordinated to the task of destroying the interventionists and Whites. In addition to large-scale industry, middle industry was nationalized and petty industry was put under state supervision. The Supreme Economic Council and its main departments subjected industry, production and distribution to the most centralized management. AH this allowed the state to concentrate in its hands all industrial resources, to increase military production and to supply factories and plants with raw materials and fuel. Free commerce was replaced by centralized, state distribution of foodstuffs and industrial goods through a rationing system based on the class principle.
77The basic means of supplying food to the army and workers was the food surplus appropriation system, under which peasants were required to surrender all their surplus foodstuffs. The amount of grain and fodder needed to satisfy state requirements was apportioned among the food-producing provinces, to be requisitioned from the peasants at fixed prices. The food surplus appropriation was conducted according to the class principle formulated by Lenin: from poor peasants, nothing; from middle peasants, a moderate amount; from the rich, much.
Laboring peasants accepted the food surplus appropriation system because they did not wish the landowners to return to the village. Soviet power gave the peasants land, armed and supplied the army, and organized the country's defense, while peasants provided grain, fodder and men for the Red Army. Life itself convinced the peasants that only the working class and the Soviet government could defend them from bondage to the landowners and kulaks. This was the economic foundation for the military-political alliance between the working class and the peasantry.
The Soviet government introduced labor conscription for the entire adult population. The operative principle was --- "he who does not work neither shall he eat".
These measures taken by the Soviet state in the economic realm have entered history under the name of War Communism. War Communism, Lenin noted, was forced by the war and by ruin and was not an inevitable phase in the development of the socialist revolution. It was temporary, but it was under those circumstances the only policy that could help defend the Soviet power and ensure victory over the interventionists and Whites.
By the second half of 1918, War Communism had brought results despite the reduction of the country's material base and other difficulties; it had helped to organize the production of rifles, cartridges and shells and would subsequently help establish a well-organized military economy.
The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, under Lenin's guidance, provided overall leadership in the organization of war production. Immediate leadership was provided by the Extraordinary Commission for the Production of Articles of Military Supply, later re-named the Extraordinary Commission for Supplying the Red Army. L. B. Krasin was appointed chairman. In the second half of 1918, the Red Army received from the supply organizations more than 2 thousand guns, around 4.5 million shells, 8 thousand machine guns, more than 900 thousand rifles, more than 500 million cartridges, 75.5 thousand revolvers, more than 1.5 million revolver cartridges and around 1 million hand grenades --- these taken from the stores of the old army. In putting military production in order, the decisive role was played by the labor heroism of the working class, which steadfastly bore hunger, cold and illness and gave all its energies to the cause of defense.
The principal tool for defending the interests of the revolution and putting the country on a war footing was the Soviet state. The Communist Party therefore strengthened the Soviets and their organs in the center and locally, increased Communist influence within them and strove to involve working people as extensively as possible in running 78 the country. Committees of the village poor (komitety bednoty [kombeds]), created in accordance with a decree of the ARCEC of June 11, 1918, played an important part in strengthening village Soviets. Kombeds were the base for the dictatorship of the proletariat and for realizing the goals of the socialist revolution in the villages. They purged the Soviets of kulaks by conducting elections in accordance with the Constitution of the RSFSR, which provided for the elimination of non-laboring elements from elections to the Soviets. The kombeds organized the repartition of the land and the distribution of agricultural equipment, cattle and seeds at the expense of the kulaks and to the advantage of poor and middle peasants. Kombeds accelerated the process of bringing all in the village towards the middle peasant level. For instance, in the agricultural provinces the proportion of middle peasant farms rose from 30 to 60 percent of the total. In the summer and fall of 1918, more than 50 million dessiatines of land were transferred from the kulaks to the poor peasants. The kulaks were dealt a severe economic and political blow. The village proletariat and village poor rallied under the leadership of the working class. The middle peasant, the central figure in the village, inclined increasingly towards active support of the Soviet power.
The organization of committees of the village poor, the curbing of the kulaks and the undermining, to a significant extent, of the latter's economic power, signified the further development of the socialist revolution and the strengthening of Soviet power in the villages.
The kombeds carried out enormous work in supplying food to the Red Army and the urban population. They gave invaluable assistance to the Soviet government in recruiting poor and middle peasants for the Red Army. They created the conditions for turning the village Soviets into genuine organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat in rural Russia. Having faithfully fulfilled the tasks set them, the kombeds by decision of the Sixth Congress of Soviets in November, 1918, were disbanded. In effect, they merged with the village Soviets.
The principal tasks facing local Soviets were: mobilizing working people into the Red Army, increasing war production, supplying enterprises with personnel, organizing universal military instruction, and other tasks connected with putting the country on a war footing. Trade unions, which by the end of 1918 united the majority of workers and salaried employees, gave important assistance in dealing with these problems. They mobilized their members for the front, campaigned for labor discipline at enterprises and in transport, campaigned for higher labor productivity, organized the collection and dispatch to the front of food, clothing, footwear, medicines and so on. In the rear, at the front and in areas seized by the interventionists and Whites, working people waged in unnumbered ways a struggle to defend the socialist homeland, and they displayed unheard-of patriotism and heroism.
Leagues of workers and peasant youth, which by the fall of 1918
numbered more than 22 thousand members, were of no little assistance
to the Party in the defense of the country. On October 29, at the First
All-Russia Congress of Leagues of Worker and Peasant Youth, a united
organization was founded---the Russian Young Communist League (the
Komsomol). From the first days of its existence, the Komsomol was the
79
ally of the Party, an active revolutionary force occupying an important
place in the country's political, economic and cultural life. The
Komsomol took an active part in the defense of the socialist homeland
during the Civil War.
~
Building the Red Army. = In organizing the defense of Soviet Russia, the central problem was the creation of armed forces able to repulse the enemy's aggression. By the summer of 1918, the voluntary Red Army numbered somewhat more than 300 thousand men. It was clear that its forces were too small to wage a protracted war against foreign and domestic counterrevolution. The principle of voluntary recruitment was unable to provide the needed reinforcements or proper organization and discipline. A regular mass army was indispensable. The changing balance of class forces in the country and the successful development of local organs of the Soviet power---in particular, the establishment of military commissariats---paved the way for the creation of a regular army.
In the summer of 1918, the Soviet government switched over to organizing the army on the basis of obligatory military service for working people. As early as May 4, 1918, a decree by the Council of People's Commissars had established 11 military districts and set up local military organs, the military commissariats. On May 29, the ARCEC enacted obligatory military service, and in June the first draft of workers and poor peasants in provinces close to the front, as well as in Moscow and Petersburg, was conducted:
The Fifth Congress of Soviets, meeting in the beginning of July, wrote obligatory military service into law. The Constitution of the RSFSR adopted at the Congress proclaimed the defense of the socialist homeland the duty of all Soviet citizens. Only working people were given the honor of defending the revolution by force of arms.
The Fifth Congress passed a special enactment on the organization of the Red Army emphasizing that the Soviet Republic needed a well-equipped, well-supplied army that was centralized and embued with class spirit and iron revolutionary discipline. The Congress further stated that it was necessary to build the army on the basis of military science, utilizing the experience and knowledge of military specialists of the old army. The goal was established of accelerating the training of commanders from among the workers and peasants. The great importance of military commissars for strengthening discipline and order in the army was emphasized. The Congress demanded that all Soviet organs, trade unions, factory organizations and other institutions assist the military department in organizing obligatory in-job military training for workers and peasants so that the army would have trained reserves.
Backed by the local Soviets, Party organizations, trade unions and committees of the village poor, the military commissariats carried out the mobilization. Workers and peasants, persuaded of the necessity to defend the revolution, ardently joined the Red Army. By August 15, 1918, the Red Army numbered 430 thousand men, by October it had more than 800 thousand men. At the fronts and in the military districts, the existing assortment of detachments and units were formed into 80 regular units and formations. Moved by a feeling of proletarian internationalism, representatives of the working people of other countries joined the Red Army. Internationalist units were formed within the Red Army.
In Moscow, Hungarian Communists led by Bela Kun and Tibor Szamuely organized an internationalist detachment. In Samara, Czechoslovak internationalists headed by J. Malina and J. Hasek organized a detachment that by May had 120 men. In Samara, too, the 1st revolutionary Yugoslav detachment, with 1400 men, was formed. The Serbs Oleko Dundic and Danilo Szdic showed themselves to be brave commanders of Red Army detachments. Mate Zalka, a Hungarian revolutionary, also fought in the Red Army. In Perm, the Hungarian Ferenc Miinnich organized an international detachment. A Hungarian detachment numbering 300 men was organized in Samara; Dezso Farago, who arrived in Samara with a recommendation from Lenin, took an active part in organizing this detachment.
As the scale of the armed struggle and military organization expanded, measures were taken to strengthen the military leadership. On September 2, 1918, the ARCEC empowered the creation of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, which headed up all military institutions and fronts. Simultaneously, the post of Commander in Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic was established. __CAPTION__ A regular regiment of the Red Army before setting out for the front. 1918. [81] By order of the Revolutionary Military Council, fronts with military staffs were set up on September 11. A revolutionary military council consisting of the commander and two political commissars was set over each front.
Providing the Red Army with command personnel was a task involving great difficulty. To meet the need, the Party boldly advanced former soldiers, officers and non-commissioned officers from the old army who were loyal to the revolution, and Red Guards and Communists familiar with military affairs, to posts as Red commanders; crash command courses were also 'organized. From the ranks of the Communist Party, from the people itself, came such military leaders and heroes of the Civil War as V. K. Blyukher, S. M. Budyonny, V. I. Chapayev, P. Y. Dybenko, Ya. F. Fabritsius, I. F. Fedko, M. V. Frunze, O. I. Gorodovikov, N. D. Kashirin, V Shchors, M. N. Tukhachevsky, I. P. Uborevich
__ERROR__ M. Primakov, N. A. S. S. Vostretsov and I. E. Yakir, among others.The pressing need for command personnel and the necessity of utilizing military science and art of war in military organization and in combat operations required that military specialists from among the officers and generals of the old army be brought to the service of the Red Army. By the end of 1918, more than 22 thousand former officers had been called up, and by the end of the Civil War there were more than 100 thousand of them in the Red Army. True, there were traitors among the former officers and generals called into the Red Army, but most of them served the people honorably. Among the outstanding commanders and leaders of the Red Army were such military specialists as V. M. Altfater. M. D. Bonch-Bruyevich, A. I. Yegorov, V. N. Yegoryev, V. M. Gittis, S. S. Kamenev, D. M. Karbyshev, P. P. Lebedev, A. P. Nikolayev, F. F. Novitsky, B. M. Shaposhnikov, V. I. Shorin, A. A. Taube and I. I. Vatsetis, among others.
Much organizational and political work in the army and at the front was done by the revolutionary military councils of the fronts and armiej, and the political sections and Party cells that by the end of 1918 united around 50 thousand Communists. The Party sent tried and tested Party figures to lead party-political work in the army. They included A. S. Bubnov, Ya. B. Gamarnik, S. I. Gusev, S. M. Kirov, S. V. Kosior, V. V. Kuibyshev, A. I. Mikoyan, G. K. Orjonikidze, J. V. Stalin, K. Y. Voroshilov, S. P. Voskov and R. S. Zemlyachka.
Military commissars---emissaries of the Communist Party---played an exceptionally important role in organizing the regular Red Army. In the spring of 1918, military commissars everywhere supervised the activities of military specialists and bore responsibility to the Party and government for the political loyalty of units and formations, for their execution of combat assignments. By word and personal example, the military commissars rallied the men and commanders around the Communist Party and instilled steadfastness and fearlessness in the struggle with the enemy. P. S. Baturin, G. P. Zveinek, V. F. Polukhin, M. P. Yanyshev, N. G. Tolmachev, A. S. Rakov, D. A. Furmanov and many others became renowned commissars of units and formations.
By the end of 1918, the Red Army numbered around one million men. Twelve field armies and 42 rifle and three cavalry divisions were fighting 82 __CAPTION__ G. D. Gai. at the fronts. The Red Army was made up of infantry, cavalry, artillery, armored units, aviation and engineering units.
Overcoming enormous material difficulties, the furious opposition of
class enemies, of Mensheviks and SRs, the Party had firmly
implemented Lenin's program of organizing a powerful regular Red Army
that by the fall of 1918 was winning important victories over the enemy.
~
First Victories. = In the summer of 1918, when the imperialists first succeeded in ringing Soviet Russia with fronts, Lenin---with the surpassing foresightedness of a political and military strategist --- singled out the Eastern Front as the principal and decisive front on the struggle for which hung the fate of the revolution. Here, in the Volga and Urals areas, the activities of the Czechs and the Whites merged with a wave of kulak mutinies. The enemy had cut off the center of the country from the "lost important grain regions.
By decision of the Central Committee of the Party, tested Communists, the most combat-worthy units and several aviation detachments were sent to the Eastern Front. In two months (July and 83 August), a total of five armies and the Volga Flotilla were organized on the front.
In stubborn and sanguinary battles, Soviet troops stopped the enemy, went over to the offensive and in September and the beginning of October liberated Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran and Samara. The troops fighting on the Eastern Front cleaned the Whites out of the Volga area and threw the enemy back to the Urals. The 24th Division, commanded by G. D. Gai, distinguished itself in the fighting, and it was named the "Iron Division" for its exceptional tenacity. The Volga Flotilla, under the command of the Baltic sailor and Communist N. G. Markin, supported the troops of the Eastern Front courageously. Divisions and regiments commanded by V. M. Azin, V. K. Blyukher, V. I. Chapayev, A. M. Cheverev and S. S. Vostretsov won renown in the offensive battles.
The Southern Front---the Don, the Lower Volga and the North Caucasus --- was the scene of desperate fighting in the summer and fall of 1918 as Soviet troops contained the onslaught of General Krasnov's White Cossack Army and General Denikin's Volunteer Army.
The heroic defense of Tsaritsyn figured large in the struggle against the counterrevolution on the Don. The 10th Army commanded by K. Y. Voroshilov and formed in the course of the fighting out of detachments of Tsaritsyn workers, Donets miners and Ukrainian peasants, checked all the attempts by Krasnov's forces to take the city. The 8th and 9th armies, which covered the country's central areas, and the "Steel Division" under the command of the former Donets miner, the Communist D. P. Zhloba, which arrived from the North Caucasus, lent the 10th Army important assistance. The men of the 1st Ukrainian Brigade (R. F. Sivers in command) and the 16th Rifle Division (V. I. Kikvidze commander) fought bravely on the Southern Front. After battles lasting many days, the enemy was thrown back across the Don and the attempt of the White troops in the south to link up with the Whites attacking from the east fell through.
Soviet troops in the North Caucasus went through heavy fighting against Denikin's Volunteer Armv. The march of the Taman Army --- a grouping of Soviet troops on the Taman Peninsula cut off by the Whites from the main body of the Red Army---took on the proportions of a heroic epic. Taking the poor with it, the Taman Army in August of 1918 moved along the coast through Tuapse toward Armavir. Without ammunition, without food, almost barefoot and poorly dressed, fighting with bayonets against the White Cossacks who pressed hard upon them, the Taman Army moved onward. This was truly an "iron flood'', as the legendary march of the Taman Army was later called by A. S. Serafimovich in a remarkable book on the events.
Under the command of the sailor Bolshevik I. I. Matveyev, former Staff-Captain Y. I. Kovtyukh (a participant in the First Russian Revolution) and the former officer G. N. Baturin, the Taman Army became an awesome fighting force. The army capped its march by destroying two of Denikin's divisions and liberating Armavir. In mid-September, the Taman Army joined up with the principal forces of the North Caucasus Military District.
During the same period, South Urals partisan detachments under the command of the Bolshevik V. K. Blyukher, the former Cossack officer 84 __CAPTION__ V. K. Blyukher. and Bolshevik N. D. Kashirin and his brother I. D. Kashirin undertook a legendary raid from Beloretsk to Kungur. Cut off from Soviet troops by the Czechoslovak mutiny, these detachments linked up with detachments of the local peasant poor, and laboring Cossacks and formed a partisan army. The South Urals detachments moved almost 1500 kilometers through mountains, forests and swamps, fighting fiercely in territory occupied by the enemy. In mid-September, the 10-- thousand-man partisan army under Blyukher's command linked up with the troops of the Red Army. In the course of the fighting, the detachments were reorganized into companies, battalions and regiments that became the nucleus of the 30th Division.
The ARCEC awarded V. K. Blyukher the Order of the Red Banner---the highest combat decoration, just instituted. Within a few days, N. D. Kashirin was honored with the same order.
__*_*_*__By the fall of 1918, Soviet Russia's international position had changed substantially. The First World War had ended in the West. A revolution had occurred in Germany, the Imperial regime had been 85 deposed. On November 13, 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Treaty of Brest. Under the influence of the revolutionary struggle of the working masses of Russia, the German army of occupation rapidly disintegrated. The German government ordered the evacuation of its troops from Russia. The Austro-German occupation had collapsed. The struggle by the working masses against the Austro-German aggressors had contributed significantly to this outcome.
As early as the summer of 1918, the peasants of Kiev, Poltava, Chernigov, Kherson, Yekaterinoslav and other provinces had risen against the Austro-German occupation and the Hetman's regime. Workers in the cities and industrial centers of the Ukraine rose in combat. This struggle was led by the Ukrainian Communists, who in July of 1918 united in the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of the Ukraine, a constituent element of the single Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Anticipating the approaching end of German occupation and the Hetman's regime, the Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalist parties established, on November 13, 1918, the so-called Directory, headed by V. Vinnichenko and S. Petlyura. After Hetman Skoropadsky's flight, the Directory seized power in the Ukraine.
The Soviet government of Russia came to the assistance of the Ukrainian workers and peasants who rose against the Austro-German occupation and the Directory. On November 17, 1918, the Ukrainian Front was formed, with V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko in charge. On November 28, a Ukrainian Soviet Republic was created and the Provisional Worker-Peasant Government of the Ukraine formed. The government called on the workers and peasants to step up the struggle to expell completely the occupying forces and the bourgeois-nationalist detachments of the Directory, to reestablish Soviet power in the Ukraine.
The Red Army came to the assistance of the working people of the Ukraine. Commanded by the talented heroes Nikolai Shchors, Vasily Bozhenko, Nikolai Krapivyansky, Alexandr Parkhomenko and Timofei Chernyak, the detachments of Ukrainian workers and peasants grew in the heat of battle into regular regiments and divisions of the Red Army.
The revolution sustained a victory over the interventionists in the Baltic area, too. In November, 1918, the working people of Estonia, led by the Communists and assisted by Soviet troops, drove the AustroGerman occupying forces from much of Estonia. On November 29, the Estonian Soviet Republic (the Estland Labor Commune) was proclaimed.
The working people of Latvia intensified their struggle against the Austro-German occupying forces in November and December, 1918. On November 17, a Provisional Soviet Government was formed; in a manifesto, it proclaimed the establishment of the Soviet Republic of Latvia. By January of 1919, much of Latvia had been freed from the occupation and the bourgeois nationalists. The Congress of Soviets of Latvia in January elected a Soviet government and adopted a Constitution, based on the Constitution of the RSFSR. The Congress empowered the Soviet government of Latvia to wage a merciless struggle against the counterrevolution and to strengthen the fraternal 86 alliance with Soviet Russia. Lenin, Sverdlov and Liebknecht were elected honorary members of the Central Executive Committee of Soviet Latvia.
In December, 1918, Soviet power was proclaimed in Lithuania, too.
On December 23, 1918, the ARCEC, after hearing a report by the People's Commissar for Nationalities, J. V. Stalin, on the liberation of the peoples of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine and on the establishment of Soviet power on their territories, recognized the independence of the new Soviet republics. The resolution on the matter spoke of the RSFSR's complete readiness to provide needed aid and support to the working people of these republics in their struggle against domestic counterrevolution and in the defense of their independence from attempts of foreign conquest.
The working people of Byelorussia, backed by the Red Army, in November and December, 1918, stepped up their struggle against the occupying forces and the counterrevolutionary Rada. The latter attempted to retain power with the assistance of the imperialists of the Entente, but were unsuccessful. On December 31, 1918, Communists established a Provisional Worker-Peasant Government on the liberated territory of Byelorussia. On January 1, 1919, this government proclaimed the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. At the Congress of Soviets of Byelorussia, that met in February, 1919, a Constitution of the BSSR was adopted. The Congress resolved to begin negotiations toward the establishment of federal ties with the RSFSR.
The Chairman of the ARCEC, Ya. M. Sverdlov, announced the resolution of the ARCEC on the recognition of the BSSR's independence and the readiness of the RSFSR to provide assistance of all sorts to the Byelorussian people.
The Congress of Soviets of Byelorussia adopted a resolution on the unification of the Soviet republics of Byelorussia and Lithuania. The Congress of Soviets of Lithuania that met in February, 1919, in Vilnius made the same decision. Traditions of the joint struggle waged by the Byelorussians and Lithuanians against German aggression, and the interests of mutual assistance and defense against the aggression of bourgeois-landlord Poland played their role in the creation of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Republic.
The Central Committee of the RCP(B) and the Soviet government of the RSFSR extended enormous assistance to the fraternal Ukrainian people. In December, 1918 and January, 1919, alone 437 Party workers were sent to the Ukraine. The Soviet Ukraine was allotted immense sums for restoring industry and transport and for acquiring industrial goods and foodstuffs.
The All-Ukraine Third Congress of Soviets, which met in early March, 1919, adopted a Constitution based on the Constitution of the RSFSR. The Congress elected an All-Ukraine Central Executive Committee headed by the old Bolshevik and Leninist G. I. Petrovsky.
Thus, as a result of the liberation war of the peoples of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic area, assisted by the Russian people, large areas of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were liberated. The RSFSR recognized the independence of the young Soviet republics, which for their part sought to unite more closely around 87 Russia for the struggle against foreign enemies. In the course of the struggle against imperialists and domestic counterrevolution, a militarypolitical alliance of the Soviet republics gradually took shape.
The first onslaught of Soviet Russia's enemies had been beaten back. The imperialists' hope of a quick and easy victory had played them false. Enemy troops were thrown back hundreds of kilometers. The strengthening of the Soviet power and the successes of the Red Army greatly improved the internal situation of Soviet Russia.
The Sixth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which met in Moscow between November 6 and 9, 1918, summed up the results of the Soviet state's first year of existence. There was no corner of Soviet Russia, Lenin told the Congress, where the Soviet organization had not grown stronger, that was not a constituent part of the system reflected in the Soviet Constitution and worked out on the basis of the struggle of all working and oppressed people.
The Sixth Congress once more proposed to the Entente that peace
negotiations be undertaken. But, as with the preceding appeals, no
answer was forthcoming. Lenin observed that new military campaigns
against Soviet Russia by international imperialism were inevitable and
called on working people to strain again and again every nerve for
victory in the forthcoming, decisive battle. Party, Soviet and military
organs and trade unions worked feverishly to meet the goal that
Lenin set---to create, arm and supply by the spring an army of three
million men.
~
The Entente Steps Up Its Intervention. = The defeat of the AustroGerman bloc permitted the Entente to build up its intervention. On November 12, 1918, two days after the armistice with Germany had been signed, the high command of the Entente armies produced a plan for the further disposition of their occupation forces in Soviet Russia. As before, the Entente's goal was to destroy the Soviet power in Russia. The allies deemed it important to secure a reliable guarantee against the loans that Russia had received from the Entente. The allied command intended to continue military operations in the east, north and south and to begin intervention in the Ukraine by moving through Romania and the Black Sea. The Entente even tried to use the German troops --- soldiers of the country they had defeated in the war---to continue the occupation of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic territories. But the spread of the liberation movement in the occupied territories and the rapid disintegration of the Austro-German occupying forces prevented this.
By the end of 1918, the main bodies of the interventionists and Whites were concentrated in the south, where the Entente planned to strike its main blow, the goal being the capture of Odessa and Sevastopol and then Kiev, Kharkov and the Donets and Krivoi Rog basins. Twelve French and Greek divisions were allotted for this task; by midNovember, 1918, they had begun to land in Odessa, Sevastopol and other Black Sea ports. British naval ships put landing parties ashore in Batumi and Novorossiisk. Soon, the Entente had concentrated 130 thousand men in the south. Increasing its assistance to all anti-Soviet forces, the Entente sought to unite them for joint military operations against the Soviet power. Under the agreement concluded between the 88 Directory and the command of the French forces, the Directory recognized a French protectorate over the Ukraine "for the entire period of the war with Bolshevism'', while the French command stated its agreement to assist the Directory in creating a 300-thousand-man army under Petlyura's leadership.
Denikin and Krasnov likewise hastened to establish contact with the governments of the Entente in order to obtain from them arms, ammunition and materiel. In mid-November, 1918, the Mussavatist government of Azerbaijan appealed to the Commander of the British troops in Transcaucasia, General Thomson, to occupy Baku, which under the terms of the armistice had been abandoned by Turkish troops. The British general complied with the traitors' request and the troops reentered the city. In the north, around Murmansk and Archangel, the number of interventionist troops rose to 21 thousand by December, 1918.
In Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, the Entente increased its aid to bourgeois-nationalist detachments in their struggle against Soviet power in areas controlled by the bourgeoisie at the end of 1918. In January of 1919, units of the Estonian bourgeois army and Russian and Finnish White mercenaries were able to push Soviet units in Estonia beyond the Narva River. The territory of Estonia became a staging area for an offensive against Petrograd. At the head of the Northwest bourgeois government formed in Estonia stood the Tsarist General N. Yudenich. He appealed to the Entente to increase their intervention through the Baltic area and Finland. White units were organized in Estonia, and these were later united in Yudenich's army. The Entente likewise counted on making use of Finnish troops.
The Entente was also active in the Far East and Siberia. Early in the morning of November 18, monarchically-inclined officers, aided by representatives of the Entente, staged a military coup in Omsk. All power was concentrated in the hands of Cadets and monarchists who formed a Council of Ministers of a Directory that proclaimed Admiral Kolchak "Supreme Ruler" and Commander-in-Chief of all the land and naval forces of Russia. Kolchak's regime was immediately recognized by the governments of the United States, Britain and France, as well as by the leaders of the Russian counterrevolution, Denikin, Yudenich, Miller and Dutov.
In the second half of November, 1918, the Entente states increased the flow of arms to the White troops. The American government supplied Kolchak with 200 thousand rifles, 220 thousand shells, and many guns and machine guns. Britain provided more than 100 thousand rifles for Kolchak's armies. France spent 50 million francs per month for the same purpose. Due to the Entente's support, by the end of 1918 Kolchak had gathered an army of 250 thousand men; around 200 thousand interventionist troops protected Kolchak's rear, running roughshod over workers and peasants. The real command of the interventionist and White troops in Siberia was soon taken over by the French General Janin and the British General Knox. The army that had been created for Kolchak by the Entente became a serious threat to Soviet Russia.
Thus, by the end of 1918 the Entente had in the south, east, north and northwest readied an enormous force for an attack on Soviet Russia.
89In November, 1918, Krasnov's Don Army, with almost triple superiority in cavalry, broke through the Soviet Southern Front in the sectors held by the 8th and 9th armies, dealt a serious defeat to Soviet troops and began to move north. There was the threat of a breakthrough by Krasnov's forces into the central areas of Soviet Russia. The Southern Front became the most important.
The Party and the Soviet government took measures to strengthen the Southern Front. The Central Committee of the Party carried out an emergency mobilization of 2500 Communists to be sent to the Southern Front. The Inza and Uralsk divisions were transferred there from the Eastern Front, as were two divisions from the central military districts. Many of the command personnel were replaced. Political departments, commissars and Communist cells undertook political work among the soldiers, strengthened discipline and raised the fighting spirit of the Red Army men.
In December, 1918, the strengthened troops of the Southern Front were able to stop the enemy's advance, and in the beginning of January the 8th and 9th armies counterattacked, aided by the stubborn fight of the 10th Army in the Tsaritsyn area. In February, the 10th Army, too, counterattacked.
By March of 1919, Krasnov's 85-thousand-man Don Army had been broken up, and its remnants (no more than 15 thousand men) retreated beyond the Northern Donets under the cover of the Volunteer Army. The greater part of the Don region had been liberated.
The success of the troops of the Southern Front was furthered by the 11th Army, which by its heroic struggle against the Volunteer Army had not permitted Denikin to assist Krasnov. Underground Bolshevik organizations behind Krasnov's lines played an important role by carrying on revolutionary propaganda among the population and in the enemy's forces.
During January and February, 1919, the troops of the Ukrainian Front, aided by Soviet partisans, waged fierce battles against the interventionists and Petlyura's Directory troops. In early January, the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Division liberated Kharkov, Poltava and Yekaterinoslav from Petlyura's forces, and on February 1 liberated Kremenchug. The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Division freed Chernigov and moved on Kiev. At the approaches to the city, Soviet regiments under N. A. Shchors and V. N. Bozhenko broke up Petlyura's units and on February 5 entered Kiev. The bourgeois-nationalist Directory fled to Vinnitsa. All of the Left Bank Ukraine had become Soviet.
The working people of the Ukraine burned with the desire to liberate as quickly as possible the Right Bank Ukraine, too, from the interventionists and Petlyura forces. Underground Bolshevik organizations increased their work among the masses and among the troops of the intervention. The Odessa Regional Committee, led by the courageous Bolshevik I. F. Smirnov (whose underground name was Nikolai Lastochkin), created a so-called Foreign Collegium that undertook agitation among the soldiers and sailors of the Entente. The Collegium published in French the newspaper Le Communiste and established good contacts with French soldiers and sailors. At the beginning of March, 1919, the interventionists arrested and tortured to death I. F. Smirnov, 90 __CAPTION__ Jeanne Labourbe. the French Communist Jeanne Labourbe and other members of the Foreign Collegium. But terror and violence could not root out the ideas of internationalism that, thanks to the work of Communists among the interventionist troops, had an increasing hold on the soldiers. Soldiers in a number of units refused to fight the Red Army, thereby defending the interests of working people. On April 6, 1919, there was fraternization between French soldiers and the workers of Odessa.
On April 20, 1919, the sailors of the French squadron at Sevastopol rose in rebellion. The French government was forced to recall its forces from the south of the Ukraine and from the Crimea. At the end of April, 1919, interventionists and Whites were cleaned out of the area. The Right Bank Ukraine was likewise almost completely liberated from Petlyura's Directory troops; the Directory took refuge in KamenetsPodolsk, retaining control over but a few cities and villages.
Soviet troops on the Eastern Front advanced successfully at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919; they liberated Ufa, Birsk, Orenburg, Uralsk and a large part of the Urals. Soviet Russia was again in direct contact with Turkestan.
91The interventionists' and Whites' calculations that they would be able to link up their southern and eastern forces were not realized. Only on the northern sector of the Eastern Front did Kolchak's men enjoy temporary success. Pressing hard on the Soviet 3rd Army, they captured Perm at the end of December, 1918. However, thanks to the intervention of the Central Committee of the Party and of Lenin personally, the fighting capacity of the 3rd Army was quickly restored; in January, it halted Kolchak's forces and subsequently took part in the general offensive on the Eastern Front.
Soviet troops beat back the attacks of the enemy on the Northern Front, too. On January 25, 1919, the troops of the 6th Army liberated Shenkursk. Kolchak was unable to link up with the troops of the interventionists and Whites operating in the north. Revolutionary propaganda and the success of the Red Army led here, too, to refusals by the soldiers of the Entente to fight the Soviets; and there were revolutionary disturbances in a number of regiments. The Entente's soldiers proved to be unsuitable for anti-Soviet intervention.
Thus, the Entente's attempt to overthrow the Soviet power primarily with its own resources failed.
Soviet Russia, having beaten back the attacks of foreign and
domestic counterrevolution, won increasing sympathy among working
people in foreign countries. The impact of the ideas and practice of the
October Revolution and Soviet power was felt in a rapid upturn of the
revolutionary movement in capitalist countries. Following the
proclamation, in March, 1919, of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Soviet republics
were proclaimed in Bavaria and Slovakia. Despite the brevity of their
existence, the very appearance of these republics furthered the growth
of the international communist and workers' movement. Communist
parties were formed in many countries. At the beginning of March, 1919,
the First (Constituent) Congress of the Third Communist International
met in Moscow; Communist and Left socialist organizations from 21
countries in Europe, Asia and America were represented. The
resolutions of the Congress emphasized the international significance of
the victory of the October Revolution and the establishment of the
Soviet power in Russia, approved Lenin's theses on bourgeois
democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat and ratified the
platform of the Comintern. The Congress addressed a manifesto to the
proletarians of the entire world, calling on them to defend Soviet Russia
and to struggle for the triumph of Soviets in all countries. The First
Congress of the Comintern marked the beginning of the ideological and
organizational unificatioij of proletarians of all countries under the
slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
~
Strengthening the Alliance Between Working Class and Peasantry. = The Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party which met from March 18 to 23, 1919, was a major event in the life of the Party and Soviet Russia. The Congress adopted a new Party Program that for the first time in history set the goal of building a socialist society. This program, the Party's second, consisted of two sections: a theoretical section, and a section setting forth the concrete tasks of the Party after the victory of the October Revolution for the entire period of transition 92 from capitalism to socialism. The new Party program was a powerful ideological weapon in the struggle of the Communist Party and the Soviet people against capitalism and for the triumph of socialism.
Dealing with the military question, the Congress rebuffed those who advocated retaining elements of the partisan struggle in the Red Army and who formed a "military opposition" at the Congress. The Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, L. Trotsky, who distorted the principles of Party leadership in the army and violated the Central Committee's instructions on stringent control over the military specialists, was subjected to harsh criticism. The Congress reaffirmed Lenin's principles on military organization and stated that the army of the Soviet state must be an army trained, armed and organized according to the latest achievements of military science. The Congress outlined a concrete program for organizing a regular, disciplined Red Army, improving Party-political work, heightening Party leadership of the armed forces and strengthening the links between the Party and the army. The Congress required the Central Committee to take measures to improve the work of the Revolutionary Military Council and the General Staff.
Given the predominance of the rural population, it was of enormous __CAPTION__ A Vsevobuch (Universal Military Training) parade on Red Square. 1919. [93] importance that the Soviet power find the proper policy with respect to the middle peasant, who accounted for 60 percent of the peasantry. The middle peasant was the principal producer of grain and the principal source of manpower for the Red Army. In the year that the Soviet power had existed, the middle peasant was persuaded by his own experience of the vital necessity of alliance with the proletariat. In the fall of 1918, the bulk of the middle peasantry began actively to support the Soviet power. Reinforcing this development, the Eighth Party Congress adopted on Lenin's recommendation a historic decision to move from a policy of neutralizing the middle peasantry to a policy of firm alliance with the middle peasants, while relying on the poor peasants for the struggle against kulaks and all class enemies of the Soviet power. This decision played an enormous role in establishing a close military-political alliance between the working class and the middle peasantry, an alliance that was meant to be the sturdy foundation for victory over the interventionists and Whites and for the construction of socialism.
The task of better implementing the policy of the Soviet state toward the middle peasantry was furthered by the advancement of M. I. Kalinin---himself from a peasant background, and later from a worker background, who in a sense personified the alliance of workers and peasants---to the post of Chairman of the ARCEC after the death of Ya. M. Sverdlov.
Implementation of the decisions of the Eighth Party Congress was of
major importance in strengthening the Soviet state and the Red Army.
~
Destruction of the Body of Kolchak's Forces. = The spring of 1919 was a very difficult and anxious time for the Soviet Republic. The imperialists were preparing a new and larger offensive against the worker-peasant state. White armies, troops from the small states bordering on the Soviet Republic and the Entente's own troops --- a total of more than 1300 thousand men---were to take part. One of the secret documents of the high command of the Entente armies noted that the new offensive was to start from all ends of Russia and converge on Moscow. This joint anti-Soviet campaign was prepared in profound secrecy. Nevertheless, Lenin and the Party were able in good time to reveal the approaching danger.
The offensive began on six fronts simultaneously. The main blow to the Soviet Republic was to be dealt by Kolchak's army, which numbered around 250 thousand men. At the beginning of 1919. Kolchak controlled the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. Kolchak relied for support on the bourgeoisie, kulaks, upper strata of the Cossacks and semi-feudal nobility of the minority peoples. The Entente generously supplied Kolchak's armies with all types of arms, for which he paid with Russian gold seized by the Whites in Kazan. The capitalist system with its laws and institutions was restored on the territory held by the armies of Kolchak and the interventionists, and a cruel regime of military dictatorship was established. Kolchak's rear was secured by around 200 thousand interventionist troops: American, British, French and Japanese.
Kolchak's offensive began on March 4, 1919. His army moved westward along a broad front from the forests of the Northern Urals to 94 the steppes of the South Volga area. Against the Soviet 5th Army, defending the approaches to the Volga, Kolchak threw troops far superior in numbers to the Soviet forces and with twice as much artillery. In March, the enemy broke through the center of the Eastern Front, capturing Votkinsk, Birsk, Ufa, Menzelinsk, Sterlitamak, Belebei, Bugulma and other cities. Kolchak's army rushed toward the Volga to link up with Denikin's army, advancing from the south of Russia.
Kolchak was supported by all the forces of the counterrevolution: in the south by General Denikin, in the west by the Polish Whites, around Petrograd by General Yudenich, in the north by the White army of General Miller together with detachments of British, American and French interventionists. By mid-April, Kolchak's units were 85 kilometers from Kazan and Samara and 100 kilometers from Simbirsk. Their further advance toward the Volga around Samara threatened to outflank the entire right wing of the Eastern Front, while the withdrawal of the Soviet armies across the Volga would lead to a junction between Kolchak and Denikin and would open the central territories of the Soviet state to the blows of the enemy.
The Whites pushed up against Soviet troops on the Eastern, Northern, Southern, Western, Petrograd and Caucasus-Transcaspia fronts. Only supreme exertions by all Soviet forces were able to break up the advancing White armies, Kolchak's army on the eastern front first of all.
On April 12, Pravda published the "Theses of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) on the situation on the Eastern Front" written by Lenin. Emphasizing that the Eastern Front was once again the principal, crucial front, the Central Committee set the task of strengthening it in the shortest possible time, throwing Kolchak back from the Volga and liberating the Urals and Siberia. The Central Committee of the Party called on all working people to work in a revolutionary manner, to take the most active part in the defense of the country, to give total support to the mobilization that had been announced, to arm all members of the trade unions in the frontal areas, to increase the flow of arms and clothing to the Red Army and to organize an extensive influx of workers and peasants into the Red Army and the food detachments. The Theses also emphasized the need to step up agitation among working people. The Soviet government mobilized working people of five age groups in nine central provinces of Russia. Communists were mobilized everywhere. More than 60 thousand advanced workers --- members of trade unions, around 15 thousand Communists and more than 3 thousand Komsomol members --- were sent to the Eastern Front. The workers, Communists and Komsomol members introduced a spirit of discipline and steadfastness into the Red Army and reinforced confidence in the ultimate victory over the enemy. The working class responded to the Party's call "to work in a revolutionary manner" with mass labor heroism.
On April 12, 1919, the day that the Theses were published, the first Communist subbotnik---a day of voluntary unpaid work---was conducted at the depot of the Moskva-Sortirovochnaya Station of the Moscow-Kazan Railroad. It was called by the Chairman of the 95 Communist cell, the fitter I. Y. Burakov. On completing their work day, the workers remained in the depot and, without any remuneration^ repaired three more engines needed for the dispatch of express trains to the Eastern Front. Communist subbotniks soon spread to the rest of the republic and took on a mass character. V. I. Lenin called the Communist subbotniks "The Great Beginning'', a manifestation of the new, socialist attitude to labor, the beginning of communism.
As a result of the enormous organizational and political work undertaken by the Party and the Soviet government, and of the heroic labor of the Soviet people, the supply of material and equipment to the Red Army increased markedly. In 1919, the army received 1,134,712 new and rebuilt rifles, 8,222 machine guns, 1,302 field pieces, more than 3.5 million shells, 646,5 million cartridges and large quantities of clothing and footwear. By the spring of 1919, the Red Army had grown to 1.5 million men.
Lenin formulated the strategic task: to obtain a numerical superiority in the East without withdrawing men from the south, stop Kolchak and then destroy the body of his army. The Central Committee ratified the plan developed by the Supreme Command of the Red Army for a counterattack on the Eastern Front, the forces of which were divided into Southern and Northern groups.
The Southern Group of armies on the Eastern Front (the 1st, 4th, 5th and Turkestan armies) dealt the main blow to Kolchak. M. V. Frunze, an outstanding Soviet military leader, was named commander of the Southern Group; members of the Group's Revolutionary Military Council were V. V. Kuibyshev and a military specialist from the old army, F. F. Novitsky; the Northern Group (the 2nd and 3rd armies) was put under the command of V. I. Shorin.
The Soviet counterattack began on April 28, 1919. Blows on the flank and to the rear of the enemy's over-extended Western army broke through Kolchak's front. In three consecutive operations by the troops of the Southern Group---the Buguruslan (April 28-May 13), Belebei (May 15--19) and Ufa (May 25-June 19) operations---a devastating defeat was inflicted on Kolchak's armies.
During the Ufa operation, Soviet troops had to force the Belaya River along a front that was more than 75 kilometers long without any special fording equipment under the enemy's intensive artillery, machine gun and small arms fire. The 25th Division, commanded by V. I. Chapayev and with D. A. Furmanov as commissar, especially distinguished itself in these battles. In three days, Chapayev's division broke Kolchak's officer shock battalions and freed Ufa.
In two weeks of hard fighting, the Red Army defeated the main formations of Kolchak's Western army, forcing them to go on the defensive and then to retreat. Kolchak's troops were thrown back 120--150 kilometers to the east. The Red Army firmly seized the initiative on the Eastern Front. The Council of Defense announced its thanks to the men of the Eastern Front's Southern Group for their courage and heroism in the operations that destroyed Kolchak's forces. Many regiments were awarded revolutionary Red Banners.
At the moment when the successful offensive of the armies of the Eastern Front was coming to an end and favorable conditions for 96 Kolchak's utter defeat and the liberation of the Urals and Siberia were being created, L. Trotsky proposed that the command of the Eastern Front transfer a large part of the troops to the Southern Front, which would have brought the offensive to a halt. A plenary session of the Central Committee of the Party, meeting on July 3 and 4, 1919, rejected Trotsky's proposal and issued a directive to continue the offensive on the Eastern Front, to give Kolchak no opportunity to reform his army and to liberate as quickly as possible the industrial areas of the Urals, extremely important for the defense of the Soviet Republic. In a telegram to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front, Lenin stated: "If we don't win the Urals before the winter, I consider that the revolution will inevitably = perish."^^1^^ Lenin demanded that the offensive in the Urals be accelerated and the troops reinforced. Carrying out Lenin's instructions, the Red Army moved swiftly eastward.
In an effort to break up the Red Army's offensive on the Eastern Front, the Entente moved Yudenich's troops, supported by counterrevolutionary detachments from Finland and Estonia, into an offensive on Petrograd. A British fleet including 12 light cruisers, 20 destroyers and 12 submarines lent the Whites naval support. Yudenich's offensive was supported by mutinies at forts Krasnaya Gorka, Seraya Loshad and Obruchev, engineered by agents of the Entente. There was an immediate threat to Petrograd. The Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government took decisive steps to strengthen the Petrograd Front. Units from other fronts were sent to assist. The workers of Petrograd, units of the 7th Army and the Red Baltic Fleet rose to the defense of the cradle of the proletarian revolution. The sailors of the Baltic Fleet drove back all the attempts of the British squadron to break through .to Petrograd. At the end of June Yudenich's army was thrown back from Petrograd into Estonia.
On the Eastern Front, too, the offensive continued. The Red Army
completed the liberation of the Urals. Kolchak ceased to be the principal
danger. The armies of the Eastern and Turkestan fronts utterly routed
and mopped up Kolchak's forces in the fall and winter of 1919.
~
The Military-Political Alliance of the Soviet Republics. = In the summer of 1919, the Soviet republics formed a military-political alliance that greatly increased their defense capacity and helped to mobilize the country's material and human resources for repelling new and more powerful attacks by antirSoviet forces.
During the Civil War, there was as yet no union socialist state. The Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics and the Soviet republics of the Baltic area jointly waged a heroic struggle against the intervention and the Whites and extended fraternal assistance to each other. The Red Army was from the beginning organized as an army of the friendship and brotherhood of the Soviet peoples and defended the common interests of ill the Soviet republics. Each Soviet republic had its own armed forces, not united under a joint military command. There was no common system of supply. All this could not but have a negative effect on the :ourse of military operations and military organization.
The defense of the Soviet power and socialism from the invasion of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 393.
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7--161 97 international imperialism made it urgent that the armed forces of all the Soviet republics be united and that their operations be fully coordinated. The Soviets rallied the many-million peasant masses and the working people of the various nationalities round the working class. The international nature of the Soviets itself prompted the working masses of the republics to create a union state.All the Soviet republics strove for unification. Undertaking the construction of socialism, they rallied ever more closely around the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which was the prototype of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Lenin pointed to the need for the unification of the Soviet republics in his "Letter to the Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine Apropos of the Victories over Denikin" and in a number of other addresses.
On Lenin's proposal, the Central Committee of the RCP(B) discussed at the beginning of May, 1919, the question of a single command for all contingents of the Red Army and the fraternal socialist republics. Lenin drafted a Central Committee directive on military unity. The draft spoke of a unified command for all the detachments of the Red Army and the strictest centralization in the deployment of all forces and resources of the socialist republics as a necessary condition for success in the struggle against the enemy.
Lenin's idea on a military alliance was fully supported by the Soviet republics. On July 1, 1919, the ARCEC, with representatives from the Soviet governments of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania and Latvia in attendence, adopted the historic decree "On the Unification of the Soviet Republics---Russia, the Ukraine, . Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia---for the Struggle against World Imperialism''. A unified military command was established. Economic councils, transport and the commissariats of finances and labor were united. The 12th and 14th armies were formed from the troops of the Ukrainian army. The army of Soviet Latvia was reformed into the 15th Army, the ByelorussianLithuanian army into the 16th Army. All were subordinated completely to the Supreme Command of the Red Army.
The military-political unity of the working people of the Soviet republics played an enormous role in defeating the combined forces of the intervention and Whites. Representatives of all the peoples of our country fought valiantly side by side with Russian soldiers in the Red Army. Every nationality provided heroes whose memories are revered by the entire Soviet people. The Russian proletariat, which displayed valor and exemplary heroism at the front and in the rear, made the decisive contribution to the organization of the Red Army and to the defeat of foreign and domestic counterrevolution.
Lenin noted with pride that the Red Army had always been the standard-bearer in the struggle for the liberation of all peoples from class and national oppression. The Red Army, he said, was a true union of revolutionaries of different nations. Lenin and the Party raised the Red Army in the spirit of friendship among peoples and the consciousness of its exalted internationalist duty to the working people of the whole world. The unification of the armed forces of the RSFSR, the Ukraine and the other republics was one of the principal reasons for the defeat of the troops of the intervention and Whites in 1919 and 1920.
98 __CAPTION__ Jaroslav Hasek.Denikin Defeated. In July of 1919, as Kolchak was retreating in disarray, the Entente shifted the center of the struggle against the Soviet Republic to the south; it decided to deal the principal blow with Denikin's army, which numbered around 150 thousand men. Denikin's army was supported in the west and northwest by the Polish Whites and Yudenich, in the east by Kolchak's remaining forces and in the north by General Miller. Winston Churchill bragged that he organized a 14-state campaign against the Soviet Republic. The plan for such a campaign was in fact worked out in the spring of 1919, when the intervention and the Whites failed to crush the socialist republic with their own forces.
The Entente attempted to transfer the principal burden of the struggle against the Soviet Republic to the small bourgeois states that had formed on Russia's borders. But this attempt failed due to the fact that the small countries did not declare open hostilities against Soviet Russia, occupying instead a position of friendly neutrality. The contradictory interests of international imperialism and the small countries and the dissatisfaction of the states that had obtained independence as a result of the October Revolution with the great power policies of Kolchak and Denikin---all this kept the imperialists from carrying out their plan for a 14-state campaign. This was, as Lenin put it, a victory of worldwide, historical significance, the second immense victory of the Soviet Republic.
Denikin's army became the principal striking force of the Entente's new campaign. In the summer and fall of 1919, Denikin received from the United States more than 100 thousand rifles, over 3 million cartridges, 200 thousand shells, more than 600 thousand pairs of boots, around 200 thousand greatcoats and much other military equipment. Churchill later admitted that Britain gave Denikin major assistance; no 'ess than 250 thousand small arms, 200 cannons, 30 tanks and enormous supplies of arms and ammunition were sent through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea to Novorossiisk. Several hundred British army officers __PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/2HU326/20051216/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.12.03) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ and volunteers, even a few airmen, helped organize Denikin's armies as advisers, instructors and custodians of supplies.
The French government handed over to Denikin much Russian military equipment left in France after the First World War; the governments of Romania and Bulgaria likewise presented Denikin with much of the supplies of Russian arms on their territory --- more than 300 thousand rifles and 83 million cartridges.
In May of 1919, Denikin's armies struck at the Soviet Southern Front along the south of the Donbas. Ataman Grigoryev, one of Petlyura's men, engineered a mutiny behind Soviet lines in Yelisavetgrad, Yekaterinoslav, Kherson and Nikolayev. In the Left Bank Ukraine, Makhno's = detachments^^1^^ operated behind Soviet units, and around Veshenskaya a mutiny of counterrevolutionary Cossacks continued.
Forcing the Soviet troops to retreat, Denikin's armies had by the beginning of July seized the Donbas, a large part of the Ukraine and had established a line running through Tsaritsyn---Balashov---Povorino--- Novokhopersk---Belgorod---Alexandrovsk and then on along the Dnieper. Denikin's army included major cavalry formations that gave the Whites great mobility and permitted sudden raids behind the Red Army's lines. Denikin also had a large number of officers.
On July 3, 1919, Denikin signed an order for an offensive toward Moscow, the aim of which was to capture the Soviet capital and overthrow the Soviet power. The Volunteer Army under General V. Z. Mai-Mayevsky advanced through Kursk, Orel and Tula toward Moscow.
As Lenin observed, "the most critical moment for the socialist revolution"^^2^^ had arrived. On July 9, 1919, the Central Committee addressed a letter, "All Out to the Fight Against Denikin,'' to Party members and working people. This letter, written by Lenin, was a concrete program for the mobilization of the forces of the Party and all working people to defeat the enemy. Lenin wrote: "All the forces of the workers and peasants, all the forces of the Soviet Republic, must be harnessed to repulse Denikin's onslaught and to defeat him, without checking the Red Army's victorious advance into the Urals and Siberia. That is the main task of the = moment."^^3^^
Responding to Lenin's call, the Party and Soviet state undertook enormous organizational and political work among the masses. The Southern Front was strongly reinforced with leading Party and Soviet personnel and with fresh units of the Red Army. On the proposal of a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which met on July 3 and 4, the Commander in Chief was replaced--- S. S. Kamenev, until then Commander of the Eastern Front, replaced I. I. Vatsetis. P. P. Lebedev became Chief of the Field Staff of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, M. V. Frunze became Commander of the Eastern Front, V. N. Yegoryev---Commander of the Southern Front. Party workers were sent to conduct Party and political work in the armies of the Southern Front---A. S. Bubnov, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The anarchist N. Makhno led a counterrevolutionary armed rising of anarchist-kulak bands in the Left Bank Ukraine.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 436.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 436--37.
100 __CAPTION__ S. S. Kamenev. V. I. Mezhlauk, N. A. Anisimov, G. I. Okulova-- Teodorovich and others.In July, the Soviet command devised a plan for a counterattack to defeat Denikin: the principal blow was to be dealt from the Kamyshin, Balashov and Tsaritsyn area towards Novocherkassk by the 9th and 10th armies on the left flank; the remaining armies---the 8th, 14th and 13th---were to carry out diversionary attacks. In heavy fighting, the Red Army carried out the Supreme Command's plan: in the month from August 15 to September 15, 1919, the Red Army drove the enemy from his positions, took Voluiki, Kupyansk and Volchansk and moved about 64 kilometers toward Kharkov, one of the most important industrial centers in the Ukraine.
However, the Soviet troops were not strong enough to bring the offensive to a successful conclusion. Denikin's army also began a counterattack towards Kursk. In the Novokhopersk area, General Mamontov's cavalry corps broke through the front and drove a deep wedge into the Soviet rear. In August, Denikin took Poltava and Sumy and began an offensive towards Kiev. Petlyura's Directory troops captured Mogilev-Podolsk, Vinnitsa, Uman and Novgorod-Volynsk, while the Polish Whites captured Slutsk and Sarny. On August 31, Denikin's and Petlyura's troops captured Kiev.
In September, the Soviet command decided to split the Southern Front into the Southern Front proper, commanded by the outstanding military figure A. I. Yegorov, and the Southwest Front under the command of V. I. Shorin. The task of the Southeast Front was, as before, to defeat the enemy in the Don and Kuban territories and come to Novocherkassk.
In mid-September, the situation on the Southern Front took a turn for the worse. Seizing the initiative, Denikin's Whites moved towards the vital centers of the country. On September 12, 1919, Denikin issued a new directive for an offensive towards Moscow, entrusting the capture of the Soviet capital to the Volunteer Army, strengthened by Shkuro's and Mamontov's cavalry corps. The bourgeoisie the world over rejoiced, ine Donets capitalists promised a million-rouble prize to the White regiment that first fought its way into the streets of Moscow.
101In mid-September, the front of the 8th and 13th Soviet armies was pierced. On September 20, the Whites took Kursk, and in October they took Voronezh and Orel. The arsenal of the Red Army, Tula, was endangered.
On Lenin's Proposal, the Central Committee of the Party resolved to reinforce the Southern Front with Party personnel, rank-and-file Communists, Komsomol members and non-Party workers. Tula and its environs were turned into a fortified region.
Additional reserves, around 50 thousand men, were sent to the Southern Front. The political and military leadership of the front was reinforced. J. V. Stalin was appointed to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front, G. K. Orjonikidze, R. S. Zemlyachka, V. A. Baryshnikov, I. P. Uborevich, P. A. Solodukhin and others were sent to the Southern Front. In all, around 30 thousand Communists and 10 thousand Komsomol members were sent to the front.
On September 26, the Central Committee announced a Party Week for admitting politically advanced workers and peasants into the Party. In the central districts of the country alone, more than 100 thousand people entered the Party; another 70 thousand men from the units of the Red Army joined it. At a time when Soviet Russia was in serious straits, this was a clear expression of working people's profound confidence in their Party.
The situation that had taken shape on the Southern Front by the fall of 1919 demanded a certain regrouping of the forces of the Red Army in order to eliminate the growing danger to Tula, Moscow and the areas around. On October 15, the Politburo of the Central Committee made the decision not to surrender Tula, Moscow or the approaches to them to the enemy and to prepare a general offensive against Denikin during the winter. It was decided to hold Petrograd at any cost, reinforcing the troops defending the city with units from other fronts.
In order to stop the enemy's offensive in the most dangerous direction---towards Tula and Moscow---and to counterattack, the Soviet command created a strike force in the center of the Southern Front. This force was to deal the main blow to the enemy along a line running from Kharkov through the Donbas to Rostov-on-Don. In mid-October, the strike force of the Southern Front went over to a determined offensive. In desperate battles lasting many days around Orel, Voronezh and Kastornoye, Denikin's crack cavalry and infantry units were destroyed. Orel was liberated on October 20, Voronezh soon thereafter. S. M. Budyonny's cavalry corps, soon reorganized into the First Cavalry Army, and the troops of the 8th Army played a decisive role in this. The liberation of Voronezh was assisted by the workers of the city and the laboring peasants of the province, led by the underground Party organization.
Breaking the enemy's resistance, the troops of the Red Army moved southward. On December 12, 1919, they liberated Kharkov, on December 16 they liberated Kiev, the capital of the Soviet Ukraine. In January of 1920 the Red Army liberated Tsaritsyn, Novocherkassk and Rostov-on-Don. Soviet troops, entering the Don and Kuban areas, continued their offensive. Denikin's forces were broken into two groups. One retreated towards Odessa and the Crimea; pursuit was entrusted to 102 __CAPTION__ Oleko Dundic. __ERROR__ the Southern Front, renamed the Southwest Front in JanuI ary, 1920. The main grouping of Denikin's army retreated to the North Caucasus, pursued by the Southeast Front, in January, 1920 renamed the Caucasus Front. In February, command on this front was given to M. N. Tukhachevsky, while G. K. OrjoInikidze was made a memIber of the Front's RevI olutionary Military CounIcil. In fierce fighting in February and March of 1920, the main body of Denikin's army was broken up, its remnants fleeing to the coast. On March 27, Noyorossiisk was liberated. During the fighting, the Red Army captured more than 12 thousand officers and 100 thousand soldiers, many weapons, much ammunition and other I trophies besides. Denikin's army ceased to exist, only its remnants fleeing across the border or seeking cover in the Crimea.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Victories on Other Fronts.Victories on Other Fronts. At the time Denikin achieved his greatest success in moving on Moscow, Yudenich's Northwest army again moved on Petrograd. The troops of the intervention and the Whites here had an appreciable numerical superiority over the Soviet forces, which consisted of the 7th Army, the garrisons of some cities and the Baltic Fleet. On September 28, Yudenich's army, supported by British tanks, took the offensive. In October the fighting reached its peak of intensity. By October 20, the enemy had captured Yamburg, Krasnoye Selo, Gatchina and Detskoye Selo. Petrograd was threatened.
Lenin appeale'd to the workers and Red Army men of Petrograd: "Fight to the last drop of blood, comrades, hold fast to every inch of land, be firm to the end, victory is near! Victory will be = ours!"^^1^^
The Petrograd Front was reinforced from the Northern Front and with Red Army reserves. A mass mobilization of Communists, Komsomol members and workers was carried out in Petrograd. On October 21, the 7th Army, reinforced by fresh units, launched an attack and, together with the 15th Army, in November defeated Yudenich's The remnants of Yudenich's army were thrown back into ia, where the Estonian authorities disarmed them.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 69.
103The victory of Soviet troops over the principal forces of the intervention and the Whites, over Denikin's forces, sealed the fate of the White armies on other fronts. Kolchak's army in the east was living out its last days.
In the second half of October, 1919, the Soviet 5th and 3rd armies launched an offensive in the area of the Tobol and Ishim rivers. On November 14, the 27th Rifle Division liberated Omsk; on January 7, 1920, Red Army units and partisans drove the Whites from Krasnoyarsk Kolchak's army was destroyed, and its remnants fled in panic to the east. Kolchak was arrested and, sentenced by a court, shot by firin» squad in Irkutsk on February 7, 1920.
The Red Army emerged triumphant on the Northern Front, too. On February 21, Archangel was liberated, and then Murmansk on March 13,
Partisans provided major assistance in the destruction of Kolchak's and Denikin's armies. Everywhere, Bolshevik underground organiza tions organized the partisan movement. To provide leadership for the underground organizations and the partisan movement in Siberia, the Central Committee on December 17, 1918, established the Siberian Euro (Sibburo) of the Central Committee of the RCP(B), located in the frontal zone.
The Central Committee and the Sibburo provided much assistance to Siberian and Urals Party organizations. In the year between the end of 1918 and the end of 1919, the Sibburo sent more than 200 men through the front to aid underground Party organizations. Money, newspapers, proclamations, leaflets and arms were sent. The activity of the Siberian Bolshevik underground organizations was directed by the Siberia Regional Committee of the RCP(B), the Far Eastern Party organization by the Far Eastern Regional Committee of the RCR(B).
Major partisan formations with up to 15--20 thousand men operated ii Siberia. Among them were the partisan army of A. D. Kravchenko am P. Y. Shchetinkin in Yenisei Province, the partisan army on the Alts commanded by Y. M. Mamontov, the 1st Tomsk Partisan Division, th partisan armies of Irkutsk Province, Eastern Transbaikal area, Amu Province and the Primorye Area. The partisan struggle was led b; Bolshevik underground organizations. Partisan armies were commandei by the Bolsheviks G. S. Drogoshevsky, I. G. Bezrodnykh, S. G. Lazi and others. Political work in the partisan detachments was led by th experienced Bolsheviks M. I. Gubelman, F. N. Mukhin and P. F Postyshev, among others. In all, there were more than 150 thousam partisans in Siberia and the Far East.
The struggle of the working people in the occupied areas in the soutl was directed by the Don Euro of the RCP(B), established at the end o August, 1918. In the summer of 1919, the Trans-Front-Line Euro of th Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine was created with S. V. Kosior at its head. More than 50 thousand men participated in the Ukrainian partisan movement. A number of cities in the Ukraine were liberated by the joint operations of partisans and Red Army units.
In the Caucasus, the partisan movement was led by the Caucasian Territorial Committee of the RCP(B). F. I. Makharadze and N. F. Gikalo, among others, played a leading role in the Committee.
104The year 1919 was the year in which Red Army won decisive victories: the Urals, Siberia, the Ukraine, the North Caucasus and Central Asia were liberated from the enemy. The imperialist's new coordinated campaign was beaten back, the position of Soviet Russia strengthened. By the end of the year, the Red Army numbered almost 4.5 million men.
The Seventh All-Russia Congress of Soviets, meeting from December 5 through 7, summed up the results of the second year of the struggle. The Congress wholeheartedly approved the domestic and foreign policy of the Soviet government. Hailing the outstanding victories achieved by the Red Army, the Congress demanded that all central and local institutions of the republic direct all their efforts and resources to aid the front and achieve the total and merciless destruction of the enemy. The Congress also made decisions on economic policy and the Soviet order and outlined measures for expanding the influence of the masses in the administration of the state.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ A Breathing Spell.A Breathing Spell. = The beginning of 1920 brought Soviet Russia a temporary breathing spell: the interventionists had been driven from territory inhabited by more than 50 million persons. Major imperialist __CAPTION__ Men of the 1st Cavalry Army. [105] states --- Britain, France, Italy --- were forced to lift the economic blockade of the country. However, when the Soviet government again proposed to these countries that peace negotiations be started, no answer was received. Soviet Russia achieved its first success in the struggle for peace in February, 1920, when a peace treaty with Estonia was signed. This, as Lenin put it, opened a commercial window to Europe. The international situation changed somewhat to Soviet Russia's advantage. But the threat of war had not passed. The economy, devastated by the war, had therefore to be rehabilitated at the same time that the enormous, five-million-man Red Army was kept in a state of combat readiness. It was necessary for a time to create labor armies out of some military formations.
Focusing its attention on economic questions, the Soviet government restructured the country's administrative organs: the Council of Worker-Peasant Defense was in early April, 1920, reformed into the Council of Labor and Defense, the primary task of which was to link the country's efforts to repair the economy with the tasks of defense.
The Ninth Congress of the RCP(B), which met from March 29 through April 5, 1920, ratified the main points of the overall economic plan for the republic, a plan that called for improving the state of transport and building up the necessary reserves of grain, fuel and raw materials. Subsequently, it was intended to develop mechanical engineering and increase the output of consumer goods. The electrification of the country was the foundation of the economic plan.
The Ninth Congress set the trade unions' primary task as involving
the working population in economic construction. The transportation
system, mines and factories were gradually repaired, discipline was
strengthened and labor productivity raised.
~
The Last Campaign of the Interventionists Is Broken Up. In the spring of 1920, Soviet workers and peasants had again to take up arms. The Entente resolved this time to use the army of bourgeois-landlord Poland and the remnants of the White troops in the Crimea under the command of Baron Wrangel. The Entente stepped up the delivery of arms, ammunition and equipment to Wrangel's army. The government of bourgeois-landlord Poland, rejecting Soviet Russia's offers of peace, went to war against Russia.
On April 25, 1920, the Polish army began an offensive against Kiev. The Soviet front was penetrated and the Polish Whites captured Zhitomir, Korosten, Kazatin and Kiev. The remaining White troops emerged from the Crimea. The Soviet state was again in serious danger. The principal slogan of the day became "Everything for the Front!''. On May 11, the country was declared in a state of war. In order to supply the Red Army with the necessary armaments, all industry was again converted to military production. A Week of the Labor Front was held, the working day being increased by three hours. Production of ammunition and arms was appreciably increased. The Communist Party carried out a new mobilization: in May and June alone, around 12 thousand Communists were sent to the front.
On May 23, 1920 the Central Committee's theses on "The Polish 106 __CAPTION__ G. I. Kotovsky. Front and Our Tasks" were published. The theses emphasized that the Soviet state was not encroaching on the independence or sovereignty of Poland, that Polish working people must decide their own fate for themselves.
The Red Army fought on two fronts --- the Western and the Southwest. To ease the situation of the troops defending the Southwest Front, on May 14, 1920, Soviet troops on the Western Front launched an offensive in Byelorussia. Though this offensive achieved little success, it nevertheless relieved the strain on the Southwest Front. Budyonny's battle-tested First Cavalry Army--- around 18 thousand men, 302 machine guns, 48 field guns, 4 armored detachments, 3 aviation detachments and 4 armored trains---was rushed from Maikop to the Uman area on the Southwest Front. Almost one out of every five soldiers in it was a Communist.
Like a huge fist, on June 5 the First Cavalry Army launched a determined attack, breaking through the Polish front around Zhitomir and causing the Polish troops to flee. The army liberated Zhitomir, Berdichev, Kiev and Vinnitsa. The troops of the Southwest Front moved rapidly westward.
On July 4, the troops of the Western Front, under M. N. Tukhachevsky's command, also launched an offensive. By the end of the month, Soviet troops had shifted the scene of the fighting to Poland and were approaching Warsaw. The Red Army's entry into the territory °f Poland intensified the Polish workers' and peasants' revolutionary struggle against the bourgeois-landlord system. A Revolutionary Provisional Committee of Poland, chaired by J. J. Marchlewski, was established in Bialystok; more than 60 local revolutionary committees were formed in eastern Poland and began to make revolutionary 107 changes. The workers of Bialystok organized a volunteer revolutionary regiment.
Striving to save the Polish White troops from complete destruction, the Entente sought to have Soviet Russia immediately halt its military operations against Poland and Wrangel and offered its mediation for negotiations. At the same time, the Entente stepped up the flow of materiel to the Polish Army. Having created strong reserves, this army began a counterattack on August 16, 1920, and forced the Soviet troops back from Warsaw and Lvov. The Soviet command committed serious mistakes in the attack on Warsaw: positions taken were not consolidated, supply lines were overextended, and the operations of the Western and Southwest fronts were not coordinated.
Recovering from its failures, the Red Army was ready to strike new blows on the army of bourgeois-landlord Poland, whose strength had been exhausted. The latter circumstance forced Pilsudski's government to agree to the Soviet Republic's proposals of peace. In October, 1920, a preliminary peace treaty was signed between Poland on the one side and the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR on the other. The main striking force of the Entente's last campaign had withdrawn from the game. Soviet Russia could now concentrate its forces for the destruction of the Entente's "second hand"---Wrangel's army.
To strike a powerful and final blow against Wrangel, the Soviet government again created, in September, 1920, a Southern Front consisting of the 6th and 13th armies and the 2nd Cavalry Army. M. V. Frunze was put in command, S.I. Gusev and Bela Kun were appointed to the Front's Revolutionary Military Council. The First Cavalry Army, too, was sent to the Southern Front. Eight thousand Communists were sent to strengthen the front. The Soviet troops were told to liberate the Crimea before the onset of winter.
For an entire month, from September 15 through October 15, Soviet soldiers on the Southern Front fought fiercely against Wrangel's army, which was attempting to seize the Donbas and break through to the Right Bank Ukraine. Wrangel hoped to link up with the Polish Whites and break up the Soviet-Polish peace negotiations.
But the enemy failed to achieve his designs: Soviet troops dealt him severe defeats. At the end of October, the troops of the Southern Front broke up the body of Wrangel's 100-thousand-man army in Northern Taurida. The First Cavalry Army, attacking from Berislav and Kakhovka, played a major role in this. Despite enormous losses, Wrangel was able to regroup cavalry and infantry formations and break through to the Crimea. Here Wrangel's army sheltered behind strong fortifications built under the direction of foreign specialists on the Perekop and Chongar isthmuses. These defense works were considered impregnable, equal to the fortifications around Verdun. The flat approaches were dominated by the 8-meter high Turkish Embankment, in front of which were a deep ditch, barbed wire, trenches, dug-outs and machine-gun nests. Strong artillery lay behind. And to the south of the Perekop, second defense works of six lines of trenches ran down to the Yushun positions. Only by breaking through this fortress could Soviet troops enter the Crimea---there was no other route.
108 __CAPTION__ M. N. Tukhachevsky.On the night of November 7, Soviet advance units forced the Sivash and launched an attack behind the Perekop fortifications. Simultaneously, units of the 51st Division attacked the enemy from the front. The 30th Division stormed the enemy's Chongar emplacements. After the Perekop and Chongar bastions had been captured, Wrangel's other positions fell, too. Cavalry units flowed through the break, pursuing the retreating enemy.
By November 17, Soviet troops had cleaned the Whites completely out of the Crimea and the Southern Front was dismantled. The remnants of Wrangel's troops, principally the command cadres officials in the rear, fled abroad on British and French vessels.
The Commander of the Front, M. V. Frunze, reported to Lenin: "I should like to testify to the supreme valor shown by the heroic infantry during the storming of the Sivash and Perekop. The units passed through a narrow defile up to the enemy's barbed wire under murderous fire. Our losses were extraordinarily heavy. Some divisions lost three-fourths of their effectives. The total killed and wounded during the storming of the isthmuses was no less than 10 thousand men. The armies of the front did their duty to the = Republic."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ M. V. Frunze, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1957, p. 420 (in Russian).
109So rapid and decisive a victory over the Entente's last protege was the result of the extraordinary exertion of all the energies of the Soviet Republic and of the unparalleled heroism of her army. The Soviet government honored more than 40 units with military decorations and Red Banners of Honor; divisions that had distinguished themselves in combat were given honorary names: "the Sivash,'' "the Chongar,'' "the Perekop" divisions. Several thousand soldiers and commanders received decorations and arms of honor.
With the elimination of Wrangel, the main forces of foreign and
domestic counterrevolution had been destroyed.
~
The Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. = The Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets met from December 22 to 29, 1920, in the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. With the elimination of the fronts, the delegates' attention was now focused on the country's economic development. Reporting to the Congress, Lenin moved the economic front to the foreground, noting that this was now of overriding importance. The intervention and Whites had wrought enormous destruction in the Soviet Republic---more than 50 thousand million gold roubles worth.
The Congress of Soviets --- the supreme organ of power---had to map out the ways and means to repair the country's economy in the new situation. The priority economic tasks had already been set by the Ninth Party Congress. The restoration of the .transport system was proceeding under difficult conditions. The country bent enormous efforts to increasing the extraction and transport of fuel and laid in food supplies.
Bolstered by the first achievements, the Soviet government decided to develop a long-term, multi-year plan for economic development. The Congress was presented with the GOELRO Plan (dealing with electrification), which set out the basic ways to develop the economy. The GOELRO Plan called for doubling the amount of industrial output as against the 1913 level and increasing the output of electric power plants ten-fold. For this purpose, it was intended to construct, over a period of 10 to 15 years, 30 major regional electric plants utilizing various forms of energy (the Dnieper, Volkhov, Kashira, Shatura, and two Siberian power plants, the Chirchik power plant in Turkestan, the Chusovaya power plant in the Urals, and others).
Lenin expressed the significance of the GOELRO Plan as follows: "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country."^^1^^
On December 23, the Chairman of the GOELRO Commission, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, delivered his report. The delegates to the Congress listened with enormous.attention to this outstanding scholar's account of the future transformation of Russia. The Congress approved the GOELRO Plan, calling it "the first step of a great economic undertaking''. The ARCEC and the Council of People's Commissars were instructed to complete and approve the plan as soon as possible. The Congress expressed its firm conviction that "all workers and laboring peasants will bend all their efforts and will not stop at any sacrifice to carry out the plan for the electrification of Russia at all costs _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 516.
110 __CAPTION__ S. M. Budyonny, M. V. Frunze and K. Y. Voroshilov discuss the plan to defeat Wrangel. 1920. and despite all obstacles''. The GOELRO Plan, drawn up under Lenin's immediate guidance, was the first scientifically founded plan in history for the socialist reconstruction of an entire economy on the basis of electrification.The Congress adopted a special resolution "On Heavy Industry" that outlined a number of measures for creating favorable conditions for the development of heavy industry.
Agriculture also occupied an important place in the work of the Congress. With a view to the sad state of agriculture, the Congress deemed it necessary for the state to make every effort to aid the peasantry in obtaining equipment, constructing repair shops, rental and grain-cleaning centers and acquiring seeds and fertilizer. The Congress required the peasants to sow their fields completely according to state instructions and to work them properly.
In an appeal "To All Working People of Russia'', the Congress
congratulated all working people of the republic on the great victory over
jts enemies and expressed gratitude to all who, by their sweat and blood,
hard work and patience, courage and self-sacrifice for the good of the
common cause, had contributed to the victory.
~
Liberation of the Borderlands. Formation of New Autonomous Republics. = The defeat of the principal forces of the 111 counterrevolution---the White armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel and bourgeoislandlord Poland --- made the liberation of the borderlands from the interventionists and Whites a foreordained matter. The proletariat of Soviet Russia came to the aid of the peoples of the borderlands in their struggle for liberation. The military-political alliance of Soviet republics that had developed in the middle of 1919 was strengthened and significantly expanded.
Events in Central Asia were complex. At first, Soviet power was established in Turkestan, which obtained autonomy. Here Red Army units of Russian and native Turkestan workers and peasants were formed, important agrarian reforms were carried out, and the remnants of the colonial system of the past were eliminated. At the end of 1919, the armies of the Turkestan Front, having beaten Kolchak's forces and linked up with units of the Red Army of the Turkestan Soviet Republic, reestablished direct contact between Turkestan and Kazakhstan and the RSFSR. Soviet Russia could now assist the peoples of Central Asia, while Russian industry obtained needed cotton.
As early as October, 1919, the ARCEC and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR sent a Turkestan Commission headed by M. V. Frunze and V. V. Kuibyshev to Turkestan. The Commission was of great help to the peoples of Central Asia in establishing and strengthening a Soviet government and in eliminating deviations from the Leninist nationalities policy that local personnel had permitted. The Commission's activity helped to strengthen the Turkestan Autonomous SSR, which had been proclaimed on April 30, 1918.
Early in 1920, detachments of Whites and interventionists were destroyed in Transcaspia. This permitted the destruction of the body of the basmachi bands. In Khorezm (Khiva), the people rose and overthrew the Khan, who had sold out himself to the British imperialists; on February -1, 1920, a Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was proclaimed.
Close to the Soviet Republic of Turkestan existed a feudal state---the Bukhara Emirate, from whose territory a campaign against Soviet Turkestan was prepared. However, in August of 1920 a popular uprising against the Emir began. Supported by units of the Red Army, the uprising triumphed completely: the Emir was overthrown and on September 2, 1920, the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic was proclaimed. The people's republics in Khorezm and Bukhara later developed into socialist republics.
Liquidation of the feudal despotisms in Khorezm and Bukhara was carried out under the leadership of the Communist parties that arose there.
Almost simultaneously, Soviet power triumphed in Transcaucasia. Here, too, Communist organizations led the struggle. The anti-national Mussavatist regime in Azerbaijan aroused the universal dissatisfaction of working people. On April 28, 1920, the Baku proletariat and the working people of Azerbaijan rose in rebellion. The Azerbaijan Revolutionary Military Committee proclaimed Soviet power in Azerbaijan, announced the formation of the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic and appealed to the government of the RSFSR for assistance in the struggle against counterrevolution. Units of the llth Red Army deployed along the border entered Azerbaijan. The Mussavatist regime was overthrown 112 and Soviet power established. G. K. Orjonikidze, S. M. Kirov, A. I. Mikoyan and N. N. Narimanov played leading roles in organizing the new power.
In the fall of 1920, the workers and peasants of Armenia rose in a struggle against the bourgeois-nationalist Dashnak government. On November 29, 1920, the Revolutionary Committee of Armenia proclaimed the formation of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The 1st Armenian Communist Regiment, at the time in Azerbaijan, came to the aid of the uprising.
On February 25, 1921, Soviet power triumphed in Georgia, top. The Menshevik government was overthrown, the people's struggle being led by the Revolutionary Committee of Georgia composed of F. I. Makharadze (Chairman), A. A. Gegechkori, S. I. Kavtaradze, A. Ya. Nazaretyan, M. D. Orakhelashvili, Sh. Z. Eliava and others.
In the Far East, the struggle against the interventionists and Whites lasted until the end of October, 1922. The destruction of Kolehak's armies and the strong partisan movement forced the United States, Great Britain and France to withdraw their troops from Siberia by April, 1920. But with the agreement of the Entente, Japanese troops remained in the Far East and obstructed the restoration of Soviet power. On February 25, 1920, the Soviet government offered to begin peace negotiations with Japan, but the offer was rejected. In order to avoid war __CAPTION__ A meeting in Bukhara after the liberation of the city by the Red Army. [113] with Japan, the Central Committee of the RCP(B) and the Soviet government agreed to the temporary creation of a ``buffer'' state in the Far East. On April 6, 1920, the Congress of Working People of the Baikal Area, meeting in Verkhneudinsk, announced the formation of the Far Eastern Republic, with a popular revolutionary government led by the Communist Party. The Far Eastern Republic organized a Popular Revolutionary Army that, together with the partisans, had by the end of 1920 eliminated the Whites from almost the entire republic.
However, the Japanese military intervention in the Far East continued. In 1921, the remaining White forces that had regrouped in the Primorye area prepared, with Japanese assistance, for a new campaign. In Mongolia, the Japanese militarists organized the 10-thousand-man army of Baron Ungern for the purpose of invading the Transbaikal area and cutting the Far Eastern Republic off from Soviet Russia.
At the request of the Provisional Mongolian Revolutionary Government, units of the Red Army and the Popular Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic entered Mongolia. The combined efforts of these two armies, plus the People's Army of Mongolia, led by the national hero Sukhe-Bator, broke up the White bands in the summer.of 1921. Mongolia became a people's republic. In November, General Molchanov's White army, supported by the Japanese interventionists, launched an offensive against the Far Eastern Republic.
In the battles of Volochayevka (February 10--12, 1922) and Spassk (October 7-9, 1922), the Popular Revolutionary Army destroyed the White troops, which were the backbone of the Japanese intervention in the Far East. On October 25, 1922, the Popular Revolutionary Army entered Vladivostok, thereby completing the liberation of the Primorye area. On November 14, 1922, the Far Eastern Republic announced its reunification with the RSFSR. The next day, the Presidium of the ARCEC proclaimed the Far East part of the RSFSR.
Thus, as a result of an enormous exertion of all the material, military and moral forces of the workers and peasants of Soviet Russia, the interventionist and White forces were destroyed. The Russian Soviet Republic not only defended its statehood, it also aided the fraternal republics in their struggle against the common enemy.
Sweeping the borderlands clean of the enemy made it possible to continue and to crown the work of constructing the Russian Federation. The Russian proletariat helped the other peoples entering the RSFSR to organize their statehood. The following territorial units were formed within the RSFSR: the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (March 23, 1919), the Tatar ASSR (May 27, 1920), the Karelian Labor Commune (June 8, 1920), the Chuvash Autonomous Region (June 24, 1920), the Kirghiz (later Kazakh) ASSR (August 26, 1920), the Votsk (Udmurt) Autonomous Region (November 4, 1920), the Mari Autonomous Region (November 4, 1920), the Kalmyk Autonomous Region (November 4, 1920), the Gorskaya ASSR (January 20, 1921), the Daghestan ASSR (January 20, 1921), the Komi (Zyrian) Autonomous Region (August 22, 1921), the Kabardinian Autonomous Region (September 1, 1921) which later on January 16, 1922, became part of the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Region, the Crimean ASSR (October 18, 114 1921), the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Region (January 9, 1922), the Yakut ASSR (April 27, 1922), the Oirot Autonomous Region (June 1, 1922), the Cherkess (Adygei) Autonomous Region (July 27, 1922), the Chechen Autonomous Region (November 30, 1922), and the Karachayevo-Cherkess Autonomous Region (January 12, 1922).
National autonomy satisfied the age-old yearnings of the non-Russian peoples for the creation of their own national statehood and contributed to an economic, political and cultural resurgence and the liquidation of the former backwardness of the peoples oppressed by tsarism.
Consistently implementing the right of nations of self-determination, the Soviet government sought the more rapidly to liquidate the oppressive heritage of capitalist Russia in the area of relations among the nationalities. Rather than setting the peoples against each other, the Soviet government gradually united them in a single state. An important role in this was played by the establishment of treaty relations between the RSFSR on the one hand and the newly formed independent Soviet republics on the other. On September 30, 1920, a treaty was concluded between the RSFSR and the Azerbaijan SSR, on December 28, 1920, between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, on January 16, 1921, between the RSFSR and the Byelorussian SSR, and on May 21, 1921, between the RSFSR and the Georgian SSR.
__CAPTION__ The Red Army enters Irkutsk. March 7, 1920. [115]The treaties emphasized that the conclusion of a military and economic alliance among the free republics would ensure success in their struggle against imperialism. For that reason, the commissariats of war, finances, labor, and communications, as well as the supreme economic councils, were merged.
Treaty relations among the independent republics were an important
stage on the way to the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. The international friendship of the working people of the
Soviet republics was one of the reasons for their victory over the
interventionists and Whites during the years of the Civil War and foreign
intervention.
~
The Sources of Victory and Its Significance. = In defeating the interventionists and Whites, the Soviet people dealt a major military, moral and political defeat to world imperialism. The young Soviet state for the first time displayed its great vitality.
A prime source of the strength and invincibility of the Soviet Republic was its social and state structure, founded on a solid military and political alliance between workers and laboring peasants, on the friendship of the Soviet peoples. "A nation in which the majority of the workers and peasants realize, feel and see that they are fighting for their own Soviet power, for the rule of the working people, for the cause whose victory will ensure them and their children all the benefits of culture, of all that has been created by human labor,'' remarked Lenin, "such a nation can never be = vanquished."^^1^^
During the Civil War, the military alliance between workers and laboring peasants made it possible to create the regular, mass Red Army and organize an extensive partisan movement behind enemy lines.
The Leninist nationalities policy of the Soviet government played an enormous role in gaining the victory. It united the working people of all nationalities around the Communist Party --- the Party of internationalists--- and rallied them for the struggle against the interventionists and Whites, who pursued a policy of national oppression. Working people of many nationalities fought for Soviet power. Numerous national units and formations fought in the Red Army during the Civil War.
In the course of the Civil War, a voluntary military-political alliance of the peoples of Russia developed and gained strength under the leadership of the Communist Party and the Russian proletariat. This, too, was a prime factor in the victory over the enemy, for the Russian workers and peasants could not have defeated the troops of Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich and Wrangel, the bands led by Semenov, Ungern and others, without the sympathy and support of the oppressed masses of the borderlands of the former Russian Empire.
Conversely, without the political, military and material assistance of the Russian people, the masses of the national borderlands could not have freed themselves from foreign intervention and domestic counterrevolution and would have been doomed to servitude and national degeneration.
The Soviet people and the Red Army triumphed because they waged a just, patriotic war, defending the achievements of the October _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 319.
116 __CAPTION__ Mate Zalka. Revolution, defending their socialist homeland. The inspiring ideas of socialism and of the defense of the socialist homeland were a major source of the Soviet patriotism of the working people, a source of the mass military and labor heroism of Soviet citizens.In his concluding statement on the report about concessions to the RCP(B) faction of the Eighth Congress of Soviets on December 21, 1920, Lenin observed: "The patriotism of a person who is prepared to go hungry for three years rather than surrender Russia to foreigners is genuine patriotism, without which we could not hold out for three years. Without this patriotism we would not have succeeded in defending the Soviet Republic, in doing away with private property and now getting as much as 300 million poods by means of the food surplus appropriation system. This is the finest revolutionary patriotism."^^1^^
The heroic Red Army repulsed the first imperialist invasion of the Soviet Republic and honorably fulfilled its internationalist duty to the proleratiat and working people of the entire world.
The Soviet people will always treasure the memory of the striking examples of the Red Army's mass heroism: the raid by the South Urals Partisan Army under V. K. Blyukher's command, the heroic "iron flood" of the Taman Army, the defense of Tsaritsyn and Uralsk, the battles against Yudenich around Petrograd, against Denikin around Orel and Voronezh, against Wrangel around Kakhovka and Perekop, against Kolchak at Ufa and Omsk, against the White armies of General Molchanov at Volochayevka and Spassk, and many others.
For their heroic exploits during the Civil War, Soviet decorations and revolutionary Red Banners of Honor were awarded to 395 military formations, units and military schools. Around 15 thousand Soviet soldiers were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
For their combat services at the front during the Civil War, the Order _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 245.
117 of the Red Banner was awarded to: the Lenin Komsomol, the proletariat of Petrograd, Lugansk, Tsaritsyn, Tashkent, Grozny, to the workers of the main railway shops at Rostov-on-Don and the Chelyabinsk coal mines. The workers at the cartridge and shell works in Tula were awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.The partisan movement behind enemy lines was profoundly popular and patriotic.
Soviet foreign policy contributed to the victory over the interventionists and Whites. Throughout the Civil War, the Soviet Republic did everything it could to achieve peace. The Soviet government addressed almost 50 proposals for ending the war and establishing normal relations to the Entente countries. But the Entente did not respond and continued to fan the Civil War and to step up the intervention.
In order to achieve peace, the Soviet government in January, 1919, notified the Entente of its readiness to take part in the conference that the Entente was holding on Princes' Islands. The Soviet government was prepared to honor the debts of the tsarist government and to make territorial concessions. Lenin received the representative of the Entente, William C. Bullitt, and negotiated with him on the terms of a peace. Lenin's position was reported to the heads of governments of the Entente, but the latter paid no heed.
The Soviet government's consistent struggle for peace, its policy of parity among large and small peoples, made an enormous impact on the working masses in foreign countries, prompted their sympathy for Soviet Russia and thereby undermined the forces of the anti-Soviet intervention.
Despite the traitorous policy of the leaders of the Right-socialist parties, who slandered the Soviet Republic and actively supported the anti-Soviet intervention, the workers came to the defense of Soviet Russia. In Britain, France, Italy, the United States, Japan and other countries, there were strikes, meetings and political demonstrations demanding the withdrawal of the interventionist troops from Soviet Russia and the establishment of friendly relations with her.
The working masses of these countries organized action committees---"Hands Off Soviet Russia''. Among the soldiers of the occupying armies, the lack of enthusiasm for fighting against the Soviet Republic grew steadily.
One manifestation of proletarian solidarity was the formation of international units in the Red Army. Hungarians, Serbs, Czechs, Germans, Poles, Bulgarians, Chinese, Koreans and other workers and peasants fought in them.
The principal and decisive condition for the victory of the Soviet Republic over international and domestic counterrevolution was the leadership of the Communist Party, of its Central Committee, headed by V. I. Lenin. The Central Committee was the combat staff that directed the entire defence of the Republic, it dealt with the most important questions of foreign and domestic policy, with the organization of the Soviet Armed Forces, with the running of the economy under war-time conditions.
The Party sent its best men to the army and navy. Around 300 thousand Communists---almost half of the Party---fought in the ranks 118 of the army and navy. No less than 50 thousand Communists gave their lives for the cause of the revolution during the Civil War.
The first military invasion of international imperialism into the Soviet state ended in failure. The Soviet republics not only beat back the enemy's onslaught, they emerged from the war stronger and more united than ever. The Soviet people won the opportunity to direct all its energies to peaceful economic development, to the creation of a new, socialist society. At the same time, Lenin emphasized the need to be on the alert, to strengthen the country's defense capacity, to prepare to defeat new attacks by the imperialists.
The victory of Soviet Russia over the interventionists and Whites showed all nations that a revolutionary war, if it can really arouse millions of working and exploited people, is of unlimited potential. Lenin remarked that the liberation of the peoples of the East was entirely feasible not only from the perspective of the international revolution, but also from the point of view of "the experience of the Soviet Republic which has suffered the armed invasion of all the powerful = imperialist countries".^^1^^ This experience confirmed the truth of Lenin's observation that no "revolution is worth anything unless it can defend = itself".^^2^^
The Soviet power triumphed primarily because all of its energies were directed to doing the utmost for the defense of the revolution's achievements.
The working class could not have sustained a victory over the enemies of the motherland had it not had as allies the majority of the working population, which, in Russia, meant the peasantry. The alliance between workers and peasants was the basis for the organization of a solid home front, for the unity of the rear and the front, for the creation of a many-million Red Army and a mass partisan movement behind enemy lines.
Lenin said that the revolution underwent the most serious trials --- in struggle and in fire, And, he remarked, "if you are determined to carry this to its logical conclusion, you must understand that you will have to contend against the onslaught of the exploiters of the whole world. If you are ready to offer resistance and to make further sacrifices in order to hold out in the struggle, you are a revolutionary; if not, you will be crushed."^^3^^
The correct tactics followed by the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government with respect to petty-bourgeois parties and groups played an important role in the victory. The Bolsheviks' tactics were flexible: from suppression of counterrevolutionary uprisings by force of arms to agreements and hlocs with petty-bourgeois parties and groups for the struggle against the principal enemy (most often, on territories occupied by the enemy), from repression of those who betrayed the interests of the people to acceptance into the Communist Party of those members of petty-bourgeois parties who sincerely adopted the position of the proletariat. This promoted the transfer to the proletariat's side of those strata of the working population that had earlier believed in the slogans of "pure democracy" and "pure freedom".
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 154.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 124.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol.29, pp. 67--68.
119In the course of the Civil War, the bourgeois parties collapsed completely. The history of the Russian revolution, said Lenin, showed clearly that "when their class profits are at stake, the bourgeoisie will sell their country and strike a bargain with any foreigner against their own people".^^1^^ This is exactly what the Russian bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie of the national borderlands did. However, it was their collusion with the foreign intervention that opened the eyes of those working people who had earlier believed their false promises.
All this helped the Soviet Republic maintain itself as a base for the world revolutionary movement. The victory of the peoples of Russia over international and domestic counterrevolution had enormous significance not only for their own destiny, but also for the liberation struggle of working people of all countries.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 26.
[120] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Three __ALPHA_LVL1__ REHABILITATING THE ECONOMY. THEThe New Economic Policy (NEP). The Tenth Party Congress. The Creation of a Fraternal Union of Equal Republics. Rehabilitating Agriculture and Large-scale Industry. Social and Political Life. Military Reform. Lenin's Plan for Building Socialism. The Fourteenth Party Congress. First Successes in Soviet Foreign Policy.
The New Economic Policy (NEP). The Tenth Party Congress. = The last battles on the fronts of the Civil War died down. The revolutionary people emerged from the war victorious. Soviet Russia for the first time obtained a lengthy peace that gave her the opportunity to direct all her energies to rebuilding the war-torn economy, to socialist construction. Soviet Russia had now to demonstrate in practice the enormous constructive potential of the new order that had arisen in consequence of the triumph of the October Socialist Revolution.
The working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party, faced enormous tasks: strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and its social basis---the alliance between the working class and the laboring peasantry; establishing cooperation among the country's nations and nationalities in the economic, political and cultural spheres; rebuilding the economy; strengthening the international position of the workers' and peasants' state in the world.
The Soviet state was the largest in the world, with a territory that at the time was greater than 21.3 million square kilometers and a population of 136.8 million. Six Soviet socialist republics---Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan---had concluded treaties of alliance among themselves. Together with the Far Eastern Republic, a provisional state uniting a number of areas in the Far East and Eastern Siberia, and the Bukhara and Khorezm Soviet People's republics, they encompassed one-sixth of the land surface of the globe.
The transition to peaceful construction meant grappling with enormous difficulties: overcoming the economic and cultural backwardness of the peoples, eliminating national animosities, focusing the attention of the masses on economic development, on turning a country that has in the past been backward into a mighty socialist power. The Soviet state, following uncharted paths, was the first to deal with the many problems of building a new society.
It was necessary first of all to deal with the economic devastation left by the world imperialist and Civil wars. At the beginning of 1921, the country's large-scale industry was producing one-fifth of its pre-war output; the fuel, metallurgical and mechanical engineering industries were in ruins; the production of cotton fabrics had fallen by a factor of almost 20, sugar production by a factor of 12, extraction of salt by a 121 factor of 3.5, and so on. Paralysis in transportation had broken the economic ties between different regions and between agriculture and industry. The urban population was experiencing major difficulties.
Agriculture, too, was in a bad way. The area sown with grain and technical cultures had shrunk, the land was being poorly worked, the grain harvest was down, fewer cattle were being raised. Agricultural output was 60 percent of the pre-war level.
The economy was a hodge-podge of different socio-economic structures: a socialist structure consisting of large-scale state industry and commerce, transport, banks, cooperative enterprises, and state and collective farms; the petty commodity structure that encompassed the peasant farm based on personal labor and connected with the market only through the sale and purchase of commodities; the private capitalist structure --- kulak farms employing hired labor, small entrepreneurs in industry and private commerce; the patriarchal structure --- semi-natural peasant economy partially not connected with the market; state capitalism --- leases, concessions, and private enterprises operating under state supervision. The basic structures were the socialist, the petty commodity and the capitalist. The socialist sector played the leading role in the country's economic development, for it commanded the economic heights: large-scale industry, transport, foreign trade, finance, state property in land.
The class structure of Soviet society reflected the socio-economic structures. The principal classes were the workers and peasants; the remnants of the previously dominant exploiting classes---the former landowners, capitalists, private traders --- were an insignificant strata; in the villages, the kulaks made up a large exploiting class.
The classes had changed significantly during the war years. The working class, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, had in these years accomplished remarkable things: it had secured the victory of the socialist revolution, had wrought fundamental socio-economic changes in the country and had defended the country from the onslaught of international imperialism. It took an active part in running the state, had acquired much experience in leading the country's political and economic life and was the force on which the Party relied in leading society. During the years of revolution and war, the working class had had to absorb the greatest deprivations, difficulties and suffering; by its struggle, it had won the sympathy and support of all working people in the country.
Yet the number of industrial workers had fallen: while in 1913 the number of workers in large-scale industry totalled 2,555 thousand, in 1921 they numbered 1.4 million, of which 1.3 million were employed in factory industry. Hunger and the closing down of major factories had driven workers to the villages. A certain segment of the working class had become disoriented, uncertain, given to despair and disbelief, all this exacerbated by the counterrevolutionary propaganda of the Mensheviks and SRs. This weakened the social basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat and constituted a danger for the Soviet order.
Numerically the largest class in Soviet society was the peasantry, accounting for around 80 percent of the country's population. In the years of revolution, fundamental changes had occurred in the position 122 and consciousness of the peasants. The peasantry had been delivered forever from the oppression of the landowners and capitalists, from bourgeois-landowner system, and had to a large extent been freed from the influence of the clergy and religion. From the Soviet government it had received former landowners' land and was relieved of indebtedness to the banks.
During the years of revolution and Civil War, the peasantry passed through a stern school of life and politics, experienced different political regimes and concluded that the Soviet government was the one which met their own interests to a maximum. The peasantry matured politically and displayed Soviet patriotism in thought and deed; thanks to the peasantry's support, the Soviet power sustained victory over its numerous foreign and domestic enemies.
Fundamental changes occurred, too, in the social structure of the Soviet peasantry, in the balance of its different class strata---poor peasants, middle peasants and kulaks. While before the revolution the poor peasants bulked largest, accounting for around 65 percent of the peasantry, by the conclusion of the Civil War the middle peasants had become the most numerous strata, the number of poor peasants having fallen sharply. The power of the kulaks had been broken, the number of kulak farms reduced by approximately a factor of three.
The exploiting classes that had dominated before --- landowners and capitalists --- were subject to complete expropriation. From 1.5 to 2 million landowners and capitalists, including their families, emigrated, maintaining abroad their counterrevolutionary organizations for the purpose of overthrowing the Soviet power and restoring capitalism in Russia; some petty landowners remained in the villages and received the right to use the land according to existing norms.
The successful construction of the new society depended on establishing proper relations between the basic classes of Soviet society, the workers and peasants. During the Civil War they had been united in a military-political alliance. However, with the end of the Civil War this form of alliance was no longer adequate. The peasantry began to express dissatisfaction with food surplus appropriation in general and its excesses in a number of places in particular; the peasantry sought the freedom to dispose of its surplus output, to exchange it for industrial goods. The peasants' dissatisfaction was exploited by the Mensheviks and SRs, who had shown their political bankruptcy during the revolution, and by the White leaders who had fled abroad. In Tambov, some areas of Voronezh and Saratov provinces, in the Ukraine, on the Don and in Siberia they organized anti-Soviet kulak rebellions into which a segment of the middle peasantry was drawn.
. In the struggle against the Soviet power, the enemies of the revolution tried out new tactics. Since the millions of laboring peasants supported the Soviets, the country's enemies dropped their old slogan of Down with the Soviets" and advanced a new one: "For the Soviets, but without Communists.'' An example of the new tactic was the Kronstadt mutiny, which began on February 28, 1921. The mutiny in Kronstadt--- anaval fortress near Petrograd---was a serious threat to the revolution. Jne mutineers were actively supported by the Russian and foreign bourgeoisie, Mensheviks and SRs. On March 18, the Kronstadt mutiny 123 was crushed by Red Army units under the command of M. N. Tukhachevsky. Communists, delegates to the Tenth Party Congress, fought in the advance ranks of the attackers.
Dissatisfaction with the policy of War Communism spread through the peasant masses and even among a segment of the working class. The area of land sown fell, as did the amount of livestock. Peasant dissatisfaction mounted especially in early 1921 in connection with the 1920 crop failure and the sharp decline in the economic position of the villages. Soviet Russia was passing through an acute political crisis.
The Communist Party and the Soviet government took urgent action. The stockpiling and transportation of fuel, food and industrial raw materials were accelerated. By February 1, 1921, 235 million poods of grain had been stockpiled from the 1920 harvest---somewhat more than in the entire preceding year. However, the principal difficulties in the food supply, difficulties that stemmed from the poor condition of agriculture, were not eliminated.
The situation that had taken shape in the Soviet Republic by the spring of 1921 demanded a fundamental about-face in the policy of the Party and the state. This change was promoted above all by the need to establish workable relations between socialist industry and pettycommodity peasant agriculture. The policy of War Communism did not provide such relations.
The development of a new policy by the Party and the state was made more difficult by the vacillations of some members of the Communist Party who gave way to the pressure of petty-bourgeois elements and the sentiments of backward strata of the working class, sentiments that sprang from the difficult situation in the country. During the discussion of trade unions at the end of 1920 and the beginning of 1921, various anti-party, factional groups stepped up their activity; by their attacks on the Party line they threatened the Party's unity and correct relations between the Party and the masses.
The factional struggle during the trade union discussion was initiated by Trotsky, who proposed that the methods of War Communism be retained in leading the masses and who advanced the harmful slogan of "screw tightening" and "shaking up" the leadership cadres in the trade unions, of maintaining methods of command and militarization there. As Lenin noted, the root of his disagreement with Trotsky was a "different approach to the mass, the different way of winning it over and keeping in touch with = it."^^1^^
Other factional groups also developed during the discussion: the "Workers' Opposition" (A. G. Shlyapnikov, A. M. Kollontai, S. P. Medvedev), who proposed handing over the administration of the economy to the trade unions; "Democratic Centralists" (N. Osinsky [V. V. Obolensky], T. V. Sapronov); and the "buffer group" led by N. I. Bukharin. The platforms of the various opposition groups amounted in effect to a denial of the leading role of the Communist Party in the system of proletarian dictatorship, lack of understanding of the trade unions' role as schools of communism for the working masses, and an effort to turn the Party from the Leninist policy. Lenin criticized these _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. .32, p. 22.
124 opposition platforms sharply and argued that, under existing conditions, the discussion was an impermissible luxury that raised hope among the enemy that there would be a split in the ruling party and that the Soviet power would weaken and collapse. The entire course of the discussion demonstrated the urgent need to ensure Party unity, solidity, ideological firmness and intolerance for opportunist vacillations and factions. Without this, it would be impossible to carry out a sharp turn in the Party's policy and successfully lead the country in the new situation.Having subjected the situation in the country as of the spring of 1921 to a thorough analysis, and recognizing the difficult state in which the peasantry found itself, Lenin proposed that the Party reexamine its attitude towards the peasantry.
The way to effect a transition to a new economic policy was not immediately arrived at. In making its choice, the Party took into account the demands of the peasant masses, their sentiments and their specific proposals. While the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets was meeting, Lenin met with non-party delegates from Byelorussia, the Ukraine, the Kirghiz Republic, the Don Territory, the Donbas and a number of provinces of the Russian Federation. Lenin reported his conclusions and observations to the members of the Party Central Committee and the People's Commissars.
Lenin often talked with peasant delegations; he received emissaries from the peasants of various provinces and familiarized himself with letters sent to the central newspapers. He had, therefore, every reason to state at the subsequent Party congress that the leadership of the Party had grasped the mood and demands of the peasantry.
The Tenth Congress of the RCP(B), which met in March, 1921, adopted the historic decision of replacing the food surplus appropriation with tax in kind, which marked the beginning of the transition to the New Economic Policy. Party questions, too, held an important place in the resolutions of the Tenth Congress, for carrying out NEP required that the Party, as the leading force in the state, be ideologically cohesive, steadfast and disciplined.
In the resolution "On Questions of Party Organization'', the Congress set forth new organizational goals and methods of Party work under conditions of peaceful economic development: the extension of democracy within the Party, bringing workers into the Party and purging the Party of non-communist elements, strengthening the Party's ties to the masses, and increasing the role of Party cells at factories and plants.
The Congress adopted a special resolution "On Party Unity,'' drafted by Lenin. The resolution called for the disbandment of all factions and groups and instructed all organizations to see that no factional moves were permitted. Calling on Party members to eliminate shortcomings in Party work through criticism, the Congress demanded that anyone offering criticism take into account the Party's position among the enemies that surrounded it and by participating directly in Soviet and Party work strive to correct Party's mistakes in practice. The Congress also condemned the anarcho-syndicalist deviation in the Party expressed 'n the "Workers' Opposition" and other opposition groups and stated that propagandizing these views was incompatible with continued membership in the Communist Party. The Tenth Party Congress 125 reviewed the discussion on trade unions and adopted Lenin's platform. The trade unions, under conditions of peaceful development, were to be a school for nourishing a communist spirit among the working masses, for bringing them into economic management and for rallying them around the Communist Party.
Strengthening the bonds of friendship among the peoples of Soviet Russia was of great importance for successfully rehabilitating the economy. The Tenth Congress discussed how best to involve all the peoples of the Soviet Republic in building socialism. One of the principal tasks in this field was to eliminate the existing inequality among peoples, an inequality expressed in the economic, political and cultural backwardness inherited from the past. The development of industry in the country's borderlands, the development of Soviet statehood and a culture in the native languages of the peoples, training native personnel from the local population, assistance by the working class of central Russia to the peasantry of the national republics---such were the practical means for eliminating the inequality of peoples and for strengthening their cooperation and international friendship. The decisions on the nationalities question adopted at the Tenth Party Congress thus made concrete the Marxist tenet on the ways to bring peoples backward in the past to socialism while bypassing the capitalist stage of development. Assistance by the proletariat of the advanced countries was set as an obligatory condition for this.
The decisions that the Congress adopted on economic questions marked the beginning of the transition to the New Economic Policy, the basis of which Lenin had developed at the ' eginning of 1918 in his "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power.'' Military intervention and the Civil War had prevented the implementation of this policy. Pointing to the continuity between the plan advanced in the spring of 1918 and NEP, Lenin and the Party stressed that they were not identical, but rather two stages in the development of a program for building socialism. The switch to NEP occurred in a new situation and many questions in the transition were dealt with on the basis of experience in economic development acquired between 1918 and 1920. As distinct from the 1918 plan, the New Economic Policy posed for the first time the question of the relationship between a socialist economy and the market and trade. In the new situation, the entire economic front had to be restructed so as to strengthen the economic alliance between the working class and the peasantry, to determine the ways of building socialism in the transitional period between capitalism and socialism.
The first step in the New Economic Policy was the replacement of the food surplus appropriation with a tax in kind, the total amount of which was set at about half the level of the food surplus appropriation; the amount of the tax in kind on a peasant farm was determined by the amount of land, the size of the family, the yield and the property status of the farm. The poorest peasants were'given preferences, while rich farms were taxed at a higher rate. All peasant farms could freely sell on the market the surplus that remained after taxation. Freedom of commerce in commodities produced by petty industry and agricultural commodities was the second step in the New Economic Policy.
126Private capital was permitted in commerce. This was one of the ^fundamental differences between the New Economic Policy and War Communism, when freedom of commerce had been abrogated.
With the transition to NEP, the position of the consumer cooperatives changed fundamentally. During the period of War Communism, the consumer cooperatives had been subordinated to the People's Commissariat for Food and had handled the distribution of goods and necessities among the population; their right to procure agricultural commodities had been limited, since almost all commodities were covered by the state system of surplus appropriation. The cooperatives now obtained the right to procure all agricultural commodities and to carry on commerce in necessities among the urban and rural population. Under the terms of NEP, the state assisted in many ways the development of state and cooperative commerce. The latter was to provide the economic link between large-scale socialist industry and petty-commodity peasant agriculture. The Soviet state was concerned that this link be achieved through state and cooperative commerce. Lenin therefore set the Bolsheviks the task of "learning to trade''. The state became the organizer of wholesale trade, particularly in industrial commodities.
Small enterprises that had not been nationalized during the war __CAPTION__ Electricity has come to the country. [127] remained in the hands of their owners, while those that had been nationalized were leased to private persons or cooperatives. Foreign concessions and leases were permitted in industry for the development of the country's national resources. Concessions and leases were state capitalism, i.e., capitalism permitted by the Soviet power on the specific terms.
State capitalism also included brokerages, mixed state-private joint-stock societies and bourgeois cooperatives. Bourgeois cooperatives, uniting petty proprietors, helped the Soviet state to supervise petty commodity production. Cooperative commerce was more useful and advantageous than private, since in facilitating the association of the population the former yielded, as Lenin said, "an enormous gain from the standpoint of the subsequent transition from state capitalism to socialism."^^1^^ Permitting and exercising control over various forms of state capitalism, the state utilized it both to rehabilitate large-scale industry and to combat petty-bourgeois economic anarchy.
The transition to NEP did not alter the overall economic plan---GOELRO---but meant only a new approach to achieving its goals. The GOELRO Plan was approved by the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December, 1920. On the eve of the Tenth Party Congress the Central Committee of the Party required all Communists to familiarize themselves with the Plan, to study district plans and to ready proposals for publicizing the Plan among working people and for putting it into effect. In October, 1921, an All-Russia Electrotechnical Congress was held that both supported the GOELRO Plan and made practical suggestions for improving it. The program for the country's electrification and the 10 to 15 year period for its implementation were given final approval by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of December 21, 1921. Meeting in December, 1921, the Ninth All-Russia Congress of Soviets ratified the decree and thus gave the GOELRO Plan the force of law.
The Plan envisaged not only the achievement of the pre-war level of industrial production, but also a doubling of that level by the end of the planned period and the restructuring of the entire economy, including agriculture, on a new technological basis, on the basis of large-scale production. The creation of a domestic industry as the basis for the socialist restructuring of the country and for strengthening its defense, for leading the peasant masses to a higher type of socialization in agricultural labor---such were the most important goals of the GOELRO Plan.
On February 22, 1921, the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) was set up to develop long-term and short-term national economic plans.
Under the conditions of NEP, implementing the overall economic plan meant extensive use of the most varied economic forms of running the economy and determining the proper sequence for the creation of the foundations of a socialist economy.
The transition to the New Economic Policy affected other aspects of the country's socio-economic life, too. In order to rehabilitate _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 348.
128 large-scale industry, it was necessary to have foodstuffs and raw materials that the peasant economy could provide. To satisfy the peasants' need for industrial commodities, the state encouraged the development of small-scale industry and crafts, both private and cooperative. Largescale industry, too, was brought into the production of goods for the village. State enterprises were put on a self-supporting system, and the wage system was changed in order to raise workers' material interest in increased production. The State Bank was reestablished, as was a credit system and freedom for financial operations.The New Economic Policy thus encompassed a broad range of economic relations. Its principal goal was to establish an economic link-up between socialist industry and peasant agriculture, for only in this way was it possible to strengthen the alliance between the working class and the laboring peasants, to involve the latter in building socialism.
With the introduction of the New Economic Policy, there was a certain revival of capitalism, and the conflict between socialist and capitalist elements became more acute. This was a life-and-death struggle. Lenin remarked: "The whole question is who will take the lead. We must face this issue squarely---who will come out on top? Either the capitalists succeed in organizing first---in which case they will drive out the Communists and that will be the end of = it."^^1^^
Soviet power, which controlled large-scale industry, transport, banks, foreign trade and the nationalized land, limited and controlled the growth of capitalist elements and promoted the growth and strengthening of the socialist sector.
The transition to the New Economic Policy signified a certain retreat, the essence of which was concessions to the peasant as a petty commodity producer, concessions indispensable for strengthening the alliance between the working class and the peasantry on an economic basis. There was, too, a certain concession to the capitalists, who won some access to commerce, small-scale industry and to the leasing of natural resources (concessions). Lenin wrote on the eve of the Eleventh Party Congress that "economically and politically NEP makes it fully possible for us to lay the foundations of the socialist = economy."^^2^^ And he observed that "so far as making concessions to the capitalists is concerned, the retreat is at an end. We shall not retreat any further; we shall set about deploying and regrouping our forces = properly."^^3^^ The statements by the leader of the revolution on ending the retreat were approved by the Eleventh Congress of the Bolshevik Party, which met in March, 1922, exactly a year after the New Economic Policy had been introduced.
The New Economic Policy was thus a policy specially devised by the Soviet state for the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. It was meant to strengthen the economic alliance between the working class and the peasantry, to give them a material stake in the development of the economy, to give a certain leeway to capitalism while keeping the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 66.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 252.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 220--21.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9--161 129 commanding heights of the economy in the hands of the proletarian state. The New Economic Policy, which meant a struggle between capitalist and socialist elements, was meant to ensure the victory of socialist elements over capitalist elements, to do away with the exploiting classes, to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat and to build socialism.The historical importance of NEP was that the working class strengthened its economic alliance with the laboring peasantry and, leading the latter, was able to rebuild the country's productive forces, improve the material situation of working people, strengthen the state and build socialism.
In December, 1921, at the Ninth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, Lenin remarked that in developing the New Economic Policy the forms of alliance between workers and peasants in the new society could be worked out: "This task which we are working on now, for the tune being on our own, seems to be a purely Russian one, but in reality it is a task which all socialists will = face."^^1^^
Strengthening the world's first workers' and peasants' state, the New Economic Policy brought the country an economic upsurge that increased the country's influence on the world revolutionary movement, furthering socialism's advance in the peaceful competition with capitalism.
The sharp turn from the policy of War Communism to the New Economic Policy took place against the background of a serious food shortage in the industrial centers, a shortage of fuel, metal and raw materials for factories and plants, and a poorly functioning transportation system. Many workers did not understand the need for the change in policy and felt that it was wrong to make concessions to private property elements. This lack of understanding was felt also among a segment of Communists, who continued to be swayed by the psychology of War Communism and did not see the difference between the methods of dealing with military and economic tasks, the latter requiring an everyday heroism of painstaking, prolonged work.
Economic leaders and Soviet cooperative and trade union personnel were now required properly to carry on their work in a new situation, to ensure enterprise profitability, to increase labor productivity, to see that food supply went smoothly, to carry on commerce and to develop local industry and commodity circulation.
The Communist Party tirelessly explained to the masses the essence and importance of the New Economic Policy; Lenin's articles, brochures and speeches on the issues involved in NEP were published in the central and local press. In April, 1921, Lenin wrote a brochure "The Tax in Kind" in which the purpose and import of NEP were given solid grounding. In May, 1921, the Tenth All-Russia Conference of the RCP(B) met and was wholly concerned with the implementation of the New Economic Policy. At the end of June and the beginning of July, 1921, the Third Congress of the Comintern met; Lenin delivered a report on the tactics of the RCP(B) in which he gave much attention to analyzing and explaining the New Economic Policy. Party organizations _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 177.
130 in the Ukraine, in Byelorussia and Transcaucasia held congresses and conferences at which Communists discussed the tasks involved in implementing NEP and shared their experience with respect to the first steps in this direction. As implementation proceeded, the picture of the essence and import of NEP, of the forms and methods of building socialism in a transitional period, became more concrete. At the beginning of 1922, the Central Committee of the Party, on Lenin's suggestion, issued a directive noting that the New Economic Policy was now quite firmly and clearly established. The Central Committee demanded that efforts be focused on putting this policy into practice.It was not easy rapidly and in good time to collect the tax in kind, which---though it was only half as burdensome as the food surplus appropriation system --- was collected without any exchange for commodities; peasant agriculture had still not recovered from war-time devastation and the crop failure that had hit a number of provinces in 1920. Speculators were choking proper commodity circulation. In the Ukraine and in some areas of Byelorussia and Central Asia, kulak banditry and the basmachi raged and the lurking enemies of the Soviet state---former landowners, capitalists, Mensheviks, SRs---obstructed the struggle against banditry, sowed lack of faith among workers and spread bureaucratism in the Soviet apparatus.
On top of everything else, the first year of the New Economic Policy coincided with a major natural disaster for the Soviet Republic --- a drought and crop failure that struck enormous areas of the country.
The country bent enormous energies to the struggle against drought and crop failure. The ARCEC established an All-Russia Commission under the chairmanship of M. I. Kalinin to provide assistance to the population of provinces suffering from crop failure. An ARCEC decree of June 21, 1921, established an All-Russia Famine Relief Committee---a far-reaching civic organization with extensive powers within the country and abroad. The Soviet state appealed for aid to the Soviet and international public communities. On July 23, 1921, Pravda published a call for a struggle against famine. On August 2, 1921, Lenin appealed to the international proletariat for aid.
All the energies of Soviet society were mobilized for the struggle against famine: workers, staff and Red Army men voluntarily donated part of their wages and food rations, peasants collected produce. Saturday and Sunday voluntary labor days were held, and there were collections of goods, money and food for the fund to assist the hungry. Grain and seeds collected through the tax in kind were sent to areas hit by crop failure. Part of the gold intended for purchasing machinery abroad was used to purchase grain for famine-affected areas. The population---children especially---was evacuated from areas suffering from crop failure and sent to areas of Siberia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia and Central Russia where food was available.
On the initiative of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, in August of 1921 an international organization of workers' assistance to the hungry was established. Workers' organizations collected money for purchasing food and medicines to be sent to areas of Soviet Russia suffering from crop failure. Workers of many countries and progressive writers, artists and persons involved in culture __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 9* 131 and science in the West came to the aid of those suffering from the natural disaster. Anatole France donated for this purpose the Nobel Prize that he received in 1921. The Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen organized the collection of money and purchase of food for Russia. Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein and Theodore Dreiser took an active part in organizing assistance for the Soviet people. A.M. Gorky performed major services in bringing progressive figures in the West into this work.
The Soviet people greatly appreciated the assistance received from foreign workers, progressive citizens and organizations. The Ninth All-Russia Congress of Soviets meeting in December, 1921, noted in a resolution that despite unemployment and the serious economic straits in which workers in a number of countries found themselves because of the systematic offensive of capital, the proletariat of Europe and America was ever more generously assisting with its fund raising drives the famine-stricken population of the Volga area. The Congress saw in this an expression of genuine international solidarity among working people.
In the United States, various civic organizations and individual citizens collected donations for assistance to the population of Russia. At the end of 1921, the American government agreed to provide 30 million dollars worth of food and seeds for Russia. The American Relief Administration (ARA) delivered food and donations to Russia under the terms of an agreement concluded with the Soviet government. The Soviet government took note of the reactionary character of this organization, which had been set up by American businessmen headed by Herbert Hoover for marketing surplus commodities and strengthening the position of American imperialism in Europe. In delivering food and donations to Russia, the ARA sought to distribute them among non-laboring elements, to support the forces of counterrevolution and to set up a spy network. All this forced the Soviet government to refuse aid from the ARA.
The Soviet people managed to overcome the difficulties of the transition to NEP and the monumental calamities caused by the drought and crop failure of 1921. The areas affected received much food and material assistance. The country successfully carried out the fall sowing, even expanding somewhat the area under cultivation. The tax in kind was successfully collected in areas that had not suffered from drought. And in 1922, a good crop meant that the most important consequences of the famine were eliminated.
The switch to the tax in kind was met with satisfaction by the peasantry, for it eased their position; the peasant felt himself better off with the tax in kind, and his material interest in agricultural work was increased. Congresses of Soviets and non-party conferences of peasants passed resolutions voicing approval of the switch to a tax in kind. There began an intense struggle to restore industry and transport and to raise agricultural output.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Creation of a Fraternal Union of Equal Republics.
The Creation of a Fraternal Union of Equal Republics. = A most important event in the public life of the Soviet peoples was the formation in December, 1922, of a united state---the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The creation of this state was prepared by the entire 132 preceding history of the Soviet peoples, by their joint struggle for the victory of the socialist revolution, their struggle to defend the revolution's achievements during the Civil War. The formation of a multinational state of workers and peasants was a continuation of the October Revolution, of the revolutionary changes occurring throughout the country. It was dictated by the objective course of historical development. The formation of the USSR was the result of enormous organizational and educational work carried out by the Communist Party in implementing the Leninist nationalities policy.~
After the conclusion of the Civil War, the Soviet state undertook a number of urgent programs to liquidate the economic backwardness of Russia's borderlands. Textile and woolens factories, tanneries and printshops were moved from the central provinces to the national republics and territories, and doctors and teachers were sent.
The Central Committee of the RCP(B) took concrete steps to strengthen Party organizations in the national republics: leading Party and state personnel were sent there. In July, 1922, the ARCEC entrusted the People's Commissariat for Nationalities which was responsible for the implementation of the nationalities policy within the RSFSR, with seeing to it that all republics cooperated, with providing assistance to the material and cultural development of all nations and nationalities with a view to their mode of life, economy and culture.
An important role in preparing the way for the formation of the USSR was played by the resolution of the Tenth Party Congress "On the Present Tasks of the Party on the Nationalities Question'', adopted in connection with the report by J. V. Stalin. The resolution gave the reasons for the need to unite the Soviet republics in a close state union. Among these reasons, the international position of the republics held a central place: if the republics were isolated, their international position would be shaky because of the threat from capitalist states. The resolution outlined the ways to increase the cooperation of all the Soviet republics on the basis of a Soviet federation. The Congress condemned deviations towards great-power chauvinism and local nationalism, both of which hampered the establishment of cooperation among peoples.
The Communist Party was thus the organizer of the working masses in their movement for the formation of a union state. The republics' tendency towards unification, expressed in the establishment of a military-political alliance, became stronger with the transition to peaceful economic development. This led, as noted above, to the establishment of treaty relations between the RSFSR and the union republics.
The Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR became in practice the organ for managing the industry of the republics that united with the RSFSR on federative treaty bases. The direction of agriculture was exercised by the people's commissariats of the republics; in August, 1921, a Federal Committee on Land Matters was set up in the RSFSR to supervise the development of the productive forces of agriculture and land tenure for the entire country.
Treaty relations among the Soviet republics encouraged closer economic ties among them. However, the transition to the New Economic Policy brought to light shortcomings in the treaty relations. 133 For instance, the Gosplan of the RSFSR established in February 1921 under G. M. Krzhizhanovsky's leadership was supposed to see to the implementation of the overall economic plan for the entire country. But it was not juridically empowered in all the republics linked by treaties. In June, 1921, the ARCEC passed a special resolution on Gosplan, converting it into a federal organ, though as before its recommendations were not obligatory for all the republics.
The very practice of political and economic relations among the various nationalities required a tighter unification of all the Soviet republics into a union state. Such unification was facilitated by a number of circumstances: it occurred under the Soviet power, which was comprehensible and dear to all the peoples and was pursuing an internationalist policy on the nationalities question. All the republics had a common goal---building socialism; to attain this goal it was necessary for all nations and nationalities to close ranks and cooperate to the fullest possible extent.
Rebuilding the economy was impossible unless the resources of all the republics were combined, and this was the more urgent for creating the material and technological basis for a new, socialist society. The relations of friendship and cooperation among the peoples that had existed during the years of revolution and civil war rested on a solid economic foundation. An economic division of labor among different regions of the country had developed: the industry of central Russia supplied goods to the southeast and north, receiving in turn raw materials---cotton, lumber, flax; the southern areas of the country furnished the principal supplies of petroleum, coal, iron ore, and so on. The importance of this division of labor grew as the GOELRO Plan was implemented, for the Plan envisaged the development of the economy in all areas of the country; such development could be achieved only through the combined efforts of the working people of all nations and nationalities.
International conditions, too, dictated the unification of the Soviet republics. The republics, surrounded on all sides by the hostile capitalist world, could retain their independence and sovereignty only by pooling their efforts in military, diplomatic and foreign trade realms. Their first appearance in the international arena during the Genoa Conference confirmed the need for unification.
The formation of the USSR was in the interests of the international revolutionary movement, too. Soviet experience in all areas of state, economic and political life had enormous significance for the development of the national liberation movement, especially in the countries of the East. Lenin deserves much of the credit for the creation of a multinational socialist state, for it was he who gave a thorough analysis of national-state relations under the dictatorship of the proletariat, directed the organization of the Soviet state system and provided major assistance to Communists in all the republics. In his "Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions" written on June 5, 1920, for the Second Congress of the Comintern, Lenin evaluated Soviet Russians experience with federal relations between the RSFSR and the other republics and within the RSFSR itself with respect to nationalities that had previously enjoyed neither statehood nor autonomy. He wrote: 134 "In recognizing that federation is a transitional form to complete unity, it is necessary to strive for ever closer federal unity, bearing in mind, first, that the Soviet republics, surrounded as they are by the imperialist powers of the whole world---which from the military standpoint are immeasurably stronger---cannot possibly continue to exist without the closest alliance; second, that a close economic alliance between the Soviet republics is necessary, otherwise the productive forces which have been ruined by imperialism cannot be restored and the well-being of the working people cannot be ensured; third, that there is a tendency towards the creation of a single world economy, regulated by the proletariat of all nations as an integral whole and according to a common plan. This tendency has already revealed itself quite clearly under capitalism and is bound to be further developed and consummated under socialism."^^1^^
The formation of the USSR answered the fundamental interests and age-old aspirations of all the peoples of the multinational land of the Soviets: only their combined efforts could rebuild the country's economy, restructure it in a socialist direction and defend the freedom and independence of the peoples from encroachments by imperialism.
Important in unifying the Soviet republics was the formation of a federation of Transcaucasian Soviet republics---Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. The unification of these republics was prompted by the vital need to establish peace among the peoples of Transcaucasia, to overcome the national discord and hostility that had carried over from the past, to rebuild the area's economy and secure the independence and prosperity of each of the three republics. Unification was dictated, too, by the international position of Transcaucasia: imperialists had not lost hope of tearing the area away from the Soviet country.
However, great difficulties were met on the way to unification: the remnants of the bourgeois parties opposed unification, taking advantage of national discord and distrust inherited from tsarist times and from the period when the petty-bourgeois nationalists had the upper hand.
In Azerbaijan and Georgia, national deviationists opposed the unification of the republics. To overcome these and other difficulties, Lenin and the Central Committee of the RCP(B) undertook a great deal of explanatory work. Most Communists in Transcaucasia, headed by the Caucasus Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(B), favored unification. In February, 1922, the First Congress of the Communist Organizations of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia resolved to form a federation of the three republics. The Congress condemned national deviationists. The Transcaucasian Territorial Committee of the RCP(B) elected at the Congress did a great deal to pave the way to unification, and this work was crowned by complete success. On March 12, 1922, authorized representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia signed in Tiflis a treaty on federal union, and in December, 1922, the First Congress of Soviets of Transcaucasia resolved to reorganize the union into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (TSFSR).
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 147.
135In the middle of 1922, all the Communist parties of the Soviet republics almost simultaneously raised the question on the formation of the USSR, which testified to the fact that the need to create a single union state had come to a head. However, devising a concrete form for this unification required a great deal of preparatory work and consideration not only of the favorable factors but also of those that hampered unification. It was necessary to deal with tendencies setting the republics apart, with vestiges of national distrust among the formerly oppressed peoples, and with the underestimation of the danger of great-power chauvinism.
The working class was the principal vehicle of the tendency towards unification, the leading force in this process as it had been in the socialist revolution. The proletariat, led by Bolshevik organizations, brought to the masses of working people a spirit of class, international solidarity and rallied them on the common political platform of Soviet power and the struggle for socialism.
In mid-1922, a genuine popular movement for unification began in the republics, a movement that gave ardent support to Lenin's idea on the creation of a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In August, 1922, the Central Committee of the RCP(B) set up a special commission under J. V. Stalin's chairmanship to deal with the question of unifying the Soviet republics. The commission also included V. V. Kuibyshev, A. F. Myasnikov, G. K. Orjonikidze, G. I. Petrovsky and representatives of all the national republics. Stalin soon drafted a project---known as "the plan for autonomization"---for unifying the republics. The basic idea was that the Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Armenian, Azerbaijan and Georgian republics would enter the Russian Federation with the rights of autonomous republics. Under this plan, the supreme organs of power of the RSFSR would have become the supreme organs of power for the entire Union. Treaty relations would have been continued with the Far Eastern Republic, Bukhara and Khorezm. This project was a step backwards from the relations already achieved among the republics, a transition to a type of inter-state relations that had developed in the process of national-state organization in the RSFSR. The project for ``autonomization'' rested on the fear that the existence in the united republics of a large number of local people's commissariats and departments would hamper the development of the country's economy, culture and international relations. The advocates of this plan did not allow for the fact that it was necessary during the unification to emphasize the sovereignty and parity of the fraternal republics, their independence, for only in this way would it be possible to reinforce the basis of proletarian internationalism and wage a struggle against great-power chauvinism and local nationalism.
Because of illness, Lenin was unable to participate directly in the examination of this question. However, learning of Stalin's project and the resolutions of the Central Committees of some of the national Communist parties, and having talked with Stalin, Myasnikov, Orjonikidze and others, Lenin sent a letter to the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) resolutely opposing the "plan for autonomization" in which he saw a denigration of the rights of the Soviet republics and a threat to friendship among their peoples.
136Lenin proposed to create a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics based on the voluntary unification of all the independent Soviet republics, the RSFSR included, each of them retaining their equality.
Under Lenin's plan, the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the TSFSR would unite into a union of equal republics. The supreme organ of power for all the equal republics would be an elective Central Executive Committee of Soviets.
Lenin's proposals were taken under advisement by the Central Committee commission. On October 6, 1922, a plenary session of the Central Committee adopted a new resolution on the form of unification of the independent Soviet republics, a program based on Lenin's proposal. The Central Committee resolved: "To recognize the need to conclude a treaty among the Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics, the Federation of Transcaucasian republics and the RSFSR for their unification into a 'Union of Socialist Soviet Republics', each to retain the right freely to withdraw from the 'Union'.'' The special commission was instructed to work out a draft of a union treaty.
From October through December, 1922, congresses of Soviets held at different administrative levels and mass meetings of workers, peasants and employees in all the republics discussed the establishment of a union of republics. Working people gave wholehearted support to a close state union of Soviet republics to achieve the common goal --- building socialism and communism.
By November 30, the commission of the Central Committee had drawn up the Fundamental Provisions of the Constitution of the USSR --- which were then approved by the Politburo and sent to the Communist parties of the republics for discussion. On December 18, 1922, a plenary session of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) discussed the draft Treaty on the Formation of the USSR and called for a Congress of Soviets of the USSR.
The Seventh All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets called for the formation of a USSR, as did the First Congress of Soviets of the Transcaucasia, the Fourth Congress of Soviets of Byelorussia and the Tenth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Everywhere delegations from the republics to the constituent congress of Soviets were elected.
On December 30, 1922, the First Congress of Soviets of the USSR opened. A total of 2,215 delegates were present, the republics being represented in proportion to their population. The Russian delegation---1,727 persons---was largest. The Ukrainian delegation numbered 364 persons, the Transcaucasian Federation was represented by 91 delegates, the Byelorussian Republic by 33 delegates. Lenin---who was unable to attend for reasons of health---was elected honorary chairman of the Congress. Stalin delivered the report on the formation of the USSR.
The Congress ratified the Declaration and Treaty on the formation of the USSR and decided to pass them on for review by the union republics. Amendments suggested by the republics were to be taken under advisement before the Declaration and Treaty were implemented by a special session of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. The Declaration gave legal force to the Leninist principles of organizing a union state: voluntariness, parity and fraternal cooperation among the 137 Soviet peoples on the basis of proletarian internationalism. Admission to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was left open to all Soviet republics, both existing and future republics. The Treaty defined the procedure by which individual republics were to enter the Union, the right freely to secede from the Union and the procedure for establishing, and the competence of, the supreme organs of state power and the administration. The Congress elected a Central Executive Committee of the USSR (CEC)---the Union's supreme organ of power between congresses. The CEC session formed a Presidium that, in accordance with Lenin's instructions, had four chairmen (one for each of the republics in the Union): M. I. Kalinin, G. I. Petrovsky, A. G. Chervyakov and N. N. Narimanov.
Lenin, seriously ill, dictated his notes "The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomization'" while the Congress of Soviets was in session. He wrote that the representatives of the Russian nation must heed the interests of the small nations, permitting neither injustice nor the slightest denigration of national feelings. Eliminating the inequality of nations that had been inherited from the past was the principal goal of the Party's nationalities policy.
Lenin outlined practical steps for strengthening the Union that had just been created and for eliminating great power chauvinist distortions in the state apparatus. Following Lenin's guidelines, the Twelfth Party Congress in April, 1923, drew up a program for the state organization of the Union based on an equality of the rights and duties of the Union republics both in relations with each other and in relations with the central authority of the Union. In the summer of 1923, the CEC session ratified and implemented the Constitution of the USSR drawn up by the commission. A Union government was formed --- the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, under Lenin's chairmanship --- as were other higher government institutions of the Soviet Union.
In January, 1924, the Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR ratified the Constitution of the USSR in its final form, thereby completing the formation of the single union state as a federation of Soviet republics. The Constitution rested on the Leninist principles of a voluntary state union of equal peoples, their complete equality, sovereignty and the equal rights and duties of all peoples of the USSR to their state, and the principle of democratic centralism. That the union of equal peoples was voluntary was emphasized by the fact that they retained the right freely to secede from the Union and by the fact that all existing and newly formed socialist republics had the right to join.
The Union's sphere of competence extended to questions of foreign policy, foreign trade, the organization of the armed forces and means of communication; other questions were within the competence of the Union republics. The CEC consisted of two equal chambers---the Council of the Union, elected at the congress from the delegates to the congress, and the Council of Nationalities, elected from representatives of the republics and national territories. This structure of the highest state organ ensured the active participation of the working people of all nations and nationalities in the creation of a new, socialist society.
Thus was completed the first stage in the important work of creating 138 __CAPTION__ Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee. 1922. a single union state in the interests of all peoples, both large and small, of creating the multinational Soviet Union. It embodied the Leninist idea of internationalism, equality and the brotherhood of peoples. The way in which the USSR was formed testified to the democratic, popular character of this state union. It embodied the revolutionary creativity of all the Soviet peoples, led by the working class.
The formation of the USSR was of worldwide historical importance. It was the supreme achievement of the Leninist nationalities policy, the triumph of that policy's most important principles --- the equality, fraternity and sovereignty of peoples.
The structure of the USSR was that which most encouraged cooperation among peoples and overcame the deleterious consequences of the period of national oppression---vestiges of great-power chauvinism, economic and cultural inequality among peoples, and vestiges of nationalism among the peoples that had been oppressed in the past. Within the single union state, favorable conditions were created for eliminating these features through mutual assistance and cooperation and the exchange of achievements in science and culture.
The formation of the USSR further strengthened the economic links among the republics: the economy of each of the Soviet republics and of the Soviet Union as a whole developed as an integral economic system, according to an overall, national plan. The intimate economic cooperation among the Soviet peoples and planned exploitation of their resources provided greater potential for the struggle against backwardness and for overcoming existing disparities. The proper organization of the central and local state apparatus in line with the Leninist model provided extensive opportunities for involving nations and nationalities that had been backward in the past in the administration of the state and in building socialism.
The formation of the USSR strengthened the alliance of the working 139 class of Russia with the multinational peasantry of her borderlands. This was one of the principal requisites for the passage of peoples and ethnic groups backward in the past to socialism, bypassing the path of capitalist development. Within the framework of a united state, the consolidation of the socialist nations, their development on the foundation of a new order, was accelerated.
After the formation of the USSR, all peoples were firmly convinced that their state power and sovereignty were maintained by the joint efforts of all the working people of the single union state. Henceforth, the new force of the united peoples faced the hostile capitalist encirclement, and their defense capacity and international prestige were enhanced.
The formation of the USSR was evidence of the achievements of the Leninist nationalities policy and was of great international importance; it was a beacon for the peoples of the entire world in their struggle against imperialism, their struggle for freedom and national independence.
As the resolutions of the Twelfth Congress of the RCP(B) observed, the Union of Republics, based on the principles of equality and the voluntary union of the workers and peasants of the separate republics, was the first essay by the proletariat in the matter of regulating the international relations of independent countries and the first step toward the creation of the future universal Soviet republic of labor.
Against the background of the crisis of the nationalities policy of bourgeois states, the stability of the USSR as a single multinational state evinced the great advantages of socialism, confirming that only under the new order, with the consistent implementation of the principles of proletarian internationalism, was it possible to solve the nationalities question to the advantage of all nations and nationalities.
After the formation of the union state on a federal basis, the Communist Party and the Soviet state devoted much attention to the territorial organization of the socialist nations.
In the years 1924--1926, Byelorussia was enlarged by transferring to it territory with a largely Byelorussian population --- Vitebsk and Gomel provinces, as well as part of Smolensk Province; the Byelorussian SSR practically doubled in size. The government of the RSFSR transferred to the Bashkir Autonomous SSR Ufa Province, thereby uniting the western and eastern Bashkirs; the territory and population of the Bashkir ASSR doubled.
A number of new autonomous republics and territories were formed through the development of the national statehood of the Soviet peoples in the years 1921--1926. The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in October, 1924. The masses of Moldavian working people took an active part in this. As noted in the "Declaration of the Formation of the Autonomous Moldavian SSR'', adopted on October 12, 1924, by the All-Ukraine Central Executive Committee of Soviets, the formation of an autonomous republic corresponded to the firmly expressed will of the workers and peasants of Soviet Moldavia. As history subsequently showed, this act played an important role in consolidating and developing the Moldavian socialist nation.
140New national republics and territories were formed within the RSFSR, too. The Buryat-Mongol and Chuvash autonomous regions and the Karelian Labor Commune were reorganized into autonomous republics.
The national statehood of the peoples of the Transcaucasian Federation---Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan --- was strengthened. The federal union of these peoples contributed to the establishment of fraternal relations among them. Each people obtained the opportunity to create its own socialist state units. The Abkhazian and Ajarian Autonomous republics and the South-Ossetian Autonomous Region were formed within Georgia. In Azerbaijan, the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region were formed. In July, 1924, the multinational Gorskaya Region was divided along national lines into North-Ossetia and Ingushetia and the Sunzhensk Autonomous Area.
National-territorial demarcation carried out in Central Asia in 1924 was of major significance for the development of the multinational Soviet state. In the past, the peoples of Central Asia had been divided by the boundaries of feudal states. The Turkestan Autonomous SSR and the two people's republics --- Bukhara and Khorezm --- formed after the October Revolution were multinational. Here Uzbeks, Turkmen, Tajiks, Kazakhs and Kirghiz lived in alternating bands of territory. For this reason, Lenin had in 1920 entrusted the Turkestan Commission with compiling an ethnic map of Turkestan, comprised of Uzbekia, Kirghizia and Turkmenia; conditions for the merger or partition of these three sections were to be elucidated.
However, conditions for demarcation appeared only towards the end of 1924: by that time, congresses of Soviets in the Bukhara and Khorezm People's republics had resolved to reorganize into socialist republics. Socialist construction in the three Central Asian republics proceeded under the leadership of local organizations of the Communist Party. With a view to the interests of all the working peoples of their republics and the tasks of socialist construction, local Communist organizations decided to create homogeneous Soviet socialist republics through national demarcation. Their initiative was supported by the Central Committee of the RCP(B), which instructed the Central Asian Euro of its Central Committee to carry out the necessary preparatory work for demarcation in Central Asia. Simultaneously, working people in the republics began an extensive discussion of the idea of national-state demarcation. The idea was enthusiastically approved everywhere.
In September, 1924, an extraordinary session of the Turkestan Central Executive Committee and congresses of Soviets of the Khorezm and Bukhara republics adopted historic resolutions on granting the Uzbek, Kazakh and Turkmen peoples the right to secede from these republics and form their own national republics. These resolutions were ratified by the ARCEC of the RSFSR and the Twelfth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. On October 27, 1924, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR complied with the petition of the republics for national-state demarcation and instructed its Presidium to give official sanction to the newly formed republics in Central Asia.
141As a result of the national-state demarcation in Central Asia (October 27, 1924), new republics emerged: the Turkmen SSR, with a predominantly Turkmen population, on the territory of the Transcaspian Territory of Turkestan, the western districts of Bukhara and the southern districts of Khorezm; the Uzbek SSR, with a predominantly Uzbek population, on the remaining territory of Turkestan, Bukhara and Khorezm.
In October, 1924, the Tajik Autonomous Republic (in the Uzbek SSR) and the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Region (in the RSFSR) (renamed in May, 1925, the Kirghiz Autonomous Region and a year later, on February 1, 1926, the Kirghiz Autonomous SSR) were formed. Simultaneously, the Kazakh lands were united into a single national Soviet state: the Syrdaryinsk and Semirechye regions, inhabited by Kazakhs, merged with the former Kirghiz ASSR, the capital of the republic was transferred from Orenburg to Kzyl-Orda, and in April, 1925, the historically accurate name of the Kazakh people was restored. The republic was called the Kazakh Autonomous SSR.
In 1925, the Third Congress of Soviets of the USSR accepted the Turkmen and Uzbek republics into the USSR.
National-territorial demarcation in Central Asia and the peaceful reunification of national territories that had in the past been fragmented into independent republics was a major achievement of the Soviet government's nationalities policy. It was possible only because of the equality and friendship of peoples achieved through the implementation of the Soviet nationalities policy.
Territorial demarcation was dictated by the aspiration to use rationally all the territory of the USSR as the common property of the entire Soviet people. It increased trust among the peoples and consequently brought them closer together.
By the end of 1925, the USSR contained six Union and 15 Autonomous socialist republics, plus 16 Autonomous regions. Many nations and nationalities had for the first time in history obtained independent statehood in correspondence with their national interests.
The active participation of the working people of all nationalities in the country's political life, in the administration of the state, contributed to the strengthening of the Soviet state and to the successful rehabilitation of the USSR's economy.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Rehabilitating Agriculture and Large-Scale Industry.Rehabilitating Agriculture and Large-Scale Industry. = The New Economic Policy gave a powerful impetus to the development of the Soviet Union's agricultural productive forces. The total grain harvest in 1925, which almost equalled pre-war harvests, amounted to more than 4.6 thousand million poods. Land under cultivation approached the 1913 level. This was one of the principal achievements in the restoration of the economy. However, the yield from peasant fields was unstable: twice (in 1921 and 1924) the Soviet Union experienced crop failure.
The recovery of livestock raising and especially the increase in the number of cattle, proceeded slowly. The 1916 level had still not been reached by the end of 1925. However, in the rate of agricultural rehabilitation the USSR had surpassed a number of capitalist countries that had been involved in the war. This was the result above all of the triumph of the revolutionary people. After the interventionists and 142 Whites had been driven out, agrarian reforms were undertaken throughout the country: land at the peasants' disposal increased sharply through the confiscation of landed estates and some kulak land. The peasant received the land he had long awaited and the Soviet state's victory in the Civil War assured him that he would have the land permanently, not temporarily. And this prompted a desire to cultivate and fertilize the land better. Further, nationalization of the land relieved the peasant of the burden of purchasing or renting it. Under NEP, the peasant's ties with the market increased, and this, too, stimulated marketability of agricultural production. The peasant's confidence in the measures taken by the Soviet state in the implementation of the New Economic Policy consolidated.
The Soviet government carried out important measures for extending improved methods of cultivation and breeding: model farms, agronomy stations, rental and grain cleaning centers, and stud and cattle breeding farms were set up. The Soviet regime's constant concern with increasing yields and expanding the area under cultivation, the extending of agronomic information, the patronage of villages by cities, state seed loans, aid to peasants during bad crop years --- all this increased the peasants' labor energy and political activism. The peasant saw, for the first time, that the state not only levied taxes and other duties on him but was also ready to provide aid. Through this the economic alliance between the working class and the peasantry was reinforced.
The Soviet government's agrarian legislation also contributed to the increased vitality of peasant agriculture. In 1922, the RSFSR adopted a Land Code that established stable procedures for land use, gave the peasant free choice in the matter, and provided a number of favorable terms for collective forms of land use. Under the Land Code, peasants had the right to rent out land and to employ hired labor. Land codes were adopted in the other Soviet republics, local national peculiarities being taken into account. The Soviet state allowed peasants to use idle state lands, and this increased the amount of land at the peasants' disposal.
The first steps towards mechanizing agriculture were taken during the years when the economy was being rehabilitated. True, there were not enough tractors. And they were not always properly used in the small peasant farms.
Important socio-economic changes occurred in the village. The middle strata of the peasantry expanded, there were ever fewer poor peasants. With the assistance of the Soviet government, poor peasants acquired draft animals and agricultural implements and thereby rose to the status of middle peasants. Data on the social makeup of the Soviet village towards the end of the rehabilitating period confirm this: the proletariat (farm-laborers) and poor peasants accounted for 35.6 percent of the gainfully employed peasant population, middle peasants for 61.1 percent and kulaks for 3.3 percent.
In the initial period of the revolution, nationalization and egalitarian distribution of the land was of prime importance in the increase of middle-sized farms; the number of farms with little or no land was thereby appreciably reduced. In subsequent years, the primary role in the property stratification of peasants was played not by possession of land, but by the distribution of the basic means of production--- 143 machinery, equipment, draft animals---and by the development of commoditymoney relations and commerce.
Despite the fact that after the revolution part of the draft animals from landowners' and kulak farms passed to the poor peasants, so that the number of draft animals at the disposal of the peasants increased during the years of rehabilitation, by the end of that period 28.3 percent of the farms still had no horses and had to rent draft animals and implements from rich peasants. The hiring and leasing of draft animals and agricultural implements was a means by which kulaks exploited poor and some middle peasants. Along with the increased vitality of peasant agriculture and the increased numbers of middle peasants, in the first years of NEP the number of kulak farms also increased: between 1924 and 1926, the number of farms in the RSFSR which leased land increased from 3.6 to 7.2 percent of the total. The village masses were subject to exploitation not only by kulaks, but also by usurers, grain speculators and private traders.
Through its financial and tax policy, the Soviet state limited the growth of capitalist elements in the village: poor peasants were freed from taxation, while kulaks were subject to higher taxes. However, so long as petty commodity peasant agriculture continued to exist, the conditions for the growth of kulak elements were present. Therefore, along with economic measures for limiting the increase of kulak farms the Party devoted considerable attention to organizing the village poor against the kulaks. This was one of the principal tasks of village Party organizations; the Twelfth Congress of the RCP(B) passed resolutions on work in the villages aimed at consolidating rural Party organizations.
Various types of cooperatives took on increasing importance in the struggle against kulak dominance: consumer cooperatives, which supplied industrial goods to the villages and purchased agricultural products; credit cooperatives, which provided money loans to peasant farms; the simplest types of production cooperatives (machinery, seed, grain cleaning and land-reclamation cooperatives). By uniting in various types of cooperatives, poor- and middle-peasant farms strengthened socialism's position in rural areas. Developing cooperatives was an urgent task. The state systematically assisted cooperative organizations through credits and other benefits. By the end of the rehabilitation period, around 6.6 million peasant farms were involved in cooperatives, which had a total capitalization of 900 million roubles.
Collective and state farms developed in the villages as early as the years 1918--1920, though there were then few of them. State and collective farms took only the first steps in organizing agriculture in a new way during the rehabilitating period. The predominant type of collective farm was that for jointly working the land, with only an insignificant socialization of the means of production. By developing cooperatives and the'first collective farms, the Party gave the peasants a graphic example of the economic advantageousness of collective farms as compared to small individual farms.
Thus, in the years when the economy was being rebuilt, the development of production relations in the village proceeded along two lines: petty commodity peasant agriculture engendered bourgeois 144 relations, while the increasing numbers of cooperatives and collective and state farms reflected the development of socialist relations.
The individual peasant farm continued to be the basic unit of agricultural production. However, even in the period of rehabilitation the individual farm's limited potential made itself felt, since the application of even the simplest agricultural machinery, such as the two-share plow and seed-drill, were unremunerative in the small peasant farm. The interests of the mass of the laboring peasantry required a transition from the small peasant farm to the large socialist farm.
The principal task of the Soviet state was to revitalize largescale--- and especially heavy---industry, but this was a difficult matter: the years of war had seen great deterioration in equipment, a reduction in the number of skilled workers and shortages of food, fuel, metal and raw materials. In the years 1921--1922, industrial enterprises went through a "period of reorganization" as they were adapted to work in the new conditions. Labor productivity at factories and plants was low.
To overcome these difficulties, new and heroic efforts were required of the working class. Yet the energies of the working class had been much reduced by the burdens of seven years of war, famine and cold. In 1921 and 1922, the Soviet government concentrated the workers' efforts on the priority restoration of the coal, petroleum, metal processing and metallurgical industries, and in the area of light industry on restoring the textile, sugar, tanning and other sectors. Workers were mobilized to reopen the mines. The Party sent thousands of demobilized Communists to work in the Donbas; members of the Komsomol also went there. Communists and Komsomol members carried out a great deal of work among the miners, exposing the hostile agitation of concealed Whites, SRs and Mensheviks.
The workers of the Donbas displayed exemplary labor heroism in overcoming the devastation: shock groups were formed at many of the mines and they raised labor productivity to an appreciable extent; mass Communist voluntary labor days (subbotniks) were held. The entire country aided the workers of the Donbas in their difficult undertaking: trainloads of skilled workers, equipment and gifts for the miners arrived from Moscow and Petrograd, shipments of food from the Kuban, carloads of fish from Azerbaijan, carloads of fruit and tobacco from the Crimea.
Lenin devoted daily attention to restoring industry in the Donbas. On his initiative, the first coal-cutting machines purchased abroad were sent there. F. E. Dzerzhinsky and G. K. Orjonikidze went to the Donbas in 1921 to assist local Party organizations. As a result of all the measures taken, the amount of coal mined in the Donbas began to rise: the total in 1921 was 5.5 million tons, in 1922 7.1 million tons; the miners' labor productivity rose.
Simultaneously, work was carried out for the restoration of the coal industry in the Urals and Siberia.
The situation in the petroleum industry as of 1921--1922 was very serious: in the Baku and Grozny oil fields many of the wells had stopped pumping and water threatened to seep into many of the oil beds. The fields were put back into operation only thanks to the major assistance provided by the Soviet government and to labor enthusiasm. The labor __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 10--161 145 upsurge among the oil workers was fostered by Communists. Komsomol and trade union organizations participated actively in days of voluntary labor. Lenin followed closely the work in restarting the oil fields. The petroleum industry was, in terms of supplies, put in the same position as the coal industry. The Central Committee sent S. M. Kirov, an outstanding organizer of the masses, to Azerbaijan; in the years 1921--1925, he was First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. In 1922, the oil workers of Azerbaijan raised output per worker 35 percent as against the 1913 level.
Though great success was made in rehabilitating such leading sectors as coal and petroleum, in 1923 a lag in metallurgy made itself felt. The Thirteenth Party Conference directed the attention of the entire Party to this industry. Restoring metallurgy in the Ukraine was of utmost importance. Thanks to the efforts of the working class and the organizational work of the Party, the giant metal-working and metallurgy plants of the Ukraine were restored one after another---the Kramatorsk and Yuzovka works, the Petrovsky works in Yekaterinoslav and the Yenakiyevo works, among others. The number of workers employed at metallurgical plants grew, and the make of metal increased with every month.
By 1923, there were the first indications that the country's economy had recovered: the number of workers had increased and the output of major industry had reached 35 percent of the pre-war level.
However, in the fall of 1923 large-scale state industry experienced great difficulty in marketing its output: with high prices for industrial goods and low prices for agricultural goods, industry could not dispose of all its outputs. This discrepancy grew out of both objective (the difference in the rate of growth of industry and agriculture) and subjective factors (the efforts of economic organs to obtain a profit so as to cover the losses that industry bore during the first years of NEP). The prices for industrial commodities were high, too, because of wasteful overhead expenses, and because of failures in market planning and the organization of commerce. Industry was unable to find its way to the peasant consumer, so its products gathered dust in warehouses. And because enterprises could not meet payrolls on time, dissatisfaction appeared among the workers.
The Communist Party and the Soviet government took urgent measures to liquidate the economic difficulties; prices for consumer goods were reduced, those for agricultural commodities raised, wage payments to workers put in order and a decisive struggle for improving commerce and displacing speculative elements was begun. Easy credit was provided for peasants and some of the grain harvest was exported to international market.
All these measures helped to overcome the economic difficulties, improve the position of workers and peasants and strengthen the alliance between them. The Twelfth Party Congress emphasized that maintaining and extending this alliance was one of the Party's principal political tasks, one. that in fact would determine the outcome of the revolution.
Despite all difficulties, Soviet industry recovered more rapidly than in any capitalist country. France, for example, where in 1920 industrial 146 __CAPTION__ Inauguration of the Kashira electric power plant. 1922. output was at 62 percent of the 1913 level, required six years to restore her industry, and this with the use of reparations. Yet Soviet industry had recovered approximately five years after the enormous devastation that had been inflicted on it by two wars. This showed the advantages of the socialist economic system over the capitalist.
During the years of rehabilitating the economy, some old plants, particularly in mechanical engineering, were modernized. Plants began turning out new types of goods: tractors, diesel locomotives, powerful steam locomotives.
New construction was undertaken, especially in the building of electric power plants. Lenin attributed decisive significance to electrification for restoring and restructuring the country's ruined economy along socialist lines. Lenin's electrification plan, founded on the __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 10* 147 advantages of the Soviet order and the creative potential of the Soviet people, was successfully implemented.
In accordance with the GOELRO Plan, the Kashira regional electric power plant near Moscow and the Red October regional plant near Petrograd went into operation in 1922; seven regional electric power plants, including the Shterovka plant in the Donbas, were under construction in the same year; the construction of eight plants in the Ukraine and a number of electric power plants in the Transcaucasia and in the Volga area was projected. In 1925, the Shatura regional electric power plant went into operation at full capacity; a year later, the Volkhov hydroelectric plant, whose engineering was up to international standards, did the same. A number of small power plants were built in the villages.
The scholars and engineers I. G. Alexandrov, R. O. Graftio and A. V. Vinter, among many others, labored selflessly for the creation of the first bastions of electrification. The GOELRO Plan was so boldly cast, so grandiose, that even to such a visionary as H. G. Wells it seemed daring. He wrote that one could imagine the implementation of such projects in Russia only with the help of a super-imagination. But it required only 10--12 years in all for this fantastic plan to be realized.
The restoration of major industry, new construction and the modernization of some old factories led to the gradual reemergence of the skilled cadres of the working class. By the fall of 1922, the decline in the number of industrial workers had come to a halt and was replaced by an increase in their number. By 1925, 80 to 90 percent of the workers who had left production during the civil war period had returned to industry and transport. The ranks of the working class were swelled, too, through young workers entering the labor force and from the rural population moving to the cities in search of a living. Given the small peasant farms, there were many free working hands that could not find employment in the villages.
By 1926, almost as many workers were employed in large-scale industry as had been in the pre-war years. The urban population had by then increased to 26.9 million persons (as against 20.7 million in 1920).
The Soviet state, actively assisted by the trade unions, made heroic efforts to improve the workers' material situation. The Central Commission for the Improvement of Workers' Lives played an important role in this; similar commissions were set up in the various republics. They searched out resources for improving the supply of consumer goods to workers, for the improvement of public catering service, saw to the creation of more favorable housing conditions for workers, and so on.
The Soviet state and the trade unions devoted much attention to improving the public health services available to workers, peasants and office workers. By the end of the rehabilitating period, the state budget alone allotted four times as much to such purposes as had been allotted before the revolution. The number of hospitals and clinics had beefi doubled and numerous drug stores had been built. Health resorts, sanatoria and vacation resorts for working people were opened in the former tsarist palaces in the Crimea, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, and around Moscow and Leningrad. Much work was done in 148 all cities in moving workers from outlying districts, basements and ramshackle, temporary buildings to houses formerly owned by the bourgeoisie and non-working elements. New housing was built in the cities and workers' centers of the Donbas and the oil fields of Azerbaijan.
As a result of these and other measures, the material situation of the working class, their living and working conditions, were greatly improved. The 8-hour working day was introduced everywhere, while reduced hours were put into effect for minors; women were paid the same as men for equal work; pensions were instituted, as was social insurance for blue and white collar workers in case of disablement or unemployment. Free medical service for workers and employees was introduced in many areas.
The labor and political activism of workers increased. An important role in this was played by the trade unions, which Lenin viewed as a school for administration and economic management, a school of communism.
In 1923, the goal of raising labor productivity and organizing production more rationally was set. These questions were at the center of the work of the production conferences that were held for the first time in early 1924 in Petrograd. The metal workers took the initiative in organizing these conferences, and their initiative was seconded by the workers of Moscow, the Donbas and the enterprises of Tula and other cities. Production conferences became one of the principal forms for involving the working class in industrial management. The Communist Party, through its local cells, exercised leadership over the production conferences.
The working class labored selflessly to restore large-scale industry: days of voluntary unpaid work and weeks of the labor front were held everywhere, labor discipline was strengthened. The Soviet government and the Communist Party encouraged the workers' labor achievements: leading collectives and individual workers and employees were awarded decorations.
The working class was at the time experiencing major difficulties; there was a lack of housing, old housing had not been fully restored, and new construction was undertaken only on a small scale. There was unemployment: in 1923, there were 641 thousand unemployed persons in the country, in 1924---1,240 thousand unemployed.
The principal sources of unemployment in the years 1921--1925 were the demobilization of much of the Red Army, redundant population in the villages and the contraction of cottage industry.
The Soviet state waged a persistent struggle against unemployment, which was a temporary phenomenon.
Workers realized their responsibility for production and understood the transitional nature of the difficulties they were experiencing.
The restoration of agriculture and industry were the basis on which trade developed. Given the commodity-money relations in the country, trade was the principal connecting link between socialist industry and petty commodity peasant agriculture. Various types of trade developed: state, cooperative and private.
149The state played the leading role in wholesale trade; the socialist sector played the principal role in cooperative trade. In 1922--1923, the socialist sector accounted for three-fourths of the total wholesale trade turnover. Private capital dominated at the retail level, accounting for three-fourths of the turnover. Socialist and capitalist elements in commerce waged a fierce struggle for the market.
The state regulated market prices and sought to link socialist industry and peasant agriculture through cooperative and state trading organizations. This reinforced the economic alliance between the working class and peasantry.
Introduction of the New Economic Policy arid the increase in commodity circulation through the market necessitated a reorganization of the country's monetary system: only by doing so was it possible to rebuild the economy and manage the country. The Eleventh Party Congress in March, 1922, adopted a resolution "On Financial Policy" that showed the way to strengthen the Soviet state's financial system. Of decisive importance in setting the financial system in order were industrial and agricultural growth, increasing the market, introducing monetary circulation in place of natural exchange in all sectors of the economy and partially replacing taxes in kind with monetary taxes in the village.
Famine and economic devastation had led to an increase in the paper money in circulation and a corresponding decline in its value. In order to free the market of devalued money, it was necessary to carry out a monetary reform and to convert to hard currency. The establishment in 1921 of the State Bank, which was given the right to issue bank notes backed by gold, played an important role in currency stabilization. The country's successful economic recovery allowed the state to carry out a monetary reform in the years 1922--1924. Its economic and political significance was great: a hard currency made possible the economy's continued growth, gave a solid foundation to commodity circulation and linked the socialist city and the petty commodity village more closely.
The Soviet state set limits to the growth of private capital, which was used primarily to rebuild small industry and develop local trade. Small production, especially cottage industry, was the basis for the growth of private capital. By the end of the period of rehabilitation, in 1925--1926, the private sector---including small-scale and cottage industry --- accounted for 23.9 percent of all industry, while the capitalist sector's share of total industrial output did not exceed 15 percent.
As for state capitalism, even at that time its principal forms --- leases and concessions --- did not take on significant proportions. This was due to the unwillingness of foreign capital to enter into business collaboration with the USSR and also to the fact that the advances of socialist industry allowed the Soviet government to renounce extensive use of concessions. This line was approved by the Twelfth Party Congress in April, 1923.
The Soviet state, utilizing its control of the commanding heights of the economy, retained the directing and regulatory role in the economy's development and strengthened and developed the socialist sector. The state made use of the foreign trade monopoly, introduced at Lenin's urging at the end of 1917 to preserve the economic independence of the 150 Soviet state, restore major induistries and establish parity economic relations with developed capitalist countries.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Public and Political Life.Public and Political Life. = The transition to the New Economic Policy and the initial success in economic recovery created favorable conditions for an increase in the working masses' political activism. The Communist Party devoted enormous attention to work among the masses, to activizing them a»d rallying them around the working class.
The organizers of the country's public and political life were the Communists: they mobilized the masses for rebuilding the economy, led the Soviets, trade unions and cooperatives and conducted all the political and economic campaigns in the country. Leading figures in the Party headed the primary economic sectors: F. E. Dzerzhinsky was People's Commis sar for Means of CommTunicatipn and later Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council; L. IS. Krasin was People's Commissar for Foreign Trade. As Secretary of thte Transcaucasian Territorial Committee of the Party, G. K. Orjonikidze did much to rebuild the economies of the three Transcaucasian republics. S. M. Kirov mobilized the Communists of Azerbaijan for reviving the petroleum industry. V. Ya. Chubar directed the restoration of the coal industry in the Donbas. Thousands of Communists who rmad in the past been commanders and commissars in the Red Army became directors of factories, plants and trusts, leaders of the masses on the labor front. The Communist Party, with close ties to the people, grew through the influx of workers and peasants: while in 1923 the Party numbered around 400 thousand persons, by May of 1924 the Party had 860 thousand members and candidate members.
The Komsomol was the Party's faithful assistant in all matters. At the Third Congress of the Komsomol in October, 1920, Lenin set forth a program for young people's participation in building socialism and communism. Guided by Lenin's directives, the Komsomol enthusiastically took up the rehabilitating of the country and the raising of the cultural level of the masses. The Donbas Komsomol, working under difficult conditions, reopened mines destroyed by the Whites.
Around the cities, members of the Komsomol cut firewood and built access roads from logging areas to railroad stations. The Secretary of the Komsomol cell at the repair shops of the Southwest Railway, Nikolai Ostrovsky, who later wrote the remarkable books How the Steel Was Tempered and Born by the Storm, led the Komsomol members who were building the railroad. And it was the same in all the cities and industrial centers of the country.
The Komsomol fought no less heroically for the new life in the villages: they helped collect the tax in kind (later the unified agricultural tax), build schools and reading rooms, participated in the work of the Soviets and cooperatives, helped in agricultural extension, and contributed to the struggle against kulak banditry. In May of 1922, the Komsomol carried out the unification of all children's organizations, thus laying the basis for the Pioneer movement. At that point, too, the Komsomol took the navy under its patronage, providing outstanding sailors. In 1924, Lenin's name was conferred on the Komsomol.
151Political life in the country proceeded under difficult domestic and foreign circumstances. With the introduction of NEP, capitalist elements revived and their struggle against the new order increased. The main front of the class struggle moved into the economic realm. While utilizing private capital to revive the economy, the Soviet state waged a systematic struggle against private capital's attempts to gain control over the peasant economy and to circumvent Soviet laws against speculation and excess profits. The Soviet state, ceaselessly and consistently supporting socialist enterprises, exercised vigilant control over capitalist elements.
Soviet state and trade union organizations defended the class interests of workers employed in private industry and saw to it that entrepreneurs observed Soviet laws on the 8-hour working day and sanitary norms as applied to working conditions.
The enemies of the Soviet power carried out a number of types of subversive activity: screwing up prices for goods in short supply, secretly hording currency, sending gold abroad, and smuggling.
The class struggle in the village developed primarily around measures undertaken by the Soviet state to boost the poor and middle peasant masses and limit the exploitative aspirations of the kulaks. The kulaks attempted to penetrate Soviet authorities in order to take advantage of the economic and political preferences granted to the laboring peasantry. Kulaks murdered Communists and members of the Komsomol, people active in Soviet and Party work and village correspondents.
The press played a most important role in the country's public life. In the first months of the Soviet state, Lenin had set the goal of turning the press from an organ reporting primarily current political news into a serious organ for educating the mass of the population economically.
The Twelfth Party Congress stressed the enormous role of the Party press in propaganda and agitation and as a link between the Party and the working class and peasantry, and therefore emphasized the need to train worker and village correspondents.
There was a bitter struggle in the ideological realm, too. The so-called smenovekhovtsy (the "changing landmarks" group) expressed the interests of the new bourgeoisie that developed in the NEP period. Holding that the October Socialist Revolution had been a bourgeois revolution, the smenovekhovtsy hoped that NEP would lead to a degeneration of the Soviet power into an ordinary bourgeois regime. Hoping for such an outcome, the ideologues of the new bourgeoisie decided "to change landmarks" and begin collaboration with the Soviet state in order to use it in the struggle to restore capitalism. The Communist Party exposed the smenovekhovtsy's interest in a restoration and destroyed them ideologically.
Mensheviks and SRs found themselves in the same camp with the smenovekhovtsy. They, too, interpreted NEP as a restoration of a private capitalist economy and decided to use legal work in cooperatives, trade unions and other organizations to propagandize bourgeois ideology and the restoration of capitalism. Mensheviks and SRs also continued illegal counterrevolutionary activity, defending capitalism and the enemies of socialism. The SRs' subversive activity was exposed at the trial of SRs in the summer of 1922.
152In order to wage a successful struggle against the country's enemies on the ideological front, it was necessary to arm Party and state personnel appropriately. For this purpose, the publication of Lenin's writings was undertaken, and first carried out over the years 1920--1925. Likewise, the works of the founders of scientific communism, Marx and Engels, were published by the Marx-Engels Institute that had opened in 1920. The journals Pod Znamenem Marksizma (Under the Banner of Marxism) and Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya (The Proletarian Revolution), among others, propagandized Marxist-Leninist theory.
The activities of the Soviets played a special role in the country's political life. It was the Soviets that embodied the alliance between working class and peasantry, it was through them that the proletariat exercised its political leadership over the peasantry. During the Civil War, the Soviets had been concerned with mobilizing the efforts of working people to defeat the enemy. With the transition to peaceful development, they had to mobilize the people to deal with the country's economic and political tasks, to involve the people in the immediate administration of the state. For this purpose, measures were taken in early 1921 to improve the activity of the Soviets. Sessions of the Soviets to discuss problems of local life and the reports of deputies began to be held at factories and plants.
The People's Commissariat of Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (Rabkrin), established in February, 1920, contributed a great deal to improving the work of the Soviet apparatus. Its competence included reviewing the work of the state apparatus for the purpose of improving that work, and combatting bureaucratism and abuses. Lenin gave much attention to improving the organization and work of this commissariat. To strengthen Party leadership in Rabkrin and to raise Rabkrin's authority, Lenin proposed combining one of the higher Party organs--- the Central Control Commission---with Rabkrin, thereby creating a single organ of Party and state control. The Twelfth Party Congress in April, 1923, carried out the merger of the Central Control Commission and Rabkrin. V. V. Kuibyshev, a leading figure in the Party and state, headed the combined organization. Others who took part in its work were V. A. Avanesov, A. S. Kiselev, D. Z. Lebedev, N. M. Shvernik, A. A. Solts and Y. M. Yaroslavsky. The new organ of Party and state control played a major role in reinforcing unity and discipline in the Party and did important work in perfecting the structure of the state apparatus; it was in close contact with the worker and peasant masses, involved them extensively in investigations, reviews and inspections and taught them the art of administration. This increased the effectiveness of control and promoted the involvement of working people in the administration of the state.
Improving the work of the Soviets was considerably hampered by the fact that local Soviets did not enjoy adequate rights and did not dispose of budget moneys, so that many of them stood apart from economic and cultural work and weakly played the role of organizers of the masses. In December, 1924, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee called a special conference to discuss the organizational structure of the Soviets. The conference outlined a number of measures for strengthening local Soviets and their executive committees and expanding their 153 rights, especially in budgetary matters. The conference also worked out a statute for urban Soviets.
Of great importance in the development of the Soviet state was the passage of new legislation aimed at strengthening revolutionary legality and protecting the rights of working people that had been achieved by the October Revolution and given legal sanction in the Constitution of the USSR. With the transition to NEP, it was also necessary to guarantee the inviolability of private capital, on condition that Soviet laws were strictly observed.
The basic Soviet legal codes were worked out in 1922, with
representatives of the working people participating. In addition to the
above-mentioned Land Code, a Code of Labor Laws was adopted that
confirmed the 8-hqur working day, annual paid vacation, labor
protection (both sanitary and technical), social insurance for workers
and employees, and labor protection for women and minors. Civil and
Criminal codes were also adopted, as was a Judiciary Statute; public
procurator's offices were also established.
~
Military Reform. = Massive demobilization of the army and navy began in 1921: millions of Red Army men and sailors returned to peacetime work and took part in rebuilding the economy. By the fall of 1923, demobilization of the army had, for all practical purposes, been completed: of the peak strength of 5.5 million men, only 516 thousand remained under arms. The social and age structure of the army was thereby improved, the percentage of Communists increased, the ration of combat to support units changed in favor of the former. Expenditures on the army were reduced. It was now time to improve the army's organizational structure and recruitment procedures, to raise its combat efficiency and readiness. The reorganization was based on the Leninist principle of maintaing a small army, but one that was always ready to repell an attack and that could in case of need be expanded through the mobilization of trained reserves.
In 1924--1925, the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government undertook a military reform whose purpose was to maintain a high level of preparedness for mobilization. The armed forces were filled out through the combination of a cadre (standing) complement with territorial reserve units that were periodically called up for military training. Rifle and cavalry units were manned under this system, while engineering units, the navy and border guards followed the cadre principle. The reform also affected military administration, the supply system and officer training. An important role in carrying out the reform was played by M. V. Frunze, who was appointed People's Commissar for Military Affairs at the beginning of 1925.
Frunze reported the first results of the military reform to the Third
All-Union Congress of Soviets, which met in May, 1925. The Congress
approved the measures taken to adapt the army to peacetime and
instructed the government to do everything necessary to raise the
country's defense capacity by expanding war industries, updating
military equipment, improving the army's combat training and the
population's military training. Local authorities were given important
154
tasks in filling out well-trained territorial units and in improving the
military formations of the national minorities.
~
Lenin's Plan for Building Socialism. The Fourteenth Party Congress. The first five years of the Soviet state had been marked by important achievements in rehabilitating the economy. Lenin reported the results to the Fourth Congress of the Comintern. The economic upswing underway in the country demonstrated the correctness of the New Economic Policy. On November 20, 1922, Lenin, speaking to a plenary session of the Moscow Soviet, expressed his deep conviction that socialist Russia will emerge from NEP Russia. The deputies to the Moscow Soviet greeted these prophetic words with joy.
Yet Lenin was already seriously ill from overwork arid the effects of wounds. In May of 1922, on doctors' orders, Lenin moved to a country house in Gorki, near Moscow. In June, 1922, Lenin's health improved somewhat. Returning to Moscow at the beginning of October, Lenin resumed active work. In December, 1922, Lenin's health again sharply deteriorated. On the insistence of his doctors, he returned to Gorki. Between attacks of illness, when he felt somewhat better, Lenin dictated articles and letters in which he set forth his thoughts on the further development of the USSR and on the Party's fundamental tasks. He __CAPTION__ A demonstration on Youth Day. [155] dictated five articles: "Pages from a Diary,'' "On Co-operation,'' "Our Revolution,'' "How We Should Reorganize the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection,'' and "Better Fewer, But Better."
In these articles, Lenin completed his plan for building socialism in the USSR. His plan proceeded from the fact that the Soviet Union had everything needed to build a complete socialist society even given the delay of the world socialist revolution and the hostile capitalist encirclement. To build socialism, it was necessary to create the material and technological basis for socialist society, unwaveringly pursuing a policy of socialist industrialization. As Lenin wrote: "If we see to it that the working class retains its leadership over the peasantry, we shall be able, by exercising the greatest possible thrift in the economic life of our state, to use every saving we make to develop out large-scale machine industry, to develop electrification, the hydraulic extraction of peat, to complete the Volkhov Power Project, etc.
"In this, and in this alone, lies our = hope."^^1^^
In the article "On Co-operation,'' Lenin capped his work on the plan for the socialist collectivization of peasant farms, seeing in cooperatives the basic, simplest and, for the peasants, most comprehensible way to involve the peasantry in building socialism, strengthening the alliance between the working class and peasantry and laying the economic foundation for socialism.
Lenin outlined the ways to carry out a cultural revolution, without which it would be impossible to build socialism in the USSR.
The Soviet state, said Lenin, was a most important implement for building a socialist society. Developing and improving socialist democracy to the maximum extent, involving the majority of the population in administering the country, strengthening the state---such were the basic prerequisites for building socialism.
Lenin considered the all-round strengthening of the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, and of friendship among the Soviet peoples, an indispensable condition of the successful construction of socialism.
Lenin's program also included securing foreign policy conditions for building socialism. The socialist revolution cannot triumph simultaneously in all countries---this is the inevitable result of the uneven economic and political development which is an absolute law of capitalism. It began with victory in one country---Soviet Russia. In order successfully to build socialism, the Soviet Union had to pursue a policy of peaceful coexistence with other, non-socialist countries, to establish business relations with them, and at the same time constantly to strengthen the country's defense. Yet the first socialist country in the world had to hold high the banner of proletarian internationalism, assisting oppressed peoples in their struggle for liberation. And Lenin saw in the mighty revolutionary movement of the working people in the countries of the East one of the sources of the victory of the forces of socialism on a world scale.
Thus, Lenin in his last articles set forth an overall policy for the Communist Party calculated for the triumph of socialism in the USSR. _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 501.
156 He armed the Party with a clear prospect of the struggle to build socialism and communism.Lenin's plan took account not only of Russia's domestic conditions, but also of international relations and the general patterns of the transition from capitalism to socialism. The Communist Party, Lenin emphasized, in directing the construction of a new society, must adhere strictly to scientific principles of administration, permitting neither subjectivism nor management by decrees in dealing with complex problems; it must exercise collective leadership of the country.
Close in spirit to Lenin's last works are his "Letter to the Congress'', "Granting Legislative Functions to the State Planning Commission" and "The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomization''', dictated at the end of 1922 and the beginning of 1923. In his "Letter to the Congress'', Lenin, concerned over the fate of building socialism in the USSR, proposed a number of measures to strengthen the Party so as to avoid any possibility of a split. Since the Party rested on the support of two classes---the workers and the laboring peasants---its stability depended on the firmness of the alliance between these classes and on the working class exercising leadership in this alliance. Lenin considered the cohesion and unity of the Central Committee, its heightened prestige and unwavering application of the principle of collective leadership, to be fundamental preconditions for strengthening Party unity. Lenin felt that to increase the Central Committee's stability, its membership should be increased to 100 persons "in order to raise the prestige of the Central Committee, to do a thorough job of improving our administrative machinery and to prevent conflicts between small sections of the CC from acquiring excessive importance for the future of the = Party."^^1^^
Lenin proposed expanding the Central Committee by bringing in rank and file workers. Lenin wrote: "...by attending all sittings of the CC and all sittings of the Political Bureau, and by reading all the documents of the CC such workers can form a staff of devoted supporters of the Soviet system, able, first, to give stability to the CC itself, and second, to work effectively on the renewal and improvement of the state apparatus."^^2^^
Lenin wrote of the personal merits and failings of some of the leading members of the Party's Central Committee, on whose interaction and proper employment depended, to a considerable extent, the unity of the Party and the prevention of a split.
Lenin described Trotsky as a person who "has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the = work."^^3^^ In stressing Trotsky's = " nonBolshevism,"^^4^^ Lenin warned the Party of the possibility that Trotsky might manifest Menshevik relapses. Of Zinoviev and Kamenev, Lenin wrote that their behavior during the preparation and execution of the October armed uprising was no happenstance. Lenin thus expressed what was in effect political distrust of Trotsky and raised doubts as to Zinoviev's and Kamenev's political stability.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 593.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 597.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 595.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 595.
157Lenin also characterized Stalin. Noting that Stalin was one of the major figures in the Party, Lenin went on: "Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient = caution."^^1^^ Then he added: "Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, = etc."^^2^^ History was to show how perspicacious Lenin had been.
Lenin's letter was read to the delegates to the Thirteenth Party Congress. Taking into account Stalin's irreconcilable struggle against Trotskyism within the Communist Party and the international communist movement, Stalin's authority within the Party and hoping that he would heed Lenin's criticism, the Congress delegates decided to leave Stalin in his post as Secretary-General of the Central Committee.
Lenin's works lighted the way to the building of communism in the USSR, and indeed the prospects for the development of all mankind, for decades to come. They also helped in the struggle against anti-Party, Trotskyite elements that already in 1923 were taking advantage of the country's economic difficulties and Lenin's illness to step up their attacks on the Party's Leninist line. Trotskyites prophesied the unavoidable collapse of socialist construction and slandered the Party, accusing it of lacking democracy. Demanding freedom of action for factions and groupings---which crudely violated Leninist principles of Party unity---Trotsky denied the need for a close link up of industry and peasant agriculture, attempted to impose an adventurist foreign policy on the Party, to turn young people against the Party, and so on. However, the Trotskyites suffered defeat in discussions held by the Party. The Komsomol remained true to Lenin's ideas and rebuffed the attempts by Trotskyites to juxtapose young- people to the older generation. The Thirteenth Party Conference, which opened in Moscow in January, 1924, resoundingly condemned Trotskyism and labelled it "a clearly expressed petty-bourgeois deviation."
The country felt deeply Lenin's illness. His powerful organism struggled against illness, and in moments of temporary improvement in his health Lenin sought to work. All working people hoped for Lenin's recovery, every tidbit of news on an improvement in his health was met with joy. However, the people's hopes were not fated to be realized. On January 21, 1924, at 6:50 in the evening, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin passed away. He died at the age of 53, his life cut short by serious illness.
On January 23, 1924, the coffin containing Lenin's body was taken to Moscow and placed in the Hall of Columns of the House of Trade Unions. For almost a week, the people paid their final respects.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 36, pp. 594--95.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 596.
158On January 26, 1924, the Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR opened, its first session dedicated to the memory of the great leader. The Second Congress of Soviets resolved to perpetuate the memory of Lenin and adopted an appeal to working humanity. The Congress called for the speedy publication of selected works by Lenin in many languages, as well as his complete works. Responding to the wishes of the working people of Petrograd---the cradle of the proletarian revolution---the Congress rechristened the city Leningrad. The Second Congress adopted a resolution on preserving Lenin's body in a special mausoleum on Red Square along the Kremlin Wall, among the common graves of those who had died during the October Revolution.
On January 27, 1924, the casket containing Lenin's body was moved to Red Square. The people of Moscow and numerous delegations from all corners of the country filed by. At 4 in the afternoon, to the sounds of funeral march, of thousands of factory whistles and the salvos of guns, the casket was moved into the Mausoleum. In great sorrow, the working people of the USSR and the entire world bade farewell to Lenin --- their teacher, their best friend, their advocate. In these sad days, the Soviet people, gathered around the Party, displayed restraint, firmness and courage.
Two hundred and forty thousand workers from the factories joined the Communist Party after Lenin's death---the Lenin enrolment into the __CAPTION__ Working people pay their final respects to V. I. Lenin. January, 1924. [159] Party. This showed the readiness of the working class to continue the struggle to implement Lenin's great ideas.
By the end of 1926, the economy of the USSR had, for all practical purposes, been rehabilitated. In 1925, the output of large-scale socialist industry was at 73 percent of the pre-war level. The number of workers employed in large-scale industry had reached 2,451.6 thousand, 90.8 percent of the pre-war level. The role of the socialist sector had grown: it accounted for 96.1 percent of the output of large-scale industry and 81 percent of the country's total industrial output.
Agricultural output reached 87 percent of the pre-war level in 1925. The material situation of workers, laboring peasants and employees had improved. Trade turnover had reached approximately 70 percent of the pre-war level, and half of the total was accounted for by state and cooperative trading organizations.
The formation of the USSR had permitted the concentration of the country's material resources and energies for assistance to previously backward peoples in their creation of a highly developed economy.
There had been important changes in the republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia during the years when the economy was revived. Top priority here was given to reviving agriculture. The Soviet government had allocated major resources for irrigation in Central Asia and Azerbaijan (in the Mugansk steppe) and had sent machinery, tractors and work force. This had promoted the revival of cotton-growing, which played an important role in the economies of these republics and of the country as a whole. In 1922, the government had called for construction of a major textile factory in Turkestan; for this purpose, equipment was moved from Ivanovo-Voznesensk area and engineers and workers were transferred.
In the Turkestan ASSR, hydroelectric plants and metal-working and cotton cleaning plants were being built; new railroad lines had been built in Semirechye, Ferghana and Syr Darya areas and in the Bukhara People's Republic. In Azerbaijan, work toward the restoration and modernization of the petroleum industry had begun: the country had a pressing need for fuel. All the Soviet republics came to the assistance of the working people of Azerbaijan, sending grain, machinery and equipment. Cloth-mill and woolens factories and an agricultural machinery plant were built here for the first time. In Georgia, a hydroelectric plant was under construction outside Tiflis; a cloth-mill moved from Russia was being reassembled. Armenia received considerable sums for industrial construction. In Yerevan, a textile mill brought from the RSFSR had been rebuilt.
Considerable assistance in the way of money, machinery and seeds had been given to Byelorussia.
Through all these measures, the Soviet government promoted increasing trust in the Russian people among the formerly oppressed peoples.
Events were confirming the correctness of the New Economic Policy that the Soviet government was implementing.
The issue of the prospects for the further development of the Soviet 160 __CAPTION__ On guard at the V. I. Lenin Mausoleum. 1925. [161] Union took on great importance. Long-term prospects had been set forth in Lenin's works and in Party decisions.
In 1924, Trotsky made a new attempt to push the country off the correct path for building socialism, to undermine the ideological basis of the Party's activity and to undermine Communists' faith in the ultimate victory of socialism. The Menshevik essence of Trotskyism was unmasked in the discussion that was carried out in the Party press and at Party meetings. The Party wholeheartedly rebuffed Trotsky's attempt to substitute Trotskyism for Leninism. In January, 1925, a plenary meeting of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP(B) condemned Trotsky's anti-Party behavior and warned him that if he made a new attempt to violate Party decisions he would be expelled from the Politburo and removed from work in the Central Committee. All Party organizations in the country, as well as the Executive Committee of the Comintern, supported the decision of the Central Committee and condemned Trotsky's harmful disorganizing activity.
Confidently proceeding along the path marked out by Lenin, the Communist Party at its Fourteenth Conference (April, 1925) declared outright its firm belief in the possibility of building a socialist society. The Party took into account that the construction of a complete socialist society in the USSR would not yet be the final triumph of socialism, since the existing hostile capitalist encirclement contained the threat of a restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Only the victory of the socialist revolution in a number of other countries could ensure that capitalism would not be restored.
The conclusion was confirmed by the Fourteenth Party Congress in December, 1925. The Congress declared that the struggle for the victory of socialist construction in the USSR was the Party's fundamental task. At the time the Congress met, a "new opposition" headed by Zinoviev and Kamenev had been formed and was propagandizing the idea that socialism could not triumph in the USSR, that state industry, transport, finances, trade and cooperatives were state capitalism, that the foreign trade monopoly had to be abolished, that an alliance between the working class and the middle peasantry was impossible, and so on. The opposition attempted to gain the support of the Leningrad Party organization against the Party by deception. The Congress forthrightly condemned the "new opposition" and exposed its Trotskyist essence.
The Fourteenth Party Congress proclaimed the transition to socialist industrialization as the decisive means for restructuring the entire economy along socialist lines. The Congress approved the Central Committee's assignment of priority to the development of heavy industry and reaffirmed the Party's adherence to the Leninist general line of building socialism in the USSR and turning the country into a mighty industrial power.
Thus, the successful rehabilitating of the economy and the formation of a single union state --- the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics---the rise of its international prestige, the strengthened alliance between the working class and the peasantry, friendship among the Soviet peoples, the successful implementation of the New Economic Policy, the 162 acquisition of experience in economic development under new conditions and the stabilization of the USSR's domestic situation made it possible for the country to enter a new stage in the construction of socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ First Successes in Soviet Foreign Policy.First Successes in Soviet Foreign Policy. = Despite the fact that attempts to liquidate the Soviet power through the use of foreign troops and domestic counterrevolution had failed, the ruling circles of the imperialist countries did not abandon their hopes of restoring a capitalist order in Russia. But the bourgeois world was far from unanimous on the way this was to be done. French ruling circles still entertained the hope that a new armed intervention would succeed. They therefore opposed in every way they could the establishment of any relations with the Soviets. Within the government of Great Britain, too, an influential group of Conservatives, headed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Curzon, questioned the wisdom of conducting economic and commercial negotiations with Bolshevik Russia. Another group of British politicians, including the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, saw the situation in a different light and favored a reconciliation with Soviet Russia. Despite all obstacles, the tendency favoring the establishment of normal relations with the Soviet state gained the support of various circles in the capitalist world.
Speaking at a sitting of the ARCEC on June 17, 1920, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, G. V. Chicherin, declared: "Our slogan has been and remains one and the same: peaceful coexistence with other governments, whatever they are. Reality itself has brought us and other states to the necessity of establishing prolonged relations between the workers' and peasants' government and capitalist = governments."^^1^^
One of the most effective ways to establish peaceful relations with capitalist countries was the development of trade. Many capitalist countries were interested in trading with Russia. "There is a force,'' said Lenin, "more powerful than the wishes, the will and the decisions of any of the governments or classes that are hostile to us. That force is world general economic relations, which compel them to make contact with = us."^^2^^
The first major success in the policy of peaceful coexistence pursued by the Soviet Republic was the signing in March, 1921, of a commercial agreement with Britain. Soviet Russia gained its first de facto recognition from one of the leading capitalist countries. The agreement was economically advantageous for both parties: Russia could import the machinery and equipment she needed, and Britain, which in the words of Lloyd George, was in 1920 a shop whose permanent customers had been ruined, sought to acquire new ones.
In restoring commercial-political relations, Soviet Russia and Great Britain undertook to refrain from all hostile acts and propaganda against each other. The Soviet government attributed great importance to the conclusion of a treaty with Britain. Lenin argued that the treaty had opened a window onto the capitalist world.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Documents of Soviet Foreign Policy, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 639 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 155.
__PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 11* 163The Anglo-Soviet commercial agreement met with a large international response: on March 19, 1921, the Italian leader, Sforza, spoke in favor of commercial negotiations with the Soviets; this topic was also discussed in the German Reichstag and the French Parliament. On May 6, 1921, a temporary commercial agreement analogous to the AngloSoviet agreement was concluded between Soviet Russia and Germany. Soon, Austria, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Czechoslovakia and other countries had signed trade agreements with Soviet Russia.
In signing commercial treaties with the Soviet Republic capitalist states did not as a rule wish to establish diplomatic relations. They demanded that Soviet Russia fully repay the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments, repeal the foreign trade monopoly and permit capital free access to the Soviet Republic. Some countries, the United States first among them, categorically refused even to enter into commercial relations with the Soviet state.
On March 20, 1921, the ARCEC sent a special message to the US Congress and the President of the United States, Warren G. Harding. Noting that Soviet Russia had not the slightest intention of meddling in the affairs of the United States and wished only to restore commercial relations with the US, the ARCEC proposed that negotiations be undertaken and expressed its readiness to send a special delegation to the United States. On March 25, the American Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, responded with a demand --- in flagrant violation of all norms of international law and international politics --- that the Soviet Republic alter its internal system.
Yet many American business circles were much more farsighted than their government and the Republican Party that had then come to power. For instance, the American corporation Prodexco carried on a lively trade with the Soviet Republic. There were a number of agreements between individual American firms and corporations and the economic organizations of Soviet Russia. However, the US State Department did everything it could to delay the implementation of these agreements.
Despite the actions of the anti-Soviet forces that refused to carry on trade or grant loans and credits and worked for the economic collapse of Soviet Russia, the country's foreign trade grew continually. Soviet Russia entered international trade with confidence; her policy of peaceful coexistence with capitalist states was in the interests of the peoples of all countries and began to yield results.
The year 1921 was an important year in the establishment of friendly relations between the Soviet Republic and the countries of the East. The October Revolution proclaimed the equality and freedom of peoples, condemned colonial oppression and enslavement and recognized the right of all peoples to political and economic independence.
In the first days of its existence, the Soviet state began negotiations with the governments of Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and China. Britain and France, alarmed for the fate of their colonies, did everything possible to block the fruition of negotiations between Soviet Russia and the countries of the East; Britain especially feared Soviet influence in Iran.
Immediately after the October Revolution, the Soviet government annulled all unequal agreements concluded in the past between Iran and 164 __CAPTION__ G. V. Chicherin tsarist Russia, withdrew Russian troops from Iran and recognized Iran's independence and sovereignty. Meanwhile, in 1919 Britain imposed a treaty on Iran that continued the British occupation of Iranian territory and the capitulations regime. Enormous pressure was put on the Shah, the Majlis and the government, they were frightened with the "threat of the Bolshevization of Iran" and at the same time given all sorts of promises. All of this had but one purpose --- to preserve the control of British monopolies over Iranian oil, and over the natural resources of this country that occupied an important strategic place among British colonies.
However, national forces moved toward power in Iran, and the Shah and then the Majlis, under pressure from the national liberation movement, refused to ratify the Anglo-Iranian treaty of 1919.
Soviet forein policy lent substantial aid to the Iranian people in their struggle against the capitulations regime and inequality. Soviet-Iranian negotiations that began in Moscow in November, 1920, culminated in the 165 signing of a treaty on February 26, 1921. The Soviet government confirmed the abrogation of all unequal treaties, conventions and agreements concluded between tsarist Russia and Iran, annulled all Iranian debts and returned concessions and property that had been acquired in Iran by tsarist Russia. The total value of the property alone that the Soviet government handed over to the Iranian people amounted to 582 million gold roubles. The Soviet-Iranian treaty was the first agreement in the history of Iran that was based on the principle of parity, and it was valued highly by the progressive forces in Iran.
The general upsurge of the national liberation movement of the peoples of the East involved Afghanistan, too. In 1919, the country was headed by the young and energetic Emir Amanullah Khan, who opposed Britain's attempts to extend her colonial domination over the country; the Emir also favored establishing friendly relations with the Soviet Republic. At the end of 1919, an Afghan delegation arrived in Moscow, and a Soviet representative arrived simultaneously in Kabul. Negotiations between the two countries proceeded successfully. At the end of 1920, Amanullah Khan sent special letters to Lenin in which he spoke of the feelings of friendship that the Afghan people nourished for the Soviet Republic and expressed satisfaction at the successful conclusion of the Soviet-Afghan negotiations.
In an answering letter, Lenin noted the community of interests of the two countries, both of which wished for the independence of all states and peoples of the East. On February 28,1921, the Soviet-Afghan treaty was signed. The two parties recognized each other's independence. Soviet Russia provided Afghanistan with material and cultural assistance and ensured the unhindered transshipment through Russia of freight purchased by Afghanistan. This item in the treaty was of great importance to Afghanistan, for it freed her of British control over Afghan trade.
British ruling circles worked desperately to impede the development of friendly relations between Afghanistan and Soviet Russia. The British representative in Kabul, Henry Dobbs, offered Amanullah Khan 20 thousand rifles, 20 field batteries and other armaments, promised an annual subsidy of 4 million rupees and an additional payment of 40 million rupees over 25 years. In return, the English demanded the annulment of the Soviet-Afghan treaty, the removal of the Soviet ambassador from the country and propaganda against Soviet Russia.
This was an attempt to impose a new colonial yoke on the people of Afghanistan. But British politicians were powerless to halt the disintegration of old colonial orders in the Middle East. In July of 1921, Afghanistan rejected the pretensions of British imperialism, and within a few months an Anglo-Afghanistan treaty was concluded under which Britain recognized the independence of Afganistan. Thus, the support provided by the Soviet Republic to the friendly people of Afghanistan was an important factor in the struggle of the Afghan people for freedom and independence. The Soviet-Afghan treaty, the first treaty in history under which Afghanistan enjoyed equal rights, was yet another expression of Soviet Russia's policy of peace and the establishment of relations of friendship with the countries of the East.
166Another example of this policy was the treaty with Turkey signed in March, 1921 ---Turkey was at the time waging an armed struggle for her independence against British, French and Greek troops. Recognizing the freedom and independence of Turkey, Soviet Russia renounced completely the onerous and humiliating capitulations regime imposed on Turkey, as well as all special privileges enjoyed by tsarist Russia. The Soviet government provided Turkey with financial assistance totalling 10 million gold roubles; this sum was handed over to the Turkish authorities in the year 1921--1922, despite the economic devastation in Soviet Russia.
At the end of December, 1921, M. V. Frunze, commander of the troops in the Ukraine and Crimea, arrived in Turkey, and on January 2 signed in Ankara a Ukrainian-Turkish treaty that further strengthened Soviet-Turkish relations.
Soviet Russia's assistance improved Turkey's international and domestic situation and helped her to withstand the onslaught of the armed forces of the Entente and to defend her independence.
The progressive strata of the Turkish people greeted joyfully the establishment of friendly relations with Soviet Russia, but in Turkish ruling circles there were figures who opposed Soviet-Turkish friendship in any way they could. Taking advantage of this, the British and French governments sought to drive a wedge between Soviet Russia and Turkey; for this purpose, various British and French emissaries repeatedly visited Ankara. However, the outstanding Turkish leader, Kemal Atatiirk, continued to follow his policy of friendship with the Soviet Union.
Soviet Russia attached no political conditions to its aid to Turkey or to other countries of the East, while the colonial powers demanded economic and political preferences for every penny granted.
The Soviet Republic staunchly defended Turkey's right to independence and championed Turkey's interests at international conferences. Soviet Russia called for Turkey's participation in the Genoa Conference, though this was opposed by the great powers. The Soviet government also resolutely defended Turkey's interests at the Lausanne Conference at the end of 1922.
From the time of its foundation, the Soviet Republic sought a rapprochement with the countries of the Far East. The establishment of friendly relations between the RSFSR and Mongolia played a major role in the life of the peoples of the East. In 1920, a People's Revolutionary Party was founded in Mongolia; it fought for an independent Mongolia. Having broken the resistance of the bands of the White General Ungern in the summer of 1921, popular power triumphed in Mongolia, and a people's government was formed that sent a delegation headed by Sukhe Bator to Moscow in October, 1921. On November 5, 1921, an agreement on the establishment of friendly relations between Mongolia and the RSFSR was signed. At the request of the Mongolian government, Soviet troops remained in Mongolia for some time to defend the country from Japanese encroachment.
Thus, as early as 1921 Soviet Russia had established friendly relations with a number of the countries of the East.
167One of the terms under which bourgeois governments agreed to the diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia was the payment of the old debts of tsarist Russia.
In a note dated October 28, 1921, and sent to the governments of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States, the Soviet government announced its willigness to normalize relations with all countries and agreed to honor its obligations to other states and their citizens for state loans contracted by the tsarist government previous to 1914, on condition that favorable terms be granted so that it has the practical opportunity to fulfil these obligations. Soviet Russia agreed to this only in the event that the great powers concluded a general peace with Russia and recognized the Soviet government. The Soviet government proposed holding an international conference to resolve mutual claims.
The Soviet government's note found a response throughout the world. In a number of countries, and especially in Britain, the voices of those calling for negotiations with the Soviet government and utilization of the economic resources of Russia for reviving the world economy rang ever louder. Lloyd George began a correspondence with the Soviet government on the convocation of a conference. The French government met the Soviet proposals coldly, which testified to the existence of Anglo-French disagreements. However, like Britain, France could not but reckon with the policy of Germany, which demanded a review or at least an easing of the Versailles Treaty and counted on using the Russian market to strengthen its position in Europe.
On January 6, 1922, a Supreme Council of the allies met at Cannes and decided to call an international conference to discuss the economic recovery of Central and Eastern Europe, to which Germany and Russia would be invited. Genoa was to be the site of the conference. On January 7, 1922, the Italian government (as the host country for the future conference) sent the Soviet government and Lenin personally an invitation to the international conference. Soviet Russia agreed to take part.
In the course of preparing the conference, all of progressive Europe and America hailed the first major foreign policy achievements of the Soviet state and demanded of their governments that they cease their anti-Soviet propaganda. The Communist parties of the European countries were in the vanguard of the struggle for granting the Soviet Republic rights equal to those of all countries at the future conference.
In Soviet Russia, preparations for the conference proceeded under Lenin's personal direction. The economic proposals drawn up by the Soviet government were intended to restore and expand economic ties between Soviet Russia and the capitalist countries. "We are going to Genoa for the practical purpose of expanding trade and of creating the most favourable conditions for its successful development on the widest scale,'' said = Lenin.^^1^^
During the preparations for the Genoa conference, Lenin presented an extensive program of political and economic measures that demonstrated the Soviet concept of the peaceful coexistence of states with _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 264.
168 different social structures. The Soviet program took account of the heterogeneity of the bourgeoisie and the existence of serious conflicts among the capitalist countries. The Soviet government prepared to present its position on the important questions of international life at the conference, hoping in all this to weaken the anti-Soviet front and to avert the danger of a new intervention.On January 27, 1922, a special session of the ARCEC approved the delegates to the conference. Lenin was appointed head of the delegation, G. V. Chicherin--- People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs --- was named his deputy, and L. B. Krasin, M. M. Litvinov, V. V. Vorovsky, A. A. loffe, and Ya. E. Rudzutak among others, were named as members of the delegation.
In February, 1922, a conference of representatives of the RSFSR, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Bukhara, Khorezm and the Far Eastern Republic instructed the delegation of the ARCEC to represent at the conference the interests of all the Soviet republics and to conclude all agreements and treaties in their name. The RSFSR delegation was supplemented by representatives of the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.
The Soviet government instructed the delegation to fight against interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet Republic and at the same time to display maximum flexibility in securing peace. A special note from the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to the governments of Britain, France and Italy, dated March 15, 1922, emphasized once again that the Soviet government was going to the Genoa conference with the firm intention of undertaking economic collaboration with all states that undertook to recognize the inviolability of each other's domestic political and economic organization.
The Soviet people followed the preparations for the conference closely. In February and March of 1922, numerous letters were sent by working people, Party, Soviet, trade union and other organizations to the Central Committee of the Party, the ARCEC and the Council of People's Commissars expressing fear for Lenin's safety should he go to the Genoa conference. The workers and employees at the Marx factory, for example, argued the ARCEC not to include Lenin in the delegation, because workers and peasants could not entrust Lenin's life to bourgeois protection. "We ask the ARCEC not to send our dear Lenin from Russia to Genoa and London. Protect Ilyich,'' wrote the students of the vocational courses in the Donbas in a letter to Moscow.
Since, in addition, the amount of work and the unsatisfactory health did not allow Lenin to go to the conference, G. V. Chicherin, as deputy head, led the Soviet delegation.
On April 10, 1922, the international conference opened in Genoa's Palazzo di S. Giorgio with delegates from 34 countries in attendance. Among them were the most important leaders of the capitalist countries: the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George; the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Louis Barthou; Reichskanzler Joseph Wirth and Walther Rathenau from Germany; the Italian Premier Luigi Facta; and others. The United States sent as observer the American Ambassador to Italy, Richard Child. Financial and business circles attended closely to the conference.
169The interest of all delegates, guests and journalists was fixed on the Soviet delegation. When the floor was given to G. V. Chicherin, complete silence reigned in the hall. The People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs read the statement of the Soviet delegation. The statement was imbued with the idea of the necessity of peaceful coexistence between the socialist country and the capitalist powers. The statement said that in the present era of history, which made possible the parallel existence of the old order and the new order that was being born, economic cooperation among the states representing these two systems of property was a permissible necessity for general economic recovery.
After expressing Soviet Russia's desire to cooperate with all countries in the matter of European economic recovery, Chicherin stated that the Russian delegation intended to propose at the conference a universal reduction of armaments and to support any proposals whose purpose was to ease the burden of militarism, on condition that the armies of all states would be reduced and barbaric methods of warfare be outlawed. In conclusion, Chicherin said that Russia was ready to take part in common work in the interests of Russia herself and in the interests of all Europe and the tens of millions of people subjected to the unbearable deprivations and hardships stemming from economic disorder, and to support all attempts at least to mitigate world economic difficulties and to remove the threat of new wars.
The Soviet Republic thus proposed a program of peace and disarmament at Genoa. The Genoa conference showed that in the person of Soviet Russia the working people of the entire world had an active champion of peace, struggling against the policy of aggression and the arms race.
The Soviet delegation's proposals for peace were rejected by the representatives of the capitalist countries. The French Minister, Jean-Louis Barthou, for instance, spoke immediately after Chicherin and stated angrily that when the Russian delegation submitted its proposals on disarmament to the conference's first commission, they would be met by the French delegation not only with caution, not only with protest, but with a precise and categorical, final and decisive rejection.
The bourgeois countries presented the Soviet delegation with a report drawn up by experts in London on the eve of the conference, a report containing the demands of the capitalist powers touching on relations between Russia and Europe. The authors of the report set up a number of conditions under which foreign enterprises would be allowed to take part in "the restoration of Russia''. The Soviet government would have to honor all the financial obligations of the tsarist and Provisional governments. To supervise the Soviet government's fulfilment of the obligations, it was proposed to set up a notorious commission on the Russian debt, a commission that would have the right to interfere in the work of Soviet financial organs, to determine the Soviet Republic's budget. The Soviet government would be obliged to establish special, favorable terms for foreigners living on Soviet territory, allowing them to interfere in the internal affairs of Soviet Russia. Finally, the authors of the report demanded the return of enterprises in Russia to their previous foreign owners.
170The Soviet delegation could not accept the ``conditions'' of the capitalist states. In a special memorandum of April 20 and a note of May 11, 1922, the Soviet delegation stated clearly that the report of the experts contradicted the resolution of the Cannes conference and that acceptance of the demands of the capitalist powers would mean the enslavement of Soviet Russia.
On the eve of the conference, Soviet Russia hdd suggested to Germany that the two countries conclude an agreement. Negotiations to this end were continued in Genoa and culminated in the signing on April 16, 1922, of the Rapallo Soviet-German Treaty. Under the Treaty, the two parties renounced all indemnity for losses inflicted during the war. Germany renounced its claims in connection with the nationalization of foreign property in Russia. The Soviet Republic and Germany agreed to expand their economic and commercial relations on the basis of mutual advantage.
The conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo was a major foreign policy achievement for Soviet Russia: it broke the imperialist-inspired diplomatic isolation of the Soviet state. The Soviet-German Treaty showed that it was possible to conclude agreements with Soviet Russia on the basis of parity and mutual advantage. The Soviet-German Treaty was an example of peaceful coexistence between socialist and capitalist states.
A few days later, the Genoa conference came to an end without having made any decisions. The conference's lack of results testified to the foreign policy crisis among the capitalist powers and in fact signified a victory for Soviet diplomacy. The Soviet Republic, entering the principal international arena for the first time, showed that it was an active champion of peace and disarmament, that it championed the establishment of extensive commercial and economic contacts among states irrespective of their social structure.
During the years when the economy was being rehabilitated, the Soviet state's domestic and international position became stronger. However, its enemies managed at the beginning of 1923 to organize a number of anti-Soviet campaigns in Europe; the Soviet Union's relations with Finland and the Baltic countries took a turn for the worse. In some capitalist countries, the forces of the Russian counterrevolution continued their work and received support from the governments of these countries.
Britain undertook overtly hostile actions against the USSR. Lord Curzon, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, sent the Soviet government a memorandum on May 8, 1923, in which he accused Soviet Russia of anti-British propaganda in Afghanistan, Iran and India and insisted on the recall of Soviet diplomatic representatives from the first two of these countries, on an official apology for their allegedly improper actions and on monetary compensation for the repressive actions of the competent Soviet organs against British spies. It was actually an attempt on the part of the British government to intervene in the internal affairs of the USSR, using as a pretext so-called religious persecution. Curzon's memorandum had the character of an ultimatum and threatened a break in Anglo-Soviet relations.
The Whites, who had found a refuge in different parts of Europe, also raised their heads. Newspapers began a violent anti-Soviet 171 campaign. On May 10, 1923, in Lausanne, a White, Konradi, killed the Soviet representative, an outstanding diplomat, V. V. Vorovsky.
Curzon's ultimatum prompted indignation among the working people of the USSR and the entire world. Meetings and demonstrations protesting the British government's insolent pretensions were held throughout the Soviet Union. Working people expressed their readiness to devote all their energies to the country's defense. A "Hands off Soviet Russia" campaign again began in capitalist countries. As a result of the actions of progressive forces in all countries, the attempt once more to isolate the USSR fell through, and Lord Curzon was soon forced to resign.
In December, 1923, the Conservatives were defeated in the British parliamentary elections. MacDonald's Labor Government came to power and was compelled to change British policy towards the USSR. This was demanded by the working masses and by many British business circles interested in Anglo-Soviet trade. On February 2, 1924, the British government informed the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs that Great Britain extended de jure recognition to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In 1924, Italy, Norway, Austria, Greece and Sweden recognized the Soviet Union. In May of 1924, Soviet-Chinese relations were normalized through the signing of an agreement. In the summer of 1924, diplomatic relations were established between the USSR and Mexico.
Franco-Soviet relations improved, too. In 1924, progressive forces in France brought about the retirement of Poincare's reactionary government. The new government, headed by Herriot, informed Moscow that France recognized the Soviet government. The first stage of the diplomatic recognition of the USSR was capped in January, 1925, by the signing of a Japanese-Soviet agreement. In all, between 1921 and 1925 the USSR concluded more than 40 treaties and agreements of different sorts with capitalist countries.
These years were an important stage in the Soviet state's foreign policy. Having withstood the combined onslaught of international imperialism, the USSR entered the international arena as a great power, capable of defending its socialist order and struggling to strengthen peace.
[172] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Four __ALPHA_LVL1__ BUILDING SOCIALISM. THE FURTHER Socialist Industrialization. The Fifteenth Party Congress. Social
Revolution in the Village. The USSR --- The First Country in which
Socialism Triumphed. The New Constitution of the USSR.
Strengthening Socialist Society. The Eighteenth Party Congress. The Country's
Economic Might Grows. The Soviet Republics Blossom. New
Republics. Strengthening the Country's Defenses. The USSR's Struggle
for Peace and Collective Security.
Socialist Industrialization. = As the national economy recovered, the peoples of the USSR had to consider the strategy for further development. On the theoretical level, this question had been resolved by Lenin, who in his last articles had elaborated a plan for building socialism. The plan centered on the industrialization of the country. By industrialization, Lenin meant the development of large-scale industry--- above all, heavy industry, producing the means of production, and capable of providing the latest technology for factories and plants, peasant agriculture, transport and communications. Lenin showed that large-scale industry was the material and technological basis for socialism, demonstrated the decisive importance of heavy industry and laid the bases for a theory and policy of socialist industrialization.
In one of his last speeches to representatives of the world communist movement, at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in November, 1922, he said: "The salvation of Russia lies not only in a good harvest on the peasant farms --- that is not enough; and not only in the good condition of light industry, which provides the peasantry with consumer goods --- this, too, is not enough; we also need heavy industry. And to put it in a good condition will require several years of = work."^^1^^
Lenin linked the creation of large-scale industry with the electrification of the country: the idea was made concrete in the remarkable GOELRO Plan. Lenin saw in the implementation of this plan the real potential for restoring "large-scale industry and transport to such proportions and on such a technical basis that we shall overcome starvation and poverty once and for = all."^^2^^
Important for successful industrialization was the implementation of the principles of the Leninist nationalities policy. Industrializing the country provided the practical opportunity for fundamentally transforming the country's entire economy, for overcoming the economic inequality among peoples that had taken shape under tsarism. Autocracy and the ruling bourgeois and landowner classes had carried out a policy of national oppression with respect to the non-Russian nationalities of Russia's borderlands, forcibly keeping them in a semi-colonial condition _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 426.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 376.
173 and assigning the borderlands the role of suppliers of raw material for the industrial center. As a result, many of the peoples of Russia, especially in the east, which had not yet passed through the capitalist stage of development, did not have their own industry or proletariat and were backward in economic and cultural respects. Under the new social order, these peoples could pass on to socialism without following the capitalist route of development. The Soviet Republic set the goal of attaining true equality of all nations and nationalities in the country through the development, by joint efforts, of their economies and cultures.Industrialization in the USSR was carried out on the basis of close collaboration of the Soviet republics, united in a single state union. This permitted not only the restoration of productive forces, it also made possible development under an overall plan, and made it possible to bring the level of economic development of the formerly backward peoples in line with the more advanced republics.
Through socialist industrialization, the Soviet people dealt with industrialization in a different way than had ever been done in pre-revolutionary Russia or in the capitalist countries.
In pre-revolutionary Russia, the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, had been a time of rapid industrialization. This had led to the concentration of the industrial proletariat in major enterprises and in industrial regions. However, even in 1914 production of the means of production accounted for only 40 percent of industrial output. Agricultural production dominated the overall national economy. Russia, a country at the middle level of capitalist development, lagged far behind the United States, Germany and Britain in total industrial output; the output of the most important sectors was equal only to that of France, while industrial output per capita was comparable to backward Spain. The rate of industrial development in Russia was inadequate. On the eve of the First World War, Russia faced the alternative of ekher being overwhelmed by its competitors, which were developing at a different rate and on a truly broad basis, or of freeing herself from all the remnants of the serf system.
As we know, the First World War ravaged the Russian economy and brought the country to the verge of a national catastrophe from which she was saved only by the victory of the October Socialist Revolution: the peoples of Russia obtained the opportunity to catch up to other peoples on the basis of the worker-peasant power and the Soviet order.
The victory of the socialist revolution provided the country for the first time the principal prerequisites for genuine industrialization. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established, and the state of the workers and peasants acted as organizer of a new, socialist economy.
Lenin saw in the dictatorship of the proletariat the most important aspect of the proletarian revolution that was directed against the economic bases of capitalism. As the new order waxed stronger, the state's functions of economic management and cultural education expanded. One of the first measures taken in the economic realm was the socialist nationalization of industry, as a result of which private bourgeois property was replaced by the socialist property of the workers' and peasants' state. The exploitation of the working class was thereby liquidated, and profits from industrial production could be 174 allocated, under an overall plan, to the priority development of the leading sectors of heavy industry. New sources of funds for industrialization thus emerged.
Socialist industrialization was a fundamental concern of all working people: Soviet Russia linked the steady increase of the prosperity and culture of the people to the successful conclusion of industrialization. The entire laboring population took part in accumulating the resources needed for industrialization---including the millions of laboring peasants who had a stake in obtaining machines, agricultural implements, fertilizers and consumer goods from industry. Socialist industrialization created the basic prerequisites for establishing cooperatives for the small peasant farms, for restructuring peasant farms along socialist lines.
Industrialization was carried out on the basis of a firm and indissoluble alliance between the working class and peasantry; the alliance was strengthened through the establishment of proper, mutually advantageous economic relations between the city and the village. The alliance between the working class and peasantry and the leading role of the working class were of the utmost importance for the entire revolution.
Finally, an important prerequisite for socialist industrialization was the leadership of the Communist Party: the development of priority industrial sectors, the mobilization of material resources and the efforts of millions of workers in town and village, and mutual assistance among the Soviet peoples were carried out in accordance with plans drafted by the Party. One of the principal features of the development and improvement of social production was its planned character.
In capitalist countries, industrialization began with the development of light industry, which permitted the accumulation of resources for the development of heavy industry. The Soviet Union inherited from the past a relatively well-developed light industry. However, given the hostile capitalist encirclement, the country could at any moment be subjected to provocation and military attack: the interests of the country's defense made the priority development of heavy industry absolutely essential.
The question of the sources of industrialization was put in a new way. Some Western countries obtained the wherewithal for industrialization by plundering colonies and exploiting dependencies (as was the case with Britain), through military reparations (Germany after the FrancoPrussian War), or foreign loans (Russia before the revolution). These sources were unacceptable to the Soviet Union. The United States had exceptionally favorable conditions for industrialization, since it could exploit the free capital of the European states, Europe's technology, cheap immigrant labor and a favorable mix of natural resources.
The Soviet Union also had a favorable combination of reserves of minerals and natural resources permitting the development of various industries that could draw on all types of raw material and foodstuffs. But being industrially backward and lacking a number of sectors of heavy industry, it emerged from the war with a ruined economy and was forced to industrialize entirely with its own resources, without the help of foreign loans.
175Industrialization thus involved overcoming enormous difficulties: vast sums and material resources were required, while the Soviet Union had only its own sources to fall back on. In addition, resources allocated to capital construction did not immediately yield an economic return, and the output of new factories and plants entered the market only after a period sometimes measured in years.
The Soviet Union was forced to create many industries from scratch simultaneously and to carry put this work rapidly. The USSR lagged far behind the developed capitalist countries. It had to make up the lag in the shortest possible time, otherwise it was threatened with destruction by the reactionary forces of imperialism. It was this that dictated the need for especially rapid development of socialist industry.
Skilled personnel were needed for industrial development, yet the country's population was, overall, inadequately literate; this created serious difficulties in training workers, technicians and engineers. The Soviet Union had to make a choice: either first to eliminate illiteracy and train the necessary skilled personnel for industry, and then to begin socialist industrialization; or to deal with all these tasks simultaneously. The USSR chose the second, more difficult, alternative.
The class struggle between socialist and capitalist elements in city and village created additional difficulties. This struggle was reflected within the Communist Party itself: first the Trotskyites, then the Zinovievites and then the Bukharinists (in 1927--1929) attacked the policy of industrialization.
In a short period of time and with its own resources, the USSR built large-scale industry and created the material and technological basis for the socialist mode of production.
What was it that helped the Soviet Union to overcome these and other difficulties? The principal source of success was the very nature of Soviet society and its economy, the great personal interest that workers and peasants took in carrying out industrialization. The correct policy of the Communist Party played an exceptionally important role.
The policy of socialist industrialization proclaimed at the Fourteenth Party Congress (December, 1925) signalled the USSR's entry into a period of restructuring the entire economy on a new technological and social basis.
Socialist reconstruction was founded on the profound changes that had taken place in the country. The establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the socialist nationalization of the means of production, transport, credit, foreign trade and the nationalization of land had created the preconditions for the development of the Soviet economy along socialist lines.
These same changes gave the socialist city leverage over the small peasant village, leverage directed to the socialist restructuring of the village through the cooperative movement and the increasing prosperity of the laboring masses of the village. These changes also made it possible to plan economic development, to distribute the national income to the benefit of the working masses in a way that was new in principle, since the former exploiting classes---the bourgeoisie and the landowners---had been eliminated.
176The implementation of the New Economic Policy had altered the balance between the socialist, petty commodity and capitalist formations. At the time of the transition to socialist reconstruction, large-scale state industry and the other socialist commanding heights in the economy already played, as the Fifteenth Party Congress (December, 1927) noted, a decisive role throughout the economy; state and cooperative trade dominated the country's commodity circulation, and the socialized sector of the economy determined the overall direction of development, displacing private capital, pulling along and gradually transforming the agriculture of the ordinary commodity-producing peasants.
The growing role of the socialist sector led to a change in the balance of class forces in the country: despite the fact that under NEP there was an absolute increase in the number of kulaks in the village and NEP bourgeoisie in the city, they declined proportionately, while the working class grew proportionately, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the links of the working class with the mass of the peasantry grew stronger.
Taken together, all this gave every assurance that the reconstruction period would be crowned by the complete victory of socialism.
The socialist reconstruction of the economy began with the development of industry, with the industrialization of the country, on which the technological modernization of the entire economy depended. The April, 1926, plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party played an impotrant role in giving concrete form to the tasks of industrialization set forth by the Fourteenth Party Congress. The resolution "On the Economic Situation and Economic Policy'', established the goal of accelerated development of industries such as mechanical engineering, metallurgy, fuel, electrical power, construction materials and transport.
The plenary session indicated the sources that could be drawn on for industrialization and emphasized the need to economize and mercilessly to combat non-productive expenditures. Foreign trade played an important role in the accumulation of resources for industrialization: through the foreign trade monopoly, the country sought a positive trade balance as one source of income for the state. The importation of equipment was subordinated to the tasks of developing those sectors that would ensure the USSR's economic independence.
The April plenary session directed serious attention to strengthening planning and discipline in the work of state organs,-to the need to improve agriculture and the situation of the peasantry, and to step up the organization of cooperatives in the village. Only through a solid alliance between the working class and the peasantry would it be possible to deal successfully with industrialization, above all with the accumulation of resources required for it.
The policy of industrialization was carried out in the midst of a struggle against the Trotskyite-Zinovieyite opposition, against Right opportunists and spokesmen for bourgeois economics. The Trotskyites did not believe it was possible to carry out planned industrialization with the country's own efforts; they proposed to begin rapid industrialization in order to flood the market with goods, and then, reducing the rate of industrialization, to hold out until the revolution triumphed in the __PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12--161 177 industrially developed countries. They even accused the Central Committee of undertaking industrialization at too slow a rate. They proposed to draw the resources for this ``superindustrialization'' from higher taxes on the peasantry, not taking into account the need to reinforce the economic link-up between industry and peasant agriculture. The April plenum of the Central Committee rejected these proposals as anti-Leninist and Menshevik in nature.
There were other, Right-wing proposals. For example, G. Sokolnikov and L. Shanin felt that agriculture should receive priority development, while industrialization should be undertaken 10 to 20 years hence. These proposals coincided with the views of bourgeois economists (Groman, Kondrat-yev, Bazarov), who identified the Soviet economy with a capitalist economy and viewed the market as the basic regulator of economic development, insisted on the agrarian character of the Soviet Union and denied the possibility of planned economic development. They favored drawing up planning forecasts rather than planning directives. The struggle over the question of planning grew more acute in the period when the first five-year plan was being developed. The first three years (1926--1928) after the Fourteenth Party Congress provided rigorous training for devising and adopting this plan: they were years when the goals of socialist industrialization set in the GOELRO Plan and the decisions of the Party were carried out.
The Soviet Union began to deal with industrialization by mobilizing its own resources, obtained from intra-industrial accumulation and the state budget, while economizing rigorously on the expenditure of state resources on administration; rationalizing production and increasing labor productivity were an important source of accumulation. This made possible the investment of more than 1 thousand million roubles in capital construction in the 1926/27 fiscal year---66 percent of the total in sectors producing the means of production.
A second step in the same direction was the restoration of the industrial labor force: in 1926, there were more than 6.5 million workers and around 4 million white-collar workers in the USSR; 2 million persons were employed in state factory industry. Two years later, the latter figure was 3 million. Almost all the skilled workers returned to the factories, and an influx of new, untrained workers began. In the years of socialist industrialization, the working class grew primarily through an influx of persons from the village and through the natural growth of the working population. Collective labor was the first teacher reshaping the mentality of the workers newly arrived in industry. Recent emigrants from the village displayed historically unprecedented, exemplary labor heroism. Not only was a new industrial base created, but also a new builder of industry---the Soviet multinational working class, with a stake in the triumph of socialism and loyal to its ideals. This was one of the principal factors in overcoming the difficulties involved in the first steps in industrialization.
Simultaneously, the problem of technical personnel was dealt with: the country faced a pressing lack of engineering and technical personnel in industry. In 1928, there were only 13.7 thousand engineers in industry---0.52 percent of the total number of workers. Most engineers were unfamiliar with foreign technology, some were hostile to the Soviet 178 order. In 1928, the Shakhty Case revealed the link between formerly privileged specialists and proprietors and foreign agents. This segment of specialists resorted to sabotage in order to overthrow the Soviet power and restore capitalism. The country faced the task---in all its urgency---of training specialists for industry who would not only be up to the latest advances of science and technology but would also come from and be tied closely to the people.
To solve this problem, new higher technical institutes were opened and existing ones expanded. The number of students in institutions of higher technical learning grew from 48.9 thousand at the beginning of the first five-year-plan period to 233.5 thousand at the end of that period, and their social make-up and political leanings changed. In 1928--1929, around 1,000 activists were sent to study in regular and technical institutions of higher learning, and they became remarkable specialists--- production managers, teachers, doctors.
Curricula and teaching programs were improved so as to raise the quality of specialist training, and some of the institutions of higher learning were put under the direction of the Supreme Economic Council.
In order to take advantage of foreign technical assistance, representatives of Soviet economic organizations went to Western Europe and the United States and concluded agreements with major capitalist firms. By the end of 1928, 49 such agreements had been signed. Among them was an agreement with the Ford Motor Company, which undertook to provide free technical assistance and to pass on its experience and inventions for nine years, while the USSR undertook to purchase 300 million roubles worth of motor vehicles from the company over a period of four years. The policy of bringing in foreign technical assistance fully justified itself.
A third line along which the task of industrialization was carried out was the updating of technology and the processes of production: old enterprises were modernized through the installation of new equipment, new shops were constructed, and new technology was introduced into leading industries. In the petroleum industry, compressors and pumps replaced the old bailing technique, rotary drilling was introduced, and electric power was applied to petroleum refining. In the coal industry, the hand cutting of coal faces was replaced by pneumatic drilling; in the peat industry, hydraulic extraction was widely employed. Metallurgy began to turn out high-quality steel and rolled metal. In the years 1926--1928, construction began on petroleum processing plants in Baku, Grozny, Batumi and Tuapse; oil pipelines were built between Grozny and Tuapse and between Baku and Batumi. Much work was done to modernize and cut new shafts in the Donets and Kuznetsk coal fields; new wood processing plants and paper mills were built.
The goals of industrialization were made more precise in the decisions of the Fifteenth Party Conference (October 26-November 3, 1926): the strengthening of the economic hegemony of large-scale socialist industry over the entire economy; above all, its leading and socialistically transforming role with respect to peasant agriculture; an increase in the size and activism of the proletariat and a stronger alliance between the working class and the mass of the peasantry. The Conference set forth the need for a higher rate of industrial development __PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 179 (as compared to the Russian pre-war and contemporary capitalist rates), in order to achieve and then surpass the level of industrial development of the capitalist countries in the shortest possible time.
The geographic distribution of industry was changing: cotton mills were being built in Central Asia (in Ashkhabad and Ferghana) and in Transcaucasia (in Kirovabad and Leninakan). This was in line with the task of properly distributing productive forces across the country and of overcoming the economic and cultural backwardness of the national borderlands. In this regard, an important role was played by the construction, in the years 1927--1930, of the Turkestan-Siberian Railway, with a length of 1,500 kilometers, connecting the rich grain, forest and coal resources of Siberia with the cotton districts of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. This construction project, on which more than 50 thousand Russians, Kazakhs, Kirghiz and representatives of other peoples worked, personified the creative cooperation of the Soviet peoples. The hard work and unprecedented labor enthusiasm of the builders allowed the completion of the project a year ahead of schedule.
In 1927, in accordance with the GOELRO Plan, construction was begun on 10 major new electric power plants. In December of 1926, the Volkhov hydroelectric plant was put into operation; the construction of the Shterovka thermoelectric plant in the Donbas and the NizhnyNovgorod and Zemo-Avchalskaya power plants was completed, and thermoelectric plants were under construction in Chelyabinsk and Kizelovsk. In March, 1927, work began on the Dnieper hydroelectric station (Dneproges Project), which was of great importance for the development of the Ukraine and was one of the principal projects under the GOELRO Plan. The Dneproges was built by the entire country: workers from Ukrainian, Russian and Byelorussian cities all took part. Orders for equipment to be used at the Dneproges were filled at shock tempos. The army of builders grew to 26 thousand persons, one-third of them young workers. Young people initiated numerous labor exploits. The project became a true school of industrial construction with the latest technology.
During the first years of industrialization, work began on the construction of the Kerch and Krivoi Rog metallurgical plants in the Ukraine, the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk plants in the Urals and Siberia. Serious attention was given to the development of the mechanical engineering, chemical, tractor and automotive industries. In all, 528 new enterprises were built in the years 1926--1927. The Soviet Union had entered firmly on the path of industrialization.
The first achievements in the USSR's industrial development were noted on the tenth anniversary of the Soviet power, which was celebrated by all the peoples of the USSR and their friends abroad. The Soviet government, in honor of the occasion, adopted a resolution on introducing the 7-hour working day, on stepping upliousing construction and on freeing the poorest 10 percent of the peasant farms from taxation. Many foreign delegations visited the Soviet Union. On November 10, 1927, a World Congress of Friends of the Soviet Union was held in Moscow, with more than 947 delegates from 43 countries attending. The Congress called on the working people of all capitalist countries to defend the achievements of the October Revolution and to protect the 180 __CAPTION__ A metallurgical plant in the Donbas. 1927. [181] USSR --- a bastion for peace, a fortress of socialism, which had already shown its vitality in practice, in the incomparable experience of onesixth of the land surface of the globe.
The successful advance of the people of the USSR along the road of industrialization caused alarm among the reactionary, bourgeois countries of the West. Anti-Soviet provocations occurred in a number of states in 1927. Within the Soviet Union, the NEP bourgeoisie began to stir. This resistance by capitalist forces activized the struggle of the anti-Party Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc, which had formed in 1926, against the Party's policy of building socialism. Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev headed the bloc. The opposition's principal demands amounted to permitting the resumption of factions and groupings within the Party, to undermining the Party's unity, to renouncing the Leninist doctrine of the possibility of building socialism in the USSR, to replacing leading Party and state personnel. The July (1926) plenum of the Central Committee condemned the activity of the opposition, removed Zinoviev from the Politburo, imposed penalties on other active members of the opposition and called on Communists to strengthen unity in the ranks of the Party. The Fifteenth Party Conference (1926) exposed completely the Menshevik essence of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc, termed it a socialdemocratic deviation and unanimously condemned it.
This did not, however, stop.the leaders of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc, who in 1927 stepped up the factional struggle against the Party line and in a number of cases engaged in illegal methods of work and later in fact entered on a path of anti-Soviet struggle. In the intra-Party discussion opened on the eve of the Congress, the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc suffered utter defeat: in all, only half percent of the members of the Party supported its line.
On November 7, 1927, the leaders of the opposition attempted to come out on the streets of Moscow and Leningrad with anti-Party and anti-Soviet slogans. However, they were able to gather only pitiful groups of renegades. The Party was supported by a million-strong demonstration in Moscow, more that 800 thousand demonstrators in Leningrad and large demonstrations in other cities.
The opposition's activities showed that they had in effect entered on a path of struggle against the Soviet state. On November 14, 1927, the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Party excluded Zinoviev and Trotsky from the Party, and the remaining members of the bloc were removed from the central organs. The question of the opposition as a whole was left for consideration by the Fifteenth Party Congress.
The Party Congress summed up the results of the first two years of industrialization, adopted directives on drawing up the first five-year plan for the development of the economy for the years 1928--1932 and set collectivization, through the implementation of the Leninist cooperative plan, as a priority task.
The Congress culminated the ideological and organization rout of Trotskyism and labled the views of the opposition "Menshevism in its peculiarly Trotskyist formulation''. From an anti-Party force, the opposition had become anti-Soviet. The Fifteenth Congress declared membership in the Trotskyite opposition and propaganda of its views 182 incompatible with membership in the Party. The Congress confirmed the exclusion of Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Party and excluded another 75 active oppositionists, including Kamenev, Pyatakov, Radek, Rakovsky, Safaroy, Smilga, I. Smirnov and Lashevich, as well as the anti-revolutionary Sapronov group (23 persons). This decision reinforced the unity of the Communist Party and heightened the Party's role in building socialism.
The first years of industrialization (1926--1928) were a period in which experience was acquired, cadres gathered and thorough preparation for the great industrial revolution carried out in the pre-war five-year programs undertaken.
The socialist industrialization of the USSR, which began in 1926, extended over the years of the three pre-war five-year plans.
Of crucial importance for turning the USSR from an agrarian into an industrial power, for creating the foundation for a socialist economy, was the successful fulfilment of the first five-year plan of economic development (1928--1932).
As socialism's position within the economy grew stronger, the elaboration of long-term plans for economic development took on first-rate importance. Annual target figures for development set in 1925 and 1926 no longer sufficed, since it was impossible to deal with the major tasks of industrialization and socio-economic changes in the country on that scale. The first five-year plan for industry was drawn up by the Supreme Economic Council, which from July of 1926 was headed
__CAPTION__ Inaugurating the Turkestan-Siberian Railway. 1930. [183] by a leading figure in the Party and state, V. V. Kuibyshev. Simultaneously, the task of devising the first five-year plan for the entire economy was entrusted to Gosplan, which was headed by G. M. Krzhizhanov sky.Describing the difficulties involved in drawing up the first five-year plan, V. V. Kuibyshev wrote: "Beginning in 1927/28, we left, so to speak, the shores of the past and entered an area of development unprecedented in our past or in the history of other countries. We are entering the period of the transformation, reconstruction of the entire social formation on a new technological basis, with new socio-economic relations."
In working out the first five-year plan, as in compiling the GOELRO Plan, the state made extensive use of the country's major scholars. Among them were I. M. Gubkin, A. N. Bach, I. G. Alexandrov, M. A. Pavlov and A. V. Vinter. Gosplan convened numerous conferences of specialists to discuss the problems of the first five-year plan. Not all of the scholars and specialists brought into this work by the Party were able immediately to follow the correct course in determining the basic goals of the first five-year plan: some were hampered by their ideas on the patterns of development in a capitalist economy, others by scepticism as to the triumph of socialism.
In March, 1927, N. D. Kondratyev, who headed the Institute for Market Study under the People's Commissariat for Finance, maintained at a congress of economic planners that the USSR should remain an agrarian country. V. A. Bazarov and V. G. Groman sought to prove that rapid industrialization was impossible and proposed that the fiveyear plan be based on the rate and proportion of development of Russia's pre-revolutionary economy and sought in particular to increase the volume of private capital in industry. There was at the time an extensive discussion of the basic problems of the first five-year plan at congresses and conferences of economic planners and in the press.
In February of 1927, a plenary session of the Central Committee examined the question of capital construction in industry for 1926--1927 and approved the investment of 1,100 million roubles to accelerate the development of metallurgy and mechanical engineering. The plenum entrusted the Politburo with accelerating the compilation of the first five-year plan of economic development.
The resolution of the Fifteenth Party Congress "On Directives for Drawing Up the Five-Year Plan for the National Economy" played an important role in developing the plan. Setting forth the prerequisites for carrying out socialist industrialization, the sources for such industrialization and the problem of the relationship between city and village, the Congress provided a precise definition of the general direction of the first five-year plan, which was to undertake socialist industrialization: in conformity with the policy of industrializing the country, production of the means of production must be stepped up first, so that the growth of heavy and light industry, transport and agriculture, could be carried out principally through domestic production.
The Congress obliged economic planners to provide for the most rapid possible development of those sectors of heavy industry that could 184 __CAPTION__ G. M. Krzhizhanovsky and A. V. Vinter. in the shortest time raise the economic might and defense capacity of the USSR, ensure the possibility of development in the event of an economic blockade, reduce dependence on the capitalist world and promote the transformation of agriculture on the basis of a higher level of technology and the collectivization of farms. The Congress condemned Trotskyite proposals for ``superindustrialization'' at the expense of the peasantry and stated that a rapid rate of industrialization must conform to the country's real potential.
185Preparation of the first five-year plan was speeded up. The Supreme Economic Council set up a commission under V. V. Kuibyshev that compiled several draft plans for industrial development; Gosplan prepared three variants of the first five-year plan for economic development as a whole. These variants were, however, found unsatisfactory, for they did not conform to the Fifteenth Party Congress's directive on accelerating the development of heavy industry.
The conflict of opinions around the first five-year plan increased: its opponents took aim at the Party's orientation toward forced development of large-scale industry, in first order sectors such as the tractor industry, the automotive industry, mechanical engineering and nonferrous metallurgy. Kondratyev, mentioned above, called for a limitation on the rate of capital construction in industry, while another spokesman for the old specialists, Professor N. P. Makarov, called for increased investment in agriculture with a corresponding reduction in industrial investment. V. Bazarov proposed that tractors be purchased from the Ford Motor Company rather than developing a Soviet tractor industry. Even such outstanding specialists as the metallurgists V. Zhdanov and S. Khrennikov, the expert on the textile industry I. Derzhavin, and the economists Ya. Dimanshtein, I. Kalinnikov and S. Antropov tried to show the USSR, with its poverty of monetary resources, should not aim at developing the most advanced technology. Professor I. Kalinnikov, who directed the industrial section of Gosplan, stated that it would require not~5 but 10 years to achieve the targets that had been set in industry.
In 1928, the chorus of bourgeois specialist opponents of the first five-year plan was joined by the Right opportunists N. Bukharin, A. Rykov, M. Tomsky and N. Uglanpv, who held leading posts in the Party and state. Demanding that the policy of industrialization be revised, they proposed that priority development of heavy industry and rapid industrialization be renounced.
In his "Notes of an Economist'', Bukharin said that the rate of industrialization specified in the plan was unrealistic, citing the USSR's presumed lack of construction materials for carrying out the plan for capital construction and observing that the new enterprises would have to be built of "bricks of air''. The Bukharinists called for orienting the plan to only removing economic bottlenecks.
The Right-wingers opposed restructuring the work of the trade unions to conform to the tasks of industrialization, and they opposed collectivization of agriculture. Rykov proposed that, along with the five-year plan, a two-year plan for rapid agricultural development be worked out, to the detriment of industry. The November (1928) plenum of the Central Committee rejected this capitulationist orientation offered by the Right and emphasized that systematically increasing the relative weight of the production of the means of production was an essential prerequisite for the further development of the entire country, agriculture included.
By the end of 1928, the Commission of the Supreme Economic Council chaired by V. V. Kuibyshev had drawn up a fourth variant of the first five-year plan for industry; this variant called for an annual 19--20 percent increase in industrial output. By this time, too, Gosplan had 186 devised a plan for the first five-year period in two variants --- a minimum and maximum plan. Targets in the latter were 20 percent higher than in the minimum plan. In December, 1928, the draft of the first five-year plan was published for general discussion.
The Eighth Congress of Trade Unions, which met in December, 1928, approved the targets of the first five-year plan and emphasized the need for priority development of heavy industry. The plan was discussed passionately at trade union conferences in the different industries and at meetings of workers and employees. In March of 1929, the Council of People's Commissars and the Council on Labor and Defense ratified the first five-year plan in its optimum variant. The Politburo approved the draft plan on April 15, 1929. The April (1929) plenum of the Central Committee condemned the Right opposition, which opposed the draft plan. The plenum's resolution remarked that Right opportunism was expressed in the effort to reduce the rate of development and delay the further construction of large-scale industry. At this time, the Right deviation was the principal danger, and the victory of the policy of industrializing the country could not be ensured unless the Right opposition were destroyed. Defending the development of heavy industry in the struggle against the Trotskyites and Right opportunists, the Party safeguarded the basic direction of the goals of the first five-year plan---turning the country from an agricultural into an industrial power.
In April, 1929, the Sixteenth Party Conference approved the first five-year plan, and in May the Fifth Congress of Soviets of the USSR ratified the first five-year plan in its optimum variant. The first five-year __CAPTION__ Laying track for the Magnitogorsk metallurgical combine. 1930. [187] plan for the development of the national economy (1928--1932) was a decisive step in the history of the industrialization of the USSR.
For the first time in the history of the Soviet state, a detailed plan for a five-year period had been worked out. A monumental goal had been set---to create in a short period of time a powerful, advanced industry, the base for technological reconstruction, and to turn an agricultural country into an industrial country, one that was powerful and not economically dependent on the capitalist countries.
It was necessary, too, to alter socio-economic relations in the country, to put industry and agriculture on a uniform socialist foundation, to restructure a significant part of the small peasant farms into collective, socialist farms. It was planned to unite from 4 to 5 million peasant farms in collective farms and to bring the collective farms' crop land to 17.5 percent of the country's total cultivated area, to improve the material situation of working people, to strengthen the country's defenses, to introduce universal primary education, and so on.
This was, truly, a monumental plan. It was intended to expend 64.5 thousand million roubles on capital construction alone. (In the five years preceding, only 5.2 thousand million roubles had been invested in industrial construction.) The plan called for the creation of 1,500 new enterprises, among them such industrial giants as the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical plants, tractor factories in Stalingrad, Kharkov and Chelyabinsk, the Rostov agricultural engineering works, a plant for combines in Zaporozhye, automotive plants in Moscow and Gorky, chemical plants, and many more.
The Soviet people looked on the first five-year plan as its own and through heroic labor ensured the implementation of this remarkable enterprise. During these years, the Soviet Union turned into an enormous construction site. The Dnieper hydroelectric power plant and the Turkestan-Siberian Railway were built. The automotive works in Moscow were modernized in all fundamentals. A new automotive works rose in Gorky. Tractor plants and metallurgical giants were constructed in the Urals, Siberia and the Ukraine. The October Revolution Locomotive Works in Lugansk---among other enterprises --- was rebuilt. Never before in history had industrial construction gone on on such a scale.
Millions of people were gripped by enthusiasm for production. The surge of labor of millions of Soviet citizens found its expression in mass socialist competition. On the appeal of the Communist Party, workers and employees in factories, plants, mines and at construction sites joined in socialist competition. Competition took the form of a shock brigade movement. The movement was begun by the youth of the Urals, which started a drive for increased discipline, reduced production costs and higher-quality output. They were joined by the country's miners and the workers of Leningrad. Socialist competition in the USSR acquired a mass character. The labor heroism of workers, engineers and employees who were erecting the industrial giants of the first five-year-plan period yielded remarkable results.
Among the most important projects of the first five-year period were two metallurgical plants in the east---Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk. The construction work had to be done in uninhabited areas, in 188 freezing weather and blizzards. It was primarily Komsomol members and youth who came to take part in the work; seasoned workers, too, played an important role --- participants of the Civil War and those who rebuilt the country's factories and plants during the years 1921--1925. In the face of all difficulties, some of the largest mines, coking plants and blast furnaces were built in record time. On January 31, 1932, the first blast furnace went into operation at Magnitogorsk. A half year later, Komsomol members put the second furnace into operation. In honor of the labor victory, the builders cast a metal plate with a bas-relief of Lenin and the inscription: "Cast from the first iron of the giant of Soviet industry, the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine.'' The combine had been built in two years.
The construction of the giant Kuznetsk metallurgical combine, with a capacity for producing 3 million tons of metal a year, went rapidly, too. The blueprints for the Kuznetsk metallurgical works were drawn up by an American engineering corporation under a contract with the Soviet government. The builders needed about 1000 days to erect this first-class metallurgical giant under the difficult conditions of the severe Siberian __CAPTION__ A Komsomol demonstration in Moscow. [189] winter and with inadequately mechanized labor. One of those supervising the construction, the well-known Soviet metallurgist, I. P. Bardin, wrote:
"People came to us from all parts of the country. Alongside Russians and Ukrainians worked Kazakhs and Kirghiz. How many labor achievements these previously illiterate people, who had never before seen a genuine factory, accomplished! The concrete layers turned out 408 batches instead of 150.... The riveters drove 266 rivets per shift when the norm was 105. The navvies sometimes did 10 days worth of work in one shift. Komsomol members fastened rivets at great heights when it was 50 degrees below zero Centigrade. Workers laid up to 15 tons of insulation per man per shift.
"Nothing could stop the builders in their labor enthusiasm --- neither snowstorms nor rain nor blizzards!"
On April 3, 1932, the first Siberian metal was cast.
The Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk metallurgical combines provided a second coal and metal base in the country's east.
The idea of fulfilling the five-year plan ahead of schedule came to workers in different areas. "The Five-Year Plan in Four Years"---this became the principal slogan of workers, employees and engineering and technical personnel competing for the early completion of the fiveyear plan.
At the end of 1929, the First All-Union Congress of Shock Brigades met and totted up the results of socialist competition during the first year of the five-year-plan period. More than 900 thousand workers, employees and engineers had taken part in the competition. The targets for the first year had been overfulfilled: 2.5 thousand million roubles had been invested in capital construction in industry, labor productivity in industry had risen by 13 to 15 percent in one year, industrial output had increased by 23.7 percent.
By the summer of 1930, even greater success had been achieved. During the first two years of the five-year-plan period the output of large-scale industry had increased by 63 percent. For the first time in the country's history, industrial output surpassed agricultural output. The country was on the way to become industrial rather than agricultural.
Socialism's onslaught against capitalist elements developed along the entire front, in city and village alike. The creation of collectiye farms that were joined by the most part of the peasantry provided the conditions for eliminating the last capitalist class in the country, the kulaks.
It was in these conditions that the Sixteenth Party Congress, the congress of the extended advance of socialism along the entire front, met from June 26 through July 13, 1930.
The Soviet Union had outdistanced the capitalist countries in the rate of industrial development, but it lagged behind them in the level of production, holding fifth place in the production of steel, sixth in the make of cast iron and in coal production, ninth in electrical energy. The lag in ferrous metallurgy, especially, was an impediment to the country's economic development. For that reason, the Sixteenth Congress decided to accelerate the development of socialist industry, especially metallurgy. The targets for the tractor and automotive industries, ferrous 190 metallurgy and agricultural machinery were raised. The Congress turned the attention of the Party and the entire country to the development and modernization of transport, which could not cope with the increasing volume of industrial shipments. It was intended to supply the railroads with new and powerful locomotives and to improve the construction of track in 1931.
As the Congress noted, the country's success in industrialization was possible thanks to the labor and political activism of the working class. Hundreds of thousands of new workers had been drawn into construction. More than 2 million workers were participating in socialist competition, around 1 million were enrolled in shock brigades. People were pushing against time, they wished to fulfil the five-year plan in four years, even in three years.
The Sixteenth Party Congress set important tasks for the trade unions: their principal work should be aimed at developing socialist competition, holding business-like, practically useful production conferences, and improving labor training.
Successful development of socialist competition heightened the role of planning. In order to improve planning, the government appointed V. V. Kuibyshev Chairman of Gosplan and G. K. Orjonikidze Chairman of the Higher Economic Council. In 1932, the Higher Economic Council was split into three people's commissariats---for heavy industry, light industry and the lumber industry. Orjonikidze was appointed People's Commissar for Heavy Industry.
Many new difficulties emerged in the course of carrying out the first five-year plan. For one, the introduction of new technology required a major up-grading of the skills of workers, many of whom were employed in factories for the first time. In a number of cases, wrong wage policy failed to stimulate increased productivity among skilled workers; high labor turnover and violations of labor discipline were not overcome.
Just how difficult it was to master new technology can be seen in the examples of the Donbas and the new tractor plants. The Donbas was supposed to increase the output of coal from 27 to 53 million tons. In effect, it was necessary to create a second Donbas with a capacity equal to that which had been achieved over the preceding 40 years. Though by 1930 the miners had surpassed the pre-war level of labor productivity, the Donbas was not meeting the planned targets. Mechanization of labor was delayed through lack of equipment, since industry was as yet unable to provide the required number of coal-cutting machines, pneumatic drills, compressors, and so on. High labor turnover was also a problem. Party and Soviet organizations in the Ukraine exerted a great deal of effort to eliminate these and many other deficiencies. By the end of 1931, the amount of coal mined in the Donbas had increased sharply.
New foreign technology was not immediately mastered, and there were difficulties in organizing mass production lines. The Stalingrad tractor plant went into operation in June of 1930, but did not meet its production targets either in 1930 or 1931. This caused serious concern. The workers of the Red Putilov plant in Leningrad sent an open letter to the Dzerzhinsky tractor plant in Stalingrad. The newspaper Pravda raised the alarm.
191 __CAPTION__ G. K. Orjonikidze at the construction site of the ball bearing plant. 1931.On April 24, 1931, G. K. Orjonikidze arrived at the Stalingrad plant. He studied the state of affairs in detail, assisted the plant management in working out a realistic production program and outlined ways to eliminate serious deficiencies in the organization of labor. A special brigade from Pravda, headed by the Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee A. V. Kosarev, worked at the plant for an extended period of time. The situation at the plant was set right. In August of 1931 the Stalingrad tractor plant began to turn out 80--85 tractors per day, in September 100, in January, 1932, 130 tractors, and on April 20, the projected capacity of 144 tractors per day was reached. Workers at the Kharkov tractor plant, which reached planned capacity much more rapidly, learned from the experience of the Stalingrad plant.
So, in the course of fulfilling the five-year plan, new technology was mastered and skilled workers were trained. Institutions for workers' education and schools of factory apprenticeship were organized at the larger plants. A technical examination for workers and employees was introduced. Vast numbers of workers mastered the technology. The country built, studied and grew.
192The first five-year plan was fulfilled by the end of 1932 --- ahead of schedule, in four years and three months. This was a salient fact in the history of those years. Even the bourgeois press was compelled to comment on the successful completion of the first five-year plan. It was noted especially that the Soviet Union, without any outside assistance, had been able to carry out an enormous program of capital construction. A total of 1,500 industrial enterprises had been built, and around them large cities had grown up: Magnitogorsk, Kuznetsk, Khibinogorsk, Komsomolsk-pn-the-Amur and many others.
The material and technological basis for a socialist society--- largescale industry --- had been created; the volume of industrial production had increased by 170 percent over the 1913 level, and industry's share now accounted for 70 percent of the gross national product as against 48 percent by the beginning of the five-year-plan period.
In the course of fulfilling the plan, equipment and machinery had been imported from abroad; beginning in 1932, the importation of machinery fell sharply. Converting the USSR from a country that imported machinery and equipment into a country producing it---this was the historic goal that had been set by the Fourteenth Party Congress, and it had been successfully reached. The output of mechanical engineering was four times greater than in 1928, while the production of agricultural machinery had increased 5.5 times. Totally new industries had been created --- the tractor, automotive, aircraft, chemical, and machine-tool industries. And the output of the ferrous metals industry had doubled. During the five-year-plan period, Lenin's remarkable plan for the electrification of the country was implemented, and, by 1931, overfulfilled. The output of regional electric power plants alone exceeded 2 million kw, while the plan called for only 1.5 million kw.
Success in electrification and the creation of a domestic mechanical engineering industry made it possible to increase sharply the mechanization of the basic sectors of the economy. In the coal industry, for example, at the beginning of the five-year-plan period only 15 percent of the coal produced was mined mechanically; by the time the plan had been fulfilled more than 63 percent of the coal was being mined with machinery. There were significant shifts in other leading sectors, too. The USSR was passing through a supreme technological revolution.
A noteworthy result of the first five-year plan was the growth of the Soviet working class: the number of workers and employees in the economy had grown to 22.9 million as against 11.6 million in 1928. Workers now accounted for up to one-third of the total population. Almost all workers were employed in socialist industry, which produced 99.3 percent of total industrial output; private capital accounted for only 0.7 percent of total output. The question of who would come out on top in industry had been finally and irrevocably answered in favor of socialism.
Enormous changes occurred in the working class itself: it developed politically and increased its proficiency, many seasonal workers acquiring a specialty and becoming skilled, experienced workers. A number of physically difficult professions involving manual labor __PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13--161 193 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
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__CAPTION__ A Pioneer assembly. 1931. disappeared: in the coal industry, for example, sledge pullers and horse drivers were phased out, picks were increasingly replaced with pneumatic drills, coal-cutting machines and electric locomotives were introduced.Soviet workers, using new technology, increased labor productivity in industry by 41 percent, by 53.1 percent in heavy industry. The USSR surpassed the leading capitalist countries in the rate of increase of labor productivity, once more demonstrating the great advantages of socialism over capitalism.
194The nationality make-up of the working class changed: construction of a number of new enterprises in the Central Asian republics and the Transcaucasia, in the autonomous republics and regions in the RSFSR, accelerated the formation of a working class from the native population.
Unemployment --- the constant companion of workers under capitalism--- disappeared. For the first time in history, the working class was confident of what tomorrow would bring. Working people's wages increased by 103.6 percent in the first five-year-plan period, which surpassed the target by 44 percent. More than 4 thousand million roubles were invested in the construction of new housing in the cities. Many workers' families moved from temporary barracks to well-built urban apartments. The shortest working day in the world was instituted in the USSR ---at the beginning of the 1930s, more than 80 percent of all enterprises were converted to the 7-hour working day; a six-hour day was instituted in unhealthy and underground work.
The state showed great concern for organizing workers' leisure, expanded free medical assistance, social insurance and pensions for working people, and developed public education. Expenditures on social insurance increased more than fourfold during the first five-year-plan period, expenditures for public health more than threefold, for education sixfold, and scholarships 14-fold.
In 1931, the Party resolved to improve the urban environment, focusing especially on urban renewal in Moscow, which was to be a __CAPTION__ The builders of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. [195] model for all cities in the USSR. Under the plan approyed by the Party in 1931, construction of a subway in Moscow was begun, streets and squares were replanned, and work was begun on the Moscow-Volga Canal. A plan for the reconstruction of Leningrad was ratified; much work was done to improve housing and services in other cities.
However, in view of the rapid growth of the country's urban population, there was a pressing shortage of good housing. The country experienced a great deal of difficulty in food supply: a rationing system for bread and other food products was introduced during the years of the first five-year plan. But even given these short-term problems, working people's standard of living rose markedly.
Such were the principal results of the five-year plan in the realm of industry as a whole.
The national republics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Transcaucasia and a number of the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation took their first steps in industrial development during the years of the first five-year plan. In order to eliminate inequality in the economic development of the Soviet peoples --- inequality that had been inherited from the past---the first five-year plan was envisaged to provide conditions for a relatively more rapid economic and cultural development of the backward national republics and regions.
Much attention was devoted in the RSFSR to developing industry in the Autonomous Bashkir, Tatar, Yakut and Buryat-Mongol republics. While capital investment in industry in the RSFSR grew 4.9 times during the five-year-plan period, the corresponding figure for Bashkir Republic was 7.5 and for the Tatar Republic 5.2. In the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous SSR, industry's share in the gross national product increased 3.5 times over the same period. In the Komi ASSR, the first five-year-plan period saw a significant devejopment of the wood-- processing industry, the beginning of exploitation of petroleum and coal resources and the appearance of oil wells on the Ukhta. These were, however, only the first steps towards eliminating the economic backwardness of these republics.
In the Ukrainian SSR, 9.4 thousand million roubles were invested in economic development and 400 enterprises (among them the Kharkov tractor plant, the Dnieper hydroelectric power plant, the Kramatorsk mechanical engineering plant) went into operation in four years of the five-year-plan period. Industry's share of the republic's gross national product rose to 72.4 percent. The Ukraine had become a highly developed industrial republic.
During the first five-year-plan period, Byelorussia, too, began to turn into an industrial republic: 40 new enterprises were built, chiefly for the production of consumer goods. Industry's contribution to the republic's gross national product rose to 53 percent.
The Transcaucasian Federation made important advances in industry: new electric power plants were built (the Rioni plant in Georgia and the Dzorages hydroelectric complex in Armenia) and the Baku electric plant was expanded. In Azerbaijan, the modernization of the petroleum industry was completed. Coal, ore and cotton fabrics industries were created in Georgia and Armenia, and tea and tobacco factories were built.
196 __CAPTION__ M. I. Kalinin speaks at the inauguration of Dneproges. 1932.In the Central Asian republics, electric power plants were built in Ferghana, Bukhara and Chirchik; cotton fabrics, silk and food industries were created. During the five-year planning period (1928--1932), the output of large-scale industry in Uzbekistan rose 2.2-fold, in Tajikistan 5.3-fold and in Kirghizia 5-fold. The RSFSR provided economic and technical assistance to these republics. However, during these years they took only the first steps in their industrial development and retained an overall agrarian character.
In Kazakhstan (at the time an autonomous republic within the RSFSR), non-ferrous metallurgy and the coal industry developed rapidly. More than 40 industrial enterprises --- among them the Riddersk 197 non-ferrous metallurgy complex, the Chimkent lead complex and the Aktyubinsk chemical complex --- went into operation. The Karaganda coal field began to develop into the USSR's third coal center.
The more rapid rates of industrial development in the national republics meant that their total output rose 250 percent in the first five-year-plan period, as opposed to 100 percent in the country's traditional industrial areas. This brought the peoples closer together, strengthened the bonds of friendship and cooperation and was a major achievement of the Leninist nationalities policy.
The successful completion of the first five-year plan at a time when the destructive world economic crisis was raging in the capitalist countries was clear proof of the superiority of the socialist over the capitalist economic system. The success of the five-year plan greatly elevated the USSR's international prestige and importance and had a revolutionizing effect on working people in capitalist countries, who saw that workers and peasants could build a new society without landowners and capitalists and that socialism had major advantages over capitalism. During the years of the five-year plan, workers' delegations from almost all countries visited the USSR; they saw with their own eyes that the working masses could not only manage the country better than the bourgeoisie, but could also create a socialist order that knew neither crises nor unemployment and improved the material situation of working people.
During the years of the first five-year plan, the USSR took a decisive
step in industrialization: the country became industrial rather than
agricultural. And industrialization continued during the years of the
pre-war second and third five-year plans. Industrialization was of great
historical importance for the Soviet Union: it created the necessary
material basis for reinforcing the country's economic independence, for
the technological modernization of all sectors of the economy and for
putting agriculture on a new, socialist foundation; it strengthened
socialist property in the crucial area of the economy, secured the
removal of capitalist elements in the city, the triumph of the socialist
mode of production in industry, the growth of the working class and its
heightened leading role in society and increased the economic and
defense capacity of the USSR.
~
The Fifteenth Party Congress. Social Revolution in the Village. = The socialist transformation .of agriculture was a constituent element of the Leninist plan for building socialism. Guided by Lenin's plan for cooperatives, the Fifteenth Party Congress proclaimed a policy of collectivizing agriculture. The Congress's resolution "On Work in the Village" stressed that the experience of recent years had fully shown the correctness of Lenin's plan for cooperatives, a plan that called for socialist industry to bring the small peasant farm to socialism through cooperatives, turning individual and fragmented production units---both through the process of transformation and, increasingly, through reorganization and the unification of production itself---into a largescale, socialized farm based on new technology (electrification and so on). At present, read the resolution, the goal of unifying and 198 transforming small individual peasant farms into large collectives should be considered the Party's fundamental goal in the village.
The policy of transforming agriculture along socialist lines was the result of a profound and thorough analysis of the socio-economic development of the village at the end of the rebuilding period; it was dictated by the fundamental interests of the laboring peasantry, it was vitally necessary for building socialism. Though by 1927 the country's agriculture had reached the pre-war level of development, the excessive __CAPTION__ Building the Moscow subway. 1934. [199] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/2HU326/20051216/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.12.03) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ backwardness of agricultural technology (more than 5 million wooden plows made up the basic implements of labor on peasant farms), and the atomization and fragmentation of agriculture impeded the development both of agriculture itself and of socialist industry. Moreover, it was impossible to build socialism on two different foundations --- large-scale socialist industry, which accounted for 86 percent of the country's industry, and the fragmented, small individual peasant farms, hotbed of capitalist relations. The socialist sector did not yet account for one percent of agricultural output.
To promote the formation of collective farms, the Fifteenth Party Congress called for the implementation of a number of measures, including the extension of the cooperative movement, contracting for agricultural produce, credit, providing machinery, and so on. The Congress noted the necessity of mounting a decisive offensive against the kulak.
The efforts of the Communist Party and the Soviet state in the years 1927--1929 were directed to preparing the ground for a mass movement for collectivization and thereby for the elimination of the kulaks as a class. Financial assistance to collective farms was increased significantly in the years preparatory to complete collectivization. In 1927/28, collective farms received 76 million roubles in credit, the figure rising to 170 million roubles in 1928/29. The supply of machinery and equipment to agriculture also increased sharply. Appropriations for the mechanization of agriculture increased from 125J3 million roubles in 1926/27 to 240.3 million roubles in 1928/29. The number of tractors almost doubled.
The machine and tractor stations (MTS) played an important role in expanding peasant cooperatives. The first MTS were set up at the end of the 1920s. In 1927, the T.G. Shevchenko State Farm (in the Ukraine) organized a tractor brigade to service peasant farms. This initiative was taken up by agricultural cooperatives. Machine and tractor brigades were set up in many areas of the country. By the fall of 1928, there were 13 brigades providing service to more than 6 thousand peasant farms with a total of more than 66 thousand hectares of land. The tractor brigades were gradually reorganized into machine and tractor stations, which became the bastion of socialism in the village. The specific relations and linkage between MTS and collective farms also took shape: collective farms paid for the work performed by machine and tractor stations by delivering a portion of their crops to the state.
MTS were organized on an especially large scale after the Council on Labor and Defense passed a resolution "On the Organization of Machine and Tractor Stations" on June 5, 1929; according to this resolution, 158 MTS were to be set up by the spring of 1930, for which purpose the government allocated 5 thousand tractors with a total of 100 thousand hp. By the time the mass movement for collectivization got under way, 34 thousand tractors were at work. The machine and tractor stations became a prime means by which the working class exercised immediate leadership in the socialist transformation of agriculture. This further strengthened the alliance between workers and peasants.
With ever increasing material and technical assistance from the Soviet state and with an extensive educational campaign, the organization of cooperatives developed successfully. In 1927/28, agricultural 200 cooperatives covered more than 10 million peasant farms (about 40 percent of the total), and in 1928/29 no less than 13--14 million peasant farms, or about 50--55 percent of the total, belonged to cooperatives.
The Communist Party did enormous work in extending the idea of collectivization, in organizing poor peasants and agricultural laborers, in providing the village with skilled personnel and in other ways. As a result, the organization of collective farms picked up appreciably. While on June 1, 1927, there were less than 15 thousand collective farms in the country, one year later there were more than 33 thousand and by June 1, 1929, there were more than 57 thousand. The number of peasant farms that had joined collective farms rose from 194.7 thousand in 1927 to 416.7 thousand in 1928 and 1 million in June of 1929.
__CAPTION__ The Donets metallurgical plant. 1932. [201] MISSING [202] MISSING 203An important place in the plenum's decisions was given to the problem of personnel. It was recognized that there was a need to improve the training of agricultural specialists in institutions of higher learning and technical schools, and of rank and file collective farm personnel in the state farms and large collective farms. The plenum decided to reinforce the collective farms with leadership cadres from among industrial workers who had adequate organizing and political experience.
The Central Committee's November plenum directed the attention of Party, Soviet and collective farm and cooperative organizations to the qualitative side of collectivization, to strengthening economically and organizationally the collective farms and improve labor discipline, to improving the organization and remuneration of labor.
For the purpose of increasing labor productivity, the principle of material incentives for collective farm members was introduced, socialist competition was organized, and democratic principles of managing collective farm production were further developed.
The successful construction of socialism, of which the socialist transformation of agriculture was a constituent element, was unthinkable without routing the Right opportunists, which opposed industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture and preached conciliation with kulak-capitalist elements. Their position led objectively to the restoration of capitalism. The Central Committee plenum decisively condemned the position of the Right deviationists and said that propagandizing Right-oppositionist views was incompatible with the Party's general line.
__CAPTION__ Brigade from a machine and tractor station sets off for the fields. [204]After the November plenum of the Central Committee, the collective farm movement developed on a yet greater scale. One after another, regions began to collectivize completely. The age-old foundations of the village economy were broken at their base, the socialist reconstruction of agriculture proceeded at full speed. As of mid-December, 1929, around 60 percent of all peasant farms in the Lower Volga area had entered collective farms, as had more than 40 percent in the Crimea, 35 percent in the Middle Volga area and the North Caucasus, 28 percent in Siberia, 25 percent in the Urals, around 17 percent in the Central Black-Earth region, and so on. In all, between October and December of 1929, 2.4 million peasant households joined collective farms.
These achievements of the movement for collectivization allowed the Central Committee of the Party to set the rate and schedule for collectivization and the forms of collective farm organization. In order to draw up a draft resolution for the Central Committee on the rate of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm organization, a Politburo commission was established on December 5, 1929; the commission included Ya. A. Yakovlev (Chairman), A. A. Andreyev, K. Ya. Bauman, F. I. Goloshchekin, M. M. Khatayevich, S. V. Kosior, B. P. Sheboldayev, I. M. Vareikis; and representatives of central organizations and departments --- G. N. Kaminsky, I. Y. Klimenko and T. R. Ryskulov, among others. After studying the course of the collectivization movement in the second half of 1929, the commission offered its proposals, which were incorporated in the Central Committee resolution of January 5, 1930 "The Rate of __CAPTION__ Signing up for a collective farm. [205] Collectivization and State Measures to Assist Collective Farm Development".
According to this resolution, the most important grain regions (the North Caucasus and the Lower and Middle Volga areas) were to complete, for all practical purposes, collectivization by the fall of 1930 or the spring of 1931. These regions were the most ready for total collectivization: they were provided with more machinery and agricultural implements than other areas; there were a large number of state farms, machine and tractor stations and brigades, and major collective farms in these areas; agricultural cooperatives were widespread; peasant differentiation had been more intensive than in other areas; the poor peasants were better organized, the class struggle more acute; Party and Soviet organizations had acquired considerable experience in the struggle against kulaks during the 1928--1929 grain procurement. The remaining grain regions --- the Ukraine, Siberia, the Urals, the Central Black-Earth region and part of Kazakhstan --- were to complete collectivization by the fall of 1931 or the spring of 1932.
For the country as a whole, the Central Committee resolution called for the collectivization of the overwhelming majority of peasant farms during the five-year-plan period. Credits for collective farm organization were to be increased in 1929/30 from 270 to 500 million roubles. It was decided that the agricultural artel was the form of collectivization that was most in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the peasantry.
The Central Committee called on Party organizations to head the movement for collectivization. At the same time the Central Committee warned against attempts to check the development of the collectivization movement and to ``decree'' from above.
The Central Committee's resolution noted that through successful development of the movement for collectivization the Party could move in its practical activity from a policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class. Before the mass movement for collectivization, the Party had since its Eighth Congress (1919) pursued a policy of limiting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks. For this purpose, limits had been placed on leasing land, and the employment of hired labor on kulak farms had been strictly controlled; kulaks had been subject to higher rates of taxation, deprived of electoral rights, banned from the management of cooperatives, and so on.
The kulaks' economic power had been appreciably undermined by the Soviet state's policy of limiting and forcing out kulaks, and their share of peasant farms and agricultural production had fallen noticeably. Nevertheless, prior to the mass collectivization movement the kulaks had been a major force in the village. As of 1928, there were more than 1 million kulak farms (4-5 percent of the total) with around 10 million hectares of cultivated land (out of a total of 94.7 million hectares) producing one-fifth (126 million poods) of the grain marketed. According to a 1927 random sampling of peasant farms, the kulak group, which accounted for 3.2 percent of the farms studied, possessed 16.1 percent of all the means of production. Kulaks exploited the laboring masses of the peasantry; they rented equipment to poor and middle peasants on extortionate terms and rented land from them at cut rates. In 1927, more 206 than 45 percent of the kulak farms rented out their means of production and around 40 percent of the kulaks rented land from other peasants.
Kulaks showed themselves to be bitter enemies of Soviet power and undertook an organized struggle against the socialist measures of the Soviet state. Kulaks became especially active on the eve of and during the mass movement for collectivization. According to data that is far from complete, 1,440 acts of kulak terrorism were recorded in 1928, and in 1929 the number of kulak terrorist acts exceeded 2 thousand in four regions of the USSR alone (the North Caucasus, the Middle Volga area, the Urals and Central Asia). Kulaks tried in every way to oppose socialist construction and sought to frustrate the collectivization of agriculture. Kulaks placed great hope in foreign intervention, and a number of kulak underground organizations in the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Central Asia, the North Caucasus, Siberia and the Far East were connected with foreign counterrevolutionary centers and foreign agents.
All this bespoke a highly charged political situation in the village. Kulak resistance grew to such a degree that socialist construction in general---and especially in the village---was threatened. Without destroying the class enemy, the kulaks, it was impossible successfully to build socialism. The policy of limiting and forcing out the kulaks that had been followed earlier had outlived its usefulness. The development of the mass movement for collectivization put the question of the attitude to the kulaks in a new light. The question of liquidating the kulaks as a class became the order of the day.
In dealing with this issue, the Communist Party and the Soviet government were guided by Marxist-Leninist theory, according to which the victory of socialism could come only with the elimination of all exploiting classes, including the kulaks. Landowners and capitalists had been overthrown and destroyed as exploiting classes by the October Revolution. The problem of the kulaks was more complicated, for to liquidate them as a class it was necessary to destroy the milieu that engendered them --- petty commodity production. But this was possible only by restructuring the entire public economy, by passing from the small personal farm to large-scale collective production. It was more than 10 years after the October Revolution that the Communist Party and the Soviet government, having prepared the necessary prerequisites, undertook the mass collectivization of agriculture and on this basis started to liquidate the kulaks as a class.
The ways and means of eliminating kulaks were a function of specific historical conditions. Engels, in The Peasant Question in France and Germany, had suggested that if rich peasants proved to be sufficiently prudent and understood the inevitability of the destruction of the capitalist mode of production, it would not be necessary to resort to forcible expropriation. Lenin, too, allowed for the possibility of such an outcome on the condition that the kulaks submitted to the measures of the Soviet state. In practice, such was not the case. Kulaks hoped through famine and armed force to strangle the Soviet Republic, so Lenin as early as the spring of 1919 remarked that, for Russia, Engels' supposition was not justified. True, after the Civil War and the suppression of counterrevolutionary mutinies, the Party deemed it possible to use the kulaks' economic experience for the development of 207 peasant agriculture. But subsequently, as the socialist reconstruction of agriculture got under way, kulak opposition grew sharply. The Soviet state, though it cut short the kulaks' counterrevolutionary activity, for some time did not switch to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class. Only in late 1929 and early 1930, when complete collectivization was well under way, was it possible to proceed to the liquidation of the kulaks as a class. By this time, the decisive success of socialist industrialization had become apparent and the first successes in the mass collectivization of agriculture had been achieved; substantial changes in the balance of class forces in the country had occurred to the advantage of socialism: the working class --- the leader and staunch ally of the laboring peasants in their struggle against kulaks --- had grown stronger and had increased numerically, the number and activism of groups of poor peasants and agricultural laborers --- the outpost of the working class and the Soviet state in the village --- had increased markedly. By this time, too, the Right opportunists who had preached the ``theory'' that the kulak would peacefully grow into socialism had been exposed ideologically and destroyed organizationally.
The increase in collective and state farm production provided, too, the economic prerequisites for replacing kulak production. While in 1927 kulaks had produced 126 million poods of grain for the market and collective and state farms only 35 million poods, in 1929 collective and state farms produced more than 130 million poods of marketable grain---more than the kulaks in 1927.
The development of practical measures for liquidating kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization was began in December, 1929, by the Politburo commission (under Ya. A. Yakovlev's chairmanship) and completed by the January commission of the Central Committee (under V. M. Molotov's chairmanship). The conclusions drawn by those commissions were embodied in the Central Committee' resolution of January 30, 1930, "On Measures for Liquidating Kulak Farms in Areas of Complete Collectivization" and the February 1, 1930, enactment (based on the Central Committee resolution) of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "On Measures for Strengthening the Socialist Restructuring of Agriculture in Areas of Complete Collectivization and for the Struggle against Kulaks".
In accordance with these acts, the law permitting land rental and employment of hired labor in personal peasant farms was abrogated for areas of complete collectivization. Local authorities were given the right to take all necessary measures in the struggle against kulaks, up to and including complete confiscation of kulak property and deportation from the areas and regions in question. The Central Committee called for a differential approach to various categories of kulak farms. The first category included the counterrevolutionary nucleus of kulaks, organizers of terrorist acts and anti-Soviet outbreaks --- repressive measures, including capital punishment for especially serious crimes, were to be applied against them. The second category included rich kulaks and small landowners, who were subject to deportation to distant areas of the country. The third category was made up of the bulk of the kulaks (approximately 75 percent), who were resettled within the same area on new lands specially set aside for them outside the collective farm. In the 208 areas of complete collectivization limits were set on the number of kulaks dispossessed in a given region so that the total number of farms to be liquidated did not exceed 3 to 5 percent of all peasant farms. This was done so that the blow would be concentrated against genuine kulak farms and so that these measures would not be applied to any segment of the middle peasants. Strict control was excercised over the implementation of measures for liquidating kulak farms: time and areas for resettlement of kulak families were set up, as were procedures for the confiscation and use of kulak property, and so on.
The Central Committee resolution emphasized that the liquidation of kulaks as a class should be carried out together with a genuine mass movement of poor and middle peasant for collectivization, as an inseparable part of the process of complete collectivization.
All this indicates that the Communist Party and the Soviet state, in deciding to liquidate the kulaks as a class, exercised a maximum of caution so that these measures would in no way affect middle peasants. Moreover, even a segment of the kulaks (depending on the situation of the members of their families and on their attitude to the measures of the Soviet power, among other things) were not subject to dispossession.
The mass collectivization movement that began in the fall of 1929 grew and expanded. This was a genuinely revolutionary movement of the laboring peasantry for a socialist transformation of agriculture. In January and February of 1930, meetings were held in rural areas to __CAPTION__ The first combines on collective-farm fields. The Kuban, 1930. __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
. ,-..-. - -..' .iM&fH'"
[209] discuss the question of collectivization and the liquidation of kulaks. Tens of thousands of workers, who arrived in the villages in late 1929 and early 1930, gave enormous assistance to the peasantry in their struggle against kulaks and in organizing the new collective farm life. In 1930 alone, Party and trade union organizations sent 180 thousand workers to the village. In all, between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Party congresses more than a quarter million workers were sent to the village. An especially important role in collectivizing agriculture and liquidating kulaks was played by the 25 thousand workers who were sent to the village at the beginning of 1930 by decision of the November (1929) plenary session of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission. As the Sixteenth Party Congress noted, many of these workers quickly showed themselves to be excellent organizers of collective farms and won prestige among collective farm members.Groups of poor peasants and agricultural laborers organized under Soviets, collective farms and cooperatives were of significant importance in rallying the poor and middle peasant masses. By the end of 1929, there were more than 24 thousand such groups with more than 283.5 thousand members.
Party organizations directed all the work in preparing the conditions for proceeding to complete collectivization and in organizing the mass movement for collectivization. On July 1, 1929, there were almost 340 thousand Communists in rural Party cells. Beginning in late 1929 and eary 1930, the number of Communists in the village increased noticeably through an influx of the advanced segment of the peasantry into the Party and through the reinforcement of village Party organizations by Communists sent from the cities. Of the 25 thousand workers sent by the November, 1929 plenum, more than 70 percent were Communists.
Revolutionary enthusiasm seized the masses of peasant poor and a significant segment of the middle peasants. Poor peasants and agricultural laborers were the principal support of Party and Soviet organizations in setting up collective farms.
The number of completely collectivized districts grew rapidly, doubling in January and February making almost 2 thousand. Completely collectivized districts soon grew into completely collectivized areas and regions. The Lower Volga territory was declared an area of complete collectivization as early as December, 1929. On the Middle Volga, it was resolved to carry out complete-collectivization within one and a half years. The North Caucasus, southern districts of the Ukraine and a number of areas in the Central Black-Earth region, the Urals and Siberia proceeded to complete collectivization. The level of collectivization rose sharply: as of January 20, 1930, 21.6 percent of the peasant farms in the USSR had entered collective farms, as of February 1 the figure had risen to 32.5 percent, as of February 20, 52.7 percent, and as of March 1, 56 percent.
However, the socialist reconstruction of the village was a complex process. Along with indubitable achievements, by the end of 1929 and especially the beginning of 1930, serious mistakes and distortions in applying Party's policy of collective farm organization had already come to light. The Leninist principle of voluntariness had been violated in organizing the collective farms. Peasants were, not infrequently, forced 210 to enter collective farms under the threat of being "dispossessed as kulaks'', deprived of electoral rights, and so on. Sometimes the percentage of ``dekulakized'' farms rose to 15 percent of the total and deprivation of electoral rights to 15--20 percent of the total adult population.
The Party's instruction that the basic type of collective farm was to be one in which collective labor was applied was not everywhere observed, and in a number of areas (in Siberia and the Ukraine, among others), communes were set up in which, contrary to the wishes of the peasantry, all cattle as well as small livestock and fowl were forcibly collectivized. In a number of areas the rate of collectivization was artificially forced.
These mistakes stemmed primarily from the difficulties involved in transforming agriculture along socialist lines ---the most difficult task after the conquest of power by the proletariat. The novelty of the matter, the lack of experience in carrying out mass collectivization, the extreme acuity of class struggle in the village, the provocations of the kulaks, which drove local personnel into taking incorrect action, excessive enthusiasm after the first success in the collective farm movement, the pursuit of a high percentage of collectivization---all this could not but be reflected in the course of collectivization in the first few months of 1930.
__CAPTION__ A collective farm assists individual peasants. 1930. [211]Mistakes in collectivization greatly damaged the collective farm movement and the building of socialism in general; a rupture in the alliance between the working class and the mass of the peasantry threatened. The enemies of the Soviet power sought to exploit the difficulties and mistakes in the collectivization movement, hoping that these mistakes would embitter the peasants and push them into massive anti-Soviet mutinies. The Central Committee of the Communist Party took decisive steps to stop extremes and distortions of the Party line in the collective farm movement. At the end of February, resolutions were passed warning Party organizations in areas lagging behind against the danger of mechanically transplanting the forms and methods of collectivization that had been adopted in advanced regions better prepared for collectivization. Soon a Politburo decision led to publication of Model Rules for the Agricultural Artel and Stalin's article "Dizzy with Success''; these had a positive impact in rectifying mistakes and extremes in organizing collective farms. Stalin's article explained the Party's policy in organizing collective farms, stressed that the process must be voluntary and condemned administrative pressure on peasants. The article set Party personnel on the path of rectifying mistakes and extremes that had occurred.
On March 14, 1930, the Central Committee adopted a resolution "Measures to Combat the Distortions of the P,arty Line in the Collective Farm Movement'', which remarked that distortions of the Party line were the principal hindrance to the further development of the collective farm movement and a direct service to the country's class enemies. On April 2 the Central Committee sent a circular to local Party organizations instructing them to immediately rectify the mistakes and miscalculations in the work of collectivization. A number of supplementary measures were put into effect to reinforce the achievements of collectivization. The measures taken by the Party set the situation in the village right and helped to consolidate the mass of the peasantry in collective farms. By July of 1930, the percentage of collectivized farms in the major grain regions had leveled off at 46.9 percent, in other grain regions at 24.5 percent and in the grain-importing and nationality areas --- at 13.4 percent. In all, around 6 million peasant households had joined collective farms.
The Sixteenth Party Congress (June-July, 1930) played an exceptionally important role in drawing up the further program for complete collectivization and in finally overcoming mistakes that had occurred in the collective farm movement. The Congress noted the enormous importance of the collectivization of agriculture for the triumph of socialism in the USSR. It was no longer individual peasant farms, but collective and state farms that determined the fate of agriculture in the USSR. The collective farm peasantry in areas of complete collectivization had become a genuine and firm bastion of the Soviet power.
Beginning in the fall of 1930, a new and mass influx of peasants into collective farms occurred: in the North Caucasus, more than 100 thousand peasant households entered collective farms between October and December, while in the same period more than 120 thousand peasant households in the Central Black-Earth region and around 700 thousand households in the RSFSR as a whole entered collective farms. In the 212 USSR as a whole, more than 1 million peasant households entered the collective farms in the last four months of 1930. The new upsurge of collectivization reinforced the achievements of socialist construction in the village.
The practical implementation of the policy of liquidating kulaks as a class began at the end of 1929 on the basis of the mass collective farm movement. The sweep of the collective farm movement broke the kulaks' resistance and cleared the way for socialism. The mass of the laboring peasantry and the working class took an active part in liquidating the kulaks. Dekulakization was carried out by commissions that included agricultural laborers, poor peasants, politically active middle peasants, workers, representatives of the village Soviets and emissaries of the district executive committees. In the Ukraine alone, 7,762 groups assisting in collectivization and dekulakization were set up in the first two months of 1930; in the Ostrogozhsk area (Central Black-Earth region), 3,208 workers, 4,493 poor peasants and 1,298 middle peasants took part in expropriating the kulaks; in the Don area (North Caucasus), 2.5 thousand agricultural laborers took part; in the Lower Volga territory, around 50 thousand laborers took part.
As a result, the expropriation of the kulaks during the period of complete collectivization grew into an important political campaign--- the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, carried out by the peasant masses themselves. The Central Committee from the beginning warned against possible administrative extremes, against replacing the initiative of the poor and middle peasant masses with administrative measures in the matter of liquidating the kulaks.
On the whole, the liquidation of the kulaks as a class was carried out in an organized manner, with a sufficient level of peasant activism. By July of 1930, 320 thousand kulak farms had been expropriated, the value of confiscated property being in excess of 180 million roubles. By the summer of 1930, collective farms had received from expropriated kulak farms means of production and other property worth more than 400 million roubles. The confiscation of kulak property, accumulated through the exploitation of poor and middle peasants and agricultural laborers, was a just measure.
The social revolution in the village made the class struggle much more acute. Kulak resistance was so desperate that it often issued in anti-collective farm and anti-Soviet uprisings. Under these circumstances, the principal means of liquidating the kulaks as a class were forcible expropriation and dekulakization.
Expropriating the kulaks went hand in hand with the collectivization of agriculture, though the former ran somewhat ahead of the latter. It was no coincidence, therefore, that the liquidation of the kulaks as a class was most intensive during the surge of the collective farm movement in the first and last months of 1930. From spring till fall of 1930, i. e., during the period when mistakes and extremes were being rectified, dekulakization practically ceased, only kulaks who had already been expropriated being deported and resettled. In the fall of 1930, the liquidation of kulak farms resumed.
Thus, 1930 was the decisive year not only in the collectivization of agriculture, but also in the liquidation of the kulaks as a class. The kulaks 213 were dealt a crushing blow, an appreciable segment being expropriated and the most dangerous and clearly counterrevolutionary kulak elements being exiled from the areas of complete collectivization.
The new upsurge in the collective farm movement that began in the fall of 1930 continued without interruption and grew from one day to the next. While somewhat more than 1 million peasant households joined collective farms in the last four months of 1930, in the first four months of 1931 the figure was around 5.5 million. The rate of collectivization varied in different areas. The level of collectivization for this period in the first group of areas rose from 57.4 to 78.2 percent, in the second group from 27.7 to 44.6 percent, and in the third group from 11.4 to 23.9 percent. For the Soviet Union as a whole, by June of 1931 more than half of the peasant households (52.7 percent) had joined collective farms. More than 7 million peasant households joined collective farms in the first half of 1931.
The year 1932 saw the further development of the collective farm movement, though there was some outflow of peasants from collective farms at the beginning of the year, primarily in the grain regions of the RSFSR.This stemmed from the difficulties of the reorganization period, difficulties caused in 1931 and 1932 by draught and crop failure in a number of areas of the RSFSR and the Ukraine, by the intrigues of the defeated but not yet cowed class enemy, the kulaks, and so on. Party and government aid to the regions afflicted played an important role in overcoming these difficulties. As a result by the second half of 1932, the level of collectivization had risen to 62.4 percent of all peasant farms. A total of 211.7 thousand collective farms, 4,532 state farms and 2,466 machine and tractor stations had been set up. Collective and state farms worked about 80 percent of the land under cultivation in 1932. As the January (1933) plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission observed, the historic task of converting the small, individual, fragmented peasant farm to large-scale socialist agriculture had been accomplished during the first five-year-plan period.
The process of liquidating the kulaks as a class in 1931--1932 differed somewhat from the situation in 1930. In most areas where the kulaks were expropriated, kulak farms were assigned to one of two rather than three categories: the first category of kulaks were deported, the second resettled outside the collective farm areas. This occurred because that segment of the kulaks that in 1930 had been assigned to the then-existing first category (active counterrevolutionary elements, organizers of acts of terrorism and mass anti-Soviet outbreaks) had been neutralized and isolated by the beginning of 1931, so that it was no longer necessary to apply severe repressive measures (arrest and confinement in corrective labor camps).
Forcible expropriation in conditions of acute class struggle was the basic but not the only means of liquidating the kulaks as a class. Tax policy during the years of complete collectivization was directed not only to limiting but also to eliminating capitalist elements. All kulak farms were subject to individual taxation. The range of parameters taken to define a kulak farm was expanded and taxation of non-agricultural income was sharply increased. No benefits were extended to kulak farms; they were subjected to sharply progressive taxation. For 214 example, an income of 1,500 roubles was in 1931 subjected to taxes exceeding the income of the kulak farm, so that taxes absorbed not only the entire annual income but also a part of the farm's property. This led, in effect, to the dekulakization of the farm. The grain procurement policy pursued the same ends. Kulak farms were given fixed quotas that, if not met, led to the forced sale of kulak property; the more malicious saboteurs were subject to repressive measures up to and including deportation.
The result was a sharp reduction in the number of kulak farms. By mid-1930, there were only somewhat more than 450 thousand of them, by the end of the year less than 350 thousand and by the end of 1931 around 150 thousand.
More than 160 thousand kulak families were deported from areas of complete collectivization in 1931. In two years, around 600 thousand kulak farms were expropriated and more than 240 thousand kulak families deported. After the bulk of the most dangerous kulaks had been removed from the areas of complete collectivization, it was no longer necessary to undertake massive resettlement. Beginning in 1932, the Central Committee forbade mass deportation of kulaks, permitting local organs to deport only individual counterrevolutionary elements.
In the process of liquidating the kulaks as a class,- the Soviet state also dealt with the task of settling uninhabited and underpopulated areas of the country, as well as with the task of reeducating the former kulaks and involving them in socially useful activity. The bulk of the former kulaks, especially the youth, broke with their past and gradually entered the ranks of Soviet working people.
At the end of 1932, there remained approximately 60 thousand kulak farms (mostly in the hon-Russian and grain-importing areas), much weakened economically and deprived of the ability to exploit the peasant poor. Thus, during the first five-year-plan period the kulaks were routed, the roots of capitalism in agriculture destroyed and the victory of socialism in the village thereby assured.
Success in socialist construction and in liquidating the kulaks as a class was possible because the Communist Party waged a fight for consistent, undeviating application of the general line against Right opportunists, Leftist extremes and counterrevolutionary Trotskyism. The Party summoned the masses of laboring peasantry to political activism and led their struggle for the socialist transformation of agriculture and the liquidation of the kulaks as a class.
In the period when the restructuring of agriculture along socialist lines was being completed, the task of reinforcing the collective farms organizationally and economically moved to the fore. The radical restructuring of agriculture, the break with the old economic foundations, the desperate resistance and sabotage of the kulaks, the lack of experience in organizing production on large-scale collective farms --- all this led to a falling off of economic indices. A weakness in political work and unsatisfactory collective farm leadership were also felt. It was necessary to raise the economic and political prestige of collective farms in the village. The bastion of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the village were state farms and MTS. Through them, the Soviet state 215 organized production and exercised political leadership over the collective farms. The January (1933) joint plenary session of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission reviewing the results of collective farm organization, bringing to light failings in the work of the Party in the village, called for the establishment of political departments in the MTS and state farms. In 1933 and 1934, 5,389 political departments were set up in the villages --- 3,368 at MTS and 2,021 on state farms. The Party sent around 25 thousand Communists for work in these political departments (17 thousand to the MTS, 8 thousand to the state farms).
The political departments undertook a great deal of work toward strengthening the collective and state farms. They played an enormous role in creating and consolidating collective farm activists. The scale of the political departments' work in creating and training collective farm activists can be seen in the following figures: according to reports from 655 MTS, within one year collective farm activists increased almost five times over, from 83 thousand to 385 thousand, most of them (68.5 percent) being rank and file collective farm members. Political departments did much work in purging collective and state farms of elements alien in a class sense. Some of the kulaks who were not deported took an honorable part in socially useful labor in the collective and state farms and at industrial enterprises, but others could not reconcile themselves to their new position and continued to struggle against the collective farms in new ways. Kulaks wormed themselves into positions as collective farm managers, warehouse keepers, accountants and so on and sabotaged collective farm production. According to reports from political departments in 24 territories, regions and republics of the USSR, 47.3 percent of the collective farm managers, 34.3 percent of the warehouse keepers, 25 percent of the accountants and 23.7 percent of the clerks were removed from their posts in 1933.
While the political departments were in operation, the collective farm order grew stronger and sturdier and collective farms became invincible: by the end of 1934, collective farms had absorbed three-quarters of the peasant farms and had nine-tenths of the land under cultivation at their disposal. At the end of 1934, the political departments, having done their job, were reorganized into ordinary Party organs.
The First (1933) and Second (1935) Ail-Union Congresses of Collective Farm Shock Workers played an important role in reinforcing the achievements of collective farm organization. The Second Congress was especially important, as it generalized current experience in organizing collective farms and adopted a Model Charter for an Agricultural Artel. This crowned the system of Party and state measures for creating and giving legislative form to the new production relations in the village. The importance of the Seventeenth Party Congress (1934) should especially be stressed, for it set for socialist agriculture the task of strengthening the collective farms organizationally and economically and completing the technological modernization of agriculture.
In the last stage of the socialist reorganization of agriculture, the amount of equipment at the disposal of the collective farms increased sharply. Machine and tractor stations, which arose at the beginning of the collective farm movement, became widespread. While in 1930 there were 158 MTS with 31.1 thousand tractors, by the end of 1932 there were 216 2,446 MTS with 74.8 thousand tractors, and in 1937---5,818 MTS with 365.8 thousand tractors. This was a genuine technological revolution in agriculture.
The increasing amount of machinery in agriculture further raised labor efficiency and improved the quality of agricultural work and thereby raised agricultural productivity. In 1937, 71 percent of the tillage, 54.3 percent of the sowing and 43.8 percent of the harvesting of grain and 94 percent of the threshing were performed by machines. Such were the achievements in the technological modernization of socialist agriculture. Composite mechanization of all agricultural work became a feasible task.
The collectivization of peasant farms culminated in the years 1933--1937. By the end of 1937, there were 243.7 thousand collective farms joining 18.5 million previously indivilual personal farms --- 93 percent of the total---with 99.1 percent of the land under cultivation at their disposal. This meant that collectivization had been completed and that henceforth there was in the USSR a single socialist economic system. Collectivization forever delivered the village from kulak bondage, from class differentiation, from ruin and poverty. The age-old peasant question had found a true solution in the Leninist cooperative plan.
The collectivization of agriculture signified radical changes not only
in the fate of the many millions of peasants, but also in the life of the
entire country. The establishment of socialist relations in the entire
economy reinforced the position of the Soviet state. The triumph of the
collective farm order dealt a crashing blow ,tp Trotskyite and Right
opportunist theories on the ways of building socialism and demonstrated
that the Leninist cooperative plan was the only correct road to the
socialist transformation of agriculture. As a result of collectivization,
new social relations were created in the village, and these new relations
ended exploitation, made all peasants equal and opened before them the
road to a rich and happy life.
~
The USSR---The First Country in Which Socialism Triumphed. Having overcome enormous difficulties, the peoples of the USSR, through the first five-year plan, built the foundation of a socialist society and in .the years of the second five-year plan---1933--1937 --- faced the task of building what was, for all practical purposes, a socialist society.
In the middle of 1931, a special Gosplan commission began drawing up the second five-year plan. The goal was to work out a plan more detailed than the first five-year plan---not only by economic sector, but also by republic, territory and region to coordinate the indices through a system of balances, and to determine the specific route for technological modernization of individual industries, for assimilating new technology and thereby increasing labor productivity.
Building the foundation of socialism and the triumph of the socialist formation in industry, agriculture and commerce had greatly expanded the potential of planning, of improving planning on the basis of experience acquired in 1928--1932. During the years of the first five-year plan, the USSR had become an industrial rather than an agrarian country, and in the years of the second five-year plan the task was to complete technological modernization of the entire economy, to create a 217 modern technological base for all sectors of the economy. This meant above all providing technology for agriculture, transport, light and food industries, and construction, as well as mechanizing all labor-intensive and physically difficult processes in industry. The second five-year-plan period was thus an important stage in creating the material and technological base for a new, socialist society.
The basic goals of the second five-year-plan period were set forth in the resolutions of the Seventeenth Party Conference and the Seventeenth Party Congress. The second five-year plan was given final ratification on November 17, 1934, by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars. The plan involved major economic and political tasks. More than 4,500 industrial enterprises were to be built, enterprises built and modernized during the first five-year period were to be put into operation at full capacity; the other tasks were to increase industrial output greatly, to complete the technological modernization of the economy and to raise the material and cultural level of working people. It was necessary to complete the collectivization and raise the level of mechanization in agriculture and to strengthen collective and state farms and MTS organizationally and economically.
In the realm of social policy, the principal goals of the second five-year plan were to eliminate all capitalist elements and factors giving rise to class differences and the exploitation of man by man, to overcome the remnants of capitalism in the economy and in men's consciousness.
The efforts of the working people of the USSR to fulfil the second five-year plan had a number of distinguishing features. In the first place, the amount of technology available to industry and transport had risen markedly due to the fact that many new enterprises had been put into operation. For example, in the coal industry the mechanization of coal cutting rose from 16.5 percent in 1928 to 65.4 percent in 1932 and by the end of 1937 had reached almost 90 percent. The railroads were provided at this time with powerful new locomotives of the FD and JS series, as well as new signalling equipment. New factories for the production of locomotives and rolling stock were put into operation.
By the beginning of the second five-year-plan period, the MTS had 75 thousand tractors that worked approximately half of the collective farm land under cultivation.
The power-producing capacities of the Soviet economy increased. During the five-year period, the production of electrical energy doubled, reaching more than 26 thousand million kwh in 1935. Soviet mechanical engineering developed rapidly. In the first years of the second five-year period, such giant enterprises as the Urals and Novo-Kramatorsk heavy engineering plants went into operation. Ferrous metallurgy was reinforced by bringing the Uralo-Kuznetsk complex up to full operating capacity and by new giant plants at Krivoi Rog, Novo-Lipetsk and Novo-Tulsk.
The socialist society now had a powerful and growing material and technological basis. In the first two years of the second five-year-plan period alone, the nation produced almost as many machine tools, machines and new equipment as during the entire first five-year period. The task of modernizing the entire economy technologically was dealt with successfully.
218 __CAPTION__ A. Stakhanov explains his method of work. Donbas, 1935.The advanced technology had to be mastered by the masses of workers and peasants, by all working people. The Communist Party proclaimed the slogan "Personnel Decides Everything''. This was a call for mastering the technology created during the years of industrialization.
On the other hand, the socialist production relations that had taken root in the economy provjded new stimuli for labor and increased labor productivity. A communist attitude towards labor, the idea that labor is the source for increasing social wealth and for the growth of the Soviet state's might, became increasingly widespread. Labor ceased to be the onerous obligation that it had been under capitalism, becoming instead, in the consciousness of millions of Soviet citizens, social labor, an inner necessity and requirement.
A movement for increased labor productivity, for revising outmoded technical norms, unfolded in all sectors of the economy. Labor turnover was sharply reduced at enterprises, the work force stabilized, a new technical intelligentsia---flesh of the people's flesh---came on the scene. The food and consumer necessities picture improved: the development of agriculture and the consumer industry permitted an improvement in the supply of manufactured goods and foodstuffs to workers. Conditions for a new stage of socialist competition emerged. Socialist competition was carried out on the basis of advanced 219 technology, its heroes were people who had mastered it fully. The socialist competition of the masses for a revision of existing technical norms, for mastering technology, became known as the Stakhanovite movement.
The Stakhanovite movement started in the Dondas. In the early morning hours of August 31, 1935, the young miner Alexei Stakhanov, working with a pneumatic drill, cut 102 tons of coal in a single shift, exceeding the existing norm 14 times over. This noteworthy production achievement was no accident. It was the result of the development and implementation of a bold technical plan based on a systematic division of labor: ordinarily, a miner working the coal face both cut the coal and reinforced the coal face; now the wall was reinforced by another worker. Following Stakhanov, Party group organizer Miron Dyukanov and Dmitry Kantsedalov, a Komsomol member, went down to the coal face. They exceeded the record set by Stakhanov. One new record after another was set at the Irmino-Central mine. The movement for high productivity was taken up at other mines.
The Stakhanovite movement grew at a headlong pace in all sectors of the economy, sweeping away everything old and outmoded and blazing a trail for what was new and progressive. A pleiad of leaders of the new movement emerged from the working class: A. Stakhanov, M. Dyukanov, N. Izotov and F. Artakhov in the coal industry; A. Busygin, S. Faustov, V. Avdeyenko, G. Likhoradov and I. Gudov in mechanical engineering; M. Mazai, A. Degtyarey and A.Bobylov in ferrous metallurgy; M. Smetanin, Y. and M. Vinogradova and G. Odintsov in light industry; P. F. Krivonos in railroad transport; M. S. Demchenko, M. V. Gnatenko, P. N. Angelina and K. A. Borin in agriculture.
In each industry, the innovators followed the way suggested by the specific nature of their work making use of the division of labor, combinations of trades, increasing in the number of machine tools manned per person, speeding up the machinery, using high temperatures and pressures, and so on.
The Communist Party and the Soviet government ardently supported the initiative of the innovators and helped to clear all the obstacles from their paths. In November of 1935, an Ail-Union Conference of Stakhanovite Workers was held in the Kremlin, with Party and government leaders in attendance. Leading workers from the most diverse industries took the floor to tell how they had obtained high labor productivity.
The plenary session of the Central Committee that met in December, 1935, subjected this new phenomenon in Soviet life to profound analysis. The plenum observed that the Stakhanovite movement meant the organization of labor in a new way, the rationalization of production process, that it ensured a rapid increase in labor productivity and a marked increase in the wages of workers and employees. The plenum noted that the Stakhanovite movement was raising the level of the working class's technical culture, was breaking with old technical norms, was in some cases exceeding labor productivity in advanced capitalist countries, was ensuring a rapid increase in the output of and reduced prices for consumer goods, was turning the Soviet Union into the richest 220 country and was thereby strengthening the position of socialism on an international scale.
Because of the spread of the Stakhanovite movement, labor productivity rose 82 percent during the second five-year-plan period, as opposed to the 63 percent called for by the plan. Thanks to this, the second five-year plan, like the first, was fulfilled ahead of time --- in four years and three months. Industrial output more than doubled over the 1932 level and increased 6 times over the 1913 level. A total of 4,500 industrial enterprises were put into operation; in 1937, new enterprises accounted for 80 percent of the USSR's industrial output.
The enormous growth of ferrous metallurgy was of special significance for the country's economy. In 1937 the make of cast iron was 14.5 million tons, of steel 17.7 million tons, of rolled metal 13 million tons. In other words, in five years the make of pig iron increased 2.3 times, steel almost 3 times and rolled metal more than 3 times. Metallurgy developed faster than industry as a whole. The structure of output in metallurgy changed. Top priority given to the construction of blast furnaces during the first five-year-plan period had led to a situation where in 1932 the amount of iron cast appreciably exceeded the amount of steel and rolled metal produced. Important corrections made in metallurgical planning were reflected positively in the overall balance of metallurgical output.
The mechanical engineering industry --- on which the production of new technology for the economy depended --- had a high rate of development. In the space of five years, the output of mechanical engineering and metal processing rose 2.9 times, as against the planned goal of 2.1 times. In 1937, the gross output of these industries was 20 times the 1913 level. These figures sum up eloquently the great industrial revolution that occurred in the years of the first two five-year plans.
Soviet machines and instruments flooded into all sectors of the economy. The entire economy daily felt the beneficial impact of the powerful Soviet mechanical engineering industry. For instance, almost 23 times as many spinning machines were produced in 1937 as in 1932.
The food industry overfulfilled its five-year plan. The production of granulated sugar practically tripled, output of meat increased 70 percent, animal fat 150 percent, confectionary products more than 70 percent. The silk, linen, footwear and knitted goods industries grew markedly. The assortment of goods expanded. Though the output of cotton and woolen fabrics did not yet meet the requirements of the population, the supply of consumer goods nevertheless improved.
Organizing new and complex production processes and the headlong development of industries created during the first five-year period made it possible to end the importation of dozens of articles: iron and steel pigs, rails, hydro turbines, steam turbines, steam boilers, dredges, excavators, blooming mills, rail mills, textile machinery, automobiles, motorcycles and cellulose.
As it entered the third five-year-plan period, the USSR provided fully for its own raw materials needs. The importance of this cannot be overstated. As the Eighteenth Party Congress emphasized, the USSR had become an economically independent country supplying from its own resources the technical equipment necessary for its economy and defenses.
221The structure of Soviet industry --- with mechanical engineering accounting for around 30 percent of total output and ferrous and non-ferrous metals industries for another 6.3 percent --- provided evidence of its high technical level.
Figures on the comparative growth rates of Soviet and Western industry are revealing. By .1937, the capitalist world had increased industrial output over the 1913 level by 44.3 percent (the United States by 54.3 percent, Great Britain by 10.4 percent, Germany by 19.4 percent, France by 1 percent), while Soviet industry was producing 750 percent more than the country produced in 1913. In other words, its industrial rate of growth was 15.3 times as high as that of the capitalist world.
By this time, collectivization had, for all practical purposes, been completed: 243.7 thousand collective farms had been set up uniting 93 percent of the peasant farms. Collective farms had grown much stronger organizationally and economically. By the end of the second five-- year-plan period, 456 thousand tractors, 128 thousand combines and 146 trucks were employed in agriculture. Gross agricultural output had increased. The amount of land under cultivation had increased by 30 million hectares as against 1913.
The fulfilment of the second five-year plan made it possible to improve significantly the material situation of working people: the national income had risen to 96.3 thousand million roubles (as opposed to 21 thousand million in 1913), the level of consumption had doubled, the wage fund had more than doubled.
The second five-year period was marked by the further development of the economies of the union and autonomous republics: this was a reflection of the advantage of combining the resources of the many Soviet peoples and using them under a single state plan. Investment in developing natural resources in the eastern regions doubled during the second five-year period: such investment accounted for about half of all investment in new construction in heavy industry.
As in the years of the first five-year plan, the industrial centers of the RSFSR and the Ukraine were the basis for the industrial development of the other republics: at the end of the first five-year period, the RSFSR accounted for 72.5 percent of the country's total industrial output, the Ukraine for 18 percent. The leading branches of the metal-working industry were concentrated in these regions, as were the basic sources of energy and fuel, an experienced labor force including engineers and technicians.
Under the socialist economic system, the industrial capacity of these republics was used in the interests of all the peoples of the USSR. A shining example was the continuation of construction of the UraloKuznetsk industrial complex, in which Western Siberia, the Urals, Kazakhstan and Bashkiria took part. Subsequently, this complex served as a basis for the industrial development of Kazakhstan and the republics of Central Asia.
The RSFSR was a model of the fraternal collaboration of peoples in the construction of a socialist economy: it was the RSFSR that in the years of the second five-year plan provided considerable resources for the economic development of autonomous republics, regions and national areas. Development of the petroleum deposits in Bashkiria and 222 __GOBLYGOOK_COMMENT__
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__CAPTION__ A. Busygin and A. Stakhanov. Tataria was begun, the extraction of non-ferrous metals in Yakutia and the natural resources of Daghestan and Northern Ossetia was increased.A good example of the economic development of the national republics was industrial growth in the Kazakh and Kirghiz Autonomous republics, which were then a part of the RSFSR. While budget expenditures for the USSR as a whole were 2.4 times greater in the second five-year period than in the first, they were 5 times greater in the Kazakh Republic and 4.7 times greater in the Kirghiz Republic. It was in the years of the second five-year plan that Kazakhstan became an industrial-agrarian republic and a center of non-ferrous metallurgy. By the end of the second five-year period, total industrial output in Kazakhstan was 2.4 times greater than it had been in 1932. These achievements provided the basis for converting Kazakhstan and Kirghizia into union republics.
Other autonomous republics within the RSFSR also made great strides in economic development, increasing their industry between 100 and 350 percent. The small nations of the Far North were involved in industrial development: industrial complexes were built in the Komi ASSR (Vorkuta), in the Nenets National Area (Amderma), in the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) National Area (Dudinka, Norilsk).
The union republics made great strides in industrial development during the years of the second five-year plan. The rate of industrial development in the Byelorussian SSR was 2.5 times higher that the national average. By the end of the second five-year period, industry accounted for 89.5 percent of the gross output in Azerbaijan, 75.2 223 percent in Georgia and 71.6 percent in Armenia. Developing in conformity to the single state plan, the union republics, within the framework of a single union state, were overcoming their economic backwardness and turning into advanced socialist nations.
The formation of a native labor force was of enormous importance in this process. During the first five-year period, representatives of non-native peoples predominated in the working class of the national republics of the Soviet East. Workers from Moscow, Leningrad, Ivanovo and Kharkov helped not only to build new factories and plants in the national republics, they also helped to put them into operation and helped the new native personnel to master production technology.
The second five-year period saw the growth of the working class in the national republics, partly through an influx of native workers. The number of workers grew 3.3 times in the Kirghiz Rupublic, 2.2 times in Kazakhstan, 3.5 times in the Tajik Republic, 2.6 times in the Turkmen Republic, and almost 2 times in the Uzbek Republic. Women were brought into production, and they mastered difficult trades alongside men. The growth of the working class in the republics promoted a stronger alliance between the working class and the native peasantry.
Thus, in the process of building socialism, the formerly backward borderlands of the tsarist Empire became advanced socialist republics with highly developed industry, farming and culture. Thanks to the Soviet order, the peoples of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and some other areas moved towards socialism bypassing the painful process of capitalist development. Within the USSR new socialist nations were formed consisting of two friendly classes --- workers and peasants, united by common economic and political interests and aspirations.
In the process of building socialism in the USSR, historically new community took shape, the Soviet nation. The victory of the October Socialist Revolution marked the beginning of this community. It was the October Revolution that shattered the "prison of the peoples" that tsarist Russia had been and brought total liberation to all nations and nationalities inhabiting the country. The formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 provided the principal prerequisites for eliminating the existing inequality of the peoples --- inequality inherited from the past---and for establishing friendship and cooperation among socialist nations. These prerequisites were provided by the principles of proletarian internationalism, the unity of society's economic and political organization and a community of ideological and cultural life.
The unity of more than a hundred socialist nations and nationalities in the Soviet Union, their rapid economic and cultural advance, the establishment of a common proletarian ideology---such were the achievements of socialism in solving the age-old national problem with which no other system can cope. The national basis of the historically new community---the Soviet people --- is the internationalist unity, friendship and cooperation of the socialist nations, while its class basis is the alliance of the two classes in Soviet society, the working class and the peasantry.
By the end of the second five-year-plan period, socialism had triumphed completely in the economy and had become an all-embracing 224 __CAPTION__ M. Demchenko. system. All other economic formations had either ceased to exist or had been transformed along socialist lines. Socialist property in the means of production in its two forms --- state (national) and cooperative and collective farm --- had become the economic basis of Soviet society. Socialist property by that time accounted for 98.7 percent of the country's production funds.
Fundamental changes had occurred in the class structure of Soviet society. Exploiting classes that continued to exist as the building of socialism got under way disappeared. The causes giving rise to exploitation and class differences had disappeared, too. At that time 94.1 percent of the population of the USSR was employed in the socialist economy.
Soviet society now consisted of the working class and the collective farm peasantry. Only 6 percent of the population was made up of individual peasants and handicraftsmen outside the cooperative system. The classes themselves had changed substantively, too. A completely new, Soviet working class had formed, free of exploitation and worry for tomorrow, of poverty and unemployment---a class exercising leadership over society. A new collective farm peasantry had grown up, delivered from bondage to landowners and kulaks, from all forms of __PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15--161 225 exploitation, a class that was helping to build socialism and run the state. A new, truly popular intelligentsia had emerged.
These changes led to a gradual erosion of class differences in Soviet society. The alliance between working class and peasantry grew stronger, Soviet society had achieved moral and political unity, friendship and cooperation among the Soviet peoples had firmly established themselves.
With the triumph of socialism, Soviet citizens began to live a richer and more cultured life, though the population continued to experience difficulties with housing, public catering and so on. These difficulties stemmed from the fact that the Soviet state, expending enormous resources on industrial development and the reorganization of agriculture, had at the same time to maintain significant armed forces for the defense of its borders.
Yet the USSR had introduced the shortest working day in the world, systematically reduced prices on consumer goods, increased expenditures for free medical services to working people and for the organization of health resorts, sanatoria and spas. Every Soviet citizen could now receive a free education in secondary or higher school, acquire a specialty and develop his capacities.
By the end of the second five-year plan, the period of transition from capitalism to socialism --- a period that began with the October Revolution---had been completed. The goal of the New Economic Policy---the victory of socialism --- had been reached. This was an achievement of worldwide historical import---and one that had been accomplished by the people in the 20 years of the Soviet state's existence.
The triumph of socialism in the USSR derived above all from the heroic labor of the Soviet people, backed by the advantages of the new social order created as a result of the victory of the October Revolution. The elimination of exploitation of man by man, establishment of the principle that "he who does not work neither shall he eat" and the steady increase in the workers' level of well-being and culture created new stimuli for the Soviet people's labor exploits. The planned development of the economy freed Soviet society from crises of overproduction and unemployment.
The triumph of socialism was secured through proper leadership by the Communist Party. Thanks to the Party's organizational work, the efforts of millions of workers, peasants and intelligentsia were directed to a common goal.
The successful construction of socialism in the USSR was of great international importance. At a time when there were periodic crises of overproduction and unemployment reaching into the millions in capitalist countries, when enormous stocks of food and material goods were being destroyed, in the USSR the economy was developing at a headlong pace and the situation of working people was steadily improving. Working people throughout the world became convinced that workers and peasants could build a new society and run the state without the help of capitalists and landowners.
The triumph of socialism increased the Soviet Union's importance as
a bastion of the international working class in its struggle against
226
__CAPTION__
N. Izotov (first from left) in class. Shakhty, 1936.
capitalism, against the fascist offensive, against the preparation of a new
world war. The advanced segment of workers, peasants and
intelligentsia in all countries voiced their delight with the socialist achievements of
the USSR.
~
The New Constitution of the USSR. = The triumph of socialism was given juridical form in the new Constitution of the USSR. There had already been two constitutions: the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, adopted in 1918, and the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, adopted in 1924. These were the most democratic of any that had ever been in force in a class society, for they gave power and electoral rights to all working people. The constitutions deprived of electoral rights exploiting elements, clergy and former policemen, gendarmes and so on. Electoral rights were unequal (representation in the Soviets of working people in city and village was not proportional) and elections were indirect.
Lenin had repeatedly observed that depriving exploiting classes of electoral rights was called for because of their fierce resistance to the new order; he also stressed that the inequality in the electoral rights of workers and peasants would in the future be done away with. The time had now arrived when it was possible to implement full Soviet, socialist democracy, abrogating the restrictions that had existed under the first constitutions.
The decision to undertake the further democratization of the Soviet electoral system and to amend the Constitution to conform to the __PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 15 227 socio-economic changes that had taken place was made by the Seventh Ail-Union Congress of Soviets in February, 1935. The Central Executive Committee soon formed a Constitutional Commission. By the summer of 1936, a draft Constitution of the USSR had been drawn up, approved by a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee and published in the press for nationwide discussion.
The discussion of the draft of the new Constitution of the USSR prompted an enormous political and labor upsurge among the working people of the country. Mass meetings and readings of the draft were held everywhere. About half of the adult population of the Soviet Union took part in the discussion of the draft, and many suggestions for strengthening Soviet society were made; some that bore directly on the Constitution were considered and adopted by the Congress of Soviets. The very fact that the Constitution was discussed nationwide for five and a half months testifies to its democratic character. For the first time in history, the people itself not only established a new order, a new society, but also wrote the fundamental law of that society.
On November 26, 1936, the Eighth Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of the USSR, called to examine and adopt the new Constitution, opened in Moscow. The sessions of the Congress were broadcast over the radio and millions of people followed its work with enormous interest. Fifty-six delegates took part in the discussion of the draft, the discussion lasting six days. The Congress approved the draft of the new Constitution and empowered the drafting commission to prepare the final text and bring it to the Congress for review. On December 5, 1936, the Congress unanimously adopted the new Constitution, voting on it paragraph by paragraph, declared December 5 a national holiday and called for elections to the Supreme Soviet in the near future.
The Soviet Constitution gave legislative sanction to the triumph of socialism, the basis of the social and state organization of socialist society and the unity of the Soviet peoples. The Constitution proclaimed that the socialist economic system and socialist property in the means of production constituted the economic foundation of the Soviet Union. Its political basis was provided by the Soviets of Working People's Deputies, which had developed and consolidated as a result of the overthrow of the regime of landowners and capitalists and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The new Constitution did away with all the remaining restrictions in elections to the Soviets, restrictions that had been called for under the first Soviet constitutions: deprivation of electoral rights for the exploiting classes, clergy and former police officials, as well as the unequal representation of workers and laboring peasants. The new Constitution also ended indirect elections and instituted universal, secret and equal suffrage in elections to all Soviets of Working People. All citizens of the USSR obtained equal rights to vote and be elected to the Soviets.
The new Constitution guaranteed the right of all citizens to work, leisure, education, support in old age, illness or incapacitation. At the 228 __CAPTION__ P. Shirshov, E. Krenkel, I. Papanin and Y. Fedorov at the North Pole [229] same time, the Constitution imposed serious obligations on the citizens of the USSR: to observe labor discipline, honestly to perform their duty towards society, strictly to observe the laws of the state, to respect the standards of socialist conduct, to safeguard and build up socialist public property, to serve in the ranks of the armed forces, and to selflessly defend the socialist homeland.
The adoption of the new Constitution of the USSR adjusted Soviet society's political superstructure to its economic basis. The Constitution further extended socialist democracy.
The 1936 Constitution introduced changes in the national-state structure of the USSR. Two autonomous republics, Kazakhstan and Kirghizia, which during the five-year-plan periods had developed economically, politically and culturally, were elevated to the status of union republics. The Transcaucasian Federation, which had carried out its historical mission, was liquidated: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, too, became union republics. The number of republics united in the USSR rose from 7 to 11. This was another victory of the Leninist nationalities policy, a further development and strengthening of the Soviet multinational state.
The further democratization of the Soviet civic and state order expanded and strengthened the social basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR. The Constitution reinforced the Communist Party's leadership position within Soviet society.
Such were the basic principles of the new Constitution of the USSR. Its adoption was of historic importance. For the working people of the USSR, this was the summation of the construction of socialism that had been carried out. For working people in capitalist countries, the Soviet Constitution was an important support in their struggle for democracy, against reaction, for socialism and peace.
On December 12, 1937, the first elections were held to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The Communist Party advanced the idea of a bloc, an alliance with non-Party candidates in elections to the Soviets. The election campaign coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Soviet state and was a demonstration of the progress in socialist construction. The elections were held under conditions of enormous political activism: of 94 million people eligible to vote, 91 million, or 96.8 percent, went to the polls. Of these 91 million, 90 million --- 98 percent---voted for candidates of the bloc of Communists and non-Party candidates. Such unanimity among the masses was historically unprecedented.
Of the 1,143 delegates in the two chambers, 870 were Communists and 273 were non-Party representatives. Thus was the triumph of the bloc of Communists and non-Party persons given practical embodiment. In the Soviet of the Union, 45.3 percent of the representatives were workers, 23.7 percent were peasants and 31 percent were employees and intelligentsia; in the Soviet of Nationalities --- 38 percent workers, 34 percent peasants, and 28 percent employees and intelligentsia. This make-up expressed the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, the moral and political unity of the people. The Supreme Soviet embodied the friendly collaboration of the Soviet peoples; 29 nations and nationalities were represented in the Soviet of the Union, 54 in the Soviet of Nationalities.
230The first session of the Supreme Soviet in January, 1938, elected a Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and confirmed the composition of the government. M. I. Kalinin was elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. After the adoption of the Constitution of the USSR, new constitutions were adopted in the union and autonomous republics. Elections to the Supreme Soviets of the union and autonomous republics __CAPTION__ Greeting the Chelyuskin crew in Moscow. [231] were held under these constitutions in June of 1938, and in the following year elections were held to local Soviets of Working People's Deputies. The elections demonstrated the enormous economic and cultural achievements of the new socialist nations and furthered their consolidation.
At the same time, however, given the desperate attacks on Soviet society by the imperialist states, it was necessary temporarily to impose some restrictions on democracy, these restrictions being removed as the Soviet state grew stronger and the forces of democracy and socialism developed throughout the world. Building socialism in a relatively backward, agrarian country, ravaged by the imperialist and civil wars and surrounded by hostile capitalist states that were infiltrating spies and saboteurs, in a situation where the threat of attack from without was constant, involved no few difficulties. The Party's general line was under furious attacks by factionalists and opportunists. The difficult international and domestic situation required iron discipline, heightened vigilance and the most stringent centralization of leadership. It was in these historically specific circumstances that the cult of Stalin's personality developed.
J. V. Stalin, serving in those years as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, fought along with other Party and state leaders to carry out radical socialist changes in the USSR. As a theoretician and a major organi/er, he led the struggle against Trotskyites, Right opportunists, bourgeois nationalists and the intrigues of the encircling capitalist powers. Stalin also performed major services in developing the international communist and liberation movements. All this quite naturally gave him great prestige and popularity. However, as time passed all the country's achievements were attributed to him. A cult of his personality began gradually to take shape.
This development was furthered by some of Stalin's negative qualities that had been noted by Lenin. Exaggerating his own role and services, Stalin came to believe in his own infallibility, began to abuse the Party's trust, to violate Leninist principles and norms of Party life and to tolerate illegality.
The cult of personality inflicted no little damage to the building of socialism. But it could not --- and did not --- alter the genuinely popular character of the Soviet order, which expressed the fundamental interests of the people building a socialist society.
The successful fulfilment of the first two five-year plans, the creation of the material and technological base of a socialist society and the adoption and implementation of a new Constitution permitted the USSR to enter the period in which the construction of socialism was completed and society moved gradually towards communism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Strengthening Socialist Society. The Eighteenth Party Congress. The Country's Economic Might Grows.Strengthening Socialist Society. The Eighteenth Party Congress. The Country's Economic Might Grows. = __NOTE__ "Growth of Country's Economic Might" up front in Contents. Lenin frequently stressed that communism, as a higher type of society, can only develop when socialism comes into its own. The principal task of the new period of development that the USSR was entering was to strengthen the 232 __CAPTION__ G. F. Baidukov, V. P. Chkalov and A. V. Belyakov. 1936. economic and political bases of socialism. The triumph of socialism in the USSR had occurred amidst a hostile capitalist encirclement and could not yet be considered final, for the Soviet Union was not ensured against military intervention and the danger of the restoration of capitalism by international reaction. The capitalist states surpassed the Soviet Union in military and economic respects. The country's defense capacity had constantly to be increased. The Soviet Union strengthened its international links with the working class, gave aid and support to the revolutionary and national liberation movement throughout the world, struggled for peace and collective security and gave provocateurs no opportunity to draw the country into a military conflict.
The goals of the Soviet people and the Communist Party in the period of completing the construction of socialism and gradually moving on to communism were set forth in the resolutions of the Eighteenth Congress of the Communist Party, which met in Moscow in March of 1939.
The principal task in the economic realm was to strengthen and develop the economic and technological basis of socialism by exploiting the advances of science and technology, and through this to raise labor productivity---one of the crucial prerequisites for moving into communism. The Congress made explicit the task, earlier advanced by the Party, of economic competition between socialism and capitalism --- to 233 overtake and pass the most developed capitalist countries in per capita production.
This could be done by increasing industrial and agricultural output, improving the organization of labor and unwaveringly employing both moral stimuli to labor and the principle of material incentives in production.
In the political realm, the goal was to extend Soviet democracy and develop the Soviet state's functions of economic organization and political education.
One of the state's primary functions was to organize military defense against attack from without. The Congress emphasized the vital necessity of strengthening the socialist state to the utmost for the defense of the people's achievements against the encroachments of imperialism.
Analyzing the changes that had occurred in society's social structure, the Congress concluded that in the process of building socialism there had been a further rapprochement of the working class, the collective farm peasantry and the popular intelligentsia, a convergence of the nations and nationalities of the USSR, the development among working people of the feelings of internationalism and patriotism, of communist consciousness. On this basis, new forces had taken on decisive importance for the development of Soviet society --- moral and political unity, friendship among the Soviet peoples, Soviet patriotism. The Party's task was to strengthen and develop these moving forces, to step up the communist education of working people, to develop in them the moral qualities of builders of communism. The new popular intelligentsia was to play an important role in this.
In the realm of international relations, the Soviet state's task was to prevent a new world war from being unleashed by aggressive forces, to strengthen the might and defense capacity of the USSR, to expand international ties with working people of all countries interested in peace.
These tasks set the framework for the third five-year plan for the economic development of the USSR in the years 1938--1942.
The plan called for rapid economic development: the national income was to rise from 96 to 174 thousand million roubles, i.e., an increase in the third five-year-plan period greater than during the first two five-year periods together. Industrial production was to increase by 92 percent, with heavy industry developing at a headlong rate. The annual increment of industrial output in group A (heavy industry) was to be 15.7 percent, in group B (consumer industries) 11.5 percent. In absolute figures, it was planned to produce by the end of the third five-year period 75 thousand million kwh of electricity, 243 million tons of coal, 54 million tons of petroleum, 22 million tons of cast iron, 28 million tons of steel and 21 million tons of rolled metal.
Industries contributing to technological progress and strengthening the country's defense capacity received priority development. They included ferrous metallurgy (especially the casting of special steels), non-ferrous metals needed in mechanical engineering and the defense industry, as well as mechanical engineering, the chemical industry, 234 __CAPTION__ P. D. Osipenko, V. S. Grizodubova and M. M. Raskova. 1938. petroleum extraction and petroleum refining. A major development program was drawn up for all forms of transportation---this to support the development of the economy, increase the speed with which the economy could be mobilized for war and strengthen the country's defenses.
In order properly to distribute productive forces and strengthen the country's defenses, the third five-year plan envisaged a major expansion of the industrial base in the eastern areas of the country: between the Volga and the Urals a major petroleum center---a "Second Baku"---was developed and electric power plants, mechanical engineering plants, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy enterprises and duplicate factories (in case enterprises in the central areas of the country were put out of operation) were built in the Urals and Siberia.
In agriculture, it was intended to increase the grain harvest to 8 thousand million poods, the cotton harvest to 33 million poods, sugar beet to 282 million tons, and to increase significantly the size of livestock herds and the amount of livestock produce marketed. Agricultural output was to increase 1.5 times. Such important tasks could be carried out only by large-scale socialist farms with composite mechanization of agricultural labor, use of advanced agrotechnoiogy and improved 235 land-cultivation techniques and through the further strengthening of the collective farm order.
Important measures were called for to increase the material prosperity and cultural level of Soviet citizens.
These tasks could be accomplished only given a further increase in labor productivity---by 75 percent in construction, by 65 percent in industry --- and an improvement in the organization of labor and the practical utilization of scientific advances. Eight million skilled workers were to be trained during the third five-year-plan period, and the number of students in institutions of higher learning was to be raised to 650 thousand. The third five-year plan thus answered fully to the goal, set by the Party, of completing the construction of socialism and preparing the conditions for gradually moving on to communism.
The third five-year plan was being successfully implemented: in three years, around 3 thousand new enterprises were put into operation; by mid-1941, industrial production had reached 86 percent of the level targeted for the end of 1942.
Mass socialist competition unfolded in the country, with new names at the head of the list. In the Donbas, foundry workers attained remarkable success. M. Mazai, G. Shkarabura and I. Shashkin, young workers at the Ilyich Plant in Mariupol, began to skim 15 tons of steel per square meter of hearth instead of the former 4 to 5 tons. This was a revolution in steel production. The name of the distinguished drill operator from Krivoi Rog, A. Semivolos, who by proper organization of work obtained high production figures, spread across the country. Innovators appeared in transport, in various industries, at many factories. As a result of socialist competition, labor productivity rose 40 percent in the first two years of the third five-year period.
War loomed on the horizon. It was necessary to increase the tempo of industrial growth. At the suggestion of workers and employees, the Soviet Union adopted in June, 1940, the 8-hour working day and the 7-day work week. Measures were taken to strengthen labor discipline at enterprises and in institutions, and this furthered the industrial upsurge of the pre-war years.
To supply industry with a skilled labor force, the USSR instituted a system of state labor reserves. From 800 thousand to 1 million young people were admitted annually to schools of factory and vocational training; on completion of their studies, they swelled the ranks of the working class.
Women played an important role in industry: by early 1940, they made up 41 percent of all workers. A movement for the mastery of traditionally male trades began among women; they started to drive locomotives, to run cranes, to cast steel, they became turners, planers, joiners and milling machine operators.
Thanks to heroic efforts by workers, employees and engineers, the average annual industrial growth rate during the years of the third five-year plan reached 13 percent and was higher than in any of the developed capitalist countries. However, the tasks of building socialism and the growing threat of war required even faster industrial development, and this could be done only by further improving leadership methods and by utilizing all untapped industrial reserves.
236The Eighteenth Party Conference met in February, 1941, and adopted a number of important resolutions directed to improving the work of industry and transport. The measures that the Conference proposed in the realm of political and economic organization were preparatory to putting industry and transport on a war footing. Implementation of the measures adopted by the Conference for strengthening Party leadership in industry and transport and for developing key defense industries appreciably increased the economy's readiness for mobilization and the country's military-economic potential and defense capacity.
With a view to the growing military danger and to ensuring unconditional unity in the work of Soviet and Party organizations, the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted in May, 1941, a resolution recommending that J. V. Stalin, General Secretary of the Central Committee, simultaneously fill the post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
There were a number of advances in agriculture, too. Agriculture __CAPTION__ The Moscow-Volga Canal. 1937. [237] became increasingly mechanized during the years of the third five-year plan. Approximately 80 percent of the power used in agriculture was provided by mechanical engines; 70 to 80 percent of the land was plowed by tractors, 40 percent of the crop was harvested with combines. However, the threat of war did not permit the integrated mechanization of all agricultural chores, since part of the industrial capacity and money designated for the production of agricultural machinery and tractors was converted to arms production.
The achievements of the leading collective farms and collective farmers were put on display at the Ail-Union Agricultural Exhibition that opened on August 1, 1939, in Moscow.
The grain harvest of 1940 exceeded the 1913 harvest. However, because of the enormously increased demand for grain, the problem of adequate grain supplies in the USSR had not yet been solved before the war.
In the years of the third five-year plan, the Party implemented important measures for improving production relations on the collective farms and for increasing grain and livestock production. On the eve of the war, there were 237 thousand collective farms in the USSR, these having absorbed 96.9 percent of the former individual peasant farms. There were 4,159 state farms, many of which were highly productive and profitable. The socialist transformation of agriculture multiplied agriculture's economic potential. Utilization of this potential was hampered by certain difficulties and unsolved problems that the collective and state farms experienced in the pre-war years. However, on the whole the triumph of the collective farm system confirmed the correctness of the Party's policy of organizing large-scale socialist farms. The new order in the village was one of the foundations of the state's stability during the difficult years of war.
The USSR was in the pre-war years one of the mightiest powers in the world. Nine thousand new enterprises were put into operation under the three pre-war five-year plans. Since 1913, the country's total industrial output had increased 12-fold, and the USSR had taken over first place in Europe and was second in the world in industry. In place of the sea of small peasant farms, large-scale socialist collective and state farms based on modern technology had been set up. The cultural revolution in the country ensured a supply of skilled personnel for the economy, all areas of political and cultural life and the armed forces.
The USSR had a powerful military-economic capacity. The year 1940 saw the production of 15 million tons of cast iron, more than 18 million tons of steel, 166 thousand tons of coal, 31 million tons of petroleum and around 3 million tons of raw cotton.
Changes in Soviet society's class structure were of great importance.
By 1941, the country's population totalled 193 million persons, of whom
more than 60 million lived in cities and workers' settlements. Almost half
the population consisted of workers and employees, the rest were
collective farm peasants.
~
The Soviet Republics Blossom. New Republics. = The triumph of socialism in the USSR was marked by a true flourishing of the Soviet republics. Within the harmonious family of equal peoples, the leading 238 role was played by the Russian people. In 1937, the RSFSR accounted for around 80 percent of the country's metalworking industry, over 66 percent of the electric power produced, over 66 percent of the country's tractors and combines and 70 percent of the land under cultivation. The Russian people provided immense assistance to the fraternal republics in the development of their economies and culture.
The Soviet Ukraine advanced greatly, becoming during the years of the five-year plans a leading industrial and agricultural republic. In 1937, Ukrainian industry produced as much as all of Russia's industry in 1913. One-fourth of the USSR's electrical power was generated in the Ukraine, it had one-fifth of the country's tractors and combines, almost one-third of the land planted with grain and two-thirds of the land on which sugar beets were cultivated. The achievements of the Soviet Ukraine repeatedly elicited the admiration of the peoples of the USSR and foreign countries.
Poor and backward in the past, Byelorussia, a part of whose people had in their time emigrated in search of work, became a developed republic during the years of the five-year plans. Its industrial output more than doubled, its land under cultivation increased by 670 thousand hectares over the 1913 level. Industry accounted for around 80 percent of Byelorussia's economic output.
Nineteen thirty-nine saw a memorable event in the lives of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian peoples. During the Civil War, the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia fell under Polish control. For 20 years, the Ukrainian and Byelorussian population of these territories struggled against the Polish landlords and capitalists for their social and national liberation and reunification with the Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Byelorussia.
In September, 1939, Nazi Germany attacked Poland; the rapid eastward advance of the Nazi German army made it a real possibility that they would capture and plunder Western Byelorussia and the Western Ukraine. The USSR could not abandon fraternal peoples to disaster.
On September 17, 1939, the Soviet government ordered Soviet troops to cross the frontier and defend the population of Western Byelorussia and the Western Ukraine. The population received the Red Army and its warriors and liberators joyfully. Working people throughout the territories rose in the fight against the bourgeois-landlord order. In every territorial unit provisional administrations were formed to control the liberated area.
Workers' control was instituted at factories and plants, the 8-hour working day was introduced. In the villages, peasants' committees took control of landed estates and began to distribute them to agricultural laborers and the poor. This was, in effect, the beginning of a socialist revolution.
On October 26, 1939, the national assembly of the Western Ukraine meeting in Lvov, and on October 28 the national assembly of Western Byelorussia meeting in Belostok, proclaimed Soviet power, confiscated landed estates, nationalized industry and passed an enactment on their merger into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian 239 Soviet Socialist Republic, respectively---they wished to rejoin the USSR. Plenipotentiary commissions from these assemblies laid their request before the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which at the beginning of November, 1939, granted the request of the national assemblies of the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia for their inclusion in the USSR and reunification with the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs. Important socialist reforms were carried out in city and village in the liberated territories.
Kazakhstan and the republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia made great progress. Kazakhstan became a republic of non-ferrous metals, coal and petroleum. Major industrial centers rose up in the desert. Local industrial personnel increased in number. While in 1929 only 30 thousand workers were employed in the republic's industry, by 1940 the figure had rised to 158 thousand. More than 1.5 thousand million roubles had been invested in the republic's economy. In the second five-year-plan period, the population of Kazakhstan made the transition from nomadism to settled agriculture: more than 6 million hectares were taken under cultivation.
Uzbekistan played a crucial role in supplying the USSR's textile industry with raw cotton. During the years of the first two five-year plans, more than 380 industrial enterprises were built-in the republic.
New republics entered the USSR---the Karelo-Finnish, Moldavian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian SSRs. The Karelo-Finnish SSR was formed in March of 1940 from the territory of the Karelian ASSR and part of the territory that passed to the USSR under the Soviet-Finnish treaty of 1940. The Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian republics came into being through the victory of the masses over the bourgeoislandowner forces of their countries and the proclamation there of Soviet power.
The working class and the laboring peasantry of the Baltic area remembered that in 1918--1919 their power had been overthrown with the assistance of troops from the imperialist powers. For more than 20 years, politically conscious workers and peasants waged an open and underground struggle against the bourgeoisie and for the restoration of Soviet power. In June of 1940, the streets of the major proletarian centers --- Riga, Tallinn, Kaunas, Vilnius --- were overflowed with demonstrations of many thousands of working people. Workers freed political prisoners, organized armed detachments and occupied government buildings. Everywhere the populace spontaneously fraternized with the soldiers of the Red Army, who were in the Baltic states under the terms of treaties between the USSR and these countries. Pro-fascist ministers fled to Germany and Sweden. Left organizations set up people's governments headed by well-known progressive figures: Justas Paleckis in Lithuania, August Kirchensteins in Latvia, Johannes Vares in Estonia. The popular front triumphed in all three of the Baltic republics.
In the new situation, elections to the parliaments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were held in July. Instead of bankers, entrepreneurs, heads of major fishing concerns and rich peasants, the deputies' seats were taken by workers, agricultural laborers, teachers and activists from the revolutionary underground---not infrequently former prisoners of 240 fascist governments. All three parliaments unanimously proclaimed Soviet power and called for entry into the USSR.
In June of 1940, the question of Bessarabia---seized by royal Romania from Soviet Russia in 1918---was settled, too. The Soviet government obtained a just settlement by peaceful means; the Romanian government was forced to agree to the return of Bessarabia and the cession of Northern Bucovina to the Soviet Union. The people of Bessarabia and the Moldavian ASSR---Moldavians by nationality--- decided unanimously to reunite in a single national state. Northern Bucovina and some districts of Bessarabia inhabited mainly by Ukrainians entered the Ukrainian SSR.
In August, 1940, the Seventh Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a law on the formation of the Moldavian SSR. And having reviewed statements by representatives of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the Supreme Soviet resolved that these republics should enter the USSR.
The expansion of the Soviet Union increased its economic
and defense capacity and ensured secure northwestern and western
borders. The family of Soviet peoples now consisted of 16 Union
republics.
~
Strengthening the Country's Defenses. = Concern for increasing the country's defense capacity was a constituent part of building socialism in the USSR. However, on the eve of the war increased attention was given to this question as the threat of an attack on the Soviet Union by imperialists mounted. The country's defense capacity was increased through the development of a powerful socialist economy and thrpugh training a large number of skilled personnel, military cadres included.
During the years of industrialization, a defense industry was created, above all for the production of aircraft and tanks. Artillery, small arms and ammunition plants were built and reconstructed. Along with the old centers of military industry located in the European part of the USSR, during the pre-war five-year-plan periods a new base for the defense industry was created in the Volga area, the Urals, Siberia and, in part, the Far East. This required increased investments, which in the years of the third five-year plan alone accounted for more than one-fourth of all industrial investment.
The increasing production capacity of the defense industry made it necessary to improve management of the industry. For this purpose, the People's Commissariat for Defense Industry was in 1939 split into four sections: for aircraft industry, shipbuilding, armaments and ammunition. Local Party organizations were required to provide more assistance to defense plants located on the territories under their purview.
The aircraft industry was given top priority: in 1940--1941 it was decided to build nine new aviation plants and modernize nine old plants; as a result, the production capacity of the aircraft industry was increased 1.5 times. It was decided in 1940 to transfer seven plants from other industries to the aircraft industry, build new plants for the construction of airplane engines and convert mechanical engineering plants for aircraft engine production. With the implementation of these __PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16--161 241 measures, in 1940 the number of enterprises in the aircraft industry rose by 75 percent over the 1937 level.
Important steps were taken to develop the tank industry: plant capacity was increased, a production base was prepared in the east and the Chelyabinsk and Stalingrad tractor plants and the Sormovo ship yards were converted to tank production. The production capacity of the shipbuilding industry, which was working largely for defense, grew 3-fold in 1939--1940.
Urgent steps were taken to develop the ammunitions industry, as a result of which it was able to increase production in 1941 to more than three times the 1940 level.
Many civilian enterprises were converted to the production of military hardware. Large plants had stand-by plans for converting to military production. On the eye of the war, the government enacted a number of measures for creating state reserves and mobilization stocks to supply factories, transport, the army and cities. In the space of one and a half years, the value of the state's material reserves doubled, reaching a total of 7.6 thousand million roubles. All these measures significantly increased the military-industrial potential of the USSR and made it possible rapidly to put the economy on a military footing.
P.N.Goremykin, I. F.Tevosyan, D.F.Ustinov, V. V. Vakhrushev, B. L. Vannikov, N. A. Voznesensky, A. I. Yefremov and other Party and state figures played a leading role in organizing the defense industry.
The growth of the defense industry created favorable conditions for the technical modernization of the army and navy. No little was done along these lines. On the eve of the war, Soviet designers created experimental models of the most advanced fighters, assault planes and bombers, but Soviet industry was unable in time to provide the new models for aviation units. Soviet tank builders developed the best in the world heavy tanks of the KV series and the medium T-34 tanks. In 1940--1941, 636 KV tanks and 1,225 T-34 tanks were produced---about one-fifth of total tank production.
Artillery was improved; work went forward on the production of the Katyusha rocket launchers. In 1939--1941, the war industry produced 105 thousand light, medium and heavy machine guns, around 100 thousand submachine guns and 82 thousand guns and mortars. However, production of anti-aircraft guns, ammunition and mechanized traction for artillery lagged appreciably behind requirements.
The Soviet Navy, which on the eve of the war was reinforced by a large number of major fighting ships, was a powerful threat to the enemy. It included 3 battleships, 7 cruisers, 59 leaders and destroyers, 218 submarines, 269 torpedo boats and 2,581 aircraft.
Thus, thanks to the selfless labor of the Soviet people the state did everything possible to expand the material and technological basis of the Soviet Armed Forces. However, the technical modernization of the army and navy had not been completed by the summer of 1941.
The Armed Forces of the USSR had grown quantitatively by mid-1941: more than 5 million men were in the army and navy, 2.8 times the number in 1939. Their organizational structure had changed: in place of the mixed standing and territorial manpower system introduced in 1924--1925, the army and navy converted wholly to a regular system. The 242 term of service for enlisted men was lengthened. An important role in strengthening the Armed Forces was played by the law "On Universal Military Obligation" adopted on September 1, 1939, and based on Article 132 of the Constitution of the USSR, under which defense of the fatherland was held to be the sacred duty of every Soviet citizen.
The Communist Party and the Soviet government did everything
possible to strengthen the fighting capacity of the army and fleet, to
heighten their political vigilance and consciousness, to nourish in
soldiers and commanders a spirit of readiness to do battle with and
defeat a powerful enemy.
~
The USSR's Struggle for Peace and Collective Security. = The Soviet Union's development, its struggle for industrialization and the socialist transformation of agriculture took place in a complex international situation. The partial and temporary stabilization of capitalism in the early 1920s was extemely precarious and led to a further exacerbation of all the contradictions within the capitalist system. The struggle among the leading capitalist countries for raw materials and markets increased.
Occupied with peaceful development, the Soviet Union persistently sought to establish commercial relations with capitalist countries, strengthened its bonds of friendship with the countries of the East and struggled for disarmament and to forestall war. This foreign policy heightened the USSR's prestige and was an important factor in international relations. Influential circles in the capitalist countries were unable to reconcile themselves to this state of affairs. Experiencing serious economic and political difficulties, they sought an outlet in an anti-Soviet policy. This time, British ruling circles took the initiative.
The Conservative government (Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain) undertook a violent anti-Soviet campaign. The Morning Post wrote in 1927 that it would be useful to break diplomatic relations with the USSR and to establish around it a sanitary cordon. Stirred up by reactionary circles, anti-Soviet opinion in Britain reached a fever pitch.
In February of 1927, Chamberlain, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Lord Curzpn, addressed a note to the Soviet government accusing the Soviet Union of conducting anti-British propaganda; the note threatened a break in Anglo-Soviet diplomatic and commercial relations. Meanwhile, reactionary forces in Britain and some other countries hastened to take advantage of Chamberlain's note to organize a new wave of anti-Soviet incidents. On May 12 of the same year, the British police raided the premises of the All-Russia Cooperative Society (Arcos Ltd.) for Trade with Britain and the Soviet commercial mission.
The activities of the British government damaged above all Great Britain's own political and economic prestige. Many British businessmen, corporations and companies were shocked by such treatment of the Soviet commercial society, which had given a good account of itself in Britain. Even some spokesmen for British ruling circles, not to mention working people, condemned the action of the police.
The Soviet government in a note of May 17, 1927, lodged a decisive protest against the actions of the British government and put the question bluntly: did the British government wish to maintain and __PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16* 243 develop Anglo-Soviet commercial relations? In response, on May 27, Chamberlain informed the Soviet government of Britain's abrogation of the 1921 commercial agreement and severance of diplomatic relations.
In taking this step, British political circles hoped to isolate the USSR, to organize a new anti-Soviet bloc and to undermine the Soviet Union's authority, especially in the countries of the East. The hostile acts by the British authorities were only one link in a chain of anti-Soviet provocations. On June 7, 1927, the Russian White emigre B.Koverda killed the Soviet ambassador to Poland, P. L. Voikov, at the central railway station in Warsaw. The inspirers and organizers of this foul murder hoped to provoke a military conflict, to draw the USSR into a war. The provocateurs did not, however, succeed in realizing their insidious plans. The Soviet government displayed exceptional restraint. The base murder of the Soviet diplomat provoked outrage among the working people of Poland. Furthermore, a significant segment of the Polish bourgeoisie had a stake in maintaining economic relations with the USSR. Military conflict between the USSR and Poland was averted.
In April, 1927, political circles in Britain and the United States tried to provoke a military conflict between the USSR and China. A detachment of police and soldiers broke into the Soviet embassy in Peking and arrested the officials. The initiative for this provocation again belonged to representatives of the Western powers. Responding to the Soviet note in connection with the raid, the Chinese charge d'affaires in the USSR stated this openly. This time, too, the Soviet Union did not allow itself to be drawn into a military conflict.
Breaking relations with the USSR, the British government hoped that other countries, Germany and France in particular, would follow suit. It miscalculated, however: though there were among German diplomats those who favored a worsening of relations with the USSR, the majority of the German bourgeoisie preferred to expand economic relations with the Soviet Union in order to improve their political position in Europe. In view of the conflicts existing between them, Germany and Britain could not come to an agreement. Germany did not follow Britain in breaking relations with the USSR. Moreover, Soviet-German collaboration expanded: in 1927 and 1928, the USSR imported 866 million roubles worth of machinery from Germany, while only 165 million roubles worth of machinery was imported from Britain.
Nor did France back the British initiative. Though the French government took a number of anti-Soviet actions, demanded the recall of the Soviet ambassador and rejected the USSR's proposal for the conclusion of a non-aggression pact, nevertheless it did not break diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Economic relations between France and the USSR continued to develop: taking advantage of the situation, French entrepreneurs concluded a number of agreements with the Soviet Union.
Between 1925 and 1927, the USSR signed treaties on non-aggression and neutrality with Turkey, Germany, Lithuania, Afghanistan, Iran and a number of other countries. In May of 1927, the Soviet Union participated in the International Economic Conference. The Soviet delegation presented a detailed program to the Conference, a program 244 based on the idea of the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. ``Socialism'', stated the Soviet delegate at a session on May 7, 1927, "is not only a system of economic and national equality, socialism means, above all, peace. The contradictions between the two economic systems ... do not rule out the possibility of a practical agreement between them."
The Soviet delegation proposed the annulment of all military debts and payments, higher wages for industrial workers, introduction of an 8-hour working day, freedom for trade union activities, the withdrawal of troops from colonies, recognition of the right of all peoples to political and economic self-determination and genuine and total disarmament.
The program of peace and disarmament proposed by the Soviet delegation, a program whose purpose was to normalize the world economy and improve the international situation, was supported by the working masses in all countries. However, the delegates from the capitalist countries did not wish to adopt resolutions that would infringe upon the interests of major monopolistic corporations and companies. The Conference's only result as far as the Soviet Union was concerned was the recognition of the need for economic collaboration with the USSR.
Issues connected with the conclusion of the Kellogg-Briand Pact held an important place in Soviet foreign policy in 1927 and 1928. In April of 1927, the French Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand, suggested that France and the United States conclude a bilateral treaty banning war as an implement of national policy. The Secretary of State of the United States, Frank Kellogg, proposed that a multilateral rather than a bilateral pact be donclused. Following negotiations, such a treaty was signed by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries in August, 1928.
In concluding the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the signatories strove to give the Pact an anti-Soviet orientation. For a year, negotiations leading to the Pact were carried on behind the back of the Soviet Union. In this connection, on August 5, 1928, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, G. V. Chicherin, declared: "Exclusion of the Soviet Union from these negotiations will suggest to us above all that the true purposes of the initiators of this Pact have included and continue to include the effort to make it a weapon for isolating and struggling against the = USSR.''\thinspace^^1^^ The Soviet government voiced its agreement to participate in the negotiations leading to the Pact if sent an official invitation. On August 27, 1928, the USSR received an invitation to adhere to the treaty; four days later, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs agreed, though it also noted the many defects in the treaty (absence of an obligation to disarm, the vagueness of a number of formulations, the existence of numerous qualifications, and so on).
The Pact was ratified by the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR immediately after it was signed. Without waiting for all countries to ratify the tready, the Soviet government in _-_-_
^^1^^ Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR, Vol. XI, Moscow, 1966, p. 463 (in Russian).
245 February, 1929, signed the so-called Moscow Protocol with representatives of Latvia, Poland, Romania and Estonia; the Protocol called for pressing on with the implementation of the Pact. During 1929, Iran, Turkey and Lithuania adhered to the Protocol. The Soviet government, thanks to its skilful and flexible policy, thus again blocked plans to isolate the Soviet Union.In 1929, the capitalist world was hit by a profound economic crisis. As often happened, the imperialists sought a way out of the crisis by activating their anti-Soviet policy. This time reactionary circles attempted to provoke a Soviet-Chinese conflict and involve the USSR in a war in the Far East.
On May 27, 1929, bandits attacked the premises of the Soviet Consulate in Harbin, and on July 10 Chinese militarists attempted to seize the Chinese Eastern railway, then under joint Soviet-Chinese administration. Soviet employees of the line were subjected to repressions and beatings and the offices of a number of Soviet institutions were plundered.
In September and October, 1929, detachments of Chinese militarists and Russian Whites intruded into Soviet territory. The Special Far Eastern Army under the command of the outstanding Soviet military leader, V. K. Blyukher drove them out of Soviet territory and forced the Chinese government to sue for peace.
In December, 1929, the Soviet-Chinese conflict was settled. The Chinese Eastern railway was restored to its former status and all Soviet and Chinese citizens arrested in connection with the conflict were freed. As the conflict was being settled, imperialist states headed by the United States alleged that the USSR had violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Soviet government exposed this imperialist interference in SovietChinese relations and emphasized that Soviet troops on the Chinese Eastern railway were acting in self-defense, while imperialist troops were in China for purposes of intervention.
The USSR's successful fulfilment of the first five-year plan, as well as the capitalist ruling classes' own interests, compelled the capitalist countries to improve their relations with the USSR. In October of 1929, diplomatic relations were reestablished between the USSR and Britain, in 1932 a Franco-Soviet non-aggression treaty was concluded, and various treaties and agreements between the USSR and Britain, Iran, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Turkey and Afghanistan were signed.
The Soviet Union's international prestige grew and commerical and economic contacts between the USSR and capitalist countries were stepped up. Attempts by reactionary forces to weaken the USSR and to forge an anti-Soviet coalition had failed completely.
The years from 1927 to 1932 were marked by an active Soviet struggle for general disarmament. Dissatisfaction with the arms race increased throughout the world. To delude their peoples, the ruling circles of Britain, France and other countries had as early as 1925 proposed through the League of Nations a conference for the reduction and limitation of armaments. A preparatory commission was created for this purpose, and the commission met for a number of years beginning in 1926. The commission held dozens of fruitless sessions, making no real progress towards disarmament.
246On November 30, 1927, a Soviet delegation arrived in Geneva to take part in the work of the preparatory commission. At the first session of the commission, the head of the Soviet delegation, M. M. Litvinov, read a declaration in which the Soviet Union proposed: to disband all land, naval and air forces, to destroy armaments and ammunition, to pass legislation forbidding military service, to close military plants, to halt expenditures for military purposes, and so on. However, the delegates from the capitalist countries tabled the Soviet proposals, leaving them for the consideration of the subsequent, fifth session of the commission. And they declared that only partial and gradual, not complete, disarmament should be implemented.
Making concessions, Soviet diplomats in March of 1928 introduced at a session of the commission a draft convention for the partial limitation of armaments. The Soviet draft called for the gradual reduction of the size of land forces, stocks of weapons and ammunition, and naval and air forces, the complete destruction of means of chemical warfare and a reduction in military budgets. It was proposed to establish an international standing control commission to supervise partial and gradual disarmament. The Western countries again hastened to push the Soviet draft into the background and to do everything possible to bury it in the debris of the preparatory commission.
Between 1930 and 1932, the international situation deteriorated. Japan's aggressive policy in the Far East and the growth of fascism in Germany created a threat to peace and led to war. In this strained situation, the Disarmament Conference opened in Geneva on February 2, 1932. Leading political figures, financiers, generals and journalists attended.
Bitter disagreements among the capitalist countries came to light during the discussion: almost all of them presented drafts and proposals calling for the most diverse variants and resolutions. In effect, however, none of the Western powers favored genuine disarmament. This was the meaning of the French plan for setting up armed forces under the League of Nations, of the American projects for "qualitative disarmament'', and so on.
Soviet diplomats offered a draft that could have served as the basis for an agreement. The head of the Soviet delegation, M. M. Litvinov, said on February 11, 1932, that the Soviet government was not expressing merely verbal opposition to reparations, territorial annexations and the oppression of one people by another when it proclaimed the slogan of the self-determination of nations; not in word but in deed it rejected war as a means of pursuing a national policy. Criticizing drafts offered by the capitalist countries, since they did not constitute a genuine solution to the problem of disarmament, Litvinov proposed a convention on total disarmament. At the same time, he again offered the Soviet gevernment's plan for partial reduction of armaments as a first step on the way to total disarmament.
However, the Western powers blocked the adoption of the Soviet proposals this time, too. But the imperialists could not halt the growth of the Soviet Union's international prestige, for the entire world could see that the Soviet Union favored disarmament and saw in it a real means for preventing war.
247The conference on disarmament ended in failure. This failure for long ended the illusion that it was possible to adopt plans for genuine disarmament. Ominous war clouds rose on the horizon.
__*_*_*__The conflicts among the bourgeois countries were seriously aggravated during the world economic crisis. The struggle for markets and raw materials increased. Some bourgeois countries began an openly expansionist policy.
Neither Britain nor France was at that time looking for a new war. They considered their basic task to be retention of the colonies they had seized, of their economic bridgeheads and bases spread out all over the world. But the big bourgeoisie of Germany, Japan and Italy felt left out---they sought a revision of borders, a repartition of colonies and markets, and they prepared to attain their goal by force of arms.
Japan was the first to undertake a campaign for the seizure of new land and new colonial slaves. In September of 1931, Japan violated its agreements with China, West European powers and the United States by invading and occupying China's northeast provinces. This was also a serious threat to the interests of other Western imperialist powers. And it was clear that the Japanese militarists would not stop half-way, but would seek to bring all of China under their sway. At the same time, Japan built bases along the Soviet border, carried out provocative raids on the Chinese Eastern railway and Soviet border posts, and so on. The Far East became a node of the most acute contradictions, a dangerous seat of war.
The big bourgeoisie of Germany, too, took to the path of open aggression. For a number of years it patronized Hitler's notorious National Socialist Party. This party gained followers through lies and demagogy on an unprecedented scale. It promised everything to everyone: freedom from domination by large trusts and department stores to petty bourgeois store keepers and tradesmen, freedom from indebtedness to banks to peasants, higher wages to workers, work to the unemployed, return to a new and enlarged army to former officers. Reduced to despair by the calamities stemming from the economic crisis extensive strata of the German people not infrequently believed these promises. Moreover, the Hitlerites exploited for their own purposes the unjust, humiliating terms of the Versailles Treaty imposed on Germany in 1919; the Hitlerites fanned passions for a forceful revision of the treaty and for revanche.
The Hitlerites donned ``socialist'' clothing when addressing the people. But behind the scenes they maintained the most intimate contact with the captains of heavy industry---Thyssen, Flick, Kirdorf and others; they promised these their true masters to eliminate trade unions and the Communist Party, to tame the workers and to begin accelerated rearmament. Cruel terror was unleashed against Communists and members of other Left-wing organizations.
On January 30, 1933, yielding to the insistent importunings of those around him, the President of Germany, Hindenburg, named the leader 248 (Fiihrer) of the National Socialists, Adolf Hitler, the Reichskanzler, i.e., the head of government. Fascism had taken power in Germany.
This aggravated the whole international situation. Less than eighteen months after the beginning of Japan's aggression in the Far East, another hotbed of war emerged in Central Europe.
The Hitlerites considered their immediate task to be the elimination of the military restrictions imposed by the Versailles Treaty, so that they could begin open preparations for war. The leaders of the German Army (the Reichswehr) had been able to circumvent the Versailles Treaty even before the Nazis' advent to power. After Hitler and his adherents had taken the helm of state, the army of the Weimar period began to expand into a large army numbering several hundred thousand men.
In order to facilitate preparations for war, the two aggressive powers, Germany and Japan, left the League of Nations in 1933. For the time being, the Hitlerites did not feel themselves sufficiently strong to challenge the large states, so they continued to speak of their love of peace, of their desire for friendship with the French and other neighboring peoples.
However, in March, 1935, violating the military articles of the Versailles Treaty, the fascist government of Germany introduced universal military service. Preparations for war were stepped up. Germany's unilateral nullification of the Versailles Treaty met no resistance from Britain, France or the United States. Germany's violation of the Versailles Treaty was received with absolute calm: notes of protest were lodged, but not the slightest effort was made to raise anew the question of disarmament.
As the fascist powers grew stronger, the most reactionary groups raised their heads in other countries---fascist leagues in France, the fascist party of Mosley and the "Cliveden clique" in Britain, followers of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper king, and Col. Lindbergh in the United States. None of them concealed their sympathy for the designs of the fascist powers, and they put great pressure on their governments for an agreement with Germany and Italy. Let Hitler act as he wishes, said Col. House, a well-known American political figure, in 1933.
Major American and British corporations that helped reestablish Weimar Germany's military-economic capacity continued to invest capital in German military industry even after the Hitlerites' advent to power. Sixty American-owned enterprises in Germany fulfilled contracts with the German military department and military industry. The total value of American capital investment in Germany was 1 thousand million marks.
Arriving in Berlin in 1935, British politicians Lothian and Simon met with German leaders and expressed their complete approval and understanding of Hitler's plans. Moreover, in June of 1935 an Anglo-German agreement was signed legalizing Germany's naval armaments. Under the terms of the agreement, Hitlerite Germany could increase its naval tonnage fivefold. Britain agreed to the construction of German fleet with a tonnage equal to 35 percent of the British fleet. This meant that Germany had the legal right to build approximately the same size of fleet that France possessed.
249Embolded by the impunity with which German and Japanese militarists were able to implement their plans, fascist Italy undertook overt aggression. In October of 1935, Italian troops invaded Ethiopia. Italy, a supposedly civilized country, waged a war with barbaric methods. Speaking at the League of Nations, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, told of atomizers with poisonous liquids mounted on Italian planes; of how they poured a deathly rain over extensive territory, killed thousands of people and poisoned all sources of water and all foodstuffs.
Despite heroic resistance by the Ethiopian people, the country was conquered by the summer of 1936. Italian aggression met not the slightest effective resistance from Britain, France or the United States. True, the Council of the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy, but Britain and France, which voted for the sanctions in the Council, in fact circumvented them. The governments of these countries did not wish to ``irritate'' Mussolini. Britain and France hoped to prevent a rapprochement between the two fascist powers by reaching an agreement with Italy; they hoped likewise to settle their colonial disputes with Italy at the expense of Ethiopia. The British government continued to nourish plans for the creation of a united front of four powers --- Britain, France, Germany and Italy. There were at first certain disagreements between the fascist powers. In particular, Italy opposed Austria's annexation to Germany, since Italy feared the presence of a strong neighbor on its northern borders. But their common aspiration for an armed repartition of the world gradually brought Germany and Italy together.
In the spring of 1936, the German Nazis set their army in motion for the first time: on Hitler's orders, at dawn on March 7 the German army entered the demilitarized Rhineland, pulling up at the French border. This was a direct violation not only of the Versailles Treaty, but also of the Locarno Pact of 1925. But the guarantee powers---France and Britain---which at the time had superior forces, did nothing to force Hitler to withdraw from the demilitarized zone and respect international treaties. The consequences of this policy were extremely serious. From the moment that Germany remilitarized the Rhineland, Europe became a jungle of lawlessness.
Encouraged by the connivance of the ruling circles of Britain, France and the United States, the fascist powers began undertaking acts of overt aggression in Europe. In July of 1936, a fascist rebellion under General Franco's leadership began in Spain. It did not develop favorably for the fascists in the first weeks. The greater part of the army remained loyal to the Republic. The rebellion could have been crushed in embryo. The Nazi Admiral Raeder reported to Hitler that it was impossible to count on Franco's succeeding without extensive aid from without.
Germany and Italy openly interfered in the Spanish Civil War. In Germany, aviation units were readied, formed into the Condor Legion and sent to Spain. There were up to 5 thousand men in the legion. Tens of thousands of soldiers and officers of the regular Italian army arrived in ports and airfields held by the rebels. German and Italian arms and materiel flooded into Spain.
250The Hitlerites and Italian fascists waged a war of extermination against the democratic government and people of Spain and at the same time occupied important strategic positions in the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean Sea.
But even given the Halo-German intervention in Spain, the governments of the Western powers did nothing to stop the aggression. They proclaimed a policy of ``non-intervention'' in Spanish affairs. The Congress of the United States in 1937 legislated an embargo on the export of armaments not only to states waging war but also to countries in which there were civil wars. This law did not at all harm the well-equipped aggressors, but seriously worsened the position of the Spanish Republic, which was greatly in need of arms and ammunition. This policy made it more difficult to give any aid to the legitimate republican government of Spain. ``Non-intervention'' became a cover, a diplomatic fig leaf for the interventionists.
Moreover, the Western countries assisted the aggressors with strategic raw materials. In October of 1936, Schacht, the German Finance Minister, concluded a new agreement with the French government for the delivery of more than 3.5 thousand million marks worth of iron ore per year. German imports of bauxites increased sixfold between 1933 and 1938; this permitted German firms to take first place in the world in the production of aluminum.
The United States and Britain sold raw material (iron ore, petroleum, etc.) to Japan as well. In the first half of 1939, Japan received 86 percent of her imported military materiel from three countries---the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. It was clear that aggressive countries that were relatively poor in natural resources simply could not have fought if they had not received this amount of strategic goods.
Why was this policy of encouraging the aggressors followed? For what purpose did Britain, France, and the American imperialists who supported them make concessions to the fascist powers?
The Hitlerites got what they wanted by ably exploiting the hatred of the British, French and American bourgeoisie for the Soviet Union. Undertaking one act of aggression after another, the Hitlerites impressed upon the governments of the West-European powers and the United States that this was their last step in the Western direction and gave them to understand that their principal goal was a military campaign in the East. The politicians and diplomats of Hitlerite Germany intimidated other countries with the myth of a Soviet threat. And the imperialists of Britain, France and the United States were themselves trying at this time to turn German aggression against the Soviet Union. They calculated that by doing so they could deal with three tasks simultaneously: first, they could weaken or destroy the only socialist state that existed at that time; second, they could satisfy Germany's territorial claims at the expense of the USSR while maintaining their own territories and colonies inviolate; third, by involving Germany in a conflict with the Soviet Union, they could weaken their rival, the German bourgeoisie.
The Western powers were guided by the same motives in the Far East. Here they took no effective measures against the aggression of Japan, which in 1937 invaded Northern and Central China. The American historian Owen Lattimore admits that for many years Britain 251 and the United States looked on Japan as, on the one hand, a force for strengthening the colonial system and, on the other, as a good watchdog against Russia.
At the end of 1936, the aggressor countries began to form a military bloc. During the visit of the Italian Foreign Minister, Ciano, to Berlin in October, an Italian-German protocol on cooperation (the Rome-Berlin ``axis'') was signed. The participants in the new military-political alliance pursued far-reaching goals. As Mussolini said, what was at issue was a common German and Italian policy in the East and West, North and South. On November 25, Germany and Japan signed the so-called anti-Comintern pact; a year later, in November, 1937, Italy adhered to the pact. A military-political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Pact had been formed.
Officially, the members of the Pact declared that their purpose was collaboration in the struggle against the Communist International. But the world public had already to reckon that this pact was a screen behind which the fascist powers could carry out their plans. In fact, during the days when the triple alliance was being formed, a secret conference of the leaders of the Hitlerite state and army was held; directives for preparing the conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia were ratified at this conference. The Western powers knew of these plans. But this time, too, they did not intend to prevent their implementation. In November of 1937, the British government sent to Berlin the deputy Prime Minister, Lord Halifax, for negotiations on all outstanding issues. In talks with Hitler on November 19, Halifax noted the Fuhrer's services in the struggle against communism and informed him that Britain would not object to Germany's annexation of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Danzig. The British Minister proposed a four-power pact among Britain, Germany, Italy and France and let it be known that Britain would also be willing to discuss Germany's colonial claims. In the fall of 1937, not only Britain but also France sought an agreement with the Hitlerites. Secret negotiations between French and German politicians were held simultaneously in Paris and Berlin.
The German military machine was rapidly growing stronger. The Hitlerites spoke ever less frequently of peace and openly set forth their next goals and named the victims of their expansion. However, nothing could sober the politicians directing the policy of Britain, France and some other countries. They were persuaded that events would develop according to the scenario that they had devised.
__*_*_*__Of all the great powers, only the Soviet Union called for peace, for erecting a barrier against aggression. The Soviet government understood that there was only one way to prevent fascist aggression---it was necessary to establish a united front of European states not interested in unleashing a new world war.
As early as February, 1933, a few days after Hitler became Reichskanzler, the Soviet delegation at the International Conference on Disarmament offered a draft declaraction on the definition of an aggressor. The Soviet draft was so framed that a potential violater of the 252 peace could not use any pretexts or excuses to justify his actions, while sanctions against the aggressor would be imposed automatically.
The Soviet Union proposed that a state would be considered an aggressor if it undertook any of the following actions:
1. Declared war on another state.
2. Invaded with its armed forces the territory of another state even without a declaration of war.
3. Fired on the territory or attacked the ships and planes of another state.
4. Landed or intruded land, naval or air forces in another state without the consent of the latter.
5. Established a naval blockade against another state.
The Soviet government attributed great importance to the second point of the draft declaration, which read: "No considerations of a political, strategic or economic order, including the desire to exploit the natural resources or obtain any other benefits or privileges on the territory of the state under attack, neither reference to the large volume of capital invested nor any other special interests in any given country, nor denial that it has the attributes of statehood, can serve as justification for an attack...."
A declaration on the definition of an aggressor could have served as a basis for establishing a system for the collective defense of peaceful countries from attack by fascist states. However, only the small countries responded to the Soviet proposal. In July of 1933, conventions on the definition of an aggressor were signed between the Soviet Union and Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Lithuania (in January, 1934, Finland signed a convention). None of the great powers agreed to adhere to the convention.
At the end of 1933, the Soviet government began negotiations with the Polish government for the purpose of reinforcing peace in Eastern Europe. The USSR proposed to Poland the signing of a joint declaration guaranteeing the independence and inviolability of the Baltic states. On March 28, 1934, the USSR proposed to the German government that the two sides sign a protocol guaranteeing the integrity and independence of the Baltic countries. But both Poland and Germany refused to support the USSR's initiative.
As it was negotiating with the Soviet Union, the Polish government completed negotiations with Hitlerite Germany on an important political agreement; at the end of January, 1934, a treaty between the two countries was signed. Formally, the treaty concerned the "peaceful resolution of conflicts''. In fact, by signing the agreement, Germany counted on weakening Poland's ties with France and drawing Poland into Germany's political orbit. The Polish-German agreement was meant to obstruct plans for collective security in Europe.
The increased economic and defense capacity of the USSR, as well as the real threat from the fascist states, which were becoming increasingly powerful, prompted the most farsighted politicians in France, Britain, the United States and some other countries to seek an improvement in relations and even a rapprochement with the Soviet Union.
253They included Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States from 1933, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. One of Roosevelt's first acts as President in foreign policy was to establish normal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
A number of French ministers and members of parliament---Edouard Herriot, Joseph Paul-Boncour, Jean-Louis Barthou---also understood the growing role of the Soviet Union in international affairs. These politicians, members of different political parties, were united by the realization of the threat that hung over France. They began actively to call for a rapprochement and alliance with the USSR.
In the fall of 1933, the French Foreign Minister, Paul-Boncour, proposed to the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, M. M. Litvinov, that France and the Soviet Union conclude an agreement on mutual assistance in connection with German rearmament and preparations for war. Moved by the concern to secure universal peace, the USSR proposed the conclusion of a collective pact on mutual assistance in which a broad circle of European states would participate.
In December of 1933, the Central Committee of the Communist Party resolved to campaign for collective security. The Central Committee deemed it possible for the Soviet Union to enter the League of Nations and to conclude a regional pact on mutual defense against aggression. The Soviet Union called for the conclusion of multilateral regional agreements. "The idea of regional mutual assistance pacts,'' said M. M. Litvinov in a talk with French journalist Sauerwein on June 29, 1934, "was born of the feeling experienced everywhere that security is uncertain, that there is no assurance that peace will not be violated in general, in Europe in particular."
Jean-Louis Barthou, who replaced Paul-Boncour as Foreign Minister early in 1934, recognized, like his predecessor, the threat that Hitlerite Germany posed for peace in Europe and for France in particular. He gave active support to the efforts of Soviet diplomacy to erect a barrier against aggression. As a result of negotiations between the USSR and France, a draft of an East European pact had been worked out by May of 1934. It was planned that the Eastern pact be a mutual assistance treaty covering the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland. The draft of the Eastern pact likewise called for France to act as a guarantor (i.e., come to the assistance of victims of aggression if any country signing the pact should refuse to do so), and the Soviet Union would become a guarantor of the Locarno pact. Soviet diplomacy struggled energetically to bring the draft of the Eastern pact to fruition. The ambassadors of the USSR in Paris, London, Warsaw, Berlin and the Baltic capitals carried on negotiations with dozens of politicians and diplomats.
Hitlerite Germany, which aspired to revise its borders with almost all of its neighbors---both in the west and in the east---wished for neither a collective treaty in Eastern Europe nor for the strengthening of the Locarno Treaty through Soviet adherence to the latter. In September of 1934, the German government declined to sign an East European pact. The Polish government, increasinly under the influence of Germany, took the same position with respect to the pact. The Baltic countries, too, refused to participate in the pact. Finland did not even 254 respond to the Franco-Soviet proposal. These complications did not cause the Soviet Union to renounce attempts to create a system of collective defense from aggression. Soviet efforts won ever greater recognition.
On September 15, 1934, on French initiative, the governments of 30 countries---members of the League of Nations---sent the Soviet government a telegram inviting the USSR to join the League. The Soviet government decided to accept this invitation.
On September 18, the League of Nations, sitting in Geneva, discussed the admission to the League of a new member, the Soviet Union. Three countries---Argentina, Panama and Portugal---abstained during the vote. The Soviet representative, M. M. Litvinov, again called for the establishment of a system of collective security against aggression. "War must now be considered a threat to all for tomorrow,'' he said. "The organization of war is now juxtaposed to the organization of peace, for which very little has yet been done. If many previously believed that the spirit of war could be exercised by incantations, resolutions and declarations, all now know that the vehicles of the idea of war, the overt heralds of redrawing the political map of Europe and Asia with the sword, do not stop before paper obstacles.... We now face the task of averting war by more effective = means."^^1^^
Despite the refusal of Germany and Poland to participate in an Eastern pact, the USSR continued to struggle for the creation of a system of collective security in Europe. Jean-Louis Barthou, too, continued to work for the conclusion of an Eastern pact. But on October 9, 1934, he was killed in Marseilles by fascist agents. His place in the French government was taken by Pierre Laval, who sought an agreement with the fascist states. Though opposed to an Eastern pact, he took account of the mood of the French public and did not talk of this openly and was forced to continue the negotiations begun by Barthou. On December 5, 1934, a Franco-Soviet agreement was signed in Geneva, the result of Soviet diplomatic activity; the agreement confirmed the resolve of both governments to continue their efforts to conclude an Eastern pact.
After the Hitlerites had unilaterally broken the Versailles Treaty (March 16, 1935), the desire for a rapprochement with the Soviet Union spread to even more extensive segments of the French people. Even Right-wing newspapers, usually hostile to the Soviet Union, began to call for negotiations and the conclusion of an agreement with the USSR. But despite the insistent demands of the French public, Laval continued to maneuver.
The Soviet government, understanding that plans for creating a collective security system against aggression were threatened, deemed it necessary to elucidate the intentions of French politicians. The USSR asked whether the French government continued to stand by the Geneva protocol and Paul-Boncour's proposals.
In view of the firm and clear position of the USSR, Laval had to give a definite answer. He could not at that moment renounce the agreement _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Foreign Policy of the USSR. A Collection of Documents, Vol. Ill, Moscow, 1945, pp. 748--749 (in Russian).
255 with the Soviet Union. On April 12, 1935, a TASS communique was published, to the effect that "agreement between the governments of the USSR and France on the question of a draft Franco-Soviet convention on security, which should be concluded in the near future, has been reached in principle".A mutual assistance treaty between the USSR and France was signed in Paris on May 2, 1935. The signatories undertook to give each other immediate aid and support in the event of an attack by any other European state. The treaty emphasized both countries' aspiration to obtain in the future a European agreement on questions of security; it was noted in the protocol of the signing that the assistance envisaged in the pact should be provided in accordance with the recommendations of the League of Nations, but if there should be no such recommendations "the obligation of assistance will nevertheless be met.'' The SovietFrench treaty was an important contribution to the organization of collective security in Europe. Following the treaty with France, the Soviet Union signed a mutual assistance pact with Czechoslovakia (May 16, 1935); this treaty was analogous in content to the Soviet-French treaty, but it obliged the Soviet Union to assist Czechoslovakia only if France fulfilled its obligations to Czechoslovakia and came to the latter's assistance. The treaties between the socialist state and two bourgeois countries testified to the Soviet government's aspiration to implement the Leninist idea of the peaceful coexistence of countries with different socio-economic systems.
The Soviet government considered that the treaty with France would become genuinely effective only if it were supplemented by a military convention defining the mode of providing assistance, and the schedule and scale of that assistance. But the French government did not want to set up an effective and strong anti-Hitler front, so no convention was signed.
Another important stage in the struggle for a collective security system was the position taken by the Soviet government during the Italian-Ethiopian conflict. This conflict did not affect the immediate interests of the USSR. But the Soviet Union consistently supported in the League of Nations the principle of indivisibility of peace which meant that any'war in any part of the world affects the interests of all countries and all peoples. The Soviet Union actively supported the resolution on economic sanctions against Italy, demanded that they be fulfilled and repeatedly condemned the aggressor. When Germany introduced its troops into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland, the Soviet Union called on the members of the League of Nations to defend the principle of the inviolability of international agreements.
From the very beginning of General Franco's rebellion in Spain, the Soviet government succinctly expressed its attitude to the policy of ``non-intervention'' in Spanish affairs that Britain and France had proclaimed. The Soviet Union held that if the principle of nonintervention were to be observed by all countries, it would not be to the detriment of the Spanish Republic, since without external support the rebels would be quickly routed. An agreement on non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War was signed at the end of August, 1936, by 27 European states, including the Soviet Union. The agreement provided for a ban on 256 the export and transshipment of arms to Spain. A committee with representatives of all signatories was established in London to supervise fulfilment of the agreement. However, even after signing the agreement Germany and Italy not only continued to supply Franco's troops with arms and ammunition (chiefly through Portugal), but even sent military units to Spain.
Official Soviet representatives and the Soviet press demanded the cessation of intervention by the fascist powers in Spain. Soviet diplomats, journalists and public figures in those years not only expressed complete solidarity with the struggling people of Spain, they sounded the alarm for the fate of peace in Europe. They understood that in Spain the fascist powers were in fact rehearsing for a new world war.
In October 7, 1936, the Soviet government lodged a determined protest against the activities of Germany and Italy with the London Nonintervention Committee and proposed that control be established over Portuguese ports. On October 23, the Soviet ambassador in London, I. M. Maisky, again forwarded to the Committee a declaration by the Soviet government that concluded with the following: "Not wishing to remain in the position of people unwillingly furthering an unjust cause, the government of the Soviet Union sees only one way out of the situation that has been created: to return to the government of Spain the right and opportunity to buy arms outside Spain.... In any event, the Soviet government, not wishing any longer to bear responsibility for the situation that has been created, a situation that is clearly unjust with respect to the legitimate Spanish government and the Spanish people, is now compelled to declare that in accordance with its statement of October 7 it can consider itself bound by the agreement on non-intervention to no greater extent than any of the other signatories to the agreement."
The Soviet Union began to give not only moral and political, but also material assistance to Republican Spain. Soviet ships whose holds were loaded not only with food, medicines and clothing for the population but also with arms bought by the Republican government were sent to Spain. Soviet volunteers---airmen, tank drivers and artillerists---went to the assistance of the freedom-loving Spanish people, heroically and without sparing their lives fighting against the fascists.
The distance between Spain and the Soviet Union posed serious difficulties to providing assistance to the Spanish people. In addition, insolent fascist pirates began to attack all vessels heading for Spain. Unidentified submarines and airplanes attacked the ships of the USSR, Britain, France and some other countries. In the space of two days (August 31 and September 1, 1937), two Soviet ships were sunk---the Timiryazev and the Blagoev. The Soviet government openly, before the entire world, named fascist Italy the culprit of the piracy. The Soviet government took an active part in a conference of nine states in Lyons and in drawing up an agreement on combatting piracy on the high seas.
Under the Lyons agreement, signed on September 14, 1937 (and a supplementary agreement signed three days later), every submarine and airplane that attacked merchant ships was to be immediately attacked and destroyed by the naval vessels of Britain and France who were entrusted by the signatories with the job of keeping the sea lanes open. __PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17--161 257 The Lyons conference and its resolutions were a major advance in the idea of collective security. The possibility of successfully defending the states' interests against overt aggression was vividly demonstrated, for the number of acts of piracy on the high seas fell sharply.
The Soviet Union failed to prevent the defeat of Republican Spain. However, its activity in the international arena in support of the just cause of the Spanish people helped to rally the forces of democracy and demonstrated to the entire world the vanguard role of the first socialist state in the struggle against fascism.
The Soviet government sought to improve the League of Nations, to turn it into a powerful and effective instrument for peace. For this purpose, Soviet representatives worked out proposals presented to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations in August, 1936. The Soviet Union proposed that in the event of war against any of the members of the League of Nations, the Council of the League be convened no later than three days after receiving information on the aggression. Within three days after the Council convened, a resolution on the existence of conditions specified under Article 16 of the League Charter should be carried. From the time that this resolution was adopted, the aggressor state would be considered to be in a state of war with all the members of the League of Nations. Adoption of the Soviet proposal would undoubtedly have strengthened collective security in the world. It was not, however, supported.
In November, 1937, the leaders of Hitlerite Germany decided to prepare the seizure of Austria. In Austria itself, local Nazis---Hitler's agents---stepped up their activities. "One people, one empire, one Fiihrer"---proclaimed the advocates of annexation (Anschluss) to Germany. In March of 1938, the Hitlerites occupied Austria. The Soviet Union proposed the immediate convocation of an international conference to take the necessary measures against aggression. The Soviet government stated its wish to participate in collective measures to curb the aggression. "Tomorrow may be too late,'' declared M. M. Litvinov to representatives of the press on March 17, 1938, "but today the time for this has not yet run out, if all states, the great powers in particular, adopt a firm and unequivocal position with respect to the collective salvation of peace.'' But this proposal by the Soviet government did not meet with support, either. The disappearance of the Austrian state from the map of Europe went unnoticed by the League of Nations and the states represented in it.
The Soviet government warned the international public of the possibility of new acts of aggression and indicated that danger threatened Czechoslovakia first of all. And in fact, almost immediately after the seizure of Austria the Hitlerites began to prepare an attack on Czechoslovakia.
At the time of the disintegration of the Hapsburg Monarchy and the formation of an independent Czechoslovak state, areas had been included along Czechoslovakia's northern borders (Sudetenland) that were inhabited in part by Germans. An active fascist group, with links to Berlin, conducted propaganda in the Sudetenland for annexation to the German Reich. For their part, German fascists used the "Sudeten issue" that they themselves had created to exert pressure on Czechoslovakia 258 and to interfere in its internal affairs. The situation on the CzechoslovakGerman border became more serious with every passing day.
The Soviet government gave firm support to the Czechoslovak Republic in its struggle against aggression. On September 20, 1938, the Soviet government informed its representative in Prague:
"1) With respect to Benes's question whether the USSR will, in accordance with the treaty, provide immediate and genuine assistance to Czechoslovakia if France remains true to its obligations and also provides assistance, you can give an affirmative answer in the name of the government of the Soviet Union.
"2) You can give an affirmative answer to Benes's other question---will the USSR help Czechoslovakia as a member of the League of Nations on the basis of Articles 16 and 17, if in the event of a German attack Benes appeals to the Council of the League of Nations with a request for implementation of the articles mentioned."
The Soviet government insisted on an immediate conference of the chiefs of staffs of the USSR, France and Czechoslovakia. Moreover, the Soviet Union was ready to go even farther in assisting Czechoslovakia than was required by treaty obligations: it was ready to assist it even in the event that France did not do so. Large detachments of the Red Army (including 30 rifle divisions, tanks and aircraft) were moved to the western border. Britain and France put strong pressure on Czechoslovakia, urging it to capitulate. The Czechoslovak government did not wish to call on the army and people to resist or to accept Soviet military assistance, and took a defeatist position.
On September 29, 1938, Prime Minister Chamberlain of Great Britain, Premier Daladier of France and the head of the Italian government, Mussolini, arrived in Munich for talks with Hitler. The fate of Czechoslovakia was settled within the space of a few hours---Czechoslovakia was ordered to surrender the Sudetenland, and all property and installations located thereon, to the Hitlerites. The Munich ``peacemakers'' counted on establishing something like a directorate of the four powers. They undertook to meet in the future at new conferences with the same participants and thought that they would be able to deal with the principal issues of European politics without the participation and against the interests of the USSR. On September 30, the Munich deal was supplemented by a bilateral Anglo-German declaration, in effect a non-aggression pact. Two months later, on December 6, an analogous declaration was signed by the Hitlerites and the French government. The "Western democracies" collusion with Hitlerite Germany pursued a quite specific goal. At the time, the leaders of Britain and France felt that a campaign by Hitler in the East was a matter of the very near future.
Not only Europe, but the Far East, too, where since 1931 the expansion of Japanese imperialism had been increasing in scope, was a field in which the Soviet government actively sought to set up obstacles to the aggressors. There was a strong tendency within Japanese ruling circles for the turning of aggression not towards the south, towards China, but towards the north, i.e., the Primorye area, Soviet Far East, Siberia, and the Mongolian People's Republic.
The command of the Japanese Kwantung Army, stationed in __PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 259 Manchuria, constantly provoked conflicts on the Chinese Eastern railway, which belonged to the Soviet Union, and along the borders of the Soviet Union and Mongolia. In order to eliminate one source of conflict, the Soviet Union as early as 1933 offered to sell the Chinese Eastern railway. After prolonged negotiations, an agreement was signed in March 1935 for the sale of the railway by the Soviet Union to Manchukuo for 140 million yen. This step was evidence of the Soviet Union's sincere desire to eliminate sources of friction and conflict in the Far East. But the war party in Japan was very strong. While Foreign Minister Hirota was making speeches about peace, the leaders of the army issued instructions for new provocations along the Soviet border, for arrests and beatings of Soviet citizens in Harbin, Mukden and other cities. Not a week passed without some incident on the border.
In the fall of 1935, those seeking to provoke war forced a number of battles on Soviet border units (in the Grodekovo area). Even more serious clashes occurred on the border between Manchukuo and the Mongolian People's Republic.
On March 12, 1936, the USSR and Mongolia signed a protocol on mutual assistance; the two countries undertook, in the event of an attack on one of the signatories, to assist each other in every way possible, including militarily. The next important act by the Soviet government in the Far East was the signing of a non-aggression treaty with China in August, 1937. The conclusion of a friendly agreement between the Soviet Union and China, which a month and a half before had been attacked again by Japan, was an important demonstration of the socialist state's sympathy for the victim of the Japanese militarists. The Soviet government firmly protested against the barbaric methods of warfare employed by the Japanese command, particularly against the bombing of Chinese cities. In 1938 and 1939, the Soviet Union provided China with loans worth 250 million dollars. In delivering on this account, the USSR provided struggling China in 1938 and 1939 alone with around 600 planes, 1 thousand artillery pieces and howitzers, 8 thousand machine guns and other war materiel. More than 100 Soviet volunteer aviators perished defending the freedom and independence of the Chinese people.
In the summer of 1938, the Japanese military decided to undertake a major adventurist act against the USSR. Units of the Japanese army crossed the Soviet border in the area around lake Khasan, but after desperate fighting, in which aircraft took part, they were beaten back by units of the Red Army and retreated to Manchurian territory.
The members of the "anti-Comintern pact" unleashed their aggression in various parts of Europe and Asia. On March 15, 1939, the Hitlerites occupied all of Czechoslovakia. On March 21, they demanded that Poland hand over Danzig to Germany. The next day, German troops entered the Lithuanian province of Klaipeda. At the end of the month, after almost three years of heroic struggle, the Spanish Republic fell. A few days later, Mussolini's troops seized Albania. The acts of aggression by the fascist powers came one after another. But Britain and France continued to believe that Hitler would move on the East.
It was said in French government circles that it was necessary to let Germany steal onto the sands of the Danube, she would then begin war with Russia---let the two countries have it out with each other.
260Soviet diplomacy did not give up hope even in these circumstances. On March 18, 1939, the Soviet government voiced its attitude to the German seizure of Czechoslovakia in a special note to the German ambassador in Moscow, von Schulenburg. "The actions of the German government,'' the note read, "can be termed nothing other than arbitrary, violent and aggressive.'' The Soviet Union declared that it did not recognize the annexation of Czechoslovak territory to the German empire. On the same day, the Soviet government proposed the convocation of a conference of states threatened by German attack---Great Britain, France, Romania, Poland, Turkey and the USSR---to discuss the question of combatting aggression.
However, the British politicians answered that they considered such a conference premature. Yet the Hitlerites' seizure of all of Czechoslovakia and new acts of aggression created serious difficulties for the British and French supporters of the Munich pact. The actions of the fascist aggressors in the spring of 1939 precipitated massive indignation in Britain and France. These actions showed the British and French peoples the sort ``peace'' that Chamberlain and Daladier had brought from Munich. Public opinion insistently demanded that aggression be repulsed. The most farsighted segment of the British bourgeoisie, headed by Churchill, understood that Hitler could deceive his fellow participants in the Munich deal and move towards the West rather than the East. It was felt in government circles in London and Paris that a gesture to the USSR could strengthen their position in the forthcoming negotiations with Hitler's government. Hitler's decision with respect to Transcarpathian Ukraine also influenced the mood of those who supported the Munich pact. For several months after the Munich deal, the reactionary press openly discussed plans for turning this territory into the nucleus of a future "Great Ukraine" under German domination; Hitler's turning over Transcarpathian Ukraine to Hungary on March 16 was taken as evidence of a postponement of the campaign in the East and caused confusion among those who supported Munich.
In mid-April, 1939, the governments of Britain and France proposed that the Soviet government guarantee the integrity of Poland and Romania in the event of German aggression. This proposal was made after Churchill's statement in Parliament on the Anglo-French guarantees to Poland and Romania.
Despite bitter experience in preceding years, the Soviet government decided to make one more attempt to create a front of peaceful powers and proposed that negotiations be begun towards the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact. The British and French governments agreed to negotiate, but from the very beginning of the negotiations they tried to put the Soviet Union in an unequal position. They hoped to use Soviet aid in the event that Hitler turned west or struck at Poland and Romania, but they did not want to oblige themselves with respect to other areas where new acts of aggression might occur (in particular, they gave no guarantees to the Baltic countries, as though opening a broad corridor for the advance of the German army to the borders of the Soviet Union).
The Soviet government made counterproposals:
1) the conclusion of a trilateral mutual assistance pact among the Soviet Union, Britain and France;~
2612) the conclusion of a military convention to reinforce this pact;~
3) the guarantee of all states bordering on the Soviet Union, from the Baltic to the Black seas.
These proposals, offered on April 17, were meant to create a powerful coalition capable of averting aggression.
In the tense situation of those days, every hour was precious. But the British and French governments made no effort at haste. Their consultations lasted three weeks, and when they had at long last prepared their response, it turned out that they were interested only in Soviet guarantees of Poland and Romania.
The Soviet Union could not agree to this proposal and took a firm stand, insisting on the conclusion of a trilateral mutual assistance pact. At the end of May, the British government finally agreed to the pact. At the same time, it set forth unacceptable conditions for agreement. The British draft was so drawn as to oblige the Soviet Union to go to war in the event of an attack on any country guaranteed by Britain and France (Poland, Romania, Greece); at the same time, the draft again left the Baltic states defenseless, and the Soviet Union was vitally interested in guaranteeing their integrity. The very provision of assistance was made dependent upon a decision of the League of Nations, though it was well known that the slowness and cumbersome procedure of this organization had many times been used by aggressors in their own interests.
The Soviet government therefore presented its own draft on June 2. It called for immediate assistance to each other by France, Britain and the Soviet Union if they were involved in war in the event of:
1) an attack by a European power on one of the three states;
2) an attack on any one of eight countries: Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland;
3) aid given by one of the three states to another European state that requested such aid in order to oppose the violation of its neutrality. The Soviet draft did not link implementation of the pact to decisions by the League of Nations.
To speed up the negotiations and signing of the pact, the Soviet government invited the British Foreign Minister, Halifax, to Moscow. But Halifax could not find time for the journey. In early July, Prime Minister Chamberlain told one of his ministers that he had not yet lost hope of avoiding signing this pact. This statement became known to the Soviet ambassador in London. Nevertheless, the Soviet government continued its determined struggle to create an anti-Hitler coalition.
On July 23, the Soviet government proposed that negotiations be begun in Moscow between the military representatives of the three powers and that specific measures be worked out for coordinating the actions of their armed forces. Britain and France agreed to send their military missions. However, behind the scenes British diplomacy had in July begun negotiations with German representatives for the resolution of all outstanding questions through the division of spheres of influence between the two countries.
Documents testifying to these treacherous actions by the British government became known only many years later. However, the true position of the Western powers was already clear in the spring and summer of 1939. Despite the fact that the situation demanded that 262 immediate measures be taken, London and Paris continued to draw out the negotiations. From the time that the Soviet government proposed that military negotiations be begun till the arrival of British and French military delegations in Moscow, 19 days elapsed.
Finally, on August 12, negotiations began in Moscow. It became apparent unexpectedly that the British representatives were not authorized to conduct negotiations or sign an agreement. This scornful attitude to the negotiations was emphasized, too, by the fact that the delegations were headed by persons who by no means could be considered as leading military figures: the head of the British delegation, Reginald Drax, was a retired Admiral, the leader of the French mission, General Doumenc, was not among the major French military figures, either. The Soviet government's delegation included military men of the highest rank. It was headed by the People's Commissar for Defense, Marshal K. Y. Voroshilov, and included the Chief of the General Staff, the People's Commissar for the Navy and the Commander of the Air Force.
The Soviet side presented a detailed military plan for the joint operations of the armed forces of the USSR, Britain and France against an aggressor. Under this plan, the Red Army was to move against an aggressor in Europe 136 divisions, 5 thousand heavy artillery pieces, 9 to 10 thousand tanks and 5 to 5.5 thousand combat planes. The British delegation stated that in the event of war Britain would at first send to the continent a total of only 6 divisions.
The Soviet Union did not have a common frontier with Germany. Consequently, it could help to repell Hitler's aggression only if the allies of Britain and France---Poland and Romania---would permit the passage of Soviet troops through their territory. Yet neither the English nor the French did anything to persuade the Polish and Romanian governments to agree to the passage of Soviet troops. Quite to the contrary, the members of the military delegations of the Western powers were cautioned by their own governments that this question, crucial to the entire affair, must not be discussed in Moscow.
The Anglo-French delegations consciously sabotaged and drew out the negotiations. From the documents published after the war, it became known that the British government's instructions to its delegation were to conduct the negotiations slowly and not to assume any obligations "which are likely to tie our hands in all circumstances''. The British delegation was "to attempt to confine the military agreement to the most general possible terms''. The Soviet government had every reason to fear a new Munich, this time aimed directly against the Soviet Union. It saw that Britain and France, which had signed a number of wide-ranging agreements with Hitler between 1935 and 1938, could sign one more agreement and create a united front of bourgeois powers against the Soviet state.
War might begin in Europe any day. In the Far East, the Red Army had already been drawn into a major battle with Japanese troops who in May of 1939 invaded the Mongolian People's Republic, linked to the Soviet Union through a mutual assistance pact. The Soviet Union could be involved in a war on two fronts. The Western powers calculated up to the last minute that the fascist states would begin a war against the 263 Soviet Union. Britain, France and the United States would in that event be safely on the sidelines and could at a moment suitable for them enter the war with fresh forces and dictate their terms to the exhausted combatants. The Soviet government's immediate obligation was to free the country from this danger and save the achievements of the first socialist revolution.
The German government, which at this time feared that its military and economic resources were inadequate to crush the Soviet Union, proposed that Germany and the Soviet Union conclude a non-aggression pact. In the new situation that had arisen as a result of the actual failure of the negotiations with Britain and France, the Soviet Union, threatened with isolation, was compelled to accept the German proposal. On August 23, 1939, a Soviet-German non-aggression pact was signed. The policy of those who had gone to Munich collapsed completely. The fact that the Soviet Union had at this point no other alternative was recognized by many bourgeois political figures. Ending the conflict with Japan in September, the Soviet Union gained a breathing spell and the opportunity to prepare better for the future, inevitable clash with fascism.
The treaty with Hitlerite Germany was not a desirable step for the Soviet government, but thanks to British and French policy it was the only way out of the serious and dangerous situation that had taken shape by the end of the summer of 1939.
__*_*_*__On September 1, 1939, Hitlerite Germany attacked Poland and began the Second World War. The governments of Britain and France could no longer stand on the sidelines. The masses in these countries were outraged by the expansion of German aggression, which had begun to threaten them directly. And the political leaders of Britain and France themselves understood that they had reached the limit in their concessions to the aggressor. These countries' status as great powers was already at stake, as was the future of their enormous colonial empires. There was nowhere left to retreat. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. War thus began among the bourgeois countries themselves, while the Soviet Union remained for the time being outside the world war.
The Polish army and people put up a brave resistance to the Hitlerite troops. But the forces were unequal. The fascist army invading Poland advanced rapidly eastwards. Polish bourgeois-landlord state was about to collapse.
Given the threat to the population of the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, Soviet troops on September 17 crossed the Soviet-Polish frontier and, moving westwards, "reached a line that approximated the Curzon Line. A limit was set to the advance of the German troops.
The necessity and justice of this act by the Soviet Union was recognized even by so anti-Soviet a bourgeois figure as Winston Churchill. He stated that the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, occupied by Soviet troops, were absolutely essential to Russia's security against the fascist threat. By moving 200 to 300 kilometers to the west, 264 the Red Army not only saved around 13 million Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Poles from Hitlerite slavery, it also added distance to the strategic boundary from which the Hitlerite army could begin an offensive against the vital centers of the Soviet Union.
With the flames of war raging through most of Europe, the Soviet government had to take urgent action to strengthen the defenses of its western borders. Yet there were no few weak links there. The leaders of the Baltic states---Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Finland--- took a sharply anti-Soviet position; the Finnish government, in particular, undertook major military construction along the very borders of the Soviet Union---32 kilometers from Leningrad. It is not without interest that in building military bases along the Soviet borders, the Baltic countries and Finland were aided by both warring sides: money, military materiel and instructors came from both Britain and France and from Germany.
In September, 1939, the Soviet government proposed to the three Baltic countries the conclusion of mutual assistance treaties. After negotiations, Soviet-Estonian, Soviet-Lithuanian and Soviet-Latvian treaties were signed at the end of September and the beginning of October. They called for mutual assistance of all kinds, military included, in the event of attack or threat of attack by any of the European great powers. The Soviet Union obtained the right to establish naval bases and airfields in Estonia and Latvia, and the right to station land and air forces at certain points in Lithuania. Under the treaty with Lithuania, the Soviet Union returned to the Lithuanian Republic its ancient capital of Vilnius and Vilnius Region, seized in 1920 by Polish troops and freed in September, 1939, by the Red Army.
On October 11, negotiations began with Finland at Soviet initiative. The Soviet government proposed that the border between the two countries on the Karelian Isthmus be moved 20 to 30 kilometers back into Finland. In return, the Soviet government agreed to give Finland twice as much territory in Soviet Karelia. The soviet delegation sought Finland's agreement to the establishment of a naval base at the northern entrance to the Gulf of Finland in order to secure Leningrad from the sea. However, the Finnish leaders, encouraged by promises of support from the governments of the great powers, rejected these quite moderate Soviet proposals.
The collapse of the negotiations was accompanied by stepped-up anti-Soviet propaganda in Finland; a number of incidents occurred on the Soviet-Finnish border. The Soviet government sought persistently to settle them peacefully. But the imperialists of the Western countries pushed the Finnish reactionaries into a war against the USSR. On November 30, 1939, the government of Finland officially declared war on the Soviet Union. On the initiative of Britain and France, the League of Nations, which throughout its history had never expelled a single genuine aggressor out of the organization, hastily expelled the Soviet Union in connection with the Soviet-Finnish conflict.
On the Western front, Britain and France, after the beginning of the world war, did nothing---this was the "phony war'', hardly an accidental episode in the Second World War. Some of those who had inspired the Munich deal still hoped that it would be possible for the bourgeois 265 countries to come to an agreement for a joint struggle against the Soviet Union. This was shown very clearly during the Soviet-Finnish conflict, when England and France were extremely active. These two countries alone sent Finland 280 military aircraft, 686 field pieces, hundreds of thousands of shells, and so on.
In mid-March, an Anglo-French expeditionary force was to come to Finland's aid. The American government, 12 days after the beginning of military operations, gave Finland a large loan. The New York Times predicted on December 30, 1939, that the Soviet-Finnish war could quite possibly lead to the creation of a united front against the Soviet Union. But these plans were not fated to be realized. In the second half of February and the beginning of March, the Red Army broke through strong Finnish fortifications and emerged into an area giving broad scope for military operations. The road to Helsinki lay open. But the Soviet government did not take advantage of its military advances to occupy Finland or impose onerous peace terms upon it. Under the terms of peace treaty signed on March 12, 1940, the border was moved several dozen kilometers back into Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and in some other areas. This strengthened the security of Leningrad, Murmansk and the Murmansk Railway. The Soviet Union obtained the right to set up a naval base on the Hanko Peninsula, at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland. The peninsula was leased to the Soviet Union by Finland for 30 years in return for an annual payment of 8 million Finnish marks.
Meanwhile, the situation in Europe took a serious turn for the worse. In April of 1940, Hitler's army seized Denmark and Norway. Sweden was directly threatened. On April 13, the Soviet government handed a special statement to the German ambassador in Moscow, von Schulenburg, stating that the Soviet Union was concerned that Sweden's neutrality not be violated. Germany, not wishing at this point to aggravate relations with the Soviet Union, was forced to reckon with this warning.
On May 9, German troops invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg simultaneously, occupying these countries within several days and, bypassing the fortifications along the French Maginot line, on May 21 emerged on the coast of English Channel. Fascist Italy entered the war on the side of Germany. France was crushed and capitulated. The remnants of the British expeditionary force saved themselves through flight. Almost all of Central and Western Europe was in the hands of the Hitlerites. Seeking world hegemony, they plundered and enslaved the peoples of the countries they had occupied. These peoples were threatened with total or partial physical destruction. Countries with a total population of around 220 million were under the direct control of the German and Italian fascists by the summer of 1940. The resources of the occupied countries were applied to the rapid expansion and strengthening of the German military machine.
Given the defeat of France and the liquidation of the front in Western Europe, the danger of Hitlerite aggression in the East rose sharply.
In the summer of 1940, Hitler signed an order for preparing an attack on the USSR. A trilateral pact among Germany, Italy and Japan was signed to consolidate the forces of the fascist powers.
The intention of Germany to turn its aggression towards Southeast 266 and Eastern Europe, to move against the USSR, became obvious immediately after the fall of France. In October of 1940, the Hitlerites moved their troops into Romania. In Berlin and in the capitals of the Danube countries, lively negotiations were carried on for linking Hungary, Slovakia and Romania to the pact of the three powers.
The Soviet government decided to attempt to elucidate the further intentions of the rulers of Germany and to obstruct the extention of German aggression in the Balkans. For this purpose, representatives of the Soviet government carried on negotiations in Berlin with the leaders of Hitlerite Germany for two days in the middle of November. No agreement of any sort emerged from these negotiations.
Less than two weeks after the Berlin negotiations, on November 25, the Soviet government proposed to the Bulgarian government the conclusion of a pact of friendship and mutual assistance. The Bulgarian government rejected this proposal. In January, 1941, in connection with a report on the transfer of German troops to Bulgaria, the Soviet government stated that if the report were true, "this occurred without the knowledge or agreement of the USSR....'' On January 17, the Soviet government told the German ambassador, von Schulenburg, that it considered the eastern Balkans part of the USSR's security zone and could not remain indifferent to events that threatened this security. When Bulgaria gave official agreement to the introduction of German troops into the country, the Soviet government expressed in a special statement its negative attitude to this step and emphasized that the position of the Bulgarian government "will lead not to the strengthening of peace, but to the expansion of the theater of war".
In March of 1941, the Soviet government stated that if Turkey were subjected to attack, it could "count on the complete understanding and neutrality of the USSR".
When the threat of a German attack hung over Yugoslavia, the Soviet government demonstratively gave her aid and on April 5, 1941, one day before German troops invaded Yugoslav territory, signed an agreement on peace and non-aggression with the Yugoslav government. The Soviet Union sharply condemned the Hungarian government for participating in the attack on Yugoslavia.
But despite the Soviet government's efforts to block the expansion of the war in Europe, the aggression of the Hitlerites spread rapidly. With Yugoslavia occupied, large German forces invaded Greece and, after heavy fighting, reached its southern coast.
The Hitlerites and their allies held almost all of continental Europe, with the exception of the USSR and some small countries. The military forces freed from the Balkans were transferred by the German command to the borders of the Soviet Union.
An important achievement of Soviet foreign policy in these months was the conclusion of a neutrality pact with Japan (April, 1941), which for a certain period added to the Soviet Union's security in the Far East and thwarted the plans for a simultaneous attack on the USSR from the west and east.
The Soviet government did everything it could to avert war. But war, the most sanguinary and difficult in the history of the country, was already approaching her borders.
267 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Five __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE GREAT TRANSFORMATIONS IN THEThe October Revolution and Cultural Progress. Eliminating Illiteracy. Creating a New School. The Emergence of a Socialist Intelligentsia. Literature and Art Belong to the People.
The October Revolution and Cultural Progress. = Building a socialist society necessarily presupposes fundamental revolutionary transformations in the area of culture, in the entire sistem of values. These profound and most significant social transformations known as cultural revolution bring into being a qualitatively new type of culture serving the interests of the people.
V. I. Lenin developed the program of cultural revolution for the world's first workers' and peasants' state. He viewed cultural revolution as a new era in cultural development for all working people, and as the most important condition for building socialism. In Lenin's words, Soviet power had to make up for a cultural debt of many centuries in a matter of years, a matter of decades.
The building of a socialist culture entailed drawing upon all the achievements of Russian and world culture and putting them at the service of the working people. It was necessary to absorb the whole cultural heritage bequeathed by capitalism --- all the science, technology, all the knowledge and art---for without this it would have been impossible to build a new society with a socialist culture appropriate to it.
The cultural revolution in the USSR had general and specific features. The Soviet people were charting an unknown course. The country had inherited from old Russia a cultural backwardness encompassing millions of the working masses. Most of the non-Russian peoples in the country were at the stage of pre-capitalistic development before the October Revolution. But there were also conditions conducive to the swift cultural progress by the working masses, above all the cultural awakening of the workers and peasants, and the leadership of the Communist Party. Taking note of this historic fact, Lenin wrote: "There is a mighty urge for light and knowledge 'down below', that is to say, among the mass of working people whom capitalism had been hypocritically cheating out of an education and depriving of it by open violence. We can be proud that we are promoting and fostering = this urge."^^1^^
For the first time in history, cultural and scientific advances --- all the treasures of the human spirit---became the property of the people. And _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 127.
268 the possibility of turning human talent into a source of exploitation was barred for all time. The spread of learning among the masses gave form to a genuinely scientific view of the world.As Lenin conceived it cultural revolution based on profound socio-economic transformations was not an instantaneous leap from backwardness to the summits of civilization, but a gradual, long-term process of transforming social consciousness and the way of life, an entire era in which the substantial gap between mental and physical labor could be closed. As a result of the cultural revolution, a new, socialist culture --- one of the necessary preconditions for building communism--- has been created.
The Communist Party has shown, and history has demonstrated, that the overthrow of bourgeois rule and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat is an indispensable prerequisite for the true cultural progress of the masses, and for the creation of a qualitatively new culture. This is a law for all countries and peoples effecting fundamental cultural transformations, who are turning all the accomplishments of science and culture from weapons of capitalism into weapons of socialism.
Fundamental changes in the cultural life of Soviet working people began immediately after the overthrow of the landowner and capitalist order. The October Revolution opened the way for a cultural revolution of tremendous scale, a revolution based on, and in constant interaction with, economic revolution.
Successful implementation of the cultural tasks facing the Soviet Republic required, above all, the eradication of the remnants of feudalism and national oppression, the emancipation of women and the elimination of mass illiteracy among the adult population. It also required the establishment of a new system of education appropriate for a socialist system, the raising of the general educational level of the masses, the formation of a people's intelligentsia. And it demanded that science, the arts and literature be maximally developed and put in service to the building of socialism.
No few prophets and theorists who called themselves Marxists proclaimed, on the eve of the October Revolution, that unless a specific level of culture could be attained the proletariat would be unable to carry out the political and social overturn and build a new society. They maintained that working people would not be able to develop culture and govern the state due to their lack of culture.
After the October Revolution, the foes of the Soviet power proclaimed the end of civilization and culture in Russia. They slandered the new order, calling it a triumph of ignorant, uncivilized forces. The reactionary and bourgeois-liberal press depicted Bolsheviks as barbarians capable only of destroying, squandering the artistic riches of the country and obliterating its cultural wealth. All this was hypocrisy and falsehood.
The revolutionary masses resolutely opposed any destruction of national cultural monuments and historical artistic treasures. It was not they who were to blame for the fact that some destruction did occur. The true culprits of the destruction and loss of many of the country's cultural treasures were the landowners, factory owners, and major 269 merchants and officials who had been overthrown by the revolution. As a rule, they did all they could to rob the people of cultural treasures. They often ruined or damaged what they could not hide or sell abroad.
Even the first months after the victory of Soviet power showed that in Russia's centuries-long history there had been no such concerned and devoted caretakers of cultural wealth as the new masters of the country --- workers and peasants.
The young Republic of Soviets was surrounded by enemies. Rebellions flared up, the economy was devastated and typhoid and hunger raged in many regions. But even under these circumstances the Bolsheviks demonstrated their great concern for culture. All the important monuments of Russian culture were put under the protection of the state: theaters and museums, old estates and castles, palaces and parks, art galleries and ancient cathedrals, libraries and academies, collections of historical artefacts, laboratories, etc. By decree of the Council of People's Commissars it was forbidden to take cultural treasures out of the country; the government allocated considerable sums for the needs of culture. Local Soviets and revolutionary military committees safeguarded whatever was deemed historically valuable. At the suggestion of the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana, the Council of People's Commissars placed Yasnaya Polyana, estate of the writer Lev Tolstoi, under government protection. At the demands of local residents a number of estates in the outlying areas of Moscow at Kuskovo, Ostankino, Arkhangelskoye, and elsewhere --- were also deemed part of the national heritage. Measures were taken to preserve architectural monuments such as the palace of the former Baryatinsky princes in the Ivanovo Province, .the house in Tarkhany where the poet M. Yu. Lermontov had lived, and the home in Chembary in which V.G.Belinsky, the outstanding 19th-century literary critic, was born.
On November 4, 1917, the Commissariat for Education published the appeal "To the Workers, Peasants, Soldiers, Sailors and to All Citizens of Russia'', urging them to protect their cultural heritage. The Commission on Museums and the Preservation of Artistic and Historical Monuments, set up by the Soviet government, assumed the main role in the preservation of cultural treasures. An important role was also played by the Council of People's Commissars' decree on the registration and preservation of artistic and historical monuments owned by individuals, societies and institutions. The owners were given special warrants.
On the basis of revolutionary decrees, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage, the Shchukin collection, the Museum of the Academy of Arts,-the palace of Count Sheremetev (the Ostankino Museum), the Moscow and Petrograd conservatories, among others, were proclaimed national treasures.
The Soviet state took energetic steps to democratize cultural life abolishing all institutions that were reactionary and against the people's interests and creating new organs to supervise the cultural life of the republic.
Of particular significance was the Communist Party's program for eliminating vestiges of feudalism from daily life and for guaranteeing the 270 unfettered cultural development of the Soviet peoples. The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Council of People's Commissars on November 2, 1917, abolished privileges enjoyed by some nationalities and proclaimed all peoples equal and sovereign. As the Declaration stated, "All that is living and life-asserting is henceforth to be liberated from hateful bondage."
The publication of the appeal "To All the Working Moslems of Russia and the East" was followed shortly afterwards by the "Decree on the Abolition of Social Classification and Civil Ranks'', and some other decrees of the Soviet Republic, that underscored the equal rights of all working people. For the supervision of the cultural advancement of non-Russian peoples, Soviets created a network of national cultural and educational departments.
The October Revolution put an end to the inequality of women for all time. All the degrading legislative traces of female inequality were swept away and new legislation was adopted to bring women into cultural life and into the building of socialism.
The Soviet state made great efforts to see that the riches of culture and science were accessible to all the peoples of Russia. The doors of schools and libraries, museums and theaters, institutes and laboratories, art galleries and clubs were flung wide open to workers and to poor peasants. Tuition fees were quickly abolished and scholarships for students at colleges and technical schools began to be provided. From its first days, the Soviet Republic began to create conditions for the cultural progress of the peoples that had previously been oppressed, peoples that henceforth had the right to attend schools in which instruction was conducted in their own languages.
Cultural and educational work was carried out on a vast scale because the revolution demanded that workers and peasants be well informed and that they take a conscious part in political life. With this in mind, measures were adopted to create a truly popular press. The "Decree on Freedom of the Press" of November 9, 1917, was the first resolution of the Council of People's Commissars; it was signed by Lenin as head of the people's government.
Despite meager supplies of paper and sabotage by many pressmen, the press-run of newspapers was quite large for those days. In 1918 alone, the press-run of Pravda reached 25 million copies.
Printing newspapers was not enough by itself, however, for it was necessary to bring their content and ideas to every individual, even to the illiterate citizens of the republic. In this, the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of December 10, 1919, was of significant assistance. The decree called for the mobilization of literate persons to inform the population about the essence of the Soviet system and about the measures enacted by, and the policies of, the workers' and peasants' government. For this purpose, literate adults, aged 16 to 50, were mobilized. In province and other Party committees, special groups of agitators were formed to distribute literature in the countryside. When setting off for rural areas, Communists were obligated to take books, magazines, and newspapers. Cultural educational work took place in village reading rooms, in people's universities, libraries and clubs as well as through mobile forms of mass agitation 271 such as agitation boats and trains, travelling libraries, "Red vehicles'', and so on. And, as a rule, the newspapers, magazines and brochures were distributed free of charge.
Extraordinary measures were demanded of the Soviet state to satisfy the thirst for knowledge that the revolution had awakened among the people. Between May 1918 and May 1919 alone, the literature section of the Commissariat for Education published 115 titles drawn from literary works of the classics; the number of copies printed was six million---this despite the country's "paper famine"!
The Soviet state also set up radio broadcasting network. On Lenin's instructions, construction of a central radiotelephone station was begun in Moscow once the Civil War had ended. On January 27, 1921, the Council of People's Commissars published a decree on the construction of a radiotelephone system.
The young proletarian state did everything possible to improve the living conditions of its citizens. The families of workers were moved out of damp, dark basements and hovels into well-built houses that had earlier belonged to factory owners, landowners, merchants and the clergy. On Lenin's initiative, a number of important state decrees were adopted to combat the problem of homeless orphans. By decision of the government, social insurance, labor protection and free medical care were introduced.
In November 1920, the Main Department for Political Education was set up under the RSFSR Commissariat for Education to take charge of the massive work in cultural and political education. N. K. Krupskaya, a Marxist theoretician on pedagogy and one of the leading organizers of public education, headed the new department. By the end of 1920, the country had approximately 34 thousand village reading rooms and a large number of public libraries and clubs.
Children's homes were founded, and thousands of children found shelter in them.
The culture of the Soviet state was based on the utilization and critical reassessment of all the progressive elements of national and world culture. Proletkult theories were = denounced.^^1^^ The adherents of a "purely proletarian culture" denied the importance of past culture and did not recognize the participation of the peasantry in the building of a new culture. Opposing this negation of the cultural heritage, Lenin emphasized: "Proletarian culture must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist, landowner and bureaucratic = society."^^2^^ Lenin proposed the extensive use be made of the bourgeois intelligentsia in the service of the Soviet system. Many of them began to work in the national economy, to carry out cultural and educational work among the masses and to serve in the Red Army.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Proletkult (proletarian culture) was a cultural and educational organization that was formed in Russia in September. 1917. Proletkult theorists (A. Bogdanov, V. Pletnev, et al.) denied the cumulative development of culture and preached the creation of a new, "purely proletarian culture" by the working class, a culture free of all elements of past culture.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 287.
272 Society's culture could not be completely restructured quickly. The
creation of a new culture in the huge territory of the former tsarist
empire, and particularly in backward regions, was far from an easy task.
The Civil War and intervention that began soon after the October
Revolution immeasurably increased the difficulties in the realm of
cultural development. The Soviet state above all lacked material
resources, economic and scientific personnel and teachers. Educational
institutions were in dire need of premises, fuel and school supplies.
However, these hindrances could not halt the aspiration for knowledge
on the part of millions of working people. And their first efforts were
directed toward overcoming the most serious and shameful aspect of
their past heritage---mass illiteracy among adults.
~
Eliminating Illiteracy. = In its level of literacy, pre-revolutionary Russia was one of the most backward countries in Europe. Particularly disgraceful was the situation among non-Russian nationalities: illiteracy among Tajiks was 99.5 percent, among the Kirghiz 99.4 percent, Yakuts 99.3 percent, Turkmen 99.3 percent, Uzbek 98.4 percent. The journal The Education Herald had predicted in 1906 that should the then current rate of development of social culture in Russia persist, it would take 180 years before there would be universal literacy among men and 280 years among women! The tsarist state had allocated only meager resources to education. On the eve of the revolution, far less money was spent in Russia on the construction of educational institutions than on the building and repair of prisons.
This situation was fundamentally altered after the landowners and capitalists had been thrown out of power: the struggle to eliminate illiteracy was proclaimed a top priority state concern. On December 26, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars published the "Decree on the Liquidation of Illiteracy among the Population of the RSFSR''. The decree, which was signed by Lenin, stated that "for the purpose of giving the entire population of the republic the opportunity to participate creatively in the political life of the country, the Council of People's Commissars has resolved that all citizens of the republic, from eight to fifty years of age, who are unable to read and write are obliged to study reading and writirig in their own language or in Russian, as they wish."
In the difficult conditions of Civil War and economic devastation, the Soviet state set up an extensive network of educational institutions. The illiterate studied at state expense and were freed from daily activities at work two hours early without loss of pay. In addition to teachers, thousands of students, white and blue collar workers, peasants, and scholars volunteered for the struggle against ignorance. The fight to overcome illiteracy was carried out on a vast scale in the Red Army.
On July 19, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars set up under the Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR an All-Russia Extraordinary Commission for the Liquidation of Illiteracy. In the fall of 1923, a mass volunteer Society to End Illiteracy was created; it was headed by M.I. Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18--161 273The network of centers for the liquidation of illiteracy faced immense difficulties. In many villages it was impossible to find primers, paper, pencils or pens. Teachers and the pupils themselves had to show great resourcefulness to continue their studies. At times, slate and charcoal were used instead of pencils, while beet-root extract, soot, or cranberry juice served as ink.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Soviet government and V.I. Lenin took pains to create the necessary conditions for those working to end illiteracy. They did everything possible to supply schools and reading circles with at least a minimum of writing materials. Lenin thought constantly of raising the cultural level of the people.
In the first decade of Soviet power, up to 10 million adults learned to read and write. This was a tremendous achievement. However, the weight of the past was too great. Many millions of illiterates still remained in the country. In its level of literacy, the USSR ranked no higher than 19th in Europe.
The decisive stage in overcoming cultural backwardness came during the years of the first five-year plan (1928--1932), when the drive for universal literacy spread to all corners of the country. The resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of May 17, 1929, again directed the attention of all Communists and of the Soviet public to the __CAPTION__ At a literacy class. The 1920s. [274] urgent necessity for the liquidation of illiteracy and outlined concrete steps to deal with this complex problem.
Heeding the Leninist call, young people, led by the Komsomol,
initiated a nationwide cultural campaign. The motto---"Literate --- teach
the illiterate!" was taken up by the entire Soviet public. Volunteer
teachers taught over 34 million persons to read and write, for free. It was
hard to find a village in the country where people were not bending over
primers, learning to read and write. Even those peoples who had had no
written language of their own before the revolution became literate.
During the years of the second and third five-year plans, illiteracy among
the adult population of the Soviet Union was for all practical purposes
eliminated. By 1940, 50 to 60 million persons in the country had been
taught to read and to write. Thus, in an unprecedentedly short time the
task of achieving universal literacy in the USSR had basically been
completed.
~
Creating a New School. = However great the successes in teaching the adult population, it was impossible to achieve universal literacy without simultaneously extending schooling to the entire younger generation. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to create a new general school based on modern pedagogical science. Now that the power was in the hands of the people, the old system of education naturally could no longer be __CAPTION__ The school doors opened to women. The Uzbek SSR. [275] deemed satisfactory, since it rested on the class principles, on the inequality of the sexes, and on the opperession of non-Russian nationalities. At the same time, however, the Communist Party considered it essential to draw upon everything of value in the pre-revolutionary school. From the very first, the people's power set itself the task of fundamentally transforming the entire system of public education so as to create a unified school system for working people. The supervision of all cultural activity and schools in the republic was undertaken by the People's Commissariat for Education, headed by A. V. Lunacharsky.
One of the most important steps in democratizing the educational system was the decree of the Council of People's Commissars, signed by Lenin, on "The Separation of the Church from the State and the School from the Church''. Education became secular; all educational institutions were placed under the authority of the Commissariat for Education. Joint classes of both sexes were conducted; the curriculum was revised, unsatisfactory textbooks were discarded, and a new orthography was introduced. A special resolution of the Commissariat for Education, "On Schools for Minority Nationalities'', gave equal rights to all schools in the educational system.
The 1918 Constitution of the RSFSR gave the masses of workers and peasants the right to a "full, harmonious and free education" in law. The resolution of the ARCEC of October 16, 1918, "On a Single School System for Working People'', proclaimed schools open to all the peoples of the republic. In the place of the former gymnasiums, institutes, zemstvo, and various types of religious and parochial schools a new integrated school system was established, consisting of two levels: 1) for students of eight to thirteen years of age; 2) for students up to seventeen years of age. The new system was to prepare the younger generation for productive labor in indu$try and agriculture, to turn young men and women into conscious builders of socialist society.
At first there were many serious difficulties, chief among them the lack of teaching personnel. The creation of the new school in the non-Russian borderlands was hindered by the general economic and cultural backwardness of the local population, by the absence of a written language among some peoples, and by the active opposition of the clergy and bourgeois nationalists. But no difficulties could hinder the irrepressible aspiration of the peoples for knowledge. Many of the best representatives of the Party were engaged in the educational campaign.
Within the first three years of Soviet power alone, 13 thousand new schools were opened. Many students were provided with meals and textbooks by the state. The number of girls in primary school increased significantly, especially in non-Russian areas. In Kirghizia the number of native schoolchildren increased eightfold. Twenty-three editions of primers were prepared in different languages and published in massive printings for children in non-Russian areas. Courses for teachers were begun in all the union and autonomous republics. In all, 55 pedagogical institutes were opened. In 1920, there was a total of 400 thousand teachers in all educational institutions, as against 73 thousand in 1911. The number of students rose to 1.7 million.
276From that time on, school not only provided a general education, but emparted to the children love for labor, patriotism, collectivism and friendship among peoples, and educated them in the spirit of communist ideals.
The network of professional institutions---technical secondary schools and vocational training centers --- which trained specialists and skilled workers was extensively developed even during the first decade of the Soviet power. In rural areas the state set up schools for peasant youth that provided instruction both in the general disciplines and in agronomy and livestock breeding.
The creation of the new educational system was actively hindered by class enemies, who stopped at nothing, not even terrorist acts against those who brought enlightenment and knowledge to the people. In the second half of 1929 alone, there were 213 cases in the countryside of persecution of educational personnel by kulaks. The Soviet state decisively rebuffed these reactionary intrigues. In many cases show trials of terrorists were held; the confiscated houses of criminals were turned into schools, kindergartens, and libraries.
By the end of the period of reconstruction, the problem of the masses of homeless children had been resolved. The people's state cared for thousands of young Soviet citizens who had lost their parents during the period of civil war and foreign intervention. The government kept the children from hunger and adversity, educated them, and helped them make their way in life. Among the former homeless waifs brought up in children's homes were many who have since become prominent in science, in culture, in the economy, and in the Soviet Army: Academician N. P. Dubinin; Director K. K. Ivanov, People's Artist of the USSR; General A. A. Lobachev; poet Pavel Zheleznov and many others.
With every passing year, the state increased material aid to schools and teachers, and this aid was supplemented by the efforts of the local population. In many areas a form of self-taxation was practised: working people voluntarily allocated specific sums for public education. Additionally, public meetings, especially in agricultural localities, introduced labor conscription for repairing and fitting out school premises, for fuel procurement, etc. Factory and enterprise patronage of educational institutions played a major role in strengthening public education. This patronage took the form of equipping school premises, providing fuel, supplying needy students with clothing, shoes, etc. In 1929--1930 capital expenditure on the school system exceeded allocations made in 1925--1926 more than ten times over.
The successful development of industry and agriculture facilitated the transition to universal compulsory primary education. Universal education through the fourth grade was introduced in the USSR in 1930--1931. It was a major step of the cultural revolution, providing a solid foundation for training personnel for the country's economy and culture. Moreover, a mandatory course of studies through grade seven was established for all children in cities and in workers' settlements who completed the fourth grade. All this required the construction of a large number of school buildings. Between 1933 and 1937 alone, more than 277 twenty thousand new schools --- approximately the same number built in a 200-year period in tsarist Russia---opened in the USSR.
Striking changes occurred in the non-Russian republics and territories of the USSR. In the first 15--20 years, more than forty peoples in the Russian Federation were for the first time given their own written language. In Turkmenia the number of students increased fifteen times over what it had been before the revolution; in Tajikistan the number increased 39 times and in Uzbekistan 40 times.
At the same time, the subjects and methods of teaching in schools improved dramatically. Drawing upon progressive native as well as foreign pedagogy, Soviet teachers applied much effort to developing a program of studies for the upbringing and education of the new man. The writings and speeches on pedagogy by N.K. Krupskaya, A.V. Lunacharsky, A.S. Bubnov, M.N. Pokrovsky and M.I. Kalinin enjoyed great authority and popularity among educational personnel.
Much credit must be given to those who improved the educational system, to young builders of socialism such as the talented, innovative pedagogue A.S. Makarenko, S.T. Shatsky, P.P. Blonsky and many others active in public education who were both skilled practitioners and gifted theorists. On the basis of his work as the director of children's colonies for juvenile delinquents, A.S. Makarenko worked out a well-designed system for bringing up young people to participate in labor, in the collective, and in the family. A talented writer, Makarenko vividly described his pedagogic investigations in works such as The Road to Life and Learning to Live, among others.
The Soviet state and the Communist Party devoted much attention to strengthening the bond between school and labor and production. The principles of polytechnization and the habit for independent activity useful for society were introduced in school work.
In the early 1930s, a number of resolutions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted suggestions by teachers and public figures aimed at improving the education system: "On Primary and Secondary School'', "On Curricula and Practices in Primary and Secondary Schools'', and so on. These Party and government resolutions gave direction to the reorganization of school programs so as to ensure that students would thoroughly and systematically master the fundamentals of science, and so to harmonize schooling with practical affairs.
During the second and third five-year-plan periods, universal seven-year education was introduced in rural areas. Secondary education in cities and in the countryside was significantly expanded and state expenditures for the further development of the education system were increased. Universal primary education was implemented in the USSR in a matter of four to five = years.^^1^^
By the end of the 1930s, 35 million students were in school. The number of teachers swelled in these years to 1,230 thousand, while in pre-revolutionary times the figure had barely reached 260 thousand. The _-_-_
~^^1^^ It is worthy of note that, according to an 1877 calculation by tsarist officials, universal education in Russia could be introduced only after 125 years.
278 __CAPTION__ V. I. Lenin at the unveiling of the monument to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. 1918. [279] network of pre-school institutions expanded sharply: nursery schools, kindergartens, clubs of young technicians, pioneer centers, etc. In 1939--1940 there were more than 3,730 technical secondary schools in the USSR with more than one million students, the vast majority of whom received state stipends. A dense network of educational institutions was emerging in all the non-Russian republics.By this time there were more than 13 million persons with secondary education, half of whom were women, in the USSR.
History had never before recorded so rapid a development of mass
education. The growth of Soviet general schools created in turn the
conditions for the rapid development of higher education and for
accelerated training of teaching personnel, so essential in the various
sectors of the dramatically developing economy.
~
The Emergence of a Socialist Intelligentsia. = In pre-revolutionary Russia the intelligentsia was in the main composed of people belonging to the privileged classes. Suffice it to say that on the eve of the October Revolution, 60 percent of the university students of Russia came from a non-working background. Once the working class had won political power, it faced the urgent task of attracting old-line specialists for work in the government apparatus and in the building of the economy. Lenin often stressed that, in the interest of the workers and peasants, the knowledge acquired by bourgeois specialists must be patiently studied, so that their experience could be put to use. But this was a far from simple task.
The attitude of bourgeois specialists toward the revolution was complex indeed. The conservative strata of the old intelligentsia met the October Revolution with extreme hostility and actively fought the new order. A segment of the anti-Soviet intelligentsia emigrated. It is true, however, that among the emigres there were honest people who loved their country but who could not at the time understand the earth-shaking events then transpiring. This was the fate of some of the leading figures in Russian culture; the singer F.I. Chaliapine, the composer S.V. Rachmaninov, the chess master A.A.Alekhin, the actor M.A. Chekhov, the artist A. N. Benois, among others. Many of them regretted their mistake, and a large number of emigre intellectuals returned to the USSR, including the writer A. N. Tolstoi, the composer, pianist and director S. Prokofiev, the film director Ya. A. Protazanov, the writers A. I. Kuprin and I. S. Skitalets, the poetess M. I. Tsvetayeva, the diplomat A.A. Ignatyev, and the singer A. Vertinsky, among others.
At the same time, there were among the old-line intelligentsia a number of persons who greeted the revolution with joy and from the outset joined in the creative work of the Soviet state, giving their experience, knowledge, and talent to the people. They set an example that could not but influence the mood of the bulk of the intelligentsia and drawing it closer to the workers and peasants who had gained their freedom. The shift of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia to the side of the revolution was, however, a complicated and at times difficult process. People's Artist of the USSR I.M. Moskvin later recalled: "I joyfully greeted the revolution, but when they began mercilessly to 280 __CAPTION__ A. M. Gorky. break with the old way of life, I'm sorry to say I became somewhat bewildered and lost my = bearings."^^1^^
With regard to the vacillating intellectuals, those "well-intentioned prodigal sons'', the Communist Party and the Soviet state conducted a policy of persuasion which attempted to dispel their doubts, to create an atmosphere of trust and to win them over to the side of the revolutionary state. As Lenin said: "The bourgeois intellectuals cannot be expelled and destroyed, but must be won over, remoulded, assimilated and re- = educated."^^2^^ And the best part of the intelligentsia was gradually persuaded of the need to contribute its knowledge and experience for the good of the people who were building a new life. They were persuaded by the mass movement for the acquisition of culture and knowledge that developed under Bolshevik leadership, as well as by the state's correct policy of providing the necessary conditions for work and a normal life for the intelligentsia.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Masters of the Arts---Deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, = Moscow, 1938, p. 109 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 115.
281Leading Bolsheviks and men of science and culture who had dedicated their lives to the revolution were involving the bourgeois intelligentsia in socialist construction. The great writer A.M. Gorky played an invaluable role in attracting the progressive strata of the creative intelligentsia to the side of the revolutionary order. In the early years of Soviet power, when the counterrevolution was still a threat to the republic, Gorky published his "Appeal to the People and the Laboring Intelligentsia'', in which he called for the defense of the new order that was being created in Russia by workers and peasants with the participation of the Russian democratic intelligentsia.
The intervention and the Civil War, unleashed by the imperialists, accelerated the differentiation of the intelligentsia and its shift toward cooperation with the Soviets. The intelligentsia realized that only the Bolsheviks could set Russia on the path of progress, that the Soviet power was solidly based and enjoyed nationwide support.
The Party's policy of making use of the knowledge and experience of military specialists ensured the cooperation of tens of thousands of former officers and generals with the new power. In 1918, for example, up to 75 per cent of the Red Army commanders had been military specialists under the old regime.
The careful and tactful attitude of the Communist Party towards the old-line intelligentsia called forth major shifts in its milieu and fundamental changes in its view of the world. But training personnel for the new society could not be done simply by attracting and reeducating old-line specialists. Soviet Russia needed a large number of personnel for the economy and for culture. The Soviet state began the mass training of specialists from the people literally from the first days of its existence. This was the principal route for creating a new intelligentsia.
The Soviet state boldly placed talented workers and peasants in positions of leadership. Many of them had begun work in the state apparatus and civic organizations, or had held responsible posts in the Red Army, since the first years after the revolution.
The Soviet intelligentsia was trained primarily in higher and special secondary schools. A decree of the Council of People's Commissars of August 2, 1918, which was signed by Lenin, abolished pre-revolutionary restrictions on the admission of workers and peasants to institutions of higher learning. And, at the initiative of the workers themselves, workers' faculties (rabfaks), a special type of secondary educational establishment, were set up at institutions of higher learning to prepare young working persons to enter higher education. In 1920 the RSFSR already had 32 workers' faculties in which thousands of workers and peasants studied. Not only young men and women, but adults who had previously worked in industry and agriculture also came to study in the workers' faculties. Within three to four years the students at workers' faculties completed the basic program of secondary schools.
The workers' faculties brought new blood into the Soviet system of higher education. During the period of their existence, workers' faculties prepared 2,327 thousand persons to enter higher educational institutions. This reform of higher education also facilitated a massive influx of 282 women into higher schools. In 1919, one-third of the students at Moscow University alone were women.
The development of secondary special and higher education also got under way in the union republics---the formerly backward non-Russian borderlands. In the 1920s and 1930s, dozens of vocational training centers and institutions of higher education sprang up in Byelorussia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, in the republics of Central Asia, and in the principal cities of the autonomous republics and regions. The Soviet state set up more than 100 institutes and universities in the ten non-Russian republics which, before the revolution, had not had even one institution of higher learning. Institutes of the Peoples of the North and the Peoples of the East were opened in Petrograd and Moscow.
Before 1917, there had not been a single technical secondary school in Turkmenia, Tajikistan or Kirghizia, and technical education was in sad shape in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. But by the end of the 1930s these republics had 325 special secondary institutions with 66.4 thousand students. The schools trained thousands of specialists from the local population for work in the economy.
Among the bourgeois professors, there were some who disapproved of the reform of higher education. Measures were therefore taken to convince the old-line teachers of the historical inevitability of the reform, of the necessity of honorably serving the people liberated by the revolution. At the same time, the voices of a new generation of teachers, who came from a working background and gained access to scholarship in the Soviet period, rang ever louder in the lecture halls. In 1921 the Institute of Red Professors was established to prepare teachers in the humanities.
The period of the socialist reconstruction of the country, 1926--1937, brought major advances in the training of skilled specialists. By 1933--1934, there were 714 institutions of higher education in the USSR --- almost seven times more than in tsarist Russia on the eve of the revolution.
The tremendous, historic transformations under way in the country and the policies of the Party were decisive factors in the education of the new intelligentsia. Both old-line specialists and members of the new generation worked on the socialist renovation of society. On January 26, 1934, issue of the newspaper Za industrializatsiyu (For Industrialization), Soviet engineers --- aircraft designer A.N. Tupolev; energetics specialist B.Y. Vedeneyev; the director of the Moscow subway construction project, P.B. Rotert; and chief engineer of the MoscowVolga canal project, S.Ya. Zhuk---explained why the technical intelligentsia fervently served the cause of socialism: "The joy of creating for the good of all mankind captivated us. We were enthralled by the unlimited possibility of applying our creative energies, the possibility for the most diverse and powerful technical creativity---possibilities uprecedented in the whole course of human history".
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War 80 per cent of the intelligentsia came from a working background. At this time there were more students in the Soviet Union than in twenty-two countries of Europe --- including Britain, France, Germany and Italy---taken together. In 1940--1941, 812 283 thousand persons studied in Soviet institutions of higher education. It is indicative that women made up over 50 per cent of the students in institutions of higher education, while in other European countries they accounted for only 10 per cent of the students. By the early 1940s, the Soviet intelligentsia numbered 14 million persons, representing all the nations and nationalities of the USSR.
__*_*_*__The Communist Party and the Soviet government did everything possible to develop all aspects of scientific thought and to transform past scientific achievement into the property of millions of working people. The situation that took shape in the scientific community during the first years of the young Soviet Republic was also, however, quite difficult. The greater number of scientists did not understand the October Revolution and did not wish to cooperate with the new power. The fundamental transformation of Russia, however, could not but influence their thinking. Gradually, most scientists overcame their errors and delusions with respect to the plans and undertakings of the Bolsheviks and became active builders of a new world.
The history of those days records that a great number of outstanding scientists did cast their lot with that of the revolution. Leading scientists were among the first staunchly to support the Soviet power: K.A. Timiryazev, I.P. Pavlov, A.N. Krylov, N.Ye. Zhukovsky, V.M. Bekhterev, I.V. Michurin, M.M Protodyakonov, N.D. Zelinsky, A.N. Bakh, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, and many others.
A .leading Russian follower of Darwin, K.A. Timiryazev, spoke out decisively in favor of the victorious people immediately after the October Revolution. He lectured to workers, sailors and soldiers, and in 1920 his book Science and Democracy appeared, in which he gave complete support to the Soviet power. In the same year, Timiryazev was elected a deputy to the Moscow Soviet.
Among the prominent figures in science who supported the revolution from the first was the renowned scholar and founder of physical metallurgy, O.K. Chernov. He refused to be discouraged by the want and difficult conditions of life in the Soviet Republic, which was then scourged by the flames of war. Chernov turned down the most lucrative offers from foreign industrialists and refused to board a destroyer sent especially for him by the English to Yalta, where he was then being treated in a spa. The Academician and famous lawyer A.F. Koni, a friend of Goncharov, Nekrasov and Dostoyevsky, met the October Revolution with great sympathy. Despite his age and failing health---he moved about on crutches---Koni spoke before the revolutionary masses with great animation.
Lenin knew personally many of the leading innovators in science and was familiar with their work. The Council of People's Commissars allocated a considerable amount of money for the needs of the Academy of Sciences.
The Soviet state paid particular attention to investigation of the country's natural resources. Exploratory oil drilling was begun in the area between the Volga and the Urals; work was undertaken on the 284 __CAPTION__ K. E. Tsiolkovsky. investigation of the Kursk magnetic anomaly (under the direction of Academicians P. P. Lazarev and I. M. Gubkin); geological expeditions by scholars (headed by A. Y. Fersman) travelled to the Urals, the Far East and the Kola Peninsula. Despite unprecedented devastation and wartime conditions, the worker and peasant state created a number of new research institutes, such as the Central Aero-Hydrodynamic Institute, the Physicotechnical Institute, the Institute of Roentgenology and Radiology, the Optics Institute, the Silicate Institute, the Fertilizer Institute, and established sceintific centers in the non-Russian republics. In 1919, an Academy of Sciences was founded in the Ukraine, and the outstanding mineralogist and geologist, Academician V. I. Vernadsky, became its first president. Institutes of physical therapy and sanitation and bacteriology were opened in Tashkent. During the first two years of Soviet power alone, 117 new scientific institutes were founded and a number of major discoveries were made in various disciplines.
F. A. Tsander completed successful work in the field of rocketry. An institute headed by A. K. Gastev was founded to study the scientific organization of labor. On May 25, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars passed a resolution on the organization of the Socialist Academy---the first educational establishment training Marxist social scientists.
285Leading Bolshevik scholars played a great role in the development of socialist science. Among them were A. V. Lunacharsky, the first People's Commissar for Education of the RSFSR, as well as an art critic and publicist; G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, a power engineer; V. V. Vorovsky, a literary critic; the historian M. N. Pokrovsky; the pedagogue N. K. Krupskaya; the astronomer P. K. Shternberg; the economist and historian N. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov; the physician N. A. Semashko; M. S. Olminsky, a publicist, historian and literary critic; the engineer L. B. Krasin; the jurist D. I. Kursky; A. G. Shlikhter, an agricultural economist; and 0. Yu. Shmidt, a mathematician and geographer.
The country faced tremendous difficulties, but nevertheless ,the Bolshevik Party, the government, and Lenin personally strove to create normal conditions for the work of scientists. In pecember, 1919, a special Commission for the Improvement of the Living Conditions of Academicians was set up; A. M. Gorky took an active part in the Commission. In the.hungry, devastated country, scholars were supplied with foodstuffs equivalent to Red Army rations for soldiers fighting at the front. In January, 1921, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a special resolution "On the Conditions Facilitating the Scientific Work of Academician I. P. Pavlov and His Colleagues" and on the publication of Pavlov's works.
On January 27, 1921, Lenin, with A. M. Gorky participating, spoke with delegations of leading scientists on the question of improving conditions for developing the country's scientific research. Lenin was always attentive to men in science and culture. Moreover, as a great thinker and scholar he was extremely close to their creative work; he took their bold projects to heart and was happy to exchange advice. As Lenin said many times, no force can withstand the alliance of science and labor.
An important role in attracting scholars to the task of developing the economy of the USSR was played by the Ail-Union Association of Scientific and Technical Personnel, founded in 1927 on the initiative of Academician A. N. Bakh to assist socialist construction in the USSR. By 1932 the Association had a membership of 11 thousand persons.
For particularly outstanding labor, the Soviet government awarded scholars state prizes and conferred the title "Hero of Labor".
All of the above resulted in tremendous scientific advancement made even during the early years of the Soviet power. For example, the Soviet Union began to produce its own aluminum and new chemical products; research studies of world importance in the most diverse disciplines were published.
Professor D. S. Rozhdestvensky of the Optics Institute directed by the famous scientist A. F. loffe carried out an experiment to split the atom of lithium. Significant contributions in science were also made in those days by V. A. Steklov (mathematics), A. N. Krylov (shipbuilding), N. Ye. Zhukovsky and S. A. Chaplygin (aerodynamics), M. A. Bonch-Bruyevich (radio engineering), N. F. Gamaleya (microbiology) and I. V. Michurin (botany). Work was begun on the Volkhov hydroelectric plant and the Kashira and Shatura electric plants --- major 286 __CAPTION__ At the dawn of rocketry. S. P. Korolev with colleagues. [287] achievements of the scientific and technological thought of the young Soviet Republic. On Lenin's instructions, over 200 scientists and engineers (I. G. Alexandrov, G. O. Graftio, M. A. Shatelen, A. A. Gorey, K. A. Krug, B. Y. Vedeneyev, and others) headed by G. M. Krzhizhanovsky and L. B. Krasin in 1920 worked out a plan for the electrification of Russia (GOELRO).
During the 1920s, a number of scientific congresses were held and they, too, helped research to address itself to the problems of socialist construction. Explaining why he decided to support the people's state, the outstanding Ukrainian scientist Ye. O. Paton said that as tremendous projects were carried out his world view changed all the more: "I began to understand that what attracted me to the Soviet power was the fact that the Soviet power puts labor, which is the basis of my life, above all else... I realized that I had been reborn under the influence of a new life."
A number of major figures in science, such as I. M. Gubkin and V. R. Viliams, joined the Communist Party.
The Soviet state devoted great attention to training young scientists with a workers' and peasants' background. The Byelorussian V. F. Kuprevich went from his position as a sailor on the Baltic to become a leading botanist, and to his last days he headed the Byelorussian Academy of Sciences. Through an organized system of post-graduate study a whole galaxy of talented researchers entered Soviet science and are today the pride of our country. Between 1925 and 1934 alone, 7 thousand persons completed post-graduate courses. The mass training of scientific personnel in the non-Russian republics underwent extensive development in the years before the war. And here, too, the number of outstanding scientists grew, their fame spreading far beyond the borders of the USSR. Among the scientific personnel of all the republics, the number of women constantly increased, reaching 10 thousand in 1937.
From year to year, the link between the theory and application of science grew stronger, and the network of research and experimental institutes constantly expanded. The V. I. Lenin Institute (later renamed the Institute of Marx, Engels, and Lenin) was founded in 1924 and carried out major work in the area of Marxist-Leninist science. Its task was to gather, preserve and publish the literary heritage of the classics of scientific communism.
At the beginning of the first five-year-plan period, the Byelorussian Academy of Sciences was founded and branches of the USSR Academy of Sciences opened in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
Research steadily expanded in all areas of science. K. E. Tsiolkovsky's work was particularly productive in those years; having made extremely valuable discoveries in aerodynamics and rocketry, he was the first to present scientific grounds for the possibility of manned space flight. In the early 1930s, the first Soviet experimental rockets broke through the earth's atmosphere---the work of engineers F. A. Tsander, S. P. Korolev, and others.
Great advances in physics were made by S. I. Vavilov, A. N. Terenin (work in optics); A. F. loffe (the physics of crystals, semiconductors, etc.); P. L. Kapitsa (microphysics); L. I. Mandelshtam (radiophysics and optics); and P. A. Cherenkov (discovery of the phosphorescence of 288 __CAPTION__ A. N. Tupolev. liquids under the influence of radiation), among others. And, as a result of the work of N. M. Krylov, N. N. Bogolyubov, N. D. Papaleksi and other scientists, a new branch of physics developed --- the theory of non-linear oscillation. Intensive research into the nucleus of the atom was undertaken by L. V. Mysovsky, D. D. Ivanenko, D. V. Skobeltsyn, B. V. and I. V. Kurchatov, K. A. Petrzhak and others.
Research carried out by the chemists N.D.Zelinsky, N.S.Kurnakov, A. Ye.Favorsky, A.N.Bakh, and S.V.Lebedev was of great importance for the country's economy. The production of synthetic rubber was started and major steps were taken to set up the mass production of artificial fibers, plastics, valuable organic products, etc.
New work by the Soviet school of physiology, headed by I. P. Pavlov, who studied higher nervous system, received worldwide recognition. The research of a famous plant-breeder, I. V. Michurin, was a bright new page in the history of botany. His work (he developed more than 300 types of fruit) allowed the advance of many southern plants far to the north. N. I. Vavilov, D. N. Pryanishnikov, V. P. Viliams and V. S. Pustovoit made major contributions to the development of biology.
__PRINTERS_P_289_COMMENT__ 19--161 289Many scientists in the Academy of Sciences, such as I. P. Bardin, M. A. Pavlov, Ye. O. Paton, V. N. Obraztsov, and A. N. Tupolev, played a leading role in the development of Soviet industry and transport, in the building of huge factories, in the creation of new types of machines. For the country to win its technological independence, it was of primary importance that the mass training of skilled engineers increased with every year.
Noticeable shifts occurred in the study of Russian and world history. In the works of Soviet historians, the laboring masses emerged as the principal moving force of progress. The prominent Marxist historian M. N. Pokrovsky played a major role in establishing the new science of history with his work A Concise Survey of Russian History, as well as a number of other valuable pieces of research. M.N.Lyadov, A.S.Bubnov, Ye.M. Yaroslavsky, V.I.Nevsky, V. V. Adoratsky and others devoted their work to the history of the Bolshevik Party. The first works which truly illuminated the history of the USSR and of foreign countries were associated with the names of N. M. Lukin, B. D. Grekov, V.V.Struve, I.A.Orbeli, Ye.V.Tarle, V.P.Volgin and A.M. Pankratova, among others. In 1936, the Institute of History was established within the USSR Academy of Sciences; in 1937 the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Material Culture were founded.
During the years of the first five-year plans, the scientific research of the Soviet polar expedition in the Arctic achieved worldwide renown. The Arctic expeditions of the Soviet ship Chelyuskin headed by Academician O. Yu. Shmidt, and of the ship Georgy Sedov, captured the attention of the world press for a long period of time. In addition, the press reported on the research carried out by the floating station North Pole I, with its four brave scientists led by I. D. Papanin (1937), and the expeditions of N. N. Urvantsev and others.
In the ever-tense international situation, Soviet military science acquired particular importance. The following persons made substantial contributions to its development: M. V. Frunze; S. S. Kamenev; Marshals of the Soviet Union M. N. Tukhachevsky, A. I. Yegorov. K.Ye.Voroshilov, B. M. Shaposhnikov and V. K. Blyukher, I.P. Uborevich, N. G. Kuznetsov, Ya. I. Alksnis, I. S. Isakov, and other prominent military leaders also did important work.
The Moscow subway, the first section of which went into operation in 1935 testified to the rapid progress of Soviet science and technology in the pre-war years, as did the nonstop flights over enormous distances by Soviet aviators, especially the crews led by V.Chkalov, M.Gromov, V. Kokkinaki and V. Grizodubova, among others.
By the early 1940s, the Soviet Union had over 1,800 scientific institutes. A total of 1,500 Soviet scholars held doctoral degrees.
These are the first steps of Soviet science that took shape in the
course of socialist construction and was of first-rate importance in the
economic and cultural life of the world's first workers' and peasants'
state.
~
Literature and Art Belong to the People. = The victory of the October Revolution in Russia created all the conditions for bringing to the fore the creative potential of those writers, artists, composers, and actors 290 __CAPTION__ N. Y. Zhukovsky. who served the cause of freedom and progress. The Communist Party decisively condemned the propagation of theory of "pure art'', "art for art's sake'', and manifestations of formalism and anarchistic or nihilistic attitudes to the classical cultural heritage. Lenin proclaimed that art belongs to the people. The revolution turned all the cultural wealth that had accumulated through the centuries into the property of working people. The new art that was arising took shape with the active participation of the broadest masses.
__PRINTERS_P_291_COMMENT__ 19* 291Literature received special attention from the Soviet state. The Party helped writers understand more profoundly the noble goals of Soviet power, calling upon them to serve faithfully the ideals of the proletarian revolution and to create works of literature that were close and comprehensible to all the people.
Maxim Gorky was the founder of Soviet literature. He actively helped attract democratic representatives of pre-revolutionary art to the side of the revolution, urging that "the vital forces of the country respond to the call to difficult and marvellous work."
At the center of young Soviet literature were M. Gorky, D. Bedny, V. Bryusov, A. Serafimovich, A. Blok and V. Mayakovsky. To these were added K. Trenev, V. Veresayev, S. Yesenin, S. Sergeyey-Tsensky, A. Neverov and many others. On the other side of the barricade were writers whose works had little in common with the needs of the people, writers who preached decadence and mysticism: M. Artsybashev, A. Remizov, Z. Gippius, D. Merezhkovsky, F. Sologub, and others. They met the October Revolution with hatred and launched a hostile campaign against the new power.
A number of symbolist and decadent writers fled abroad. Wandering in foreign lands, they ingloriously disappeared without creating one major work after their break from the people and their native land. The reactionary segment of writers conducted a violent struggle against writers who cooperated with Soviet power. In December, 1917, the literary society Sreda dropped A. Serafimovich from its membership. V. Bryusov was subjected to a boycott and writers set against the revolution attacked M. Gorky with particular fury.
But the efforts of the hostile forces to hinder the development of the new literature were in vain. The new literature dedicated itself wholly to the service of the people and in turn enjoyed its enthusiastic support. Alexander Blok, an outstanding poet, expressed the thoughts and feelings of the leading writers of those days: "With all your heart, soul and consciousness---heed the Revolution.'' In August, 1918, the All-Russia Union of Proletarian Writers was established. The literary force of the Soviet Republic was noticeably strengthened by expanded contacts between Russian writers and the democratic writers of other Soviet peoples. Not all of them could immediately say, as did Mayakovsky, "This is my Revolution!''. But in the most difficult hours of the republic they did not falter, they did not abandon their country and made the right choice.
Among the founders of the new literature in the non-Russian borderlands were V. Blakitny-Ellan, S. Vasilchenko, V. Chumak (the Ukraine); Ya. Kupala and Ya. Kolas (Byelorussia); Khamza Khakimzade (Uzbekistan); G. Tabidze (Georgia); D. Jabarly (Azerbaijan); S. Aini (Tajikistan), as well as the folk poets T. Satylganov (Kirghizia), D. Jabayev (Kazakhstan), D. Klych (Turkmenia), S. Stalsky (Daghestan) and many other writers and poets.
From the very first, Soviet literature was marked by the appearance of substantial works imbued with faith in the victory of socialism. The achievements of Soviet poetry were particularly significant. The talent of the proletarian poet D. Bedny unfurled in all its glory. His creativity 292 __CAPTION__ I. P. Pavlov. inspired the masses in the battle for the triumph of the revolution. During the Civil War, the poet was at the front urging Red Army soldiers to defend selflessly the revolution. On May 1, 1918, he wrote In the Fiery Ring: "The fate has given us two choices---to win or die with honor in the fight.'' D. Bedny's pen, his satire, became weapons that mercilessly hit the enemy. He was the first of the revolutionary poets to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Vladimir Mayakovsky's verse and poetry --- such as Left March, Order to the Army of Arts, and 150,000,000--- sang of the revolutionary changes occurring in the old world, and of the invincibility of the workers' and peasants' state. They were of tremendous importance in the formation of Soviet literature.
Among the best examples of the poetry of that time were Alexander Blok's The Twelve, V. Bryusov's In Such Days, G. Tabidze's We, Georgian Poets, Dedicate Ourselves to the New Whirlwind, and a number of works by proletarian poets F. Shkulev, M. Gerasimov, I. Filipchenko, A. Gastev, and others. V. I. Lebedev-Kumach, a soldier in the Red Army, started his poetic career during the war against interventionists and the White Army.
293The writers and playwrights of the time were as yet unable to create major works of realistic literature; notable achievements in prose and drama came only in the 1920s, when the country returned to peaceful development. The development of literature took place against the background of the break with old social relationships and the old way of life, and amidst the political and cultural education of the masses. The rather oversimplified, declarative depictions of persons and events often peculiar to the works of the Civil War period were eventually replaced by far more realistic depiction of persons and social life. The language of short stories, tales, novels and poetry also became more rich and expressive. The brave deeds, courage and dedication to the liberation of the working man who became the main character in literature are celebrated in tales and novels such as The Iron Flood by A. Serafimovich, TheRoutby A. Fadeyev, The Mutiny and Chapayevby
D. Furmanov, Partisan Tales by Vs. Ivanov, Early Stories and the first volume of the epic And Quiet Flows the Don by M. Sholokhov, A. Tolstoi's 1918 and I. Babel's stories, among other works. The authors of these works were themselves active participants or witnesses to the thundering battles against counterrevolutionary forces and this fact, to a large extent, helped them to create veracious, powerful works of literature.
The extensive restoration of the country's economy was reflected in literary works. The working class's enthusiasm for the liberation of labor and its creative work are shown in F. Gladkov's Cement, N. Lyashko's Blast Furnace. Readers also became acquainted with books telling of the uprooting of the age-old foundations of village life and of the formation of the new psychology of the laboring peasant. A number of authors---L. Seifullina, L. Leonov, A. Karavayeva, K. Fedin, A. Neverov, the poets N. Aseyev, A. Bezymensky, A. Zharov,
E. Bagritsky, M. Svetlov, and N. Tikhonov---published their first major works. This period, too, was the high point of the gifted lyrics and songs of Russian nature by the poet S. Yesenin.
The exacerbated class struggle of the NEP period was reflected in literature, where there were a number of formalist groups: the Serapion Brothers, the Divide, Lef, the Constructivists, etc. A group of proletarian writers gathered around the journal Na postu (On Guard) in 1923 and actively spoke out against bourgeois influence in literature. This group formed the nucleus of RAPP, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, which was organized in 1925. Among its members were M. Sholokhov, A. Serafimovich and A. Fadeyev. However, the RAPP leadership included some individuals who reiterated Proletkult ideas and thus allowed a facile interpretation of MarxismLeninism.
Under these circumstances, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Party organs of the republics did a great deal of work to see that proletarian writers occupied the leading position in art to rally the best literary forces, to raise the level of professional creativity in accordance with the needs of the masses and to direct the efforts of writers to combat the penetration of Soviet literature by bourgeois ideology. The Party looked after the writers of the older generation and helped bring young talent into literature.
294 __CAPTION__ N. K. Krupskaya, A. V. Lunacharsky and M. N. Pokrovsky.The country's transition to socialist reconstruction was the time of a new peak of creativity for the outstanding poet, champion of the revolution, V. Mayakovsky. His epic poem, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, was followed by the poems Fine!, My Soviet Passport, To Comrade Nette---Steamer and Man, The Story of the Construction of Kuznetsk and the People of Kuznetsk, Aloud and Straight!, and other works full of patriotism and high ideals. The poet sensed keenly what was new in life; he spoke out against all that hindered progress, and sang of the feats of labor. Describing the birth of a giant metallurgical combine in Siberia, Mayakovsky wrote the inspired lines:
That garden shall be blooming, That city must arise when Soviet Russia has such men as those before my eyes.
The work of M. Gorky was of particular importance in the evolution of Soviet literature and in rallying writers in that period. In 1921, Gorky, at Lenin's insistence, went to Italy to rest at a spa. It was here that he finished the autobiographical trilogy he had begun before the revolution. He also wrote the remarkable sketch V. I. Lenin, the novel The 295 Artamonovs and began work on The Life of Klim Samgin. Even though he was far from his native land, Gorky felt himself a participant in the great transformation of Russia. He carried on an extensive correspondence with writers, poets and editorial boards and met with Soviet writers many times.
The achievements of socialist construction during the years of the first five-year plan were to a significant degree reflected in the heightened artistic mastery of Soviet writers and poets. The establishment of new relations among people, of collectivism, and the feats of labor of the workers, peasants and intelligentsia who were building socialism --- all this opened new horizons to writers. As Gorky said, at the center of Soviet literature is "socialist labor, which gives form to the new man, and the new man, who gives form to socialist labor''. Many writers found themselves at the cutting edge of the struggle for a new life --- where the first Soviet plants of their kind were being built, where collective farms were springing up, where new cities were rising. M. Shaginyan's novel Hydro-Central tells of the significance of creative collective labor; L. Leonov's Sot tells of the life of workers building a paper factory in the taiga; V. Katayev's Time, Forward! tells of the birth of industrial giants in the Urals.
The theme of industrialization is at the heart of works such as M. Ilyin's The Great Conveyer, A. Malyshkin's People from a God-- forsaken Place, D. Demirchyan's Captain, etc. The pedagogue and writer A. Makarenko dedicated his The Road to Life and Learning to Live to the role of labor and the collective in the education of the new man.
M. Sholokhov presented a true picture of the building of the new life on the collective farm in Part One of Virgin Soil Upturned, as did F. Panferov in the novel Bars and the poet A. Tvardovsky in the poem The Country of Muravia. The theme of restructuring the village along socialist lines appeared in works of Georgian writers (L. Kiacheli's Gvadi Bigva), in Byelorussia (Ya. Kolas's Drygva), in the Ukraine (A. Korneichuk's In the Steppes of the Ukraine), in Armenia (N. Zaryan's Atsavan), and in Kirghizia (T. Sadykbekov's Ken-su).
In addition to developing contemporary themes, many writers turned to subject matter linked to the revolutionary era and the defense of the October Revolution. In the early 1930s How the Steel was Tempered appeared. Its author, N. Ostrovsky, was an ardent Communist, a participant in the Civil War, and a man who had lost his sight and was confined to his bed by serious illness. His fervent desire to be of use to his native land, and his iron will, helped him to remain involved and to create an immortal work about the heroic life and struggle of youth in the days of the revolution and the building of a new society. Ostrovsky wrote: "Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world---the fight for the Liberation of Mankind.'' And this, indeed, was precisely the kind of life that N. Ostrovsky lived.
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, M. Sholokhov completed Book Four of the epic. And Quiet Flows the Don, a work which won 296 __CAPTION__ V. V. Mayakovsky. renown thanks to its profound, objective depiction of human lives and the contradictions of that time when the masses were struggling for Soviet power along the Don. Typical in this respect, too, was A. Tolstoi's trilogy, Ordeal (Part Three, Bleak Morning, was completed on June 22, 1941) as well as A. Fadeyev's novel TheLastofthe Udegheand S. Ragimov's Shamo.
Telling of Russia's heroic past, Soviet novelists also accurately depicted the former despotic oppression of the peoples and revealed the social meaning of the working masses' movement---the true creators of history. Examples of such works are A. Chapygin's Stepan Razin, A. Novikov-Priboy's Tsushima, A. Tolstoi's Peter the First, S. Aini's Slaves, M. Javakhishvili's Arsenfrom Marabda, S. Sergeyev-Tsensky's The Defense of Sevastopol, V. Shishkov's Yemelyan Pugachev, and S.Mukanov's Mysterious Banner.
Poetry developed extensively. Particularly persistent in poetry were themes dealing with the fundamental transformation of the country, with patriotism, friendship among the peoples, and the joys of victory and love. Poets using these themes included M. Isakovsky, V. Lebedev-- __PRINTERS_P_297_COMMENT__ 20--161 297 Kumach, S. Seifullina, Jambul Jabayev, S. Vurgun, Ya. Kupala, P. Tychina, Y. Charents, Ya. Kolas.
These years were also marked by important works of satire by I. Ilf and Y. Petrov, M. Koltsov, and M. Zoshchenko, as well as by children's literature written by A. Gaidar, K. Chukovsky and S. Marshak.
In 1931, M. Gorky returned to his native land for good. In his articles and speeches he rallied the forces of Soviet literature and the progressive literary intelligentsia abroad against the threat of fascism and the danger of war. Characteristic of Gorky was the appeal he made to the intelligentsia of the world in 1932, in the face of the fascist threat to peace: "Whose side are you on, 'masters of culture'?"
In the decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of April 23, 1932, "On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations'', the Central Committee pointed to the necessity of creating a single union of all writers who supported the platform of Soviet power and strove to participate in socialist construction. The Union of Writers, held its first Congress in 1934 which played an important role in consolidating the writers of the country. Gorky told the Congress that Soviet writers held the leading position in world literature because their creative labor was fundamentally linked with the ideas of the Communist Party. He stressed that inwardly all writers think of themselves as active members of the Leninist Party and consequently, henceforth, the notion ``non-Party'' writer could be merely only a formality. The Congress officially inaugurated the Union of Writers and selected Maxim Gorky its chairman.
Thus, socialism had triumphed in the literatures of the many Soviet nationalities and socialist realism---a method for the veracious, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development---was the end result of that triumph.
The growth of literacy in the country created a great demand for works of Soviet literature. The press-run of books in 1937 reached 677.8 million copies and books were published in the 110 languages of the peoples of the Soviet Union. There was also a marked increase in the number of public libraries: in 1940, there were over 90 thousand of them. Books had become solidly entrenched in the daily lives of workers; they became the life-long companion of Soviet Man. The creation of a new, Soviet, multinational literature had begun to play a leading role in the cultural life of millions of people, and this was one of the cultural revolution's most significant accomplishments in the era of socialism.
__*_*_*__The theater was an important sector in the battle for a people's art. By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of August 26, 1919, all the country's theaters became state property; their task was to participate in the education and enlightenment of the broad working masses. The Party carefully preserved the best of the theater's cultural heritage, laying the accent on its progressive traditions; the Party also 298 __CAPTION__ N. A. Ostrovsky and A. S. Serafimovich. involved actors in the service of the new revolutionary theater. As the actress Y. P. Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya remarked: "The October Revolution opened our hearts; the fresh air of revolution burst into our closed world.'' Among the masters of the old theater who greeted the revolution openly and sincerely were Ye. B. Vakhtangov, A. V. Nezhdanova, L. V. Sobinov, G. P. Yura, M. F. Andreyeva, Ye. V. Geltser, A. I. Yuzhin, P. K. Saksagansky and K. Marjanishvili.
The leading theatrical artists enthusiastically took up the work of creating performances for the people. The famous actress and revolutionary, M. F. Andreyeva, was appointed Commissar for Petrograd Theaters in 1918. Andreyeva energetically rallied stage talent and directed it to the production of new performances which accorded with the ideals of freedom, revolution, and labor.
A factor of tremendous importance was the emergence of a new audience eager for art --- workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors who had virtually no access to the theater in the Russia of serfdom and the bourgeoisie. In the words of K. S. Stanislavsky, the famed actor and director, the new audience proved to be unusually theatrical. This was not a casual theater-going public; it came in the excitement and expectation of seeing something important and unprecedented. It treated the actors in a touching way. Performances of the classic repertory __PRINTERS_P_299_COMMENT__ 20* 299 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/2HU326/20051216/327.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.12.03) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ and agitational performances found a vital response in the workers who now replaced the sated, bored public of the propertied classes.
At this time, amateur theater was extensively developed.
In content, early performances dramatizing the grand events of revolutionary days were at times, rather naive. The important thing was, however, that men of labor fighting for freedom and the happiness of the people, became the heroes of the new plays. To bring the stage closer to the masses, many theaters organized tours. During the Civil War leading Moscow actors from the Bolshoi, Maly, and Moscow Art theaters, as well as from theaters in Petrograd and Kiev, travelled to the front. Within a ten-month period in 1919 alone, the touring Maly Theater company put on 170 performances. The touring companies included prominent actors such as M. Yermolova, P. Sadovsky and A. Yuzhin. A 1919 report of the Commissariat for Petrograd Theaters noted that in the winter season, 1918--1919, state theaters gave 75 performances for trade unions, 33 for the Red Army men and 126 for students. In the summer season the Mariinsky Theater company gave 67 performances and the Alexandrinsky---97; a significant portion of their repertory was drawn from the classics. During only a part of 1919, Petrograd theaters gave 153 performances at the front for the defenders of the revolution. Famous actors and actresses often performed in workers' districts and before the Red Army men: the singers F. Chaliapine, L. Sobinov, and A. Nezhdanova, the ballerina Ye.Geltser, and the actors K. Marjanishvili, V. Kachalov, V.Yershov, G.Yura, Z. Lilina and P.Saksagansky, among others.
The emergence of a Soviet theater proceeded in a-heated struggle against formalist tendencies and pseudo-innovation, in circumstances of creative experiment. The Party demanded that the theater make use of all that was great and excellent in the past theater, and that it discard outmoded elements which hindered development of new ideas. Themes affirming the new life gradually began to predominate, forcing abstract and pessimistic plays off the stage.
Among those active in the young Soviet theater were no few talented directors and actors, whose creativity was, however, highly conflicting. V. E. Meiyerkhold, for example, was the founder of the famous theater that bore his name. Meiyerkhold's search for a new form contained elements of formalism and pseudo-innovation. But at the same time he was an outstanding actor and a number of his plays did enjoy enormous success precisely because of his innovation as a director.
By the end of the period of reconstruction, the bulk of theatrical repertory consisted of contemporary themes and realistic renderings of the people's struggle for a new world. Theaters finally rid themselves of that poster-art quality which had been so typical of the first years of the republic. Performances of^plays such as V. Bill-Belotserkovsky's The Storm (1925), K. Trenev's Lyubov Yarovaya (1926), Vs. Ivanov's The Armored Train 14--69 (1927), B. Lavrenev's Break-up, D. Jabarly's Sevilla (1928), and V. Mayakovsky's The Bedbug and The Bathhouse (1928--1929) testify to the substantial conceptual and artistic changes taking place in the theater. The plays of A. V. Lunacharsky were also quite popular, as were works from the classical repertory (above all from the musical theater).
300 __CAPTION__ M. A. Sholokhov.The Soviet government gave solid support to the development of theater in non-Russian areas. The opening of the first professional theaters in a number of the country's republics was a significant event in civic and cultural life. These theaters began making creative use of the wealth of native folklore as well as staging works of classical and contemporary Soviet drama.
The creative method and activity of that great master of the stage, K. S. Stanislavsky, affirmed the realistic principles of Soviet theater. In collaboration with V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Stanislavsky set forth the mission of the new actor, the citizen-actor who struggled for a genuinely people's theater and who was a resolute opponent of hack work and cliches. Stanislavsky viewed dedication to art as a form of dedication to the people. He actively opposed pseudo-innovation, which undermined true beauty and the best traditions of the past, and which attempted to establish a cult of abstract, external form on the Soviet 301 __CAPTION__ I. M. Moskvin, V. P. Chkalov and A. N. Tolstoi. stage. The long years he spent trying to discover the secret of the actor's creativity led him to work out an integral method which brought him world recognition. The Stanislavsky method asserts that art is a living truth; it treats profoundly the problems of artistic technique and the bases of the theory of realistic theater.
The period of the full-scale socialist construction in the USSR was a time of marked upsurge of theatrical art. The number of theaters in the major cities and the provinces increased significantly. Gradually, distinctions that had once set the theaters of the capitals apart from those in the provinces began to disappear. Special workshops and schools were established to train actors, directors, and theater critics. For the first time in the history of the nation's theater, workers' theaters, children's theaters and amateur theater centers were established. In 1930, the first All-Union Olympiad of the Arts of the Peoples of the USSR was held in Moscow.
The expansion of the network of dramatic and musical theaters in the non-Russian republics was particularly indicative. Armenia, for example, had 27 theaters at the beginning of the third five-year plan, though it had had only three before the revolution. The number of theaters in Georgia grew from 3 to 49, in the Ukraine from 35 to 126, and in Azerbaijan from 2 to 27. The number of professional theaters grew rapidly in republics where none had existed on the eve of the revolution. 302 __CAPTION__ L. V. Sobinov, A. V. Nezhdanova and K. S. Stanislavsky. By 1940 Uzbekistan had 38 professional theaters, Kazakhstan 24, Tajikistan 19, Kirghizia 8, Chuvashia 8, and Turkmenia 7.
The range of themes and characters of Soviet dramaturgy expanded and became more varied. Along with productions of foreign and native classics, new plays appeared which acquainted viewers with revolutionary events and with the life and work of Soviet Man: Vs. Vishnevsky's An Optimistic Tragedy, A. Korneichuk's Platan Krechet, K. Krapiva's He Who Laughs Last, V. Vagarshyan's In the Ring, V. Kirshon's Bread, and others. The production of N. Pogodin's The Man with the Gun, in wh-ch the role of Lenin is of central importance, won wide renown.
The achievements of the Soviet theater in the pre-war years are directly associated with leading actors of the older generation --- such as I. Moskvin, A. Yablochkina, V. Kachalov, O. Knipper-Chekhova, Y. Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya, M. Tarkhanov, A.Ostuzhev, G. Yura, and P. Saksagansky---as well as with the new post-October generation---N. Khmelev, V. Shchukin, A. Tarasova, A. Buchma, N. Mordvinov, K. Baiseitova, G. Glebov, A. Vasadze. A. Khidoyatov, M. Krushelnitsky, M.Kasymov, A. Khorava, and others. In the mid-1930s, the finest representatives of these two generations were given the title "People's Artist of the USSR".
By early 1941, the USSR had 926 professional theaters, as against 153 in the Russia of 1914. Plays were performed in fifty languages of the peoples of the USSR. In the pre-war years ten ten-day art festivals of the 303 republics were held in Moscow; they demonstrated the tremendously successful development of the theater in the formerly backward non-Russian territories.
__*_*_*__The Soviet order turned a new page in the development of the cinema which in pre-revolutionary Russia had only begun to take its first steps.
In a conversation with A. V. Lunacharsky, Lenin termed the cinema the most important of all the arts. A state decree of August 28, 1919, marks the birth of Soviet cinematography. An All-Russia Photo and Film Section, which carried out the nationalization of the film industry, was formed under the Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR. In 1919 the All-Ukraine Film Committee was formed, in 1921 the Film Division of the Georgian Commissariat for Education.
Instead of the predominantly commercial films of pre-revolutionary days, the country created new films to meet the great needs of the new era. Film crews travelled about the country with worker brigades, agitation trains and the Red Army, and took rare historic footage of the period of the October Revolution and the Civil War. In 1920, director D. Vertov produced a thirteen-part film chronicle on the struggle of the Soviet state against interventionists and the White Army. During the years of the Civil War, anti-religious film chronicles, along with more than 70 agitation films, explaining the measures enacted by the Soviet state, appeared on the screens of movie theaters.
In those difficult times the young Soviet film industry was still not able to create major films, they began to be produced only later, during the period of reconstruction. In addition to experienced cinematographers who had rallied to the revolution, the hard core of workers in early Soviet film industry consisted of young, gifted directors and artists such as S. Eisenstein, V. Pudovkin, N. Shengelaya, A. Dovzhenko, A. Ivanovsky, and A. Bek-Nazarov. In 1923/25 the foundations for film industries were laid in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Byelorussia and Uzbekistan. Films on historical and revolutionary themes, such as A Spectre Is Haunting Europe, by the Ukrainian film studio, and Red Devils, by the Georgian film studio, were particularly well received.
By mid-1920s a "Society of the Friends of Soviet Cinematography" was founded under the chairmanship of F. E. Dzerzhinsky. The Society lent substantial assistance to the spread of the cinema throughout the country. The personnel of the film industry produced in those years films which received worldwide renown, such as V. Pudovkin's Mother, S. Eisenstein's Strike and The Battleship Potemkin. The 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris gave highest awards to S. Eisenstein, D. Vertov, Ya. Protazanov and other figures in Soviet cinema. The American Film Academy named The Battleship Potemkin the best film of 1926 and at the Paris Exhibition of the Arts it was awarded a gold medal.
Films with sound tracks---the first were N. Ekk's Road to Life, A. Dovzhenko's Ivan, and S. Yutkevich's Counterplan---began to come out in the first half of the 1930s.
The years of the second and third five-year plans may with every justification be considered a period of great creativity in the 304 __CAPTION__ S. M. Eisenstein. cinematography of the USSR: film genres were diversified and the number of movie theaters in the cities and villages of the USSR grew rapidly. In 1934 appeared a classic work of Soviet film, Chapayev, directed by G. and S. Vasilyev. Even today, this monument to the legendary epoch of the Civil War is considered one of the masterpieces of world cinematography. It became the latest word in film, a classic expression of the advanced style of Soviet cinematography. The film's mature realistic direction and production was combined with superb acting. B. Babochkin masterfully played the role of V. I. Chapayev, honestly and movingly demonstrating the nationwide character of the struggle against the counterrevolution.
Patriotic themes rang forth in major works dedicated to the distant past of the peoples of the Russian state, films such as Peter the First, Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov, Minin and Pozharsky, Arsen, and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The films Childhood and My Apprenticeship, based on the autobiographical epic of M. Gorky, were tremendous successes for the then young director M. Donskoi.
Soviet film focused on the image of the free man born in the flames of 305 revolution and building a new world. Among the best Soviet films of the pre-war years, the following deserve particular notice: Deputy of the Baltic Fleet, We Are from Kronstadt, Lenin in October, Lenin in 1918, and the trilogy about Maxim, Shchors, Member of the Government, and The Great Citizen. Before the war many Soviet films were shown on the screens of Europe and America with great success.
At the dawn of the new order, the Soviet state took steps that in many ways facilitated the emergence of Soviet music. During 1918 all conservatories and music schools, as well as theaters, were turned into the property of the people.
The development of music in the first years of Soviet power was bound up with the songs of the period. Proletarian songs rang out in the country: the hymn "The Internationale'', "Step Lively, Comrades'', "For the Power of the Soviets'', and many others. To these were added new songs created in the wake of glorious revolutionary events. Narrative, heroic and marching songs such as "Budenny's March'', ``Leave-taking'' and "Song of the Red Army" were written by young composers and participants of the Civil War such as D. Pokrass, D. Vasilyev-Buglay, A. Alexandrov, and others.
At the heart of the development of Soviet music were leading composers and musicians of old Russia: A. Glazunov, K. Igumnov, V. Ippolitov-Ivanov, A. Goldenveizer, and A. Kastalsky, among others. The Petrograd symphony orchestra and people's choirs, including the especially popular group founded by M. Pyatnitsky in 1911, performed at the front before the soldiers of the Red Army.
The first symphonic and operatic works date from the country's period of peaceful reconstruction. N. Myaskovsky dedicated his Sixth Symphony (1923) to the theme of the revolution. Operas based on folklore motifs --- such as Z. Paliashvili's Daisi, A. Spendiarov's Almost, A. Shtogarenko's symphonic poem March, O. Ryabov's operetta Wedding in Malinovka, and works based on contemporary themes such as R. Gliere's ballet Red Poppy---brought a breath of fresh air into the country's vocal art.
In 1932 the Union of Soviet Composers was formed. The number of opera theaters, philharmonias, and conservatories grew in all the republics. The upsurge of music before the war is witnessed by I. Dzerzhinsky's opera And Quiet Flows the Don, B. Asafiev's ballets The Flames of Paris and Bakhchisarai Fountain, M. Koval's musical epic Yemelyan Pugachev, S. Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet and his cantata Alexander Nevsky, U. Gajibekov's opera Ker-Ogly, L. Revutsky's cantata Khustyna, and by K. Dankevich's and B. Lyatoshinsky's opera and symphony based on Ukrainian motifs.
The creation of the first operas and ballets in Byelorussia, in the union republics of Central Asia and in a number of autonomous republics of the RSFSR was a great achievement for Soviet music. Assistance in developing these musical genres was extended to non-Russian cadres of musicians by many leading Russian composers: M. Ippolitov-Ivanov, S. Vasilenko, V. Vlasov and K. Igumnov.
Mass songs became an entrenched part of the culture of the people, filling them with the joy of life and enthusiasm for the socialist renewal of the country.
306 __CAPTION__ S. S. Prokofiev.The fine works of composer I. Dunayevsky, a master of film scores, mass songs and operettas, have received universal recognition and acclaim. His song "Vast Is My Native Land'', with lyrics by V. Lebedev-Kumach, spread to all corners of the earth, symbolizing the new Russia, the Soviet Union.
In 1940 the USSR had 110 major amateur musical groups and their participants approached the level of professional musicians.
The success of students of Soviet music schools in international music competitions in Warsaw, Vienna, Brussels and in other cities of the world in 1927--1938 testified to the tremendous creative accomplishments of Soviet music schools.
The Soviet fine arts were born in the struggle for truth. Soviet posters played an important role in politics and in mobilizing the country in the years of the revolution and the struggle against interventionists and the Whites. The posters brought Party slogans and Lenin's words to the people, urging the people to fight counterrevolution, typhus, hunger, devastation and illiteracy. Just twenty-four hours after Yudenich launched his attack oh Petrograd, workers in Moscow saw the poster "All Out for the Defense of Petrograd!''. And artists worked just as effectively during other of the republic's difficult Civil War years. The 1920 poster, "Have You Volunteered?'', is particularly expressive. It urged all honorable men to do their duty to the revolution, to fight enemies of the revolution to the end.
"Satirical windows of ROSTA'', agitation posters by V. Deni, D. Moor, and M. Cheremnykh with texts by V. Mayakovsky, D. Bedny, 307 and other poets, were widespread in the country. This realization of Lenin's plan for a monumental propaganda had tremendous moral significance. Monuments to autocracy and serfdom that lacked artistic importance were replaced by monuments honoring revolutionaries and men of letters.
The young Soviet fine arts asserted themselves in the struggle against movements --- such as cubism, futurism, etc.--- which were not comprehensible and were foreign to the people.
The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia was formed in 1922, uniting the energies of the masters of the fine arts. The majority of them---N. Andreyev, S. Shervud, S. Konenkov, S. Merkurov, S. Alekhin, S. Mezentsev, and others actively participated in carrying out the program of monumental propaganda. Drawing on the finest examples of classical realism, leading artists and sculptors of the USSR created the first works of a new art that was close to the esthetic tastes of the people. It is true that a number of paintings on contemporary themes were still rather naive and allegorical, e.g., the works of K. Petrov-- Vodkin, B. Kustodiyev, A. Yuon. The bases of socialist realism in painting, sculpture and graphics were, however, established in the 1920s. Suffice it to cite I. Brodsky's pictures of Lenin and his canvas "The Execution of the Twenty-Six Baku Commissars'', M. Grekov's "Machine-Gun Cart" and "To Budenny's Detachment'', B. Yakovlev's "Transport Is Put in Order'', the works by the sculptors N. Andreyev --- the Lenin series and the monument to A. Ostrovsky at the Maly Theater---and I. Shadr's "Cobblestones, the Weapon of the Proletariat'', ``Worker'' and ``Peasant''. To these should be added the works of many other masters among whom were many representatives of the older generation who had openly and honestly begun serving the socialist reconstruction of the country. The themes of revolution, labor, and freedom had a sincere appeal for them.
Soviet reality gave full range to artists and sculptors to depict the people transforming the world about them. The years of the first five-year plan saw the emergence of artists and sculptors from the non-Russian republics: Ya. Nikoladze and M. Toidze of Georgia, S. Agadzhanyan and M. Saryan of Armenia, A. Shovkunenko and K. Trokhimenko of the Ukraine, V. Volkov and Z. Azgur of Byelorussia, S. Chuikov of Kirghizia, P. Benkov of Uzbekistan, A. Azim-zade of Azerbaijan, and others. In the 1930s the sculptor V. I. Mukhina created the splendid "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" for the Soviet pavillion at the International Exhibition of 1937 in Paris. This sculpture, made of what was then a new unusual material---stainless steel---is a genuine hymn to liberated labor. It symbolizes the unbreakable union of the working class and laboring peasantry.
In 1937 the First All-Union Exhibition of Amateur Art was held. Exhibits of the works of gifted young artists --- representatives of all the peoples of the various republics---contributed to the discovery of new talent.
__*_*_*__A type of culture that was new in principle emerged during the course of the cultural revolution. Party spirit, national spirit, patriotism, 308 __CAPTION__ S. T. Konenkov. socialist internationalism and high ideals were the salient features of the new culture. Socialist in content, which was one and universal for all the peoples of the Soviet Union, the new culture was at the same time the national culture of each of the great and small peoples of the country.
The multinational character of Soviet culture was one of the important reasons for its rapid progress. Within a very short period of time, the bourgeois monopoly of cultural wealth had been eliminated and the cultural backwardness of the laboring masses overcome. A socialist system of popular education was created, mass illiteracy was rooted out 309 __CAPTION__ V. I. Mukhina and a numerous people's intelligentsia trained. Vigorous development was fostered in science, literature and art, which came to serve socialism.
The cultural revolution also signified sharp change in thinking, in social consciousness, psychology, and in the way of life of extensive strata of the population, a change in the entire structure of the country's cultural life. The new socialist consciousness of the masses was one of the greatest accomplishments of the cultural revolution. As Marx and Engels had stressed, revolution is essential to the working people not only because it can change existing conditions, but also because it can change the working people themselves.
The historical course of development in the USSR testifies to the fact that there has never been any sector of the cultural front in which work, guided by the Communist Party, has not been combined with the affirmation of progressive ideology and with the education of the man---the conscious and active builder of socialism and communism. The entire development of Soviet society has been attended by the vigorous growth of a new culture.
It was not easy to carry out the cultural revolution. It was achieved in the course of a tense struggle of ideas, creative searching, and often came into being in the face of a pressing shortage of material means and personnel. The development of culture was hurt by"the personality cult which gave rise to pomposity, lavish decoration, and a lowering of standards in evaluating the ideological and artistic content of a number of works of art. At times unjustified harshness took the place of principled criticism of shortcomings.
All of these unhealthy phenomena did not, however, determine the general course of cultural development and were not the main thrust of culture. Soviet culture never lost its link with life, with the people, who are the creators of culture. The tremendous changes in cultural life in the period of the building of socialism are witness of this. Overcoming contradictions, the culture of the land of the October Revolution was true to the principles of Party spirit and was enriched by striking achievements that have deservedly won worldwide renown.
310 __CAPTION__ "A Worker and Woman Collective-Farmer" by V. I. Mukhina [311] ~ [312] __ALPHA_LVL1__ CHRONOLOGY __NOTE__ Was not working with footnote marker in section level tag.CHRONOLOGY^^1^^
1917April 3. Lenin returned to Russia from the emigration.
April 4. Lenin delivers his report "The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution" (the April Theses) to delegates to the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
April 24--29. Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(B). May 5. Creation of the first coalition Provisional Government under the presidency of Prince G. Y. Lvov.
June 3-24. First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. June 18. Russian offensive on the Southwestern Front begins. Mass anti-war demonstrations. July 3-4. Demonstration-of workers, soldiers and sailors in Petrograd under the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!''. July 5. The Provisional Government begins open repressions against the Bolshevik Party.
Editorial office of Pravda plundered. Lenin goes underground. July 24. Creation of the second coalition Provisional Government under the presidency of A. F. Kerensky.
July 26-August 3. Sixth Congress of the RSDLP(B). August 25--30. General Kornilov's counter-revolutionary mutiny. August 31. Expanded session of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B), which adopts a resolution "On Power''. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies adopts the Bolshevik resolution "On Power''. September 10--14. Lenin's letters to the Central, Petrograd and Moscow committees of the Bolshevik Party: "The Bolsheviks Must Take Power'', and "Marxism and Insurrection''. September 25. Creation of the third coalition Provisional Government headed by A. F. Kerensky. October 1-2. Lenin's "Letter to the Central Committee, the Moscow and Petrograd Committees and the Bolshevik Members of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets'',
the appeal "To Workers, Peasants and Soldiers" to transfer all power to the Soviets. October 10. The Central Committee of the RSDLP(B) adopts Lenin's resolution on preparing an armed uprising. October 12. The Petrograd Revolutionary Military Committee, the headquarters of the armed uprising, is created. October 16. An expanded session of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(B) passes Lenin's resolution on preparing an armed uprising. A Revolutionary Military Center is elected to direct the uprising.
October 24--25. Armed uprising of workers, soldiers and sailors in Petrograd. October 25. Victory of the October Socialist Revolution and the establishment of Soviet power in Petrograd. The Revolutionary Military Committee appeals 'To the Citizens of Russia!"
_-_-_~^^1^^ * Until February, 1918, all dates in the table, as well as in the book, are according to the Old Style.
__PRINTERS_P_313_COMMENT__ 21--161 313October 25--27. Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. Decrees on Land and Peace passed. Formation of the first Soviet government---the Council of People's Commissars, chaired by V. I. Lenin.
Election of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee (ARCEC). October 25---November 2. Armed struggle of workers and revolutionary soldiers in Moscow. Victory of Soviet power in Moscow. November 1. Liquidation of the counterrevolutionary mutiny of Kerensky and Krasnov near Petrograd. November 2. The Council of People's Commissars adopts the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia''. November 8. Note of the Soviet government to the governments of the Entente proposing an immediate armistice and the opening of peace negotiations. November 14. The ARCEC adopts the "Law on Workers' Control''. December 2. Signing of the agreement on an armistice with Germany at Brest-Litovsk.
The Council of People's Commissars' (Sovnarkom) enactment on the establishment of the Supreme Economic Council. December 7. Sovnarkom enactment on the establishment of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle Against Counterrevolution and Sabotage (the Cheka). December 11--12. First All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets in Kharkov. Proclamation of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
December 14. ARCEC decree on the nationalization of banks. December 16--17. Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Landless Deputies of Latvia in Volmar. Election of a Soviet government of Latvia. December 18. Sovnarkom decree recognizing the independence of Finland.
December 29. Sovnarkom decree "On Turkish Armenia".
1918January 3. The Sovnarkom adopts the "Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People".
January 6. ARCEC decree disbanding the Constituent Assembly. January 10--18. Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. Adoption of the "Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People'', the formation of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. January 15. Sovnarkom decree on the organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. January 20. Sovnarkom decree on "The Separation of the Church from the State and the School from the Church".
February 18. The Austrd-German offensive against Soviet Russia begins. February 22. Publication of the Sovnarkom appeal "The Socialist Fatherland Is in Danger!"
March 3. Signing of the Brest Peace; Russia's withdrawal from the First World War. March 6. The Entente lands troops in Murmansk.
March 6-8. Seventh Party Congress. The RSDLP(B) is renamed the RCP(B). March 10--11. Soviet government is moved to Moscow. Moscow becomes the capital of the Russian Soviet Republic. March 14--16. Fourth Extraordinary All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Ratification of the Brest Peace.
April 5. Landing of Japanese troops in Vladivostok. April 30. Proclamation of the Turkestan ASSR. May 29. ARCEC decree on general mobilization to the Red Army. June 11. ARCEC decree "On the Organization of Committees of Village Poor''. June 28. Sovnarkom decree on the nationalization of large-scale industry and the railroads.
July 4-10. Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Adoption of the first Soviet Constitution. July 6-7. Liquidation of the counterrevolutionary mutiny of Left SRs in Moscow. August 2. The Entente lands troops in Archangel. August 15--16. Landing of American troops in Vladivostok. August 30. Attempt to assassinate Lenin.
September 10, 12---October 7. Victory of the Red Army in the Volga area, liberation of Kazan, Simbirsk and Samara.
October 29---November 4. First All-Russia Congress of the Komsomol in Moscow.
314October 31. Sovnarkom decree on social insurance for working people.
November 6-9. Sixth Extraordinary All-Russia Congress of Soviets.
November 13. ARCEC enactment annulling the Brest Peace Treaty.
November 29. Manifesto of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of the Ukraine on the deposition of the Hetman and the establishment of Soviet power in the Ukraine.
November 29. Formation of the Estland Labor Commune (the Estonian SSR) in Narva. November 30. ARCEC enactment on the creation of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense headed by V. I. Lenin. November---December. Austro-German occupation troops are driven from Soviet territory.
December 10. Publication of the first Code of Labor Laws, ratified by the ARCEC. December 16. Formation of the Lithuanian SSR. December 17. Formation of the Latvian SSR.
1919January I. Formation of the Byelorussian Republic.
January 11. Sovnarkom decree on food surplus appropriation.
March 2-6. First Congress of the Communist International.
March 18--23. Eighth Party Congress, adopting a new Party Program.
April 12. First communist subbotnik at the Moskva-Sortirovochnaya station.
July 6. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the RSFSR and Afghanistan.
July 9. Central Committee of the RCP(B) appeals "All Out for the Fight against Denikin!"
October 11. Red Army counterattack against Denikin's White Army begins. October---November. Destruction of Yudenich's White corps near Petrograd. November 14. Omsk is liberated from Kolchak's forces. December 5-9. Seventh All-Russia Congress of Soviets. December 12, 16. Liberation of Kharkov and Kiev. December 26. Sovnarkom decree on the elimination of illiteracy.
1920January 8. Liberation of Rostov-on-Don from the Whites.
January 29. Sovnarkom decree on universal labor liability.
February 2. Signing of a peace treaty between the RSFSR and Estonia.
April 6. Formation of the Far Eastern Republic.
April 25. Bourgeois-landlord Poland attacks Soviet Russia.
April 26. Proclamation of Soviet power in Khorezm.
April 28. Proclamation of Soviet power in Azerbaijan. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is reorganized into the Council on Labor and Defense.
July 12. Signing of a peace treaty between the RSFSR and Lithuania.
August 11. Signing of a peace treaty between the RSFSR and Latvia.
August 26. Formation of the Kazakh ASSR.
October 14. Signing of a peace treaty between the RSFSR and Finland.
November 17. Liberation of the Crimea from the Whites.
November 29. Formation of the Armenian SSR.
December 22--29. Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets: adoption of the GOELRO Plan.
1921February 25. Formation of the Georgian SSR.
February 26. Signing of a Soviet-Iranian treaty establishing friendly relations.
February 28---March 18. Kronstadt White mutiny and its liquidation.
March 8-16. Tenth Party Congress, which makes the decision to adopt the New Economic Policy (NEP). March 16. Signing in Moscow of a Treaty on Peace and Brotherhood between the RSFSR and Turkey; conclusion of a provisional commercial agreement between the RSFSR and Britain. March 18. Signing in Riga of a peace treaty between the RSFSR and Poland.
__PRINTERS_P_315_COMMENT__ 21* 315May 6. Conclusion of a trade agreement with Germany.
November 5. Treaty establishing friendly relations between Mongolia and Soviet Russia.
1922March 2. Presidium of the ARCEC adopts an enactment "On a Uniform Tax in Kind''. April 10---May 19. The Genoa Conference, with Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, the RSFSR and other countries participating. April 16. Signing of the Rapallo Treaty between the RSFSR and Germany; diplomatic relations between the two countries restored. June 15---July 19. The Hague Conference, with Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, the RSFSR, Japan, France and other countries participating. October 25. Liberation of Vladivostok from the Japanese. December 13. Formation of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. December 30. First Congress of Soviets of the USSR; formation of the USSR.
1923July 6. The Central Executive Committee adopts the first Constitution of the USSR; formation of the USSR Council on Labor and Defense.
1924January 21. Death of V. I. Lenin.
January 26---February 2. Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR. Ratification of the first Constitution of the USSR. February 2. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Great Britain.
February 7. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Italy. February 7, 25; March 8,18. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Norway, Austria, Greece and Sweden.
May 31. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and China. June 18. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Denmark. October 12. Formation of the Moldavian ASSR within the Ukrainian SSR. October 14. Formation of the Tajik ASSR. October 27. Formation of the Turkmen and Uzbek SSRs. October 28. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and France.
1925January 20. Treaty between the USSR and Japan on the establishment of diplomatic relations and the return of Sakhalin to the Soviet Union. December 6. Shatura electric plant is put into operation. December 17. Signing of a treaty of friendship and neutrality between the USSR and Turkey. December 18--31. Fourteenth Party Congress. The RCP(B) is renamed the CPSU(B).
1926February 1. Formation of the Kirghiz ASSR.
April 24. Signing of a treaty on neutrality and non-aggression between the USSR and Germany.
August 31. Signing of a treaty on neutrality and non-aggression between the USSR and Afghanistan.
1927May 12. Provocative raid by British police on the Soviet joint-stock commercial society, ``Arcos'', in London.
316November 10--12. World Congress of the Friends of the USSR in Moscow. December 2-19. Fifteenth Party Congress.
1928June 1-5. All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers.
August 1. Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom adopt a decision on the organization of large-scale state grain farms. November. Establishment of the first Machine and Tractor Station in the USSR at the Shevchenko State Farm (the Ukraine).
1929April 23--29. Sixteenth Party Conference. Adoption of the first five-year plan and of an appeal to all working people to undertake socialist competition. December 5. Formation of the Tajik SSR.
1930January 5. The Central Committee of the Communist Party adopts a decision on "The Rate of Collectivization and State Measures to Assist Collective Farm Development".
March 14. The Central Committee of the Communist Party adopts a resolution "Measures to Combat the Distortions of the Party Line in the Collective Farm Movement".
May 1. Inauguration of the Turkestan-Siberian Railway.
June 15. Rostov Agricultural Machinery Plant is put into operation.
June 17. Dzerzhinsky tractor works in Stalingrad is put into operation.
June 26---July 13. Sixteenth Party Congress.
August 14. The Central Executive Committee and the Sovnarkom adopt a resolution on universal compulsory elementary education.
September 1. Chelyabinsk hydroelectric plant is put into operation.
1931August 2. The Central Committee of the Communist Party adopts a resolution on the further rate of collectivization and the tasks on strengthening the collective farms.
October 1. The modernized Moscow automotive plant (now the Likhachev plant) is put into operation.
October 1. The first tractor comes off the line at the Orjonikidze tractor plant in Kharkov.
1932January 1. The Gorky automotive plant is put into operation.
January 21. A treaty is signed between the USSR and Finland on non-aggression and the peaceful settlement of conflicts. January 31. The first blast furnace is put into operation at the Magnitogorsk metallurgical combine.
March 16. The Voskresensk chemical combine is put into operation.
March 29. The First roller and ball bearing plant in Moscow is put into operation.
April 3. The first furnace at the Kuznetsk metallurgical complex is put into operation.
October 4. The first coal mine is opened in Vorkuta (the Pechora coal field).
October 10. The Lenin hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper (Dneproges) is put into operation.
November 29. Signing of a non-aggression pact between the USSR and France.
1933February 15--19. First All-Union Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers.
June 1. The Chelyabinsk tractor plant is put into operation.
July 15. The Urals heavy engineering plant (Uralmash) is put into operation.
July 28. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Spain.
September 2. Signing of a treaty of friendship, non-aggression and neutrality between the USSR and Italy.
November 16. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the United States.
317 1934January 26---February 10. Seventeenth Party Congress; adoption of the second five-year plan for the economic development of the USSR.
February 4. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Hungary. June 9. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Romania and between the USSR and Czechoslovakia.
July 23. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Bulgaria. August 17---September 1. First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. September 17. Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Albania. September 18. The USSR enters the League of Nations.
1935February 11--19. Second All-Union Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers.
Adoption of Model Rules for Agricultural Artel May 2. Signing of a Soviet-French mutual assistance treaty. May 15. The Moscow subway is put into operation. May 16. Signing of a Soviet-Czechoslovak mutual assistance treaty. July 7. Sovnarkom decision "On the Handing over to Agricultural Artels of State Deeds for the Indefinite (in Perpetuity) Use of the Land''. August 30--31. The Stakhanov movement in industry and agriculture begins.
1936November 25---December 5. Eighth Extraordinary All-Russia Congress of Soviets of the USSR.
December 5. Adoption of the new Constitution of the USSR. December 5. Reorganization of the Kazakh and Kirghiz Autonomous republics into Union republics.
1937April 28. Sovnarkom decision on the third five-year plan for the national economy. May 21. First Soviet expedition "North-1'', into the high latitudes; establishment of the "North Pole-1" station. From June, 1937, through February, 1938, the expedition, consisting of I. D. Papanin, P. P. Shirshov, Y. K. Fedorov and E. T. Krenkel, worked on drift ice in the center of the Arctic. June 18--20. First direct flight between Moscow and Portland (USA) across the North Pole, by V. P. Chkalov, G. F. Baidukov and A. V. Belyakov. August 21. Conclusion of a non-aggression treaty between the USSR and China.
1938January 12. Opening of the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the first convocation. July 29---August 11. Units of the Red Army rout Japanese troops that had intruded into Soviet territory near Lake Khasan.
1939March 10--21. Eighteenth Party Congress.
May 11---August 31. Provocative attack by Japan on the Mongolian People's Republic at the Khalhin-Gol River; Soviet and Mongolian troops rout the Japanese. August 1. Opening of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow. August 1---September 15. Construction of the Great Ferghana Canal. August 23. Conclusion of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty. September 1. Germany attacks Poland. Outbreak of the Second World War.
318November 1-2. The Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia are accepted into the USSR and united with the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR. respectively.
November 30---March 12 (1940). Soviet-Finnish War.
December 23. The Uzbek SSR is awarded the Order of Lenin.
1940June 15--17. The fascist dictatorship in Lithuania is overthrown and a people's government formed.
June 20. The fascist dictatorship in Latvia is overthrown and a democratic people's government formed.
June 21. The fascist dictatorship in Estonia is overthrown and a people's government formed.
June 28. Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina are returned to the Soviet Union by Romania.
July 21. Reestablishment of Soviet power in the Baltic area, and the formation of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian SSRs.
August 2. Formation of the Moldavian SSR. August 3-6. The Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian SSRs are accepted into the USSR.
1941February 15--20. Eighteenth Party Conference.
[319] __ALPHA_LVL1__ NAME INDEX MISSING : must scan each column separately. 320 MISSING : must scan each column separately. 321 MISSING : must scan each column separately. 322 MISSING : must scan each column separately. 323 MISSING : must scan each column separately. 324 MISSING : must scan each column separately. 325 MISSING : must scan each column separately. 326 MISSING : must scan each column separately. [327] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] REQUEST TO READERS Progress Publishers would be glad to have your opinion of this book, its translation and design, and any suggestions you may have for future publications. Please send all your comments to 17, Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, USSR. [328]