Telegram to L.M. Kaganovich, V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, 5 August 1932

Source: Tom 17

To Kaganovich. Molotov. Voroshilov and other members of the Politburo.

The main shortcoming in the work of the leading organs for agriculture (higher and lower) consists (at the present moment) of deficiencies of an organizational character. Defects in the organization of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, defects in the organization of the Tractor Center and the MTS, defects in the training of cadres for the MTS and state farms, defects in the deployment of forces, the uselessness of the Kolkhoz Center and its local organs -- such are the organizational deficiencies. Many people think that the organizational question is a trifling matter. This is a gross error. Once a correct line has already been elaborated, the organizational question becomes the decisive question, since the organizational question means the implementation, the execution of the requirements of the correct line.

How can this disparity between the existence of a correct line and the absence of its proper organizational implementation be resolved -- eliminated?

It is necessary:

1. To separate from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture the grain and livestock state farms into a separate commissariat, leaving the Commissariat of Agriculture with work on the collective farm economy as its primary function.

2. To differentiate the Tractor Center and the MTS by major crops (grain, cotton, sugar beet, flax, etc.) and to make qualified MTS workers permanent salaried employees.

3. To strengthen the role of the oblast organs of the MTS and ensure real oversight over them by the obkoms.

4. To ensure that the heads of MTS are not only technicians (who know the tractor and agricultural machinery), but also agronomists and politically-minded public figures who know how to deal with the "muzhik" like real Bolsheviks. For which purpose:
a) to transform the "Sverdlovka" and the oblast communist universities, which now produce know-it-alls we do not need, into an agricultural school of a new type, capable of producing fully modern and economically competent heads of MTS, secretaries of raikoms, chairmen of district executive committees, managers of grain state farm divisions and of collective farm and livestock state farm sections;
b) to set the enrollment capacity of these agricultural schools (Moscow and oblast) at 15-20 thousand students, recruiting from among brigade leaders, deputy heads of MTS, principal raikom and district executive committee workers, workers of kolkhoz centers, etc.;

c) to organize these schools as three-year institutions for raikom secretaries and district executive committee chairmen (with a broader political curriculum) and as two-year institutions for the rest, plus six preparatory months for the semi-literate (i.e., two-and-a-half-year institutions).

5. To abolish the system of Kolkhoz Centers from top to bottom as a system that is no longer needed, and to transfer their workers to the organs of the Commissariat of Agriculture and the new state farm commissariat, making the raikoms, district executive committees, MTS, and district agricultural departments the principal organizational levers for influencing the countryside.

6. To organize a competent and fully qualified instructional apparatus attached to both commissariats of agriculture (covering all branches of agriculture).

That is all for now. Greetings!

5/VIII-32.

I. Stalin

P.S. Comrade Yakovlev visited me and is familiar with this letter. He also spoke on a number of questions, which he will communicate to you orally.

I. St.

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Source: Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936, pp. 262-263.

RGASPI. F. 81. Op. 3. D. 99. L. 125-131.

NOTE: On 1 October 1932, the Politburo adopted a decision to separate grain and livestock state farms from the Commissariat of Agriculture and to organize a People's Commissariat of Grain and Livestock State Farms of the USSR. The Kolkhoz Center and its local bodies were liquidated by a Sovnarkom resolution of 29 November 1932. Stalin's proposals received their final form in January 1933, when political departments of the MTS were created.