Letter to V.M. Molotov, September 28, 1930

Source: Tom 17

Vyacheslav!

1) Did you receive my letter of 22/IX? I sent it through Yagoda. In it I wrote, among other things, about creating a "Commission of Execution." I think that if Sergo were for some reason to decline the post of chairman of this commission, you would have to take the post yourself, and Sergo could be your deputy for the verification-of-execution function. I consider such a commission absolutely necessary as a measure to improve the health of our apparatuses and to combat bureaucratism, which is simply eating us alive.

2) But the "Commission of Execution" covers only one side of the matter, directed with its sharp edge against the bureaucratism of our apparatuses. To fully put the business of our construction on the rails, we must also address the other side. I am speaking of labor "turnover" at enterprises, of "job-hoppers," of labor discipline, of the diminishing cadre of permanent workers, of socialist competition and shock-work, of the organization of workers' food supply. The situation now is as follows: some workers work honestly, on the principle of competition, while others (the majority) are disorganized and "fly about," with the latter being supplied just as well (if not better) as the former, enjoying the same privileges in terms of leave, sanatorium rest, insurance, etc., as the former. Is this not an outrage? This could undermine any real basis for socialist competition and shock-work! To add to this outrage, we keep pulling from production ("promoting"!) every last worker who shows any initiative, and sending them off to some office where they die of boredom in an unfamiliar environment, thus depleting the composition of cadre workers in production, i.e., once again undermining the basis of competition and weakening the army of the latter.

To tolerate such a state of affairs any longer means going against the interests of socialist construction.

What is to be done? The following is needed:
a) To concentrate the means of workers' supply in the basic, decisive regions (a special list) and correspondingly to reorganize the cooperative and trade organizations in these regions (and if necessary, to smash them and set up new ones) on the principle of rapid and complete supply to workers, placing these regions under the special oversight of CC members (a special list);
b) To single out shock-workers at each enterprise and supply them fully and as a first priority, both with food products and manufactured goods, as well as with housing, ensuring them all insurance rights in full;
c) To divide non-shock-workers into two categories: those who have worked at the given enterprise for no less than a year, and those who have worked less than a year; the former to be supplied with products and housing as a second priority and in full measure; the latter as a third priority and at a reduced norm.

As for sickness insurance, etc., the approach with them should be roughly as follows: you have worked at the enterprise for less than a year, you have been "hopping about" -- so be good enough to receive in case of illness not your full wage, but, say, two-thirds; while those who have worked no less than a year shall receive their full wage. And so on in this vein.

d) To prohibit the promotion of workers from the workbench to any and all administrative apparatuses, encouraging their promotion only along the production line (and perhaps the trade-union line). Let them promote workers from the workbench (those who know their trade) to assistant foremen, foremen, shop managers, and the like. This kind of promotion is now as vital to us as air and water. Without it, we will squander the entire cadre of production workers and hand our enterprises over to the self-seekers.

e) To break with the petty-bourgeois traditions of Tomsky on the question of absenteeism and labor discipline, to eliminate any and all "legal" loopholes for absentees (which put them in a privileged position compared to honest workers), and to apply broadly against absentees workers' courts and expulsion from trade unions.

f) To break with the petty-bourgeois traditions of Tomsky on the question of the unemployed, to organize a genuine registration of the genuinely unemployed, to systematically purge the unemployment rolls of casual and clearly non-unemployed elements, and to establish a regime whereby an unemployed person who has twice refused offered work is automatically deprived of the right to receive benefits.

g) And so on and so forth.

I have no doubt that these and similar measures will find the greatest support among the workers.

This matter is, of course, serious and complex. It must be thought through thoroughly. Whether these measures can be applied immediately to all branches of industry is also a problem. But the matter is nonetheless extremely necessary and inevitable.

Think over this matter there (as well as the question of the "Commission of Execution") in a close circle of trusted friends, and then communicate their opinion.

Only bear in mind that Syrtsov's commission on workers' food supply will be unable to produce anything in this direction. A new commission is needed, created on different principles. I myself could join such a commission if necessary.

Warm regards.

28/IX-30.

I. Stalin.

P.S. I have just received your letter from the Donbass. It turns out Schwartz was not up to the big task.

I. St.

Source: Letters of I.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov. 1925-1936. Pp. 224-227.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 5388.

NOTE

On October 20, 1930, the CC VKP(b) adopted a resolution "On Measures for the Planned Provision of the National Economy with Labor Power and the Struggle against Turnover."

It noted, among other things, that the People's Commissariat of Labor of the USSR "displayed an obviously bureaucratic attitude toward economic tasks and, instead of organizing the rapid distribution and utilization of the needed labor power, kept hundreds of thousands of 'unemployed' on benefits, paying them tens of millions of rubles, while conducting no struggle against job-hoppers and malingerers."

The resolution stipulated: "In the event of refusal of offered work, the registered shall be immediately removed from the rolls of the labor organs... deserters and job-hoppers shall be deprived of the right to be sent to work at industrial enterprises for a period of six months," etc.