Letter to V.M. Molotov, L.M. Kaganovich, 20 July 1932

Source: Tom 17

Moscow. CC VKP.

To Molotov. Kaganovich.

Copy: Rostov-on-Don. Kraikom. Sheboldaev.

I have received the draft second five-year plan for the North Caucasus Krai. I am communicating my observations.

First. Is it even necessary, before the second five-year plan for the USSR as a whole is issued, to issue a second five-year plan for a single krai? I have my doubts about this.

Second. If it is necessary to issue such a local plan before the general plan, would it not be better to start this business with Ukraine and only then proceed to the North Caucasus? I think this would be better from a political and every other point of view.

Third. The draft is composed in an agitational-declarative tone, packed with many promises that are repeated in various ways, while by all indications we will not have the means to fulfill these promises. This is not good, since it is unpleasant to find oneself in the position of well-meaning deceivers.

Fourth. The draft speaks of growth in the marketable output of agriculture, growth in grain procurement, grain exports abroad, but says almost nothing about growth in the material well-being of workers and peasants, growth in the incomes of collective farmers and workers, or how much we want to raise per capita consumption of manufactured goods and food products among the workers and peasants of the krai. This is also no good.

Fifth. The draft mentions the Balkars, Kabardians, and Ossetians, but says nothing about the Chechens, who represent the largest nationality in the krai after the Dagestanis. Apparently they forgot about the Chechens.

Stalin

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Source: Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936, p. 234.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 11. D. 78. L. 64-67.