Letter to V.M. Molotov, September 2, 1930

Source: Tom 17

2/IX-30.

Vyacheslav!

1) Concerning Tomsky's "resignation," I agree: he gives us nothing in the chemicals sector.

2) A public explanation in the press of the Kondratyev "case" is expedient only in the event that we intend to bring this "case" to trial. Are we ready for this? Do we consider it necessary to bring the "case" to trial? It would probably be difficult to manage without a trial.

Incidentally, are the accused gentlemen not thinking of acknowledging their mistakes and thoroughly discrediting themselves politically, while at the same time recognizing the strength of Soviet power and the correctness of the collectivization method? That would not be bad.

3) Concerning the prosecution of the communists who assisted the Gromans and Kondratyevs, I agree, but then what about Rykov (who unquestionably assisted them) and Kalinin (who was plainly drawn into this "case" by that scoundrel Teodorovich)? We must think about this.

4) Very good that you have finally taken in hand the "freelance operators" from Gosbank and the thoroughly rotten People's Commissariat of Finance. What are Karklin, Kaktyn, and others doing at Gosbank? Do they simply rubber-stamp everything Pyatakov does? In my opinion, we will have to refresh the top leadership of Gosbank and the People's Commissariat of Finance using people from the OGPU and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, after these latter organs have conducted an inspection-and-thrashing operation there.

5) I consider it wrong to solemnly issue a new charter for settlement cooperatives and to advertise it in the press. It creates the impression of counterposing the slogan "Into settlement cooperatives!" to the slogan "Into collective farms!" It has created the illusion of a retreat from the call "For collective farms!" to the call "For settlement cooperatives!" Whether Moscow wants this or not, what has in fact resulted is the substitution of the vital and triumphant slogan "For or against collective farms" by the bastardized and contrived slogan "For or against settlement cooperatives." And this at a time when we have a growing influx of peasants into collective farms! I think that this attempt to pull us backward at a moment of rising collective farm movement can only sow confusion in people's heads and weaken the momentum of the influx into collective farms. I already sent you a telegram about this; perhaps I should not have sent the telegram, but do not scold me for it: it seemed to me that the sooner I communicated my opinion, the better.

I do not know whether you agree with me, but if you were to agree, one could begin immediately to gradually apply the brakes to this whole "settlement cooperative" commotion. It would be necessary, in my opinion: first, to issue an internal directive to regional committees and districts not to get carried away with settlement cooperatives, not to substitute the slogan "Into collective farms" with the slogan "Into settlement cooperatives," and to concentrate all their attention on organizing the influx into collective farms; second, to retool Pravda and all our press in the spirit of the slogan "Into collective farms," obliging them to devote daily and systematically at least a page to facts about the influx into collective farms, facts about the advantages of collective farms over individual farming, entering these facts, dispatches, letters, and so on not in small type somewhere in the back pages, but in a prominent place. In short, to launch a corresponding systematic and persistent press campaign for the collective farm movement as the main and all-decisive factor in agricultural construction at the present time.

Well, that is all for now. Warm regards.

I. Stalin.

Source: Letters of I.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov. 1925-1936. Pp. 211-213.

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

NOTE

On September 24, 1930, the Politburo approved a draft letter from the CC VKP(b) to all regional committees, oblast committees, and CC's of union-republic communist parties on collectivization. It stated, among other things: "The CC warns against the erroneous tendency, observed in certain organizations, of substituting the organization of artels with agricultural cooperative associations. While restoring agricultural cooperative associations in areas of weak collective farm movement, it is necessary to develop persistent and determined work on organizing agricultural artels as the basic form of the collective farm movement at the present stage."