I could never smile. Joseph Stalin. Threshold 70
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The text on the picture:
We did not have an iron and steel industry, the basis for the industrialization of the country. Now we have one. We did not have a tractor industry. Now we have one. We did not have an automobile industry. Now we have one. We did not have a machine-tool industry. Now we have one. We did not have a big and modern chemical industry. Now we have one. We did not have a real and big industry for the production of modern agricultural machinery. Now we have one. We did not have an aircraft industry. Now we have one. In output of electric power we were last on the list. Now we rank among the first. In output of oil products and coal we were last on the list. Now we rank among the first.
We had only one coal and metallurgical base-in the Ukraine-and it was with difficulty that we made do with that. We have not only succeeded in improving this base, but have created a new coal and metallurgical base-in the East-which is the pride of our country. We had only one centre of the textile industry-in the North of our country. As a result of our efforts we shall have in the very near future two new centres of the textile industry-in Central Asia and Western Siberia.And we have not only created these new great industries, but have created them on a scale and in dimensions that eclipse the scale and dimensions of European industry.
And as a result of all this the capitalist elements have been completely and irrevocably ousted from industry, and socialist industry has become the sole form of industry in the U.S.S.R. And as a result of all this our country has been converted from an agrarian into an industrial country; for the proportion of industrial output, as compared with agricultural output, has risen from 48 per cent of the total in the beginning of the five-year plan period (1928) to 70 per cent at the end of the fourth year of the five-year plan period (1932).
And as a result of all this we have succeeded by the end of the fourth year of the five-year plan period in
fulfilling the total programme of industrial output, which was drawn up for five years, to the extent of 93.7 per cent, thereby raising the volume of industrial output to more than three times the pre-war output, and to more than double the level of 1928.
As for the programme of output for heavy industry, we have fulfilled the five-year plan by 108 per cent.
It is true that we are 6 per cent short of fulfilling the total programme of the five-year plan. But that isdue to the fact that in view of the refusal of neighbouring countries to sign pacts of non-aggression with us, and of the complications that arose in the Far East, we were obliged, for the purpose of trengthening our defence, hastily to switch a number of factories to the production of modern defensive means. And owing to the necessity of going through a certain period of preparation, this switch resulted in these factories suspending production for four months, which could not but affect the fulfilment of the total programme of output for 1932, as fixed in the five-year plan. As a result of this operation we have completely filled the gaps with regard to the defence capacity of the country. But this was bound to affect adversely the fulfilment of the programme of output provided for in the five-year plan. It is beyond any doubt that, but for this incidental circumstance, we would almost certainly not only have fulfilled, but even overfulfilled the total production figures of the five-year plan.
Finally, as a result of all this the Soviet Union has been converted from a weak country, unprepared for defence, into a country mighty in defence, a country prepared for every contingency, a country capable of producing on a mass scale all modern means of defence and of equipping its army with them in the event of an attack from abroad.
Yulia Ivanova
I could never smile. Joseph Stalin. Threshold 70
THE THRESHOLD
The witnesses: G. Bakhmetiev, the last Tsarist Russia Ambassador to the United States, Nikolai Ostrovsky.
I personally think that Stalin was a genuine communist.
I must say that his speeches and statements on the above ten goals in logic and argument than anything that comes from his other colleagues:
Do what wants to do right slant; it is to recognize that the Communist Party bits.
This means embark on liquidation of the revolution as such:
Only separate, more responsive thinking and seeing the leaders allowed seeing better and deeper.
And I cannot deny Stalin in that capacity forecasting and analysis, which I cannot notice neither at Rykov, nor other such softer Communists:
For me the fall of Stalin will be Thermidor.
There are no leaders of the Right deviation, which is not required. It is only necessary to put an end to the history of Stalin as the last stronghold of the steadfast.
Then the power will remain: in the hands of soft extremists Rykov and his company.
Who, like Thermidorians will try to carry on the Bolshevik banner, but will actually be a vital element of the toy, and giving hesitate pressure of life."
(G. Bakhmetiev, the last Ambassador of Tsarist Russia in the U.S.).
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From the conversation with a foreign correspondent Nikolai Ostrovsky:
If I did not feel the truth of the case, which I am doing, I do not think I could never smile...
I know what the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
I worked with eleven years, and worked for thirteen to fifteen hours a day.
But I was beaten. Beat is not for poor performance, I worked honestly and for not giving as much as the owner wanted to take from me.
Such is the attitude of the exploiters to the workers throughout the world. And these people are talking about humanity!
At home they listen to Wagner and Beethoven, and the ghosts of tortured people they do not confuse them rest.
Their well-being is based on an inhuman attitude toward work, which they despise for uncultured.
But as a worker can become a cultural condition in capitalist exploitation? Do not they pull it back to the Middle Ages?
We also have flaws, but the remnants of the old legacy...
Inciting ethnic hatred is one of the methods of capitalist policy. Their fear is understandable association oppressed peoples...
Everything has changed since October. Tsarist "Russia" is no more.
That carried a Russian soldier? The royal flag and wild exploitation of its domestic bourgeoisie.
Our army is not an army-winner, cruel to the conquered people.
Our Red Army knows that his enemy was not the German people. He knows that after our victory will be the brotherhood of nations.
And once the enemy threw weapons, retreated, then enter its territory not robbers, not enemies, but friends...
The fight will be fierce. Hitler was able to play at the national humiliation and managed to ignite a terrible chauvinism. It's a terrible thing.
We have 168 nationalities in the Soviet Union and at the same time, we now present the brotherhood of nations.
Twenty years ago, I had witnessed the ugly bullying Jews. Now it's crazy, ridiculous.
In the Red Army special attention is paid to the political education of soldiers.
I myself until 1923 was commissioner of the battalion. We have never said that the Germans or Poles our enemies, it would be a crime...
These are our friends, in chains of capitalist slavery...
Oppression and tyranny are the same everywhere: there is fascism and democracy there, although here and there capitalists.
We are not equating them, we catch every honest person...
Journalists have a good, honest heart.
And if one of ten out of the camp operation with an unblemished heart, it is a great joy...
A common cause, common struggle gives strength to endure all things.
I do not move and do not see the past eight years.
You cannot imagine, cannot imagine the feeling of immobility. This is a terrible thing, even when health, in the absence of pain and misery. After all, even in a dream a person changes position.
C. Say, if not communism, you could also transfer their position?
O. Never! Personal tragedy for me right now is secondary. It is clear...
When dreary circle, a person is saved in the personal for him all the joy in the family, uzkolichnom range of interests.
Then misfortune in his personal life (illness, job loss, and so on) can lead to disaster: the man nothing to live on.
It goes out like a candle. No goals. It ends where the private ends. Behind the walls of the house there is a cruel world where all the enemies to each other.
Capitalism teaches people to consciously antagonism, he was scared union workers. And our party brings a deep sense of camaraderie and friendship.
In this great spiritual power of man is to feel in a friendly team.
I lost the most wonderful in my life, the opportunity to see life. Add to this the enormous suffering that do not give a second oblivion.
It was a great test of will. Believe me you can go crazy if you allow yourself to think about the pain.
And in front of me was a question: if I did everything I could?
But my conscience is at peace. I lived honestly, lost everything in the fight.
What is left for me? Before me there is a dark night, continuous suffering. I am deprived of all, all physical pleasures; the process of eating for me is torment.
What can you do in my position?
But the Party brings us a sense of the sacred to fight as long as you have a spark of life.
Here in the offensive fighter falls, and the only pain because he cannot help his comrades in the struggle.
We happened like this: never left walking wounded to the rear. Goes battalion and twenty people in it with bandaged heads...
If you asked my doctor, he would have said:
"I'm thirty years old believed that sick person who whines, who complain of illness. And it does not know when he's sick. Meanwhile destroyed heart, nerves ablaze, huge breakdown.
He must three years doing nothing, just eat and sleep. And yes read Anatole France Mark Twain, and then in small doses."
And I work fifteen hours a day. How? Doctors do not understand.
But not anything supernatural. Legally, I'm sick. I bear great suffering, do not leave me, night or day.
C. How do you sleep?
O. Seven or eight hours.
C. Where did you work when you start your disease?
O. I'm a political worker, secretary of the Komsomol committee. And that means I work from 6 am to 2 am. For myself, no time left at all.
C. I have no hesitation to say that the conversation with you has taught me, and I will never forget. You are a brave man. Courage gives you devotion to the ideas of communism. This ideological communist courage. Yes?
O. Yes. I could die at any moment. Maybe after you fly a telegram about my death.
It does not scare me, that's why I work, not sparing their lives. If I were healthy, I would save power for business use.
But I go to the brink and every minute can be broken. I know it's hard.
Two months ago, I had jaundice and bile poisoning, I do not just randomly died. But as soon as the temperature dropped, I immediately went to work and worked for twenty hours a day.
I was afraid that die, until he have finished the book.
I feel like I 'm melting, and I hasten to catch every minute until I feel a huge flame in my heart and my brain until bright. Me death traps, and it reinforces the desire for life.
I'm not a hero for an hour. I won all the tragedies in his life: blindness, immobility, insane pain.
I am a very happy person in spite of all.
And it's not because I have achieved everything that I was awarded the government. I did nothing and was just as glad.
Understand, this was never the purpose of my work. Let tomorrow I will continue to live in a small, shabby little room, I would not care...
Steel is hardened with high heat and strong cooling. Then it becomes a strong and not afraid of anything. So our generation was tempered in the struggle and the terrible trials and has learned not to fall for life.
I was illiterate until 1924 I did not know the Russian language well.
Huge amount of work over a made me an intellectual. I knew only good policy and this for me at the time lacked.
Most studied when they are sick: I had free time.
I read twenty hours a day. In six years of immobility, I read a lot of books huge...
If you survived your honesty and you have saved human dignity, it is already a lot.
You do not understand much. You have not seen Russia before the revolution, cannot imagine this evil terrible situation.
Only by knowing our terrible past we appreciate and understand the tremendous work that we have done.
And it is terrible that there are people who want to smash everything, and blow up and get us back to the old slavery."
(Nikolai Ostrovsky, the newspaper "News Chronicle". 1936.).
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