Notes of a Journalist, november 1930

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The Greatest Crime

Pravda has now formulated a new type of crime: "the Trotskyists' methods of discrediting the best pupil of Lenin and the recognized leader of the party, Comrade Stalin." Unfortunately, the most serious beginning of this Trotskyist method was made in Lenin's testament, where the "best pupil" is accused of rudeness, disloyalty, and the tendency toward the abuse of power, and where the party is urged to remove him from his post.

"Everybody Remembers”

The paper Za Industrializatsiia [For Industrialization], which incidentally is edited in a very careless manner, writes: "Everybody remembers the idea, advanced at one time by the wreckers of the southern metal industry, that the Dnieprostroi power station should be constructed only when there would be consumers for the power. In other words, only after the factories have demanded power should the construction of the station begin. This was directed against the Dnieprostroi" (November 3).

"Everybody remembers"! But some also remember that all these arguments were the basic ones of the Politburo in 1926-27. Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Rykov — all were against the Dnieprostroi project, with the exception of the Ukrainians, who were for Dnieprostroi for their own reasons. Stalin maintained that construction of the Dnieprostroi station should be compared to a peasant's purchase of a phonograph instead of a cow. Voroshilov clamored that it would be ridiculous to construct a power station for factories that did not yet exist.

All this is preserved in the stenographic minutes of the Central Committee meetings.

The Opposition’s Yesterday

In a lengthy article (November 21) Pravda criticizes the errors of A. P. Smirnov, the former commissar of agriculture, and his successor Teodorovich, and reveals their adherence to the Kondratievs. The article is basically a paraphrasing of the written declarations which the Opposition presented to the Central Committee in 1926-27, and which were indignantly rejected by Stalin, Molotov, and the others. And so poor Pravda repeats the Opposition's yesterday.

The Mystery of Repentance

Sovetskaya Sibir [Soviet Siberia] informs us that in Kalachinsk "the chief activity and concern of the communists of late has been the recognition of errors and self-flagellation, which is carried out with particular pleasure and levity."

Only in Kalachinsk?

They now repent as easily as they blow their nose. The well-known Bogushevsky, who for a number of months was generally associated with the extreme right (actually he was not a right-winger; he simply did not get the signal in time and continued to play the old record), is now not only the editor of Za Industrializatsiia but is also conducting a furious campaign against the right-wingers. What was required of him for this high post? Nothing in particular: to cut his hair, take a bath, and repent. And the fellow is again as good as new — until the moment of a new zigzag.

After these lines had been written, the Moscow papers brought the latest news: Bogushevsky has been called on the carpet for labeling Bukharin's repentance a fraud. Again, he did not get the signal in time and overreached himself. It can't be helped; it's the risk of the trade.

Bald-Headed Communist Youth

Why do you keep silent, Nikolai Ivanovich?

A few lines to you and Rykov we are ready to devote.

This is a fragment of verse by Bezymensky, the accuser of those who cannot defend themselves. He calls Nussinov, who was expelled from the party, "a most villainous abomination." There's a bold and quick-witted poet for you! Further on he speaks of "the villainous carrion of all oppositions" even though the eminent Bezymensky himself once belonged to one of the oppositions. And all this is in the style of bald-headed communist youth.