Stalin, the Peasant, and the Gramophone

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At the session of the plenum meeting on April 13 Comrade Stalin permitted himself to say that it was “a lie” when I recalled his words to the effect that the Dneprostroi project was equivalent to a muzhik buying a gramophone. Here is what Comrade Stalin said, word for word, at the April plenum in 1926: “What we are talking about … is making Dneprostroi pay for itself. However, very large sums are needed for this, several hundred million. How can we help but get ourselves in the situation of the muzhik who, having saved a few kopecks, instead of repairing the plow and renovating the farm, bought a gramophone and … bankrupted himself? … [Laughter.] Can’t we take into account the decision of the congress that our industrial plans must correspond to our resources? Nevertheless Comrade Trotsky obviously has not taken this decision of the congress into account” (Stenographic record of the plenum, p. 110).

Comrade Stalin attempts to explain his position on the question with the argument that in 1926 we were talking about spending 500 million rubles over five years but now we are only talking about 130 million. But even if this were the case, my words did not constitute “a lie.” In regard to the amounts under discussion, however, here too Comrade Stalin is now introducing absolute confusion, which shows that he still fails to understand the question today, just as he failed to understand it last year. The outlays for Dneprostroi were estimated a year ago at 110-120-130 million and not at all at several hundred million. Since then the estimates have undoubtedly been made more exact but they remain within the framework of those figures. As for the new factories, which would be the consumers of the power produced by the Dnepr power plant, their cost is very roughly projected at 200-300 million. However, these plants are not being built for Dneprostroi. They are needed for their own sake. Dneprostroi is being built in order to serve these necessary factories. Their cost will probably be determined more exactly hereafter but essentially the difference cannot be very great. It is absolutely nonsensical therefore to assert that at the plenum last year we were talking about half a billion and not 110-130 million, as we are now. Both then and now the amounts under discussion have been on the same order.

It is hardly necessary to qualify those traits of Comrade Stalin’s character which enable him to throw the term “lie” around so lightly.