The Five-Year Plan in Four Years?

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The extra quarter (October to December, 1930) showed a high rate of industrial development. At the same time, however, it showed that the conversion of the five-year plan into four was a light-minded adventure which raises a threat to the basic plan.

The economic year in Russia, unlike the calendar year, begins not on January 1 but on October 1. This came about because of the need to fit economic calculations and operations to the agricultural cycle. What is the reason for suddenly disrupting the arrangement introduced as we see for serious reasons? For the reason that bureaucratic prestige has to be exalted. As the fourth quarter of the second year of the five-year plan showed the impossibility of fulfilling the plan in four years, the decision was taken to add an extra quarter, i. e., to extend the four years by three more months. It was assumed that in this period, with the help of redoubled pressure on the muscles and nerves of the workers, the fetish of the infallible leadership would encourage success.

But as the extra quarter did not have any special magic power (there is no heat you know when the thermometer drops to zero), at the end of the quarter it turned out — as might have been expected and as we foresaw before it started — notwithstanding that the workers were lashed with the knout of the party members, of the soviets, and of the unions, the super-tempos proved to be impracticable.

The ferrous-metal industry in the south and center fulfilled 80 percent of the extra-quarter plan. The metal industry as a whole under-filled the plan by approximately 20 percent (Pravda, January 16). The Donbas produced 10 million tons of coal instead of the programmed 16 million tons, no better than 62 percent. The super-phosphate factories fulfilled their industrial tasks only up to 62 percent. In other branches of industry the under-fulfillments of the plan are not so large (we still don't have the full reports), but on the whole the so-called "gap" in the plan is very significant, especially and in particular in capital construction.

Matters are worse, however, with the qualitative indices. The newspaper Za Industrializatsiia, speaking of coal production, says: "The gap for qualitative indices is much wider than for quantitative indices" (January 8). In connection with the output of Krivoy Rog iron ore, the newspaper writes: "The qualitative indices have fallen" (January 7). Have fallen! But we know that even earlier they stood at an extremely low level. On nonferrous metals and gold the same newspaper states: "Prices are higher instead of lower." It is possible to bring forward a whole series of similar references. As for the significance of, for example, the deterioration in the quality of coal, our correspondent says of this, in application to transport (see "Letter from a trade unionist" in the same issue): reduced number of runs, damaged engines, increased number of breakdowns; in general, the dislocation of transport is the automatic response to the deterioration in the quality of the fuel. In its turn, the disorganization of rail transport which — we notice at once — lagged particularly badly in the period of the extra quarter, was felt heavily in all other fields of the economy. The sporting method of the leadership substituted for prudent, businesslike, and flexible planning signifies an ever-increasing accumulation of backlogs (often concealed and therefore particularly dangerous) which carry the threat of severe, critical explosions.

Tempos in the extra quarter are very high in themselves and they offer fresh magnificent demonstrations of the immense gains inherent in planned economy. Under a correct leadership — which takes account of the real economic processes and introduces the necessary changes into the plan as it is being implemented — the workers would be able to feel rightly a sense of pride in successes achieved. However, quite the opposite result comes out into the open: economists and workers quite often see the plan is impracticable but don't dare say it aloud; they work under pressure, with concealed resentment; honest and efficient administrators don't dare look the workers in the eye. Everyone is dissatisfied. The bookkeeping is adjusted on instructions; the quality of the article is adjusted by the bookkeeping — all economic processes are wrapped in the smoke of falsehood. That is how the way is prepared for a crisis.

What is the reason for all this? The reason is the prestige of the bureaucracy, which has finally replaced the conscious and critical confidence of the party in the leadership. It must be said that this deity — prestige — is not only diabolically exacting and cynical but also fairly foolish: it is not, for example, shy to acknowledge that wreckers are fulfilling the plans, which is equal to saying that neither Krzhizhanovsky nor Kuibyshev nor Molotov nor Stalin showed any ability to recognize for himself this wrecking in the economic symptoms. On the other hand, neither does this great deity agree to acknowledge that establishing the four-year period, emerging as a result of a combination of wrecking and ignorant adventurism, has shown itself to have been a mistake.

We recall once more that when we gave warning at the very outset against light-minded, unmotivated, unprepared steps, Yaroslavsky — the troubadour of prestige — proclaimed in all languages that our warning was a fresh demonstration of the counterrevolutionary nature of "Trotskyism."