The Sermon on Cockroaches

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In his concluding remarks, Stalin spoke about how Rykov, Bucharin and Tomsky becames frightened as soon as “a cockroach stirred somewhere, before it even crawled out of its hole” ... The speech evidently referred to the dissatisfied Kulaks and middle peasants. Further on, however, the above-mentioned cockroach turns out to be “feeble” and moribund”. This complicates matters somewhat. It may be that a feeble cockroach can stir, but so far as a moribund cockroach is concerned – we would say frankly that we have our doubts. We are quite in accord with the moral that even live cockroaches should not be feared. But on the other hand we assume that under no circumstances should a cockroach be called a raisin, as an economical father once did when a baked cockroach was discovered in his bread. Nevertheless, some people – “economists” if not “economical” – believed and taught others, beginning with 1924, that the Kulak is a myth altogether, that socialism can very well be reconciled with that “powerful middle peasant” – in a word, for four years they ardently converted the cockroach into the raisin of national socialism. This too should have been avoided.