Whose Phonograph Is This?

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A certain S. Gorsky, an ex-Oppositionist, repented last summer. We do not deny anyone the right to repent, or to wallow in his repentance. Nor are we inclined to object to the form that the repentance takes, for the laws of esthetics — and those of anti-esthetics — require the form and content to correspond. Nevertheless, it seems to us that there are some limits at which even debasement multiplied by light-headedness should stop. It appears that Gorsky has succeeded in overstepping all these limits. It is not a question of "Trotsky frightening people with his impossible rate of industrialization," nor of the fact that on this subject Gorsky identifies Trotsky with Groman, and Groman with the saboteurs. So far Gorsky still remains within the limits of the official ritual. It is only after he has completed the prepared section that Gorsky introduces a distinctly personal note into his repentance, dragging in the Dnieprostroi station — which Trotsky fought against and Stalin rescued. Gorsky ends his article with the following words: "Those who compared the Dnieprostroi to a 'phonograph' are dancing on their own political tomb. Unfortunately, to the tune of their music, I myself once danced. — S. Gorsky" (Za Industrializatsiia, number 2544).

What is this? It is unbelievable! One doubts one's eyes. In 1925-26 Trotsky was the chairman of the governmental commission of the Dnieprostroi Partly for this reason but mostly because at that time the leading echelons of the party held fast to the idea of a "declining curve" of industrialization, all the other members of the Politburo were unanimously opposed to the hydroelectric station on the Dnieper. At the plenum of the Central Committee in April 1926, in his programmatic speech on the economy directed against the "super-industrializer" Trotsky, Stalin declared: "For us to build the Dnieprostroi would be just the same as to buy the peasant a phonograph instead of a cow." The debates were stenographed and printed, as all the minutes of the plenums are, in the printing plant of the Central Committee. Stalin's phrase about the phonograph created something of a sensation and was often repeated in the speeches and documents of the Opposition. The phrase ended up as a byword. But since Gorsky has decided to repent completely, without omitting anything, he attributes (of his own accord or under instructions from Yaroslavsky?) the economic philosophy of Stalin, including the immortal phrase, to Trotsky.

Now, what follows from this? "Those who compared the Dnieprostroi to a phonograph are dancing on their own political tomb." On their own political tomb! But it was Stalin who called the Dnieprostroi a phonograph. Then who is dancing on his own tomb? Say what you will, Gorsky's repentance sounds dubious. Is it sincere? Is this really repentance?Isn't there something in the back of his mind? Isn't Gorsky trying to discredit Stalin in Aesopian language? And why does the editor Bogushevsky stand by and look on, Bogushevsky, who knows a few things? And what about Yaroslavsky? Why doesn't he put two and two together? All in all, what are we headed for?