Joseph Stalin: “Results of the First Five-year Plan”

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I: The International Significance of the Five-year Plan

Comrades, when the five-year plan was published, people hardly anticipated that it could be of tremendous international significance. On the contrary, many thought that the five-year plan was a private affair of the Soviet Union—an important and serious affair, but nevertheless a private, national affair of the Soviet Union.

History has shown, however, that the international significance of the five-year plan is immeasurable. History has shown that the five-year plan is not the private affair of the Soviet Union, but the concern of the whole international proletariat.

Long before the five-year plan appeared on the scene, in the period when we were finishing our struggle against the interventionists and were going over to the work of economic construction—even in that period Lenin said that our economic construction was of profound international significance; that every step forward taken by the Soviet Government along the path of economic construction was finding a powerful response among the most varied strata in capitalist countries and dividing people into two camps—the camp of the supporters of the proletarian revolution and the camp of its opponents. Lenin said at that time: “At the present time we are exercising our main influence on the international revolution by our economic policy. … That is the field to which the struggle has been transferred on a world-wide scale. If we solve this problem, we shall have won on an international scale surely and finally. That is why questions of economic construction assume absolutely exceptional significance for us. On this front we must win victory by slow, gradual … but steady progress upward and forward.” …

Many years have elapsed since then, and every step taken by the Soviet Government in the sphere of economic development, every year, every quarter, has brilliantly confirmed Comrade Lenin's words.

But the most brilliant confirmation of the correctness of Lenin's words has been provided by our five-year plan of construction, by the emergence of this plan, its development and its fulfilment. …

At first the bourgeoisie and its press greeted the five-year plan with ridicule. “Fantasy,” “delirium,” “utopia”—that is how they dubbed our five-year plan at that time.

Later on, when it began to be evident that the fulfilment of the five-year plan was producing real results, they began to sound the alarm, asserting that the five-year plan was threatening the existence of the capitalist countries, that its fulfilment would lead to the flooding of European markets with goods, to intensified dumping and the increase of unemployment.

Still later, when this trick used against the Soviet regime also failed to produce the expected results, a series of voyages to the U.S.S.R. was undertaken by representatives of all sorts of firms, organs of the press, societies of various kinds, etc., for the purpose of seeing with their own eyes what was actually going on in the U.S.S.R. I am not referring here to the workers' delegations, which, from the very first appearance of the five-year plan, have expressed their admiration of the undertakings and successes of the Soviet regime and manifested their readiness to support the working class of the U.S.S.R.

From that time a cleavage began in so-called public opinion, in the bourgeois press, in all kinds of bourgeois societies, etc. Some maintained that the five-year plan had utterly failed and that the Bolsheviks were on the verge of collapse. Others, on the contrary, declared that although the Bolsheviks were bad people, their five-year plan was nevertheless going well and in all probability they would achieve their object. …

The question of the attitude of the working class in capitalist countries towards the five-year plan, towards the successes of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R., is in a category by itself. It may be sufficient to quote here the opinion of just one of the numerous workers' delegations that come to the U.S.S.R. every year, for example, that of a Belgian workers' delegation. The opinion of this delegation is typical of that of all workers' delegations without exception, whether they be British or French, German or American, or delegations of other countries. Here it is:

“We are struck with admiration at the tremendous amount of construction that we have witnessed during our travels. In Moscow, as well as in Makeyevka, Gorlovka, Kharkov, an Leningrad, we could see for ourselves with what enthusiasm the work is carried on there. All the machines are the most up-to-date models. The factories are clean, well ventilated and well lit. We saw how medical assistance and hygienic conditions are provided for the workers in the U.S.S.R. The workers' houses are built near the factories. Schools and creches are organised in the workers' towns, and the children are surrounded with every care. We could see the difference between the old and the newly constructed factories, between the old and the new houses. All that we have seen has given us a clear idea of the tremendous strength of the working people who are building a new society under the leadership of the Communist Party. In the U.S.S.R. we have observed a great cultural revival, while in other countries there is decadence in all spheres, and unemployment reigns. We were able to see the frightful difficulties the working people of the Soviet Union encounter on their path. We can therefore appreciate all the more the pride with which they point to their victories. We are convinced that they will overcome all obstacles.”

There you have the international significance of the five-year plan. It was enough for us to carry on construction work for a matter of two or three years, it was enough for us to show the first successes of the five-year plan, for the whole world to be split into two camps — the camp of those who never tire of snarling at us, and the camp of those who are amazed at the successes of the five-year plan, apart from the fact that we have all over the world our own camp, which is growing stronger—the camp of the working class in the capitalist countries, which rejoices at the successes of the working class in the U.S.S.R. and is prepared to support it, to the alarm of the bourgeoisie of the whole world.

What does this mean?

It means that there can be no doubt about the international significance of the five-year plan, about the international significance of its successes and achievements.

It means that the capitalist countries are pregnant with the proletarian revolution, and that precisely because they are pregnant with the proletarian revolution, the bourgeoisie would like to find in a failure of the five-year plan a fresh argument against revolution; whereas the proletariat, on the other hand, is striving to find, and indeed does find, in the successes of the five-year plan a fresh argument in favour of revolution and against the bourgeoisie of the whole world.

The successes of the five-year plan are mobilising the revolutionary forces of the working class of all countries against capitalism—such is the indisputable fact.

There can be no doubt that the international revolutionary significance of the five-year plan is really immeasurable.

All the more attention, therefore, must we devote to the question of the five-year plan, of the content of the five-year plan, of the fundamental tasks of the five-year plan.

All the more carefully, therefore, must we analyse the results of the five-year plan, the results of the carrying out and fulfilment of the five-year plan.

II: The Fundamental Task of the Five-year Plan and the Way to Its Fulfilment

We pass to the question of the essence of the five-year plan.

What is the five-year plan?

What was the fundamental task of the five-year plan?

The fundamental task of the five-year plan was to transfer our country, with its backward, and in part medieval, technology, on to the lines of new, modern technology.

The fundamental task of the five-year plan was to convert the U.S.S.R. from an agrarian and weak country, dependent upon the caprices of the capitalist countries, into an industrial and powerful country, fully self-reliant and independent of the caprices of world capitalism.

The fundamental task of the five-year plan was, in converting the U.S.S.R. into an industrial country, to completely oust the capitalist elements, to widen the front of socialist forms of economy, and to create the economic basis for the abolition of classes in the U.S.S.R., for the building of a socialist society.

The fundamental task of the five-year plan was to create in our country an industry that would be capable of re-equipping and reorganising, not only industry as a whole, but also transport and agriculture—on the basis of socialism.

The fundamental task of the five-year plan was to transfer small and scattered agriculture on to the lines of large-scale collective farming, so as to ensure the economic basis of socialism in the countryside and thus to eliminate the possibility of the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R.

Finally, the task of the five-year plan was to create all the necessary technical and economic prerequisites for increasing to the utmost the defence capacity of the country, enabling it to organise determined resistance to any attempt at military intervention from abroad, to any attempt at military attack from abroad.

What dictated this fundamental task of the five-year plan; what were the grounds for it?

The necessity of putting an end to the technical and economic backwardness of the Soviet Union, which doomed it to an unenviable existence; the necessity of creating in the country the prerequisites that would enable it not only to overtake but in time to outstrip, technically and economically, the advanced capitalist countries.

Consideration of the fact that the Soviet regime could not maintain itself for long on the basis of a backward industry; that only a modern large-scale industry, one not merely not inferior to but capable in time of surpassing the industries of the capitalist countries, can serve as a real and reliable foundation for the Soviet regime.

Consideration of the fact that the Soviet regime could not for long rest upon two opposite foundations: on large-scale socialist industry, which destroys the capitalist elements, and on small, individual peasant farming, which engenders capitalist elements.

Consideration of the fact that until agriculture was placed on the basis of large-scale production, until the small peasant farms were united into large collective farms, the danger of the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R. was the most real of all possible dangers. …

But the execution of such a gigantic plan cannot be started haphazardly, just anyhow. In order to carry out such a plan it is necessary first of all to find its main link; for only after finding and grasping this main link could a pull be exerted on all the other links of the plan.

What was the main link in the five-year plan?

The main link in the five-year plan was heavy industry, with machine building as its core. For only heavy industry is capable of reconstructing both industry as a whole, transport and agriculture, and of putting them on their feet. It was necessary to begin the fulfilment of the five-year plan with heavy industry. Consequently, the restoration of heavy industry had to be made the basis of the fulfilment of the five-year plan. …

But the restoration and development of heavy industry, particularly in such a backward and poor country as ours was at the beginning of the five-year plan period, is an extremely difficult task; for, as is well known, heavy industry calls for enormous financial expenditure and the existence of a certain minimum of experienced technical forces, without which, generally speaking, the restoration of heavy industry is impossible. Did the Party know this, and did it take this into account? Yes, it did. Not only did the Party know this, but it announced it for all to hear. The Party knew how heavy industry had been built in Britain, Germany and America. It knew that in those countries heavy industry had been built either with the aid of big loans, or by plundering other countries, or by both methods simultaneously. The Party knew that those paths were closed to our country. What, then, did it count on? It counted on our country's own resources. It counted on the fact that, with a Soviet government at the helm, and the land, industry, transport, the banks and trade nationalised, we could pursue a regime of the strictest economy in order to accumulate sufficient resources for the restoration and development of heavy industry. The Party declared frankly that this would call for serious sacrifices, and that it was our duty openly and consciously to make these sacrifices if we wanted to achieve our goal. The Party counted on carrying through this task with the aid of the internal resources of our country—without enslaving. …

To establish a regime of the strictest economy and to accumulate the resources necessary for financing the industrialisation of our country—such was the path that had to be taken in order to succeed in creating heavy industry and in carrying out the five-year plan.

A bold task? A difficult path? But our Party is called a Leninist party precisely because it has no right to fear difficulties.

More than that. The Party's confidence in the feasibility of the five-year plan and its faith in the forces of the working class were so strong that the Party found it possible to undertake the fulfilment of this difficult task not in five years, as was provided for in the five-year plan, but in four years, or, strictly speaking, in four years and three months, if the special quarter be added.

That is what gave rise to the famous slogan, “The Five-year Plan in Four Years.”

And what happened?

Subsequent facts have shown that the Party was right.

The facts have shown that without this boldness and confidence in the forces of the working class, the Party could not have achieved the victory of which we are now so justly proud. …

V: The Results of the Five-year Plan in Four Years as Regards Improving the Material Conditions of the Workers and Peasants

I have spoken of our successes in industry and agriculture, of the progress of industry and agriculture in the U.S.S.R. What are the results of these successes from the standpoint of improving the material conditions of the workers and peasants? What are the main results of our successes in the sphere of industry and agriculture as regards radical improvement of the material conditions of the working people?

Firstly, the fact that unemployment has been abolished and that among the workers uncertainty about the future has been done away with.

Secondly, the fact that almost all the poor peasants have been drawn into collective-farm development; that, on this basis, the differentiation of the peasantry into kulaks and poor peasants has been stopped; and that, as a result, impoverishment and pauperism in the countryside have been done away with.

These are tremendous achievements, comrades, achievements of which not a single bourgeois state, even the most “democratic,” can dream.

In our country, in the U.S.S.R., the workers have long for gotten unemployment. Some three years ago we had about 1,500,000 unemployed. It is already two years now since unemployment was completely abolished. And in these two years the workers have already forgotten about unemployment, about its burden and its horrors. Look at the capitalist countries: what horrors result there from unemployment! There are now no less than 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 unemployed in those countries. Who are these people? Usually it is said of them that they are “down and out.”

Every day they try to get work, seek work, are prepared to accept almost any conditions of work, but they are not given work, because they are “superfluous.” And this is taking place at a time when vast quantities of goods and produce are being wasted to satisfy the caprices of the favourites of fortune, the scions of the capitalists and landlords.

The unemployed are refused food because they have no money with which to pay for it; they are refused shelter be cause they have no money with which to pay rent. How and where do they live? They live on the miserable crumbs from the rich man's table; by raking refuse bins, where they find decayed scraps of food; they live in the slums of big cities, and more often in hovels outside the towns, hastily put up by the unemployed out of packing cases and the bark of trees. But this is not all. It is not only the unemployed who suffer as a result of unemployment. The employed workers, too, suffer as a result of it. They suffer because the presence of a large number of unemployed makes their position in industry insecure, makes them uncertain about their future. Today they are employed, but they are not sure that when they wake up tomorrow they will not find themselves discharged.

One of the principal achievements of the five-year plan in four years is that we have abolished unemployment and have saved the workers of the U.S.S.R. from its horrors.

The same thing must be said of the peasants. They, too, have forgotten about the differentiation of the peasants into kulaks and poor peasants, about the exploitation of the poor peasants by the kulaks, about the ruin which every year caused hundreds of thousands and millions of poor peasants to become destitute. Three or four years ago the poor peasants constituted not less than 30 per cent of the total peasant population in our country. They numbered about 20,000,000. And still earlier, in the period before the October Revolution, the poor peasants constituted not less than 60 per cent of the peasant population. Who were the poor peasants? They were people who usually lacked either seed, or horses, or implements, or all of these, for carrying on their husbandry. The poor peasants were people who lived in a state of semi-starvation and, as a rule, were in bondage to the kulaks—and in the old days, both to the kulaks and to the landlords. …

What has the five-year plan in four years given the poor peasants and the lower strata of the middle peasants? It has undermined and smashed the kulaks as a class, liberating the poor peasants and a good half of the middle peasants from kulak bondage. It has brought them into the collective farms and placed them in a secure position. It has thus eliminated the possibility of the differentiation of the peasantry into exploiters— kulaks—and exploited—poor peasants, and abolished destitution in the countryside. It has raised the poor peasants and the lower strata of the middle peasants to a position of security in the collective farms, and has there by put a stop to the process of ruination and impoverishment of the peasantry. Now it no longer happens in our country that millions of peasants leave their homes every year to seek work in distant areas. In order to attract a peasant to go to work outside his own collective farm it is now necessary to sign a contract with the collective farm and, in addition, to pay the collective farmer his railway fare. Now it no longer happens in our country that hundreds of thousands and millions of peasants are ruined and hang around the gates of factories and mills. That is what used to happen; but that was long ago. Now the peasant is in a position of security, a member of a collective farm which has at its disposal tractors, agricultural machinery, seed funds, reserve funds, etc., etc.

That is what the five-year plan has given to the poor peasants and to the lower strata of the middle peasants.

That is the essence of the principal achievements of the five-year plan in improving the material conditions of the workers and peasants.

As a result of these principal achievements in improving the material conditions of the workers and peasants, we have brought about during the period of the First Five-year Plan:

a) a doubling of the number of workers and other employees in large-scale industry compared with 1928, which represents an overfulfilment of the five-year plan by 57 per cent;

b) an increase in the national income—hence, an increase in the incomes of the workers and peasants—to 45,100 million rubles in 1932, which represents an increase of 85 per cent over 1928;

c) an increase in the average annual wages of workers and other employees in large-scale industry by 67 per cent compared with 1928, which represents an overfulfilment of the five-year plan by 18 per cent;

d) an increase in the social insurance fund by 292 per cent compared with 1928 (4,120 million rubles in 1932, as against 1,050 million rubles in 1928), which represents an overfulfilment of the five-year plan by 111 per cent;

e) an increase in public catering facilities, now covering more than 70 per cent of the workers employed in the decisive industries, which represents an overfulfilment of the five-year plan by 500 per cent.

Of course, we have not yet reached the point where we can fully satisfy the material requirements of the workers and peasants, and it is hardly likely that we shall reach it within the next few years. But we have unquestionably attained a position where the material conditions of the workers and peasants are improving from year to year. The only ones who can have any doubts on this score are the sworn enemies of the Soviet regime, or, perhaps, certain representatives of the bourgeois press, including some of the Moscow correspondents of that press, who hardly know any more about the economy of nations and the condition of the working people than, say, the Emperor of Abyssinia knows about higher mathematics.

And what is the position in regard to the material conditions of the workers and peasants in capitalist countries?

Here are the official figures.

The number of unemployed in the capitalist countries has increased catastrophically. In the United States, according to official figures, the number of employed workers in the manufacturing industries alone dropped from 8,500,000 in 1928 to 5,500,000 in 1932; and according to the figures of the American Federation of Labour, the number of unemployed in the United States, in all industries, at the end of 1932, was 11,000,000. In Britain, according to official figures, the number of unemployed increased from 1,290,000 in 1928 to 2,800,000 in 1932. In Germany, according to official figures, the number of unemployed increased from 1,376,000 in 1928 to 5,500,000 in 1932. This is the picture that is observed in all the capitalist countries. Moreover, official statistics as a rule minimise the number of unemployed, the total number of whom in the capitalist countries ranges from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000.

The wages of the workers are being systematically reduced. According to official figures, average monthly wages in the United States have been reduced by 35 per cent compared with 1928. In Britain wages have been reduced by 15 per cent in the same period, and in Germany by as much as 50 per cent. According to the estimates of the American Federation of Labour, the American workers lost more than $35,000 million as a result of wage cuts in 1930–31.

The workers' insurance funds in Britain and Germany, small as they were, have been considerably diminished. In the United States and in France unemployment insurance does not exist, or hardly exists at all, and, as a consequence, the number of homeless workers and waifs is growing enormously, particularly in the United States.

The position is no better as regards the condition of the masses of the peasantry in the capitalist countries, where the agricultural crisis is utterly undermining peasant farming and is forcing millions of ruined peasants and farmers to go begging.

Such are the results of the five-year plan in four years in regard to improving the material conditions of the working people of the U.S.S.R.

VII: The Results of the Five-year Plan in Four Years in the Sphere of the Struggle against the Remnants of the Hostile Classes

As a result of the fulfilment of the five-year plan in regard to industry, agriculture and trade, we have established the principle of socialism in all spheres of the national economy and have expelled the capitalist elements from them.

What should this have led to in relation to the capitalist elements; and what has it actually led to?

It has led to this: the last remnants of the moribund classes—the private manufacturers and their servitors, the private traders and their henchmen, the former nobles and priests the kulaks and kulak agents, the former Whiteguard officers and police officials, policemen and gendarmes, all sorts of bourgeois intellectuals of a chauvinist type, and all other anti-Soviet elements—have been thrown out of their groove.

Thrown out of their groove, and scattered over the whole face of the U.S.S.R., these “have-beens” have wormed their way into our plants and factories, into our government offices and trading organisations, into our railway and water transport enterprises, and, principally, into the collective farms and state farms. They have crept into these places and taken cover there, donning the mask of “workers” and “peasants,” and some of them have even managed to worm their way into the Party.

What did they carry with them into these places? Of course, they carried with them a feeling of hatred towards the Soviet regime, a feeling of burning enmity towards the new forms of economy, life and culture.

These gentlemen are no longer able to launch a frontal attack against the Soviet regime. They and their classes made such attacks several times, but they were routed and dispersed. Hence, the only thing left them is to do mischief and harm to the workers, to the collective farmers, to the Soviet regime and to the Party. And they are doing as much mischief as they can, acting on the sly. They set fire to warehouses and wreck machinery. They organise sabotage. They organise wrecking activities in the collective farms and state farms, and some of them, including certain professors, go to such lengths in their passion for wrecking as to inject plague and anthrax germs into the cattle on the collective farms and state farms, help to spread meningitis among horses, etc.

But that is not the main thing. The main thing in the “work” of these “have-beens” is that they organise mass theft and plundering of state property, co-operative property and collective-farm property. Theft and plundering in the factories and plants, theft and plundering of railway freight, theft and plundering in warehouses and trading enterprises—particularly theft and plundering in the state farms and collective farms—such is the main form of the “work” of these “have-beens.” Their class instinct, as it were, tells them that the basis of Soviet economy is public property, and that it is precisely this basis that must be shaken in order to injure the Soviet regime—and they try indeed to shake the foundations of public ownership, by organising mass theft and plundering.

In order to organise plundering they play on the private property habits and survivals among the collective farmers, the individual farmers of yesterday who are now members of collective farms. You, as Marxists, should know that in its development man's consciousness lags behind his actual position. The position of the members of collective farms is that they are no longer individual farmers, but collectivists; but their consciousness is as yet still the old one—that of private property owners. And so, the “have-beens” from the ranks of the exploiting classes play on the private-property habits of the collective farmers in order to organise the plundering of public wealth and thus shake the foundation of the Soviet system, viz., public property.

Many of our comrades look complacently upon such phenomena and fail to understand the meaning and significance of this mass theft and plundering. They remain blind to these facts and take the view that “there is nothing particular in it.” But these comrades are profoundly mistaken. The basis of our system is public property, just as private property is the basis of capitalism. If the capitalists proclaimed private property sacred and inviolable when they were consolidating the capitalist system, all the more reason why we Communists should proclaim public property sacred and in violable in order to consolidate the new socialist forms of economy in all spheres of production and trade. To permit theft and plundering of public property—no matter whether it is state property or co-operative or collective-farm property—and to ignore such counter-revolutionary outrages means to aid and abet the undermining of the Soviet system, which rests on public property as its basis. It was on these grounds that our Soviet Government passed the recent law for the protection of public property. This enactment is the basis of revolutionary law at the present time. And it is the prime duty of every Communist, of every worker, and of every collective farmer strictly to carry out this law.

… The main concern of revolutionary law at the present time is, consequently, the protection of public property, and not something else.

That is why it is one of the fundamental tasks of the Party to fight to protect public property, to fight with all the measures and all the means placed at our command by our Soviet laws.

A strong and powerful dictatorship of the proletariat—that is what we need now in order to scatter to the winds the last remnants of the dying classes and to frustrate their thieving designs.

Some comrades have interpreted the thesis about the abolition of classes, the creation of a classless society, and the withering away of the state as a justification of laziness and complacency, a justification of the counter-revolutionary theory of the extinction of the class struggle and the weakening of the state power. Needless to say, such people can not have anything in common with our Party. They are either degenerates or double-dealers, and must be driven out of the Party. The abolition of classes is not achieved by the extinction of the class struggle, but by its intensification. The state will wither away, not as a result of weakening the state power, but as a result of strengthening it to the utmost, which is necessary for finally crushing the remnants of the dying classes and for organising defence against the capitalist encirclement that is far from having been done away with as yet, and will not soon be done away with.

As a result of fulfilling the five-year plan we have succeeded in finally ejecting the last remnants of the hostile classes from their positions in production; we have routed the kulaks and have prepared the ground for their elimination. Such are the results of the five-year plan in the sphere of the struggle against the last detachments of the bourgeoisie. But that is not enough. The task is to eject these “have-beens” from our own enterprises and institutions and make them harmless for good and all.

It cannot be said that these “have-beens” can alter anything in the present position of the U.S.S.R. by their wrecking and thieving machinations. They are too weak and impotent to withstand the measures adopted by the Soviet Government. But if our comrades do not arm themselves with revolutionary vigilance and do not actually put an end to the smug, philistine attitude towards cases of theft and plundering of public property, these “have-beens” may do considerable mischief.

We must bear in mind that the growth of the power of the Soviet state will intensify the resistance of the last remnants of the dying classes. It is precisely because they are dying and their days are numbered that they will go on from one form of attack to another, sharper form, appealing to the backward sections of the population and mobilising them against the Soviet regime. There is no mischief and slander which these “have-beens” will not resort to against the Soviet regime and around which they will not try to rally the backward elements. This may provide the soil for a revival of the activities of the defeated groups of the old counter-revolutionary parties: the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, and the bourgeois nationalists of the central and border regions, it may also provide the soil for a revival of the activities of the fragments of counter-revolutionary elements among the Trotskyites and Right deviators. Of course, there is nothing terrible in this. But we must bear all this in mind if we want to have done with these elements quickly and without particular sacrifice.

That is why revolutionary vigilance is the quality that Bolsheviks especially need at the present time.

VIII: General Conclusions

…

Such are the successes and gains of the Soviet regime during the past four years.

It would be a mistake to think that since these successes have been attained everything is as it should be. Of course, not everything with us is yet as it should be. There are plenty of shortcomings and mistakes in our work. Inefficiency and confusion are still to be met with in our practical work. Unfortunately, I cannot now stop to deal with shortcomings and mistakes, as the limits of the report I was instructed to make do not give me sufficient scope for this. But that is not the point just now. The point is that, notwithstanding shortcomings and mistakes, the existence of which none of us denies, we have achieved such important successes as to evoke admiration among the working class all over the world, we have achieved a victory that is truly of world-wide historic significance.

What could and actually did play the chief part in bringing it about that, despite mistakes and shortcomings, the Party has nevertheless achieved decisive successes in carrying out the five-year plan in four years?

What are the main forces that have ensured us this historic victory in spite of everything?

They are, first and foremost, the activity and devotion, the enthusiasm and initiative of the vast masses of the workers and collective farmers, who, together with the engineering and technical forces, displayed colossal energy in developing socialist emulation and shock-brigade work. There can be no doubt that without this we could not have achieved our goal, we could not have advanced a single step.

Secondly, the firm leadership of the Party and of the Government, who urged the masses forward and overcame all difficulties in the way to the goal.

And, lastly, the special merits and advantages of the Soviet system of economy, which has within it the colossal potentialities necessary for overcoming difficulties.

Such are the three main forces that determined the historic victory of the U.S.S.R. General conclusions:

1. The results of the five-year plan have refuted the assertion of the bourgeois and Social-Democratic leaders that the five-year plan was a fantasy, delirium, an unrealisable dream. The results of the five-year plan show that the five-year plan has already been fulfilled.

2. The results of the five-year plan have shattered the well-known bourgeois “article of faith” that the working class is incapable of building something new, that it is capable only of destroying the old. The results of the five-year plan have shown that the working class is just as well able to build the new as to destroy the old.

3. The results of the five-year plan have shattered the thesis of the Social-Democrats that it is impossible to build socialism in one country taken separately. The results of the five-year plan have shown that it is quite possible to build a socialist society in one country; for the economic foundations of such a society have already been laid in the U.S.S.R.

4. The results of the five-year plan have refuted the assertion of bourgeois economists that the capitalist system of economy is the best of all systems, that every other system of economy is unstable and incapable of standing the test of the difficulties of economic development. The results of the five-year plan have shown that the capitalist system of economy is bankrupt and unstable; that it has outlived its day and must give way to another, a higher, Soviet, socialist system of economy; that the only system of economy that has no fear of crises and is able to overcome the difficulties which capitalism cannot solve, is the Soviet system of economy.

5. Finally, the results of the five-year plan have shown that the Communist Party is invincible, if it knows its goal, and if it is not afraid of difficulties.

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Source: Joseph Stalin. J. Stalin, Works: July 1930–January 1934, vol. 13. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954.