Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  A continuous propaganda in favour of the Five Year Plan kept up the enthusiasm of the people and whipped them up to fresh endeavour. Great public interest was taken in the building of the huge hydro-electric works and dams and bridges and factories and communal farms. Engineering was the most popular profession, and newspapers were full of technical details about great feats of engineering. The desert and the steppes were peopled and large new towns grew up round each big industrial concern. New roads, new canals, and new railways, mostly electric railways, were built and air services developed. A chemical industry was built up, a war industry, and a tool industry, and the Soviet Union began producing tractors, automobiles, high-power locomotives, motor engines, turbines, aeroplanes. Electricity spread over large areas, and the radio came into common use. Unemployment disappeared completely, as there was so much building and other work to be done that all available workers were absorbed. Indeed, many qualified engineers came from foreign countries and were welcomed. It is worth remembering that this was the time when depression spread all over western Europe and America and unemployment increased to enormous figures.

  The work of the Five Year Plan did not go on smoothly. There was often great trouble and lack of co-ordination and upsets and waste. But in spite of all this the tempo of work went on increasing, and the demand always was for more and more work. And then came the slogan “The Five Year Plan in Four Years”, as if five years had not been a short enough time for this amazing programme! The Plan formally came to an end on December 31, 1932—that is, at the end of four years. And immediately from January 1, 1933, a new Five Year Plan was started.

  People often argue about the Five Year Plan, and some say it was a tremendous success, and others call it a failure. It is easy enough to point out where it has failed, for in many respects it has not come up to expectations. There is a vast disproportion in many things in Russia today, and the chief lack is that of trained and expert workers. There are more factories than qualified engineers to run them, more restaurants and kitchens than qualified cooks! These disproportions will no doubt soon disappear, or at any rate lessen. One thing is clear: that the Five Year Plan has completely changed the face of Russia. From a feudal country it has suddenly become an advanced industrial country. There has been an amazing cultural advance; and the social services, the system of social health and accident insurance, are the most inclusive and advanced in the world. In spite of privation and want, the terrible fear of unemployment and starvation which hangs over workers in other countries has gone. There is a new sense of economic security among the people.

  The argument about the success or otherwise of the Five Year Plan is rather a pointless one. The answer to it is really the present state of the Soviet Union. And a further answer is the fact that this Plan has impressed itself on the imagination of the world. Everybody talks of “planning” now, and of Five-Year and Ten-Year and Three-Year plans. The Soviets have put magic into the word.

  181

  The Soviet Union’s Difficulties, Failures and Successes

  July 11, 1933

  The Five Year Plan of Soviet Russia was a colossal undertaking. It was really a number of big revolutions tacked on together, especially an agricultural revolution which substituted large-scale collective and mechanized farming for the old-fashioned small-scale methods, and an industrial revolution which industrialized Russia at a tremendous pace. But the most interesting feature of the Plan was the spirit that lay behind it, for this was a new spirit in politics and industry. This spirit was the spirit of science, an attempt to apply a thought-out scientific method to the building up of society. No such thing had been done before in any country, even the most advanced ones, and it is this application of the methods of science to human and social affairs that is the outstanding feature of Soviet planning. It is because of this that all the world is talking of planning now, but it is difficult to plan effectively when the very basis of the social system, like the capitalistic system, rests on competition and the protection of vested rights in property. But, as I have told you, this Five Year Plan brought much suffering, and difficulties, and dislocation. And people paid a terrible price for it. Most of them paid this price willingly and accepted the sacrifices and sufferings for a few years in the hope of a better time afterwards; some paid the price unwillingly and only because of the compulsion of the Soviet Government. Among those who suffered most were the kulaks or richer peasants. With their greater wealth and special influence, they did not fit into the new scheme of things. They were capitalistic elements which prevented the collective farms from developing on socialist lines. Often they opposed this collectivization, sometimes they entered the collectives to weaken them from inside or to make undue personal profits out of them. The Soviet Government came down heavily on them. The Government was also very hard on many middle-class people whom it suspected of espionage and sabotage on behalf of its enemies. Because of this, large numbers of engineers were punished and sent to gaol. As engineers were specially wanted for the numerous big schemes that were in hand, this meant injury to the Plan itself.

  Disproportions there were almost everywhere. The transport system lagged behind, and so the goods that were produced in factories and fields often had to wait for transport facilities, and this upset work elsewhere. The greatest difficulty was the lack of competent experts and engineers.

  During these years of the Five Year Plan the world, or rather the capitalistic world, was experiencing the greatest depression that it had ever known. Trade was sinking, factories closing up, unemployment growing. Agriculturists all over the world had been very hard hit by a great fall in prices of food-stuffs and raw materials. The tremendous activity and employment in the Soviet Union contrasted remarkably with the inactivity and unemployment elsewhere. The Union seemed to be unaffected by the world depression, the basis of its economy was quite different. But the Soviet did not escape the results of the depression; they crept in indirectly, and added greatly to the Soviet’s difficulties. I have told you that the Soviet was buying machinery abroad, and it paid for this by selling its agricultural produce in foreign countries. As the price of food-stuffs, etc., fell in the world market, the Soviet got less money for its exports. But it had to raise enough gold to pay for the machinery bought by it, and so it exported more and more foodstuffs. In this way the world trade depression and fall in prices caused loss to the Soviet and upset many of its calculations. And this led to a further shortage of many necessaries in the country, and greater hardship.

  While on the one hand there was a growing shortage of foodstuffs, on the other hand there was a tremendous growth of population all over the Union. This rapid growth, out of all proportion to the relatively slow progress of agricultural production, was the Soviet’s chief problem. The population of the present territory of the U.S.S.R. before the Revolution was 130,000,000. Observe the growth in the subsequent years, in spite of the enormous losses of the Civil War:

  Thus there has been an increase of 35,000,000 in a little over fifteen years—that is an increase of 26 per cent, which is extraordinary.

  Not only did the population grow as a whole all over the Soviet Union, but it grew especially in the cities. The old cities grew bigger and bigger, and new industrial towns rose up even in the deserts and the steppes. Vast numbers of peasants flocked to the cities from their villages, attracted by the work to be done in the building up of the many huge enterprises of the Five Year Plan. In 1917 there were twenty-four cities in the U.S.S.R. each with a population of over 100,000. In 1926 there were thirty-one such cities, and in 1933 there were over fifty. Within fifteen years the Soviet had built over 100 industrial towns. From 1913 to 1932 Moscow doubled its population, going up from 1,600,000 to 3,200,000; Leningrad added another 1,000,000, and nearly reached the 3,000,000 mark; Baku in Trans-Caucasia also doubled its population from 334,000 to 660,000. Altogether the urban population went up from 20,000,000 in 1913 to 35,000,000 in 1932.

  A peasant who goes to a city and
becomes a labourer there ceases to be a food producer as he was in his village. As a labourer or worker in a factory he may produce machine goods or tools, but, so far as food is concerned, he is only a consumer now. The great exodus of peasants from villages thus meant the transformation of food producers into food consumers only. This became another factor in making the food situation difficult.

  There was yet another factor. The growing industry of the country wanted more and more raw materials for the factories. Thus, cotton was required by the cloth factories. Cotton and other raw materials therefore were sown in many areas instead of food crops. This again reduced the food supply.

  The tremendous growth of the population of the Soviet Union was in itself a remarkable sign of prosperity. It was not due, as in America, to immigration from outside. It showed that in spite of the privations and hardships of the people there was, as a general rule, no actual starvation. A severe system of rationing managed to supply the absolutely necessary articles of food to the population. Competent observers tell us that this rapid growth of population is largely due to a feeling of economic security among the people. Children are no longer a burden to the family, as the State is prepared to look after them, to feed them and educate them. Another reason is the growth of sanitation and medical facilities, which have resulted in reducing the infant mortality rate from 27 to 12 per cent. In Moscow the general mortality rate in 1913 was over twenty-three per thousand; in 1931 it was under thirteen per thousand.

  To add to the many difficulties about the shortage of food, there was a drought in some parts of the Union in 1931. In 1931 and 1932 there were also war scares in the Far East, and the Soviet, fearing a war brought on by a Japanese attack in conjunction with other capitalist Powers, began to hoard grain and other food-stuffs for the army in case of need. There is an old Russian saying: “Fear has big eyes”—how very true it is, whether you apply it to little children or to communities and nations! Because there can be no real peace between communism and capitalism, and the imperialist nations are very keen on suppressing communism, and manoeuvre and intrigue to that end, the nerves of the Bolsheviks are always on edge and their eyes grow big at the least provocation. Often enough they have reason for anxiety and they have had to meet, even internally, widespread attempts at sabotage or destruction of their factories or other big concerns.

  Nineteen-thirty-two was a very critical year for the Soviet Union. The Government took the most drastic steps against sabotage and against the stealing of communal property, which had occurred in many of the communal farms. Ordinarily there is no death penalty in Russia, but it was introduced in cases of counter-revolution. The Soviet Government decreed that the stealing of communal property is equivalent to counterrevolution, and is therefore punishable by death. For, says Stalin: “If the capitalists have pronounced private property sacred and inviolable, thus achieving in their time a strengthening of the capitalist order, then we communists must so much the more pronounce public property sacred and inviolable, in order thus to strengthen the new socialist forms of economy.”

  The Soviet Government also took steps to ease the strain in other ways. The most important of these was the permission given to the collective and individual farms to sell their surplus produce directly in the city markets. This reminds one, to some extent, of NEP coming after the period of militant communism in 1921, but the Soviet Union is very different from what it was then. It has gone a good way on the road to socialism; it is industrialized and its agriculture has been largely communalized.

  Between 1929 and 1933 200,000 collective farms were organized and there were also about 5000 State farms. These State farms are supposed to be models for the others, and some of them are enormous. During this period 120,000 more tractors were introduced, and nearly two-thirds of the peasants became members of these collectives.

  Another activity that has grown astonishingly is that of the cooperative organization. The Consumers’ Co-operative Society had a membership of 26,500,000 in 1928; in 1932 the membership was 75,000,000. This society has a chain of wholesale and retail stores stretching from one end of the Union to the other, even to the remotest corner.

  The 1st of January, 1933, saw the commencement of the second Five Year Plan. It was directed towards the building up of light industries, which will result in raising the standard of living rapidly. It was hoped to provide some rewards in the shape of more comfort and better living-conditions after the strain and privation of the first Five Year Plan. It was no longer necessary to go abroad for most of the machinery required, as the Soviet heavy industries could supply this machinery. This also relieved the Soviet from having to send large quantities of food abroad to help in payment for goods purchased.

  Stalin, addressing a congress of peasants from collective farms in 1933, said:

  Our immediate task is to make all collectivized peasants well-to-do. Yes, comrades, well-to-do . . . Sometimes people say: if there is socialism why should we still work? We worked before; we work now. Isn’t it time we quit working? . . . No, socialism is built on labour . . . Socialism demands that all men work honestly, not for others, not for the rich, not for the exploiters, but for themselves, for society.

  Work remains, and must remain, though in the future it is likely to be pleasanter and lighter than in the trying early years of planning. Indeed, the maxim of the Soviet Union is: “He that will not work, neither shall he eat.” But the Bolsheviks have added a new motive for work: the motive to work for social betterment. In the past, idealists and stray individuals have been moved to activity by this incentive, but there is no previous instance of society as a whole accepting and reacting to this motive. The very basis of capitalism was competition and individual profit, always at the expense of others. This profit motive is giving place to the social motive in the Soviet Union, and, as an American writer says, workers in Russia are learning that “from the acceptance of mutual dependence comes independence of want and fear”. This elimination of the terrible fear of poverty and insecurity, which bears down upon the masses everywhere, is a great achievement. It is said that this relief has almost put an end to mental diseases in the Soviet Union. And so these strenuous years in the U.S.S.R. have seen growth everywhere and in almost everything, painful and disproportionate growth, but still a spreading of cities and industry, and huge collective farms and mighty co-operatives, and trade and population, and also culture and science and learning. Above all, they have seen the growth of a unity and solidarity among the numerous different peoples that inhabit the U.S.S.R. from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean and the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains of Central Asia.

  I feel tempted to write to you about the progress in education and science and culture generally in the U.S.S.R., but I must restrain myself. I shall tell you just a few odd facts which might interest you. The educational system in Russia is supposed by many competent judges to be the best and most up-to-date in existence. Illiteracy has almost been ended, and the most surprising advances have been made in backward areas like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in Central Asia. In this Central Asian area there were 126 schools with 6200 pupils in 1913; in 1932 there were 6975 schools with 700,000 pupils, of whom over one-third were girls. Universal compulsory education has been introduced. To appreciate this remarkable progress, you must remember that till recently girls were kept in seclusion, and not allowed to appear in public in this part of the world. It is said that this rapid progress has been due to the use of the Latin alphabet, which made primary education far easier than with the various local alphabets. You will remember my telling you about Kemal Pasha’s adoption of the Latin script or alphabet in place of the old Arabic one. He got the idea and the alphabet, varied to suit other languages, from the Soviet experiment. In 1924 the Caucasian republics discarded the Arabic script and adopted the Latin one. This was very successful in removing illiteracy, and most of the other nationalities in the Soviet Union adopted the Latin script—the Chinese, Mongols, Turks, Tartars, Buriats, Bashkirs, Tadjik
s, and many others. The language used was always the local one; only the script was changed.

  You will be interested to learn that over two-thirds of all the school-children in the Soviet Union are served with hot luncheons in schools. This is, of course, free of charge, and education itself is quite free, as it must be in a workers’ State.

  The growth of literacy and the progress of education have created a huge reading class, and probably more books and newspapers are printed than in any other country. Mostly these books are serious and “ heavy” books and not the light novels of other countries. The Russian worker is so excited about engineering and electricity that he prefers reading books about them to reading story-books. But for children there are the most delightful books, including even fairy-tales, though, I believe, orthodox Bolsheviks do not approve of fairy stories.

  In science Soviet Russia is already in the first rank, both in pure science and in its numerous applications. Numerous huge institutes in various branches of science and experimental stations have grown up. In Leningrad there is an enormous Institute of Plant Industry, which possesses as many as 28,000 different varieties of wheat. This institute has been experimenting with methods of sowing rice by aeroplane.