Here there is not that top section which can be cut away, while leaving the whole foundation and the whole building intact. Here the economic task is an entirely different one. 'Most of all, we must take as our basis the truth that here, by the very nature of the case, nothing can be achieved by methods of coercion.

Here is what Lenin says about economic relations with the middle peasant: That is the root of the errors in the peasant question. It has been forgotten that cavalry charges, which are necessary and useful for accomplishing tasks of a military character,Īre unsuitable and disastrous for accomplishing the tasks of collective-farm development, which, moreover, is being organized in alliance with the middle peasant. It has been forgotten that coercion, which is necessary and useful in the fight against our class enemies, is impermissible and disastrous when applied to the middle peasant, who is our ally. But when some of our comrades became intoxicated with success and began imperceptibly to slip from the path of an offensive against the kulak on to the path of a struggle against the middle peasant, when, in pursuit of high collectivization percentages, they began to apply coercion to the middle peasant, depriving him of the suffrage, 'dekulakizing' and expropriating him, the offensive began to assume a distorted form and the united front with the middle peasant to be undermined, and, naturally, the kulak obtained an opportunity of trying to rise to his feet again. Forgetfulness of the fact that the basis of the collective-farm movement at the present moment is an alliance of the working class and poor peasantry with the middle peasant against capitalism in general, against the kulak in particular.Īs long as the offensive against the kulak was waged in a united front with the middle peasant, all went well. Forgetfulness of the fact that the economic bond with the masses of the middle peasants must be built not on the basis of coercive measures, but on the basis of agreement with the middle peasant, of alliance with him. Resort to coercion in economic relations with the middle peasant. Reply. A wrong approach to the middle peasant. I do this all the more readily as I have a direct decision of the Central Committee on this subject.įirst question. What is the root of the errors in the peasant question? I am therefore obliged to reply to the letters of the collective-farm comrades publicly, that is, through the press, extracting from them all the questions re. Moreover, I could not, of course, leave unanswered those comrades who forgot to give their addresses. Yet the questions touched upon in the letters are of immense political interest for all our comrades. But this proved impossible, because more than half the letters contained no indication of the addresses of their writers (they had forgotten to give them). It was my duty to reply to these letters in private correspondence. In this connection, I have received lately a number of letters from collective-farm comrades asking for replies to questions raised in them. It is evident from the press that Stalin's article, ' Dizzy with Success,'* and the well-known decision adopted by the Central Committee on 'The Fight Against Distortions of the Party Line in the Collective-Farm Movement' have evoked numerous comments among practical workers in the collective-farm movement. References to English translations are added, as footnotes, by the present publisher. Volume and page references to Lenin's Works made in the text are to the third Russian edition. Minor changes have been made in the translation and the notes. 8-13, while the rest is taken from the same publishers' 1953 edition of Problems of Leninism. The English translation up to page 766 (including the relevant notes at the end of the book) is taken from Stalin's Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953-55, Vol. Stalin's Problems of Leninism corresponds to the eleventh Russian edition of 1952.

Collective farms