Speech at an Election Meeting in the Molotov Electoral District of the City of Moscow

26 Pages·1950·1.01 MB·Foreign Languages Publishing House

by  Vyacheslav Molotov

V. M. MOLOTOV
SPEECH
at an
ELECTION MEETING
in the
MOLOTOV
DISTRICT
r~LECTORAL
of the
CITY OF MOSCOW
J\lARCH 10, 1950
:rnREIGN L.\NGUAGF.S l'UBLISHl!-iG HOUSE
V. M. MOLOTOV
!SPEECH
at an
ELECTION MEETING
in the
~IOLOTOV
ELECTORAL DISTRICT
of the
CITY OF
~IOSCOW
March I 0, 1950
HlREIGN LANGUAGES l't:BLISIUNG HOUSE
Moscow 1950

Comrades!
Allow me to thank you from the bottom of my
heart for the trust in me tltat you have shown by nomi
nating me your candid&!le for Deputy to the Supreme
Soviet of the U.S.S.R. (Applause.)
The honour bestowed 111pon me I attrUmte .first and
foremost lo the trust ·that i~ires your attitude to our
great Communist Party .and to the Communists. whose
devotion to the Party is boundless. (.4pplause.)
I am -re'ady, in the future as in the past, honestly
and comistently, lo carry out the will of the great Party
of Lenin and Stalin, to devote my whole strength to my
Motherland. in the cause of il.9 prruperity, in the cause
of the happiness of the Soviet people. (Prolonged afJ4
plause.)
Comrades!
The present election campaign provides us with an
opportunity of looking back on what has been done in
the Soviet Union sint'e the end of the Second 'World
War.
Comrade Stalfo, speaking four years ago of the
first postwar five-year plan, underlined two bru;ic prob
l<>ms. He pointed first of all to the task of r~toring the
damaged areas in our oountry, of restoring industry
and agriculture to their prewar level and subsequently
surpas.oiing that level to a more or less considerable
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extent. He also underlined I he sigulicml('e of anothN im
portant Lask, that of ra~sing tlw standard of living of
the working people of 1he Soviet Union. resolutely
steering toward the abolition of the rotioning system,
a maxim.um expansion o.f the production of gent>ral
consum<"'rs' goods a!lld a suocessive Iowerirng of all com
modity pric~·s. These tasks were faid as the basis of
the first postwar live-year plan.
Xow ~·ou can see how these tasks hm·e !wen fulfill<•tl.
The rehahilita<tion of the U.S.S.R. oreas ravagt•d hy
the oC"eupants has an immense signifidtnct• for us. Suf
fice it lo say that one-th~rd of the total of our prewar
industrial outiput had been produced in the territory oc
cupied by the enemy, antd that the acreage under crop in
that frrritory had made up nearly a half of tilt' sown
acreage in our cotmlry. The work for the restoration of
those areas which is now in progress has already shown
appreciable results.
As regards the national economy as a whole, we
have not only reached the ·prewar level, we have even
surpassed it. in all its main branches.
In agriculture, the prewar level of gross production
was exc-eeded last year. As early as 1949, the gross har
vest of c~als, coMon, flax, sunflower seeds and potatoes
a-nd the commonly owned livestock-large-horned catlle,
sh<>e<p atild hogs~-on the kolkhozes exceeded the ·level o<f
the hest prewar year. The cereal problem is now solved.
\Ve are now supplied with ~rain, including necessary
r<'serves. The fulfilment of the thret.~·ear plan for the
dewlopm<>nt of slockbreeding adopteci last year will
le.ad lo such an increase in the production of meat. but
ter, t>~gs, milk and other livestock products tha1t we shall
lw in a position in 1951 to increase supplies to the p<>Jl'"
ulation by at least fifty per cent in comparison with 1948.
The slate in its turn is taking serious sl!€ps to in
crea~<> its help to agriculture. Thus in 1949 alone, agricul-
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lure recdvcd three lo four times as many tractors, mo
tor vehicles aind agricultural machines as in 'prewar 1940.
TI1e most important factor, howevPr. is that our kol
khozes·, which now numlwr two hundred and fifty-four
thous.and, have grown considerably stronger, that there
are now many model kolkhozes in which labour is high
ly med1ru;rized and productive, and that the number
of the many thousru1ds of foremo'it men and women on
the kolkhozes who have been awarded decorations or
the title of Hero of Socialist Labour is steadily in
creasing.
Already in 19-l8, our industry not only attained but
even surpassed the prewar levl'l. Jn 1949, the prewar
level was exceeded by forty-one -per cent, which approxi
matrs the forty-ei.ght per cent envisaged for the las·t year
of the five-yl•ar plan. In the fourth quarter of last year
our industry cwn suq).'lSsecl the level fixed for the fifth
yt•ar of the five-year plan, thail is to say, for the cur
rent year. \Vhereas before the revolution, in 1913, the
whole of Hussia 's inctustry had m1 output valued at six
teen billion rnhles, in the last couple of years the annual
increme all()ne in industrial production reachro thirty
two to thirty-four billion rubles. In olther words, it was
twice as much ~1s the .gross production of the whole of
our industry in prerevolulionary times.
In the first four years since the war, five thousand
lwo hundn:~(f stale industrial cntnprises, not l("()Unting
small ones, were huilt or restored ~met put into operation .
.\ bout a million and a half factory workers, engineers,
lnchnidans 'tnd office employees are now working in
those enterprises. The volume of capilal con'itruction in
our industry in, for exallliple, the past ydar was almost
twice us great as in the best prewar year. Our building
operations in.crPase from year to ynar. This means that
the further and still more powerful development of So
\'iet inrlustry is assured.
2-687 7
The main thing is that the social movement for the
further upsurgence of industry ond for the irnpr0\·1-
ment in the qtmlity of industrial production now em
braces the majority of the workers, foremen, teclmiciens
and c~ineers, that the number of outstanding innovators
in production in our establislmll'nl.<i is growing, that the
friendly relations between science and produdion are
being strengthened owing to the f.act that our Soviet
scieni'isls a.re working in 1oonjunction with our foremost
workers and engineers, and that this social movement
is continually spreading in industry nnd transport, and
also in agriculture.
Thus, in all the principal branche-. of the national
economy, our cowllry is scoring one success after anoth
Pr, fulfilliag and over-fulfilling Comrarlt~ Stalin's in
slroctions and the tasks of the first postwar fiv.e-year
pian. (Prolonged applause.)
Nor hos the second I.ask 1pointert out by Comrade
Slatin in the last election camptl:ign llet>n less successful
ly carried out.
In these four )·ears we have achieved much in the
way of raising the standard of living of the working
people in the towns and in the •countryside. At the same
time that we abolislwd the rationing system we began to
imp•lement the policy of lowering prices of geneml con
sumers· goods. T11e culiting of oommodity ,prices in 194 7
and 1949 has allowed the popufation lo economize a to
tal of one hundrnd ~rncl fifty-sewn billion rubles on its
t-xpcndilurcs, cakufutecl on the basis of one year. Con
sumption hy thP J>Opulalion of the most important
commodities exceeded the prewar level as early as
last year.
On March Isl, as a result of the increase in the .pro
ductivity of labour and the lowering of production costs,
hy do~ision of the Poarty and the Gonmunent, a third
lowt•ring of prices of an enormous quantity of goods
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tnost necessary to the population was carril'<I out. The
decrease in the price of hn•a1cl', meat and butter was as
much as twenty-five to thirty JH'r cent, of woven goods
and footwear a1pproximatdy fi:fteen to twenty per l'cnt,
and of some other goods forty lo fifty per rcent. This
fast lowt•ring of prices, fo!,'i'ther with the reduction in
prkes on Ute kolkhoz markl'ls and in COOJX'rative stores
which undeJ· these conditions is inevilahle, will mean a
gain to the population of no! less than one hundred
and h•n hillion rubles a y<•ar. This follows from ·l'he
fact that in our country ,prit•es aTe reduced though
the wage le\'el reached and the amounts of pensians
1
and st.ipcnds !'('main ~us rl'hey arc and tihe prices paid
by the slate for aigncuUural produce also suffer no
change.
It is now known from data alrt•ady published that hy
1949 the incomes of factory and offbc.e workers had in
creased twenty-four per cent in <'Omparison with 1940.
During that same ·period, the incomes of peasants in
neased more titan thirty per cent. In 1949, the national
income of the V .S.S.R. as a whole was thirty""'ix per
cent higher th.an in 19!0. After the new reduotion in
prices of ~l'iwral consumers' goo<lo; oarrit•d out on
~.fairch 1, there will be a further consi.<lt•rable increase
in the real wages of factory .ind offire workers and
also a further considerli.hlc decrease in the sums pe-.!s
ants ha,·e to pay on purchasing industrial commodities.
As prioes ore lower£>d the purch3ti<il1g power of the ruble
will again appn>ciahly rise 011d the rate of exchange of
the ruble in comparison with the dollur, pound and oth
er foreign currencies w111 im,provc. And this at a time
when, o.s in the lJnited Sfale.s, for example, and in oth
er capit.ili.sl countries, due to commodity price increases,
the wages of the workers are decreasing from yoor to
yc.ar, when the in::<>mes of Amenc.an farmers &re
dropping, ,as ·they did last yeair ~1lone hy seventeen per
'.
9
cent and when the currencies of these countries are
fulling lower and lower.
After thi<> one will understand why the American
and Europoan bourgeois press passed over in silence the
communique pu.hlislw<i in our press on the excellent re
suHs of the fulfilment of the nalion.al-eC'Onomic pl.an of
the U.S.S.R. in HHU. One will -also understallld why this
press flounders so in its reports on the new lowering of
commodity prices in our country and has recourse to
all sorts of unsavoury methods in order to distort the
real significance of that measure, which is so important
for the working peoµle. The bourged. .. , and the criug
ing pseudo-socialist press is obviously afraid to pub
lish .facts which so convincingly hear wiiness to the
mighty development going on in the Soviet Union.
(Applause.)
The n-ation.al economy of our country, and above
aJI its leading force, socialist indusitry, is growing from
one year to Gnother, in arccordance with the law of un
interrupted rise of .socialist economy which has become
established in the Sovid state. Simultaneously, the wcl·
fare of the working pPople is steadily improving, an<l
that is precisely what radically dislinguislws the Soviet
stale from all countries in the capilaliM camp. TI1is
unsw(•rving ri<>e in the working p(,•oplo's standard of
living mrnst also he referred to the basic laws of ec&
no1nic devdo1pment in .the Soviet socialisit state.
De-cs that mean tl1'!t we can resl content with the
suo~(·ss we have achieved? No. The Party, Comrade
Stalin, teaches us quite the contiia.ry. ·n1e- Party demands
of each and every one of us constant ood courageous
critioal vcrifiealion of his own work. Comrade Stalin
kaches that without self-crit~cism there is no gojng for
ward, that sclf-critidsm is as necffiSIUry lo us as the air
we breathe. In his famous letter to .~fiax.im Gorky Com
rade Stalin wrote:
10
""'e cannot ~el along without sclf-criHdsm. Nohow,
Alexei Maximovich. \\'ithonl ii, stagnation, the rotting
of the .app.aralllls, increasing hureancra:cy ~mc11 the under
mining of tlw creative iniliatiVt~ of the working clasc;
are inevita•hle."
Those words were ull{'n·d '" £>nty years ago: they
apply in their entirely to our .present day as well.
\\'e really go forward only when we courageously
bring to light the s·hortcomings and mistakl's in our
work like Rolsheviks, when, rt>lying on the mii.thty up
wail"d swing of our country, we lfll'e ever more exacting
towards ourselves, wlwn we ('Xhihit the neiees<;ary ~~hili­
ly to unite the progres.si\·e fore('s among Sovi<>I 1wople,
and among our people in its PnlirPly, and direct th..-m
lowardc; the fulfilling of further 1ww lao;ks hrou.ght for
ward by the Party in accord:mc(' with the requirements
of the home an<I int<:>rnatiornal sit11.alion. TI1is tletrnnincs
th(' baisic tasks of ~JI our organiznlions-Parly and non
P.arty organizations, Soviets of \Yorking Peoplc>'s J)(~pu­
ti('S, trade unions and the Komsomol.
\Ve now that the economic r('hahilitation of our
S('('
<"Otmlry st.&rled after the encl of lhe war is, in llw
main lines, completed, and that wc> have already risen
to a higher economk: level than hc·fore the \Var. I\ow
wc> have vost opporlunities of n•.1lly Sl'tling lo work lo
solve such serious problems as the housing question.
The construction of new dwelling'\, side hy side with
the buildin.~ of new schools and hospitals, occupies a
very prominent pluce in the plan that is being drown
up for lhe furlhn reconstruction of our capital, Mos
cow. (.1pplause.)
We have a :powerful industry, in a position to sal
\sfy the present commodity requirenwnts of the popula
tion. At the same timt> oar mr\nslry is producing oil
kinds of machine><>, delicate inslrumc>nls and technical
Jlovelties of every d~iption. \Ye ha\'c> passed on to the
11