The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-04-05
BY EUGENE LYONS
United Press stan Correspondent


MOSCOW, April 5.-The chief
results of the five-year plan, now
nearing its end, are not to be found
IN tables Of production figures. From
the vantage point of those who di-
rect the effort, the real triumph
lies deeper-in the altered social re-
lations between different groups.
For them the supreme satisfac-
ton, as they look back upon years
crowded with exhausting work and
bitter strife, is that they have beat
en- and reduced to impotence the
remnants Of capitalist, near-capi-
talist and would-be capitalist
classes.
The would be" class was per-
haps the most numerous and the
hardest to conquer. 1t included
those who remembered the past and
harbored private economic ambl-
tions, the old intelligentsia, the
peasants with a stubborn appetite
for private property; those, in a
word, who were not yet acclima-
TIED to Soviet political atmosphere
and retained bourgeois mentali-
ties"
End Is in Sight
Their final liquidation" is sched-
uled for the second five year plan,
and liquidation, as the better-to-do
peasants have learned, is not a gen.
tie process.
When the original plan first was
disclosed, Joseph Stains remorse-
less attack on the so-called tbour-
geois element already was under
way. But those elements still WELD
ed enormous social power. So much
so, that strong faction of the
Communist party itself, the Right
Opposition, thought it hopeless to
fight them and urged slower but
more peaceful tactics.
A considerable portion of indus
try and an even larger slice of trade
were in the hands OF private owners.
When I arrived here four years
ago, privately owned stores, restau-
rants, small manufacturing units
still were plentiful.
In the villages, where some 80
per cent of the population lives,
there was a distinct and widening
gulf between rich and poor. The
more able or less scrupulous peas
ants gradually had gathered more
and more of the village property.
Violent Changes Made
History moves so fast here that
the state of mind which prevailed
four years ago, just before the
"Piatiletka" was begun, seems in
credible today.
There were still many in all walks
of life who looked for a gradual
transition to capitalism. Not, of
course, the unrestrained individual
ism of the American type, but a
compromise between state control
and private economy.
There were others, especially
technicians and ex-business men,
who waited impatiently for the COL
lapse of collectivist nonsense and
we're not averse to hurrying the COL
lapse by little pushing from
within through sabotage and from
without through intervention.
That question has been answered
by this time. The answer is written
in blood and pain, but written in
delibly.
In the cities there no longer is a
single private shop and the few pri-
vate booths exist by sufferance
only; they soon will be snuffed out.
Middle Glasses Surrender
The "kustar," or handicraft places
which still are alive are under
rigid surveillance and are becom-
ing cooperative cartels as fast as
they can.
The former middle classes, in par
particular the technically trained
and educated portion, have
capitulated
Their defeat was marked by a
series of sensational trials which
dramatized the fight for all the
world to see and to Shudder.
Above all, the rising little capt.
talists in the villages, the so-called
"kulaks," with their hangers-on and
political supporters, have been
wiped out.
The worst of them Cor the best
depending on ones viewpoinO are
chopping wood in the frozen north,
or digging bitches in Central Asia.
Fear of Capitalism Ended
Over 60 per cent of the peasants
are in collectives and over rs per
cent of the farm products for urban
consumption and export are de-
rived from "socialized" farms, that
is, coilectives or State-owned agri-
cultural factories.
The Communist fear of COM
promise with capitalism and the
Communists hope of a cap
italist restoration are ended def
nitely.
This most significant result of the
first "Piatiletka" was bought dearly
Tt involved sort of second revolu-
ton, which is not yet concluded.
In the internal class war there
will be no rest until the last ''bour-
minded" Russian is dead or
''liquidated."