The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-01-28

A good half of the middle peasants suf-
fered the same misery and the same pri-
Pations as the poor peasants. The peas
ants have already forgotten all this
MHAT has the Five-Year Plan given t.
w the poor peasants and the lowe
strata Of the middle peasants? 1t under
mined and destroyed the kulaks as a
class, thereby freeing the poor peasants
and a good half of the middle peasants
from slavery to the kulaks. 1t drew them
into the collective farms; it created for
them firm foundation. 1t thereby did
away with the possibility of the peasants
being divided into exploiting kulaks and
exploited poor peasants. 1t raised the poor
peaSantry and the lower strata of the
middle peasants on the collective farms
to the position of men with an assured
existence, and thereby destroyed the pro-
cess OF impoverishment and ruination of
the peasantry. With us it is now no
longer the case that millions of peasants
every year abandon their farms and seek
to earn their living in far-off countries
Before the peasants can be hired for
work anywhere outside of their own COL
lective farms, treaty must be signed
with the collective farm, and in fact, the
collective peasant must be guaranteed his
free fare on the railway With lis it is
no longer the case that hundreds of thou
sands and millions of peasants are ruined
and throng the doors of the factories and
workshops. The peasant today is an es-
tablished farmer and member of the
collective farm, which possesses, tractors,
agricultural machines, stocks of seed, re-
serve funds ETC.
AS rpS1llt eff tho irnpO-fant ocIoiaxo
ments in the sphere of improving the
material situation of the workers and
peasants, we have in the first Five-Year
Plan: a. growth of the number of workers
and employees in big industry to double
that of 1928, thus surprising the Five
Year Plan by rs per cent; b. growth of
the national income, lie. growth of the
income Of the workers and peasants. in
the year 1882 to 45,100 million roubles
which means an increase of IS per cent.
compared with 1923; g growth of the av-
erage annual earnings of the workers and
employees in big industry by 81 per cent
as compared with 1923, which means
surprising of the plan by IS per cent;
ID increase of the social insurance fund
by 292 per cent compared with 1923
t4120 million roubles in the year 1892 as
against 1850 millions, in the year 1929,
which means a surprising of the Five
Year Plan by Ill per cent; e. increase
of public feeding, embracing over 10 per
cent. of the workers in the most i'm
portant branches of industry, which
means skiold fulfilment of the Five
Year Plan
It is true, we have not yet achieved
everything in order to completely satisfy
the demands of the workers and peas
ants; and we shall scarcely achieve this
in the next year Or so. Nevertheless we
have succeeded so far in that the mate
rial position Of the workers and peas
ants is improving from year to year. Only
the sworn enemies of the Soviet Power
can doubt this, or possibly some repre-
sentative of the bourgeois press, includ-
ing part of the correspondents of this
press in Moscow who understand as
much about the economy of the country
and the position of the toilers as the
King of Abyssinia does about higher
mathematics.
The tremendous increase of produc-
ton in industry and agriculture, tee
growth of the commodity surplus both IN
industry and agriculture, and finally, the
growth in the needs of the workers and
peaSantS-a11 these factors we're calcu-
lated to result in an increase and ex-
tension of commodity exchange between
town and country and did in fact have
this result. The productive alliance be-
tween town and country is the chief
form of this alliance. This alliance must
be supplemented by commodity alliance
in order that the connections between
town and country are rendered unbreak-
able. This can only be achieved by the
development Of soviet trade.
COME comrades imagine that the devel-
y opment of Soviet trading and in par
ticular the development of collective
trading means return to the first stage
of the New Economic Policy. This idea is