-18-

## 4. Role of Citizens in Economy

**1956 - Work so that new generations will recall your deeds**

We frequently hear, "There are now two powerful countries in the world--the Soviet Union and the United States." This is in itself praise, comrades. But believe me, the time will soon come when everyone will say, "The mightiest countries are those that are building their economies on a socialist basis." I believe we will achieve this! And so the Communist Party is calling upon you, comrades, to work in the name of this lofty goal, to work so that your fathers and mothers may be proud of you and the new generations will recall your marvelous deeds with gratitude.

Speech at the June 2, 1956 meeting in Moscow of Young Communist League members; Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 7, 1956.

**1957 - Soviet citizens live to accumulate funds for the state**

The great majority of Soviet citizens live to accumulate more funds for the common cause, for the state; to raise the level of production, economy and science so that even more machines will be made and more grain produced. . . . No capitalist will ever understand this. As a pig cannot look up in the sky, so the capitalist cannot understand our psychology, the psychology of our Soviet man.

Speech at Conference of Farm Personnel, April 8, 1957, Pravda, April 10, 1957.

## 5. Economic Weakness

**1952 - Bureaucracy**

But the formal, bureaucratic attitude of some officials toward newspaper articles may be shown by the following example. Comrade Ivanov, apartment house superintendent for the Stalin Automobile Plant, wrote an article for the plant newspaper *Stalinets*, in which he recommended making radiator coils for gas water heaters from metal scrap. This proposal deserved serious attention and the editors sent it to the assistant manager of the plant, Comrade Nosov. Comrade Nosov wrote his decision on the letter: "To the Head of the Housing and Utilities Department, Comrade Kulik. See to drawing up a reply." Comrade Kulik sent the letter on to the department's chief engineer, Comrade Titov, and he, without pausing to think, wrote on it his decision: "To Comrade Ivanov. Draft a reply." Thus Comrade Ivanov was instructed to reply to his own letter to the editors.

Moskovskaya Pravda, September 28, 1952.

**1954 - Quality of construction work**

The joints between the pipes had been very badly made and I, as a former fitter, was extremely indignant; even before the revolution pipe-joints in the mines were cleaner and better finished than in this hotel at Sverdlovsk.

Publicizing Industrial Methods, Improving Quality and Lowering Construction Costs; a Speech at the All-Union Conference of Builders. . .December 7, 1954

(Russian edition, Moscow, 1955), p. 31.

-19-

1956 - Criticism must not help enemies

The capitalists are well able to defend their capitalist world and its system of exploitation. They are able to organize intelligence services and to send their spies and diversionists to us. Can we remain heedless and indifferent to all the vile things the imperialists do to us? We must know how to recognize the enemy and to see through his tricks in good time. We must strengthen in every way our state's security; we must be vigilant and thwart all the activities of our enemies. When we criticize the shortcomings and errors that have been permitted in our forward march, we must above all be sure that this criticism strengthens the Soviet system and helps us to advance even more rapidly and successfully toward our great aim--Communism.

Speech at the All-Union Conference of Young Builders, April 11, 1956; *Pravda*, April 13, 1956.

1957 - A surgical knife to cut away malignant growths

The recent plenary session of the Party Central Committee discussed important economic problems. The meeting thoroughly criticized our shortcomings in economic management. We must continue to expose shortcomings in our work boldly in order to remove them more rapidly. The Communist must act like a surgeon who takes a sharp knife and operates on a man's body to cut out malignant growths and thus makes possible the further development and strengthening of the organism. This is our approach to the life of our society and to our work. We, too, should take a surgical knife whenever necessary and cut out malignant growths with determination so that our socialist state organism may develop and gain strength at a still faster rate.

Speech awarding Order of Lenin to Uzbeks, *Pravda*, January 14, 1957.

6. "Voluntary" Bond Moratorium

1957 - Capitalists will not believe it

The capitalist, that mercenary who would cut up his own father for one-half of one percent interest, will never understand the soul of our Soviet man. He will never believe that you support this voluntarily. He will read about it in the newspapers and will say, "The workers and peasants were cowed into agreeing."

Speech at Conference of Farm Personnel, Gorky, April 8, 1957; *Pravda*, April 10, 1957.

D. Education

1954 - Quality of science training

Unfortunately there are men calling themselves scientific workers who have no relation to science. It is essential to devote more attention to scientific establishments, to help scientific workers, and to get rid of people who managed to get into scientific establishments but who are of no use.

Speech of February 23, 1954; TASS, March 20, 1954.

1956 - We have more engineers than any capitalist country

The capitalists accounted our people as backward. But now we have more engineers, technical intelligentsia, than any capitalist country. And in the Sixth Five-Year Plan there will be more of them. And this frightens the imperialists; it frightens them that we are creating our own cadres.

Speech of January 21, 1956; reprinted in *To New Advances, Youth!* (Russian edition, Moscow, 1956), p. 45.

-20-

## 1956 - Education and labor

Incorrect views about labor in our Soviet society have recently begun to appear within a certain section of youth. The following instances are examples: Some young men and women say, when they have finished the ten-year course, "It isn't suitable for us, now that we are educated, to work in a factory, at a construction site, at a state farm or a collective farm." These educated people do not stop to think that it was workers who built the house they live in, that their fathers work in factories and mills, that the bread they eat was grown on state farms and collective farms by our Soviet people, indefatigable toilers.

It is apparently not only the young people who think this way; some members of the older generation are also to blame. It is no secret, after all, that some parents reason thus:

> "But my daughter has completed the ten-year course--she cannot milk cows!"

> She can drink milk, but she considers it beneath her dignity to milk cows!

> Speech at the All-Union Conference of Young Builders, April 11, 1956; Pravda, April 13, 1956.

## 1956 - Practical work before higher education

The best way to a higher education lies through enterprises and construction projects, through work on collective farms, M.T.S. and state farms. We could not do this before, since an insufficient number of people were qualified to enter higher educational institutions. Now tens and hundreds of thousands of young men and women who have completed their ten-year education are joining factory workships, and construction projects or are going to work on collective and state farm fields. The number of workers--turners, fitters, metalworkers, builders, chemists and textile workers--with secondary education is growing constantly. By working in production they gain a better understanding of life, they know what attracts them, they test their powers--and when they come to decide where to go for further study, they choose their profession in a more mature fashion. More concern must be shown for higher and secondary evening and home study training institutions, so that working and collective farm youth may be given a higher or secondary education without leaving production work. There can be no doubt but that a specialist who receives a higher or secondary education this way will progress more rapidly than one who goes straight from school to a higher educational institution or a technicum. This is natural, for a man may graduate from an institute and then be frightened by a grinding gear when he goes to the factory. But if he goes to the higher school from production work, he won't be afraid of machines; he will deal with them boldly, for they are his element. I say all this so that you will not think that by going off to the construction projects you will lose the opportunity for a higher education. If you have a desire to study, each of you will find a way to continue to study. Just be as steadfast and persistent in your work and studies as Hero of the Soviet Union Alexei Maresiyev, your older comrade, who has just spoken here, and you will achieve everything!

> Speech at the June 2, 1956 meeting in Moscow of Young Communist League members; Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 7, 1956.

## 1957 - Marxist "theory"

If Marx, Engels and Lenin could arise now, they would laugh at those bookworms and quoters who instead of studying the life of contemporary society and developing theory creatively strive to find among the classics a quotation about how to act in connection with a machine tractor station in such and such a city. . . . One can even meet such economists who in speaking of wages in contemporary circumstances use examples given almost a hundred years ago by Marx in his famous "Capital." Of course there are not many such people, but lamentably one still does meet them. Such economists cannot give concrete examples from life because they do not know actual life. These are not theoreticians but parrots who have learned certain phrases and repeat them. Such theoretical work is not worth two pennies.

> "For a Close Tie of Literature and Art with the Life of the People," Kommunist, No. 12, 1957, p. 17.

-21-

E. Press and Literature

1957 - Censorship saves paper

When one or another correspondent wishes to send abroad distorted reports, reports which do not conform to the real state of affairs, our institutions take measures so that these incorrect, slanderous reports will not be allowed to appear. I hold this procedure to be correct. I should say that this, in fact, is not censorship but only a more rational use of material resources possessed by society, in order not to squander money on telegraph communications, paper, etc.

Interview with Turner Catledge of the *New York Times*; TASS, May 13, 1957.

1957 - Against alien ideology

The Party is waging an uncompromising fight against the penetration into literature and art of the influence of alien ideology, against hostile attacks on socialist culture.

"For a Close Tie of Literature and Art with the Life of the People," *Kommunist*, No. 12, 1957, pp. 20-21.

1957 - The press is our main ideological weapon

These comrades began to forget that the press is our main ideological weapon. It is called upon to rout the enemies of the working class, enemies of the toilers. Just as an army cannot fight without weapons, so the Party cannot successfully carry out its ideological work without such a sharp and militant weapon as the press. We cannot surrender the organs of the press to unreliable hands; they must be in the hands of the workers who are most faithful, most reliable, politically staunch and loyal to our cause.

"For a Close Tie of Literature and Art with the Life of the People," *Kommunist*, No. 12, 1957, p. 23.

-22-

### III. WORLD AFFAIRS

#### A. War and Peace

##### 1. Peace

###### 1955 - Five principles

The five principles of peaceful coexistence proclaimed by Prime Minister Nehru and our friend Chou En-lai suit us perfectly. We confirmed this in the well known declaration which we signed together with Nehru when he was in Moscow. ...

Speech at Bhakranangal, one of largest construction projects in India; Pravda, November 23, 1955.

###### 1955 - Imperialists want a different kind of peace

Certain of those who are now saying that they, too, advocate peace would, of course, be very happy to achieve without war the goals which they have set for themselves. They would like the sort of peace whereby certain peoples would be subjected to others. But the peoples do not want this. This is the essence of the matter; this is the key to all disagreements.

Speech at Bombay; Pravda, November 24, 1955.

###### 1955 - We would like to live in friendship

We have always sincerely sought and still seek friendship with all countries, including capitalist countries. In particular, we would like to live in friendship with the strongest capitalist countries--the USA, Britain and France.

If we could achieve this, and this depends not so much on us as on the governments and peoples of the USA, Britain and France, this would create conditions for true peaceful coexistence and competition between the two systems.

Speech about trip to India, Burma and Afghanistan; Pravda, December 30, 1955.

###### 1955 - Imperialists stir up cold war

Why then after the end of the war did certain imperialist circles stir up a war psychosis in their attempts to intimidate the peoples with an imaginary "Soviet threat"?

They did this in pursuing their selfish gains.

Their aim is clear. The imperialists need this in order to exploit the people with impunity, to develop war industry with the aid of immense taxes, which is the pre-occupation of the monopoly bosses working for war.

Speech about trip to India, Burma and Afghanistan, Pravda, December 30, 1955.

###### 1956 - Our policy promotes peace

We are firmly convinced that the peace-loving policy of the Soviet Union will serve as a reliable basis for the defense of peace and the security of people throughout the world.

Speech at celebration by builders of Lenin Central Moscow Stadium; Pravda, August 1, 1956.