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A. I. MIKOYAN
PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF FOOD INDUSTRY, U.S.S.R.

JowaAcL cl

LAND

OF

PLENTY

10c INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS



NEW “INTERNATIONAL” PUBLICATIONS ON

THE SOVIET UNION

MISS U.S.S.R.

By G. Friedrich

The story of a girl Stakhanovite 05

THE PLAN OF CONSTRUCTION AND PEACE
By V. M. Molotov

The plan for Soviet economy in 1936, and the
present international situation. 10

SENTINEL OF PEACE

By M. N. Tukhachevsky

The growth of the Red Army 02

THE STALIN-HOWARD INTERVIEW
Interview of Joseph Stalin by Roy Howard 02

MARXISM VERSUS LIBERALISM

Interview of Joseph Stalin by H. G. Wells 02

WHAT IS STAKHANOVISM?
By V. M. Molotov. 05

FOOD FOR ALL

By V. M. Molotov

The abolition of the breadboard system 03

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION AND THE
SOVIET UNION

By V. M. Molotov .03

•

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Land of Plenty

By

A. I. MIKOYAN
People's Commissar of the Food Industry, U.S.S.R.

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS - New York

1936



Published 1936 by

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Contents

I. THE FOOD PROBLEM SOLVED
5

II. THE SOVIET SUGAR OUTPUT 1 6

III. THE FISH INDUSTRY 25

IV. CANNED GOODS 33

V. MEAT AND SAUSAGE 36

VI. BUTTER AND CHEESE 40

VII. VEGETABLE OILS AND FATS 45

VIII. MILK AND ICE CREAM 52

IX. COLD STORAGE 55

X. BAKING AND CONFECTIONERY 58

XI. TEA AND TOBACCO 62

XII. ALCOHOL AND RUBBER 64

XIII. OUR FARMS 68

XIV. WE AND THEY 7 I

XV. OUR FARMERS’ DEMANDS 74

XVI. SOVIET ADVERTISING 77



Report delivered January 16, 1936,

at the second session of the meeting

of the Central Executive Committee

of the U.S.S.R.



I

The Food Problem Solved

I

N nearly every public utterance made by Comrade

Lenin in the early years of the revolution we meet

with one theme, namely, the food problem, as one of the

biggest difficulties of the Russian revolution.

In April, 1919, Lenin said:

“.
. . About the food situation I have here spoken only

briefly, but you all understand that this is our chief internal

difficulty.” ( Collected Works
,
Vol. XXIV, “The Tasks of

the Trade Unions in Connection with the Mobilization on

the Eastern Front”.)

At a Party Conference held in December, 1919,

Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin] formulated this thought even

more emphatically:

“The food problem forms the basis of all problems . . . but

as soon as the military situation improves ever so slightly

we must devote as much energy as possible to food work,

because this is the basis of eveiything. . . . And only when

we have accomplished this task and have a socialist founda-

tion, shall we be able to build on this socialist foundation

that luxurious edifice of socialism which we several times

began to build from the top and which several times col-

lapsed.” ( Collected Works
,
Vol. XXIV. “The All-Russian

Conference of the Russian Communist Party”.)

Today we are in a position to say that this task—the
solution of the food problem—has been accomplished.
Under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, we have al-

ready laid the socialist foundation and are now success-

fully building “the luxurious edifice of socialism
5

’. Today

5



the millions of our country are saying, in the words of

Stalin, “Life has improved, comrades, life has become

more joyous”.

Under the leadership of the man who is carrying on

the work of Lenin—Comrade Stalin—the peasant prob-
lem, that most difficult problem of the proletarian rev-

olution, has been completely solved in our country in an

historically very short period of time. For the first time

in the history of humanity millions of peasants, abandon-

ing a manner of life to which they had been accustomed

for thousands of years, have adopted a new mode of life,

a new, socialist method of production—and this is one
of the greatest, if not the greatest, event in the history

of mankind.

We have now successfully removed all the main dif-
ficulties in the way of the internal development of our

country. It is inexpressibly sad that the great Lenin is

not with us in these happy times to add his joy to ours.

As far back as 1918—in Tsaritsyn, as it was then
called—Comrade Stalin, engaged at the time in liquidat-
ing the Southern counter-revolutionary front, also devot-

ed a great deal of attention to the food question. With

the foresight of genius, Comrade Stalin at that time,

when we were only just beginning to administer the state,

seriously raised the question of creating a food indus-

try. Even at that early period he set the task of institut-

ing the factory production of food products, as far as it

was possible in Tsaritsyn—a task which later developed
into a veritable program for the construction of a large-

scale food industry in the U.S.S.R.

Writing to Lenin at the time about the consignment of

meat to Moscow, Comrade Stalin said.

“There is more livestock here than we need, but there is

exceedingly little hay, and since we cannot consign with-

6



out hay, large-scale consignments become impossible. It would

be well to organize at least one cannery, an abattoir, and

so on. . .
.”

“At least one cannery”—Comrade Stalin said at that
time, in 1918. We are now in a position to say that we
are building and have already built six huge canneries

where Comrade Stalin in 1918 demanded that at least

one cannery be built.

There was no real food industry in old Russia, if we

leave the vodka, sugar and tobacco industries out of ac-

count. Why did these branches develop, and others not?
Because they were subject to excise duty and provided

tremendous revenues for the treasury, and their develop-

ment was fostered by the tsarist government from fiscal

motives. The treasury required money for the main-

tenance of the court, for the maintenance of the parasitic

bureaucratic apparatus, for the maintenance of the im-

perialist army. And it was for this reason that the vodka

industry was developed to the utmost. There were hun-

dreds of vodka distilleries all over the country. The sugar

industry was another source of vast revenue from excise

duty. The same was true of the tobacco industry. But

even these fostered branches of industry were poorly

developed and on a very low technical level.

As to other branches of the food industry, there was,

for instance, in the confectionery business the Siou fac-

tory, which produced an insignificant quantity of confec-

tionery and biscuits of high quality, the George Borman

factory, which produced high-class confectionery, but in

small quantities, and several other factories. These fac-

tories produced confectionery only for the “upper ten”,

for the cream of Russian bourgeois society.

There was no food industry in old Russia. Owing to

the general backwardness of the country and the small

7



number of large cities and proletarian centers, owing to

the poverty-stricken life of the working class masses and

the low standard of living of the petty bourgeoisie in the

towns, and owing to the largely self-sufficient economy

prevailing in the countryside, large food factories were

not required, handicraft and domestic production of food-

stuffs sufficed, and the wealthy classes got along in their

own way without a food industry.

The Russian merchants did not know what good food

was. They used to stuff themselves with pancakes and

caviar, and then call in doctors to cure them of overeat-

ing. And the more cultured members of the bourgeoisie

and the aristocracy, who spent half the year in foreign

countries, used to order the foods they required from

abroad. There were a few magnificent stores in St.

Petersburg and Moscow which used to deal in imported

articles of food. Here, for instance, is the price list of

the “trading house” of Byelov, or the “trading house” of

Eliseyev. The Eliseyev price list contains a vast quantity

of imported goods which for the most part we now pro-

duce ourselves. Eliseyev used to import 43 kinds of

canned goods (these canned goods we are now making

ourselves), 18 kinds of cheese (as though good cheese

could not be made in Russia!), 14 kinds of chocolate,

45 kinds of biscuits and crackers (which are now being

produced by us in large quantites and of better quality),

308 kinds of wines and spirits, 3 kinds of mustard and 4

kinds of vinegar. They even imported vinegar from

abroad! They also imported large quantities of groceries:

pepper, spices, and so on.

In old Russia—with its extremely backward economy
and social conditions, with unemployment in the towns,

agrarian overpopulation and the slavish position of women

—labor, especially the labor of women, was not valued
highly. It was therefore natural that the domestic pro-

8



duction of foodstuffs should be able successfully to com-

pete with factory production. “It is cheaper to cook at

home”, it used to be said. In Russia domestic labor was

regarded in a way as unpaid labor.

In the countryside, the low standard of living of our

peasantry before the revolution gave rise to the domestic

weaving of textiles. The peasants wore homespun clothes

and bast shoes. Homespuns were cheaper for the peasant

because he set no value on his own labor—there was
nothing he could apply his labor to in the long winter

months.

And in the sphere of food domestic products hold the

field until a proper value is set on labor, especially on the

labor of women. How tenacious is the idea that domestic
labor costs nothing is shown by the fact that until recent-

ly bread-baking in many of our cities was not even a

handicraft industry, but a domestic industry. The work-

ing woman and the housewife baked bread for them-

selves every day or every other day. For instance, in a

city like Sverdlovsk ioo tons of baked bread and 70

tons of flour were sold daily even as late as 1932, which

meant that more than 40 per cent of the population ate

homemade bread, which they considered cheaper.

Now, when the face of our great and vast country has

undergone a change, when increasing numbers of women

are being drawn into production and social work on an

equal footing with men, women are beginning to use

their labor and their time more fruitfully and more

rationally.

An experienced hand baker can bake from 500 to 550
pounds of bread a day—not more, whereas in the
Moscow mechanical bakery the output of bread amounts
to about 5,000 pounds per worker per day. Now, of
course, you cannot induce a Moscow working woman to
bake bread for herself at home. Our mechanical bakeries

9



are now doing the work for her and baking excellent

bread. And this is not only true of the cities. In the vil-

lages too we now have harvester-combine operators and

tractor drivers—men and women—brigade leaders and
rank-and-file women collective farmers who value every

minute of their time. Women and girl workers in the
countryside are now beginning to count every minute of

their time, because the Stakhanov movement has revealed

to them the real value of the labor of women. Do you

think, then, you can induce our women tractor drivers,

harvester-combine operators, such women as Maria

Demchenko and others, to sit at home and bake bread

and to wear homespun? That won’t work now! They are

changed people, they are demanding factory-made goods,

including factory-made foods, so" as to be able to devote

their time more rationally to production, driving a tractor

or harvester combine, to cultural work and to tending

to their children.

The face of our country, the face of our cities and vil-

lages, has changed. Our people have also changed, and

so have their habits. The food industry must expand

very rapidly so as to satisfy the growing demand and in-

creasingly to replace domestic and hand-made foodstuffs

by factory-made foodstuffs. Only the factory production

of foodstuffs can lighten and emancipate female labor

and at the same time ensure hygienic foodstuffs of good

quality, high nutritive value and abundant variety.

It was only under the Soviet power that the food in-

dustry was really started and is developing.

It was in the years of greatest hardship, when there

was a shortage of bread, butter and meat, when the

ration system was introduced in order to enable poverty-

stricken Russia to rise to a higher level of culture and

technique, and to enable our peasantry to abandon the

primitive plow and the sickle for the tractor and the

io



harvester-combine, it was at this time—a time of food
difficulty—that our Soviet food industry was born. It
developed at a rapid speed, because this matter was

guided by the Central Committee of the Party and by

Comrade Stalin, who with dauntless determination led us

through all the impediments and difficulties of the social-

ist reconstruction of the country. At a time when there

was still a shortage of livestock, when there was a short-

age of grain, Comrade Stalin, who saw further than the

rest of us, expedited the construction of meat packing

plants, canneries, mechanical bakeries and new enter-

prises in other branches of the food industry.

Comrade Stalin told us that very soon we should be

having everything in abundance—meat, bread and vege-
tables—-and that factories must be built in good time to
handle all these foodstuffs.

In 1929 the Council of People’s Commissars and the

Central Committee of the Party adopted a very im-

portant decision on the meat industry.

In 1931 there was published the famous pronounce-

ment of the Central Committee of the Party and the

Council of People’s Commissars, signed by Comrades

Stalin and Molotov, dealing with the development of the

meat and canning industry. This pronouncement became

for the whole Party a program for the development of

the food industry.

“The very rapid development of a powerful meat packing

and canning industry”—the pronouncement ran—“relying on
the latest achievements of world technology, has become one

of the most important links in the socialist reconstruction

of our country and should receive as much attention from

the working class, the trade unions, the Party and all Soviet

organizations as is now being concentrated on the larger

building projects. That is the key to a radical improvement

in the food supply of the worker and the way to increase



productivity of labor, to achieve a proper organization of

labor power and to eliminate the high turnover of labor. Any

underestimation of the importance of creating a new, large-

scale food industry is as much a manifestation of opportunism

as was the underestimation of the importance of large-scale

agricultural production, based on state farms and collective

farms, for the solution of the grain problem.” -

The Right and “Left” deviationists at that time used

to sneer and say that we fools, instead of occupying our-

selves with stock-breeding and grain, were building

mechanical bakeries and packing plants, as though, if

there were an abundance of grain, it could not be con-

sumed without the help of mechanical bakeries, and that

if there were an abundance of meat, it could not be eaten

without the help of packing plants. I even recall that a

complaint was made to the Central Committee of the

Party against the People’s Commissariat of Supply on

the grounds that the People’s Commissariat of Supply

was squandering money on the building of the Moscow

Packing Plant instead of spending this money on stock

breeding. The interference of the Central Committee was

requested to put a stop to this “outrage”.

Comrade Stalin wrote the following comment on the

complaint: “If the People’s Commissariat of Supply is to

be blamed for anything it is for having delayed begin-

ning the building of this plant a whole year.”

Now the Moscow Packing Plant at the height of the
season manages only with difficulty to cope with the

stream of animals that flows through its gates. Last

autumn the Moscow Packing Plant handled 9,000 ani-

mals per day, while 40,000 to 45,000 animals stood

waiting their turn.

If we had listened to the opportunists and had then

not built our packing plants, what would have happened

to our capital city, how could we have lived better, more

12



happily, without an abundance of meat and sausage?

Pravda printed a report of a speech on the food ques-

tion made by Goering, German Minister ot Aviation.

There was a time, in our years of difficulty, when every

lecturer, no matter what the subject of his lecture, would

invariably speak of the food problem. And now the Ger-

man Air Minister cannot speak on aviation without touch-

ing on the subject of food. It was at one time difficult for

us to explain the absence of meat, but it is far more dif-

ficult for Goering to do so now.

When we used to say that there was a shortage of

bread, butter and meat, we knew that very soon there

would be an abundance, because we were building col-

lective farms and state farms, tractor plants, automobile

plants and harvester-combine plants in order to re-equip

and reconstruct our entire agriculture. We had a pro-
gram for a prosperous future and our difficulties were

difficulties of growth, difficulties of the transition from

capitalism to socialism. Comrade Stalin at that time

taught us to fight, to overcome our difficulties, because

we would soon be living well and joyously. The people

believed us and courageously fought to overcome the dif-

ficulties of the transition period, because they all knew

that they were difficulties of the transition to a better life.

And now we all see how rapidly the line of the Party has

been justified in practice.

And now, when—after the millions of our peasantry
have abandoned individual farming for collective farm-

ing and a food industry has been created—we have an
abundance of food products, now, when rationing has

become a thing of the past, Germany, one of the fore-

most capitalist countries, is returning to the ration sys-

tem we have discarded.

We could now sell Germany the left-over stock of our
ration cards. We could hand over the whole remaining

] 3



stock of ration cards to Comrade Rosenholz as a new

item of export in place of the foodstuffs which have been

removed from the export list.

This is what Goering said in his speech:

“We have returned to Germany the freedom to arm. Of

what importance is a lack of fats and butter compared with

this achievement? As to myself, I am prepared for the sake

of the happiness of the German people to promise never to

touch butter in my life. Every sacrifice should seem a trifle

to us if it helps us to acquire guns, shells and airplanes. . . .”

Note, comrades, he says he is “prepared” to promise

—but he never did promise and so far has not denied
himself any butter.

But when a Minister finds it necessary to give such a

monastical promise—never in his life to touch butter

—

it shows that the Minister sees no hope, and that he has

no grounds for expecting that butter will ever become a

food within the reach of the people. This is because

Germany is in the decline of capitalism, her economic and

political organism is decaying. The deeds and days of

present-day Germany are the labored tread of moribund

German capitalism. But with us, even in the most difficult

years of the revolution, above the sound of construction

work could be heard the tread of the new and happy iife,

the life which has now arrived.

We are now in a position to say that our country has
a food industry as well as a powerful heavy industry.

Capital investments in the food industry in the period

of the First Five-Year Plan totaled 2,000,000,000 rubles,

whereas during the past three years—the first three years
of the Second Five-Year Plan—investments totaled 2,800,-
000,000 rubles. In three years a larger sum has been in-

vested on capital development than throughout the whole

period of the First Five-Year Plan. Capital expenditures

14



have been planned for 1936 at 1,155,000,000 rubles. As

you see, the state is assigning immense sums of money

for the development of the food industry.

During these years there were constructed and put into

operation 17 large meat packing plants, 8 bacon factories,

10 new sugar refineries, 41 large canneries, 37 cold stor-

age plants, 11 ice plants, 205 mechanized butter-making

plants, 9 confectionery
factories, 33 milk dairies, 1 1 mar-

garine factories, 178 mechanical bakeries, 22 tea fac-

tories and a number of enterprises in other branches.

I should mention that in my report I am dealing only

with the all-Union enterprises, the enterprises in the

charge of the People’s Commissariat of the Food In-

dustry, and that there are also local and non-mechanized

food industries. If one were to deal with the entire food

industry of the country, a good deal would have to be

added to these figures. It must therefore be borne in mind

that the data I quote refer only to the all-Union food

industries under the charge of the People’s Commissariat

of the Food Industry.

As Comrade Molotov has already informed you in his

remarkable report, the plan of the food industry for 1935

was fulfilled 111.5 per cent. The output of products in

1935 was 23 per cent more than last year and 12 per cent

more than the program laid down for 1935 in the Second

Five-Year Plan. According to the Second Five-Year Plan,

by 1937 the food industry should increase its output by

150 per cent as compared with 1932—the last year of
the First Five-Year Plan. In 1933 the industries of the

People’s Commissariat of the Food Industry increased

output by 10.3 per cent as compared with 1932; the in-

crease in output in 1934 amounted to 26.9 per cent and

in 1935 to 23 per cent. According to the plan for 1936,

the industries of the People’s Commissariat of the Food

Industry should produce products to a value of 9,150,-



000,000 rubles (at prices prevailing in 1926-27), which

is more than double the entire output of 1932.

We are fulfilling the Five-Year Plan normally, and
we have no doubt that we shall fulfil it completely and

even ahead of time.

The plan for 1936 already provides for an output in

certain branches of our industry equal to what was pro-

jected for the last year of the Second Five-Year Plan.

For instance, the output of granulated sugar in 1936

will be as large as the output provided for in the Second

Five-Year Plan for the year 1937, namely, 2,500,000

tons. The output of lump sugar in 1936 will be greater

than that planned for the last year of the Second Five-

Year Plan—1,000,000 tons instead of 750,000 tons.
In 1936 we shall produce 170,000 tons of sausage,

whereas the plan provides for an output of 135,000 tons

of sausage in the last year of the Second Five-Year Plan.

We shall produce in 1936, 600,000 tons of artificial fod-
ders, which is the amount provided for in the program

for 1937. And in the case of a number of other branches

of the food industry there is a possibility of fulfilling

the Second Five-Year Plan in four years.

The Soviet Sugar Output

ou will recall that at the Stakhanovite Conference,

Comrade Stalin, interjecting in the course of my re-

port, set us the task of producing not less than 130,000,-

000 poods of sugar. [60 poods equal about one ton.

—

Ed.\ This was at the end of November, when the buying

in of the sugar-beet crop had not yet been completed and

II



when the prospects for the sugar refining season were

not yet definitely clear. This interjection of Comrade

Stalin’s became a fighting program for the workers in the

sugar industry. Comrade Stalin’s words evoked a spirit

of enthusiasm that has never yet been observed in the

sugar industry. And it happens that today the directors

of the sugar refineries, the directors of the sugar trusts

and the Stakhanovites of the sugar industry have sent a

report to Comrade Stalin in which they write

:

“Dear leader and teacher: At the All-Union Conference of

Stakhanovites, you, Comrade Stalin, set us the task of sup-

plying the country with 130,000,000 poods of sugar from the

sugar-beet harvest. Our People’s Commissar accepted the task.

We are happy to report that the task you set has been ac-
complished completely.

“By January 14, 1936, the sugar refineries had already

produced 130,300,000 poods of sugar.

“We are now striving to produce another 11,000,000 or

12,000,000 poods by the end of the production season, that

is, 141,000,000 to 142,000,000 poods of sugar in all.

“It was the development of the Stakhanov movement in

our sugar refineries which alone made these results pos-

sible.”

Comrades, it would be interesting in this connection to

quote a few facts illustrating the production of sugar in

capitalist countries.

I take these facts from the German periodical Die

Xuckerindustru?.

In the 1934-35 season Germany produced 16,000,000

centners of raw sugar, which is equivalent to 91,800,000

poods of white granulated sugar; Czechoslovakia pro-

duced 6,400,000 centners, or the equivalent of 35,000,-

000 poods of white sugar; Poland produced 4,500,000

centners, or the equivalent of 24,500,000 poods of white

sugar; France produced 12,200,000 centners, or the equiv-



alent of 67,000,000 poods of white sugar; Great Britain

produced 6,900,000 centners, or the equivalent of 38,-

000,000 poods of white sugar.

In the case of the U. S. A. the output of beet sugar

amounted to 11,800,000 centners, and of cane sugar

(without the colonies) to 2,500,000 centners or together

the equivalent of 78,000,000 poods of white sugar. Even

if we add the output of corn sugar—4,000,000 centners,
or the equivalent of 15,000,000 poods of white sugar

—

the total output of all kinds of sugar in the U. S. A.

amounts to 93,000,000 poods. I shall not quote figures

for India, since India produces mainly brown sugar from

sugar cane, prepared in large quantities domestically or

by hand industries.

How far our country, especially the Ukraine, has ad-
vanced in sugar-beet growing and in the production of

sugar will be seen from the fact that the Vinnitsa Region

alone—the Vinnitsa Sugar Trust alone—is producing
34,400,000 poods of sugar this year, whereas the whole

of Poland produces 24,500,000 poods. In other words,

the Vinnitsa Region alone has far outstripped Poland.

The Kiev and Kharkov regions each also produce more

than Poland does.

In 1921—the year of greatest decline of the sugar
industry—the country produced 3,000,000 poods of
sugar.

Even as late as 1933 our country still occupied only

sixth place in the world in the production of beet sugar.

In 1934-35, when we turned out 78,000,000 poods,

we immediately stepped up from sixth place to third

place. Now
,
in IQ35, we have assumed first place in the

world in the production of sugar .

In the speech he delivered at the First Conference of

the Stakhanovites, Comrade Stalin set us the task of ob-

taining in the Ukraine next year a yield of 20 to 25 tons

18



of sugar beet per hectare. This has been reflected in the

national economic plan, which provides for a gross har-

vest next year of 25,400,000 tons of sugar beet. This is

the equivalent of 210,000,000 or 220,000,000 poods of

sugar, even if we assume that the rate of extraction of

sugar will be less than it was this year. What place will

we then occupy in the world’s beet sugar production if

we have already assumed first place this year! There is

no other place to occupy! We will produce twice as much
sugar as Germany and twice as much sugar as America

!

But this in fact is as it should be. It was all very well

for the old Russia to lag behind Germany and America.

We—a growing socialist country—must produce all food
products in greater quantity than Germany and America

—more than any country and better than any country.
We accept the sugar plan for next year without the

slightest hesitation, because the Stakhanov movement

—

that great movement which is causing a revolution

throughout the whole of industry—has developed partic-
ularly wTell in the sugar industry. Stakhanovites like I.

Litvinenko, Galya Kovtun, I. Gnyedovsky and others have

shown that the sugar refineries, by adapting their work

to the Stakhanov methods and effecting relatively small

expenditures on the elimination of weak spots, can in-

crease their capacity by 30 per cent. This is as much as

could be produced by 60 new refineries, the construction

of which would cost 900,000,000 rubles. .The Stakhanov

movement enables us to fulfil the production program for

sugar a long way ahead of time, and to overfulfil it. The

Stakhanov movement in the sugar industry began at the

Kalinin Refinery, while the Profintern Refinery—in the
beginning of January—was the first to carry out a Stakha-
nov week, and in the course of this period daily handled

2,000 tons of sugar beet instead of 1,550 tons, fulfilling

the daily program 136 per cent.

19



Without the Stakhanov movement this would have

been impossible.

In September, 1935, a foreign journal printed an ar-

ticle by Dr. Gustav Mikush, in which the following was

stated

:

“Judging by the meager information at our disposal with

regard to the Soviet Union, it may be assumed that the sugar-

beet crop this year will be a normal one. Official circles in

that country estimate the output of sugar in the forthcoming

season, 1935-36, at an equivalent of 2,000,000 tons of granu-

lated sugar. But despite the improvement of the technical

equipment of the refineries effected in the past few years, it

is doubtful whether they will be able to handle in the time

so large a quantity of sugar beet as would ensure an output

of 2,000j 000 tons in granulated sugar. In our estimates, there-

fore, we set the figure of sugar production in the U.S.S.R.

at 2,000,000 tons of raw sugar. At any rate, the prospects

for the season are very favorable, inasmuch as the abolition

of the ration system for sugar as from October 1 this year

has been announced.”

They thought it impossible for us to produce 2,000,000

tons of sugar. But we have already produced 2,200,000

tons, and by the end of the season will produce about

2,400,000 tons. We have achieved this thanks to the
Stakhanov movement, from which our sugar industry

has greatly benefited.

I shall quote a few figures illustrating the untapped

resources of the sugar industry. In 1932 stoppage due to

damage to machinery amounted to 6 per cent of the total

working time, in 1933 to 5.2 per cent, in 1934 to 3.5 per

cent, and in 1935 to 2.6 per cent.

During the past three years eight refineries have not

had a single breakdown. These are the Ulyanovsk Re-

finery (director, Comrade Soroka; chief engineer, Com-

rade Bogatsko)
;
the Kuibyshev Refinery (director, Com-

20



rade Tarasov; chief engineer, Comrade Stefanovich) ;

the Tsyrupa Refinery (director, Comrade Chernyakhov-

sky; chief engineer, Comrade Kravchenko)
;
the Krass-

noselko Refinery (director, Comrade Potomsky; chief

engineer, Comrade Libo)
;
the Olshansk Refinery (direc-

tor, Comrade Ganzha; chief engineer, Comrade Tete-

ruk)
;
the Sokolov Refinery (director, Comrade Kirilin;

chief engineer, Comrade Demchinsky)
;
the Bukharin Re-

finery (director, Comrade Radomsky; chief engineer,

Comrade Frolov)
;
the Borinsk Refinery (director, Com-

rade Ivanov; chief engineer, Comrade Korzhov).

Stoppages in 1935 were at a minimum in the following

refineries : the Collectivist Refinery, Kursk Region, had

aggregate stoppages of only 1 hour in 90 working days.

This includes both stoppages provided for and stoppages

not provided for in the plan. Stoppages at the Tsurupa

Refinery aggregated 1.3 hours, at the Ulyanovsk Re-

finery 3 hours, at the Dombalyevsky Refinery 5 hours, at

the Olshansk Refinery
5

hours, and at the Shepetovska

Refinery 5.8 hours.

But there are many refineries which had numerous

breakdowns even in the present season. For instance, the

Globinsk Refinery had stoppages aggregating 48 hours

owing to three breakdowns due to overheating of steam

boilers (director, Comrade Derevyanko; chief engineer,

Comrade Kozey) . The stoppages at the Burynsk Re-

finery (director, Comrade Mezurkevich; chief engineer,

Comrade Churuk) aggregated 23 hours owing to five

breakdowns of machinery.

Facts like this cannot be further tolerated. We are en-
titled to demand that every sugar refinery should take

the Collectivist Refinery, the Tsurupa Refinery and the

other outstanding refineries as their criterion with regard

to the elimination of breakdowns.

I have quoted figures for breakdowns and stoppages

21



caused by inferior repairs for which the refineries them-

selves were to blame. But until last year, when the work

obviously improved, there were stoppages due to other

causes. In 1932 the refineries were idle for 16.8 per cent

of their working time owing to the lack of transportation

facilities for coal, lime and sugar beet. In 1933 the re-

fineries were idle for 18 per cent of the time due to the

fault of the railways. In 1934 stoppages from this cause

amounted to only 2.5 per cent, whereas in 1935 and in

the beginning of 1936 the railways worked with great

regularity and not a single refinery stood idle a single

hour due to the fault of the railways.

That is why Comrade Molotov was absolutely right

when he referred in his report to the great improvement

in the work of the railways and mentioned the great ser-

vices rendered to the Party and the country by Comrade

Kaganovich, who has fought so successfully for the im-

provement of the railways.

I will not dwell in detail on the way our sugar refin-

eries have been re-equipped. In the case of 155 refineries

the delivery of sugar beet from the fields and the removal

of offal have been mechanized. The sugar refineries now

have 2,300 kilometers of spur railway lines as compared

with 780 kilometers in 1932. Formerly, large numbers

of horses and men were employed carting sugar beet to

refineries and carting away the beet offal. But this is now

unnecessary, since the refineries have been mechanized.

Incidentally, a new feature in our sugar industry is the

fact that we are now producing dried beet offal. There is

a large quantity of offal in the sugar industry, wdiich

makes excellent cattle feed, but which was often wasted

because of the difficulty of carting. We have now begun
to dry the offal, which in nutritive value is equal to oats.

We dried 18,100 tons of offal in 1932, 19,800 tons in

1933, 31,400 tons in 1934 and 43,500 tons in 1935. The

22



program for 1936 is 90,000 tons, a program we shall

undoubtedly fulfil.

Of great help this year was the fact that the majority

of collective farms and state farms work'ed well. A num-
ber of republics and regions—the Ukraine, the Voronezh
and Kursk regions, the Kazakstan and Kirghiz republics

and the Azov-Black Sea territory—put up a good fight
for sugar beet and provided the refineries with the neces-

sary supplies.

The sugar content of the beets this year is higher than

ever before, namely, 18.14 per cent.

Such a sugar content of beets is unknown in the his-

tory of Russia. There was only one year— 1908—when
the sugar content of the beets (18.12 per cent) approx-

imated that of the present year; in all other years it was

considerably lower.

The sugar yield this season amounts to 15.75 Per cent

—which is also a record. Never has there been such a
high yield in the past—the highest was 13.5 or 14.0 per
cent. Only in 1908 was the sugar yield as high as 14.76

per cent, whereas in 1935 it was 15.75 per cent—one
whole per cent higher. One per cent would seem a trifle,

but as a matter of fact it is equivalent to 150,000 tons

of sugar.

What are we striving for today in the sugar industry,

what must we strive for in 1936? The refineries which

still have stocks of sugar beet for winter refining must

cherish every single root and not allow it to spoil and

decay. Every single kilogram of sugar must be saved,

bearing in mind that the danger of the beets spoiling is

greater in winter. The work must be so conducted as to

prevent increased losses in the winter period, which was

the case in past years. It is a fact that the Vinnitsa refin-

eries—the Vinnitsa Trust as a whole—are showing in
January a higher yield of sugar than the other refineries

23



did in the more favorable autumn period. This is what

all the refineries must strive for. A most important task
of all the refineries is, immediately the production season

ends, to proceed with repairs, to effect them in a scrupu-

lous way under systematic technical guidance, and using

good materials; to eliminate the weak spots in the refin-

eries and to increase their capacity to the maximum in

order to be able to work much better, to handle a greater

quantity of sugar beet and to produce more sugar in the

1936 season. We must see to it that there are no break-
downs and stoppages next season, so as to be fully pre-

pared for the new and abundant collective farm harvest

of sugar beet.

The workers in the sugar industry must not allow

themselves to be lulled by the successes already achieved,

but must continue to improve their work, to bring the

lagging departments in every refinery up to the level of

the foremost departments and the lagging refineries up

to the level of the best refineries. We must not allow our-
selves in this respect to be guided by average figures, for

average figures in this case are dangerous, because they

paint everybody one neutral, gray color. The good re-

fineries and the bad refineries must be considered sepa-

rately, so that the best refineries may serve as a criterion,

so that the bad refineries may be brought up to the level

of the good refineries, so that we may know who must

be taken to task and who must be helped in order to

advance along the whole sugar refining front.

In 1936 the sugar refineries must make even more in-

tensive preparations for handling the sugar beet crop.

The sugar beet crop this year will be a large one, and

the refinery which does not make proper preparations

and which does not cope with the handling of the sugar

beet will cover itself with unspeakable shame.

24



Ill

The Fish Industry

here is another big branch of the food industry

which was able to record important successes last

year. I am referring to the fish industry.

The extent to which the fish industry has been re-

equipped is illustrated by the following figures.

In 1929 the fish industry had 560 motor vessels with an

aggregate of 37,000 horsepower. We now have 3,150
vessels with an aggregate of 230,000 hp. In other wmrds,

the motor fleet has increased sevenfold. On January 1,

1933, the fish industry possessed 19 cold storage plants;

today we have 26 cold storage plants. In 1928 there were

only four.

We started the fish canning industry in the Far East
in 1923, when we possessed two small canneries. By 1929

the number of canneries had increased to 12. Today we

have 41 canneries in the Far East. In the Soviet Union

as a whole we have 5 5 fish canneries with a total capacity

of 252,000,000 tins a year. We have 28 plants producing
fish oil and fish flour for cattle feed. There were no such

plants before; all we had was a few small and primitive

enterprises. We have two huge ship repair yards, 14
shipyards for building wooden vessels and 26 coopering

plants, 8 of which are equipped with the latest coopering

machinery. The fish industry possesses an extensive radio

system consisting of 360 stations—receiving and trans-
mitting. It also possesses 16 airplanes for reconnoitering

the movements of shoals.

In 1929 the Soviet Union occupied fifth place in the



world fishing industry. In 1935, by making a total catch

of 1,550,000 tons of fish (together with the local fish-

eries), we moved up to second place, outstripping Amer-

ica, Great Britain and Norway. The first place was re-

tained by Japan, which fishes in all waters from the Far

North to the Equator, including our Soviet waters.

It should be mentioned that before the revolution our

Far Eastern waters were rapaciously exploited almost

exclusively by the Japanese fish industries.

Here are a few figures. In 1928, when we had already

begun to fish in Far Eastern waters, the Japanese still

accounted for as much as 87.3 per cent of the total catch

in our territorial waters
y
the Soviet fishing industry

—

state, cooperative and private—accounting for the re-
maining 12.7 per cent. In 1934 we raised our share of

the catch to 44 per cent. In 1935 our catch in Far Eastern

waters increased by 16 per cent, which should enlarge

our relative share of the total catch, but we still do not

know how much since the final figures of the Japanese

catch are not yet available. I think that in future the

mastering of the Far Eastern waters by our fishing indus-

try will proceed even more rapidly.

It should be said that this is a difficult matter. For a

number of years we were obliged to bring workers from

Japan, and partially to provide them with imported Jap-

anese foodstuffs, clothing, and so on. In 1929 and 1930,

for instance, we hired 12,000 Japanese workers for Kam-

chatka, for the Northern Maritime Region and for work

on the crab-fishing vessels. Since 1933 we have not im-

ported a single Japanese worker. In the Far East fish is

now being caught and handled by Soviet workers led by

Soviet commanders.

We are managing not at all badly. Flowever, our
workers have not yet fully mastered the technical equip-

ment of the fishing industry in the Far East. Owing to

26



a labor turnover which is still large and the absence of a

sufficiently numerous local population, as many as 25,000

workers have to be recruited annually for the Pacific

Coast from internal regions of the U.S.S.R. At the end

of the fishing season the majority of these workers return

home. This involves a great waste of time in traveling,

and, what is most important, a waste of accumulated ex-

perience owing to the constant change of seasonal

workers.

The chief task of the fish industry in the Far East is

to secure permanent workers for the fisheries and the

fish-packing plants and to put a stop to the constant

changing of the basic categories of workers; otherwise it

will be impossible to master technique and to squeeze out

of technique all it can yield. For this purpose it is neces-

sary on the Far Eastern Coast of our country—the
potentialities of which are enormous—to build houses,
schools and hospitals, to build towns and villages. The

funds assigned for housing and social improvements in

the fish industry are being increased from year to year,

but so great is the need, so vast a region has to be cov-

ered in so short a time, that this is still inadequate. We
were able this year to get 33,000 workers (11,000 more

than last year) to settle permanently in the Far Eastern

fisheries. But this is not enough, since it provides the

fishing industry with only 50 per cent of the skilled fish-

ermen and only 15 per cent of the fish packers required.

Our task is to secure within the next two or three years

permanent basic cadres of fishermen and crab fishers.

These people should live permanently at the fisheries,

spending the summer catching fish and the winter repair-

ing the fishpacking plants, vessels, nets and tackle, build-

ing houses, working on communal improvements, and so

on. If these conditions are fulfilled great successes will

undoubtedly be achieved in all fisheries of the Far East.

27



Certain of the Far Eastern fish trusts are already show-

ing quite good results. The Far Eastern Fish Trust, the

Crab Trust and the whaling fleet are working not at all

badly. I shall mention a few of the finest Stakhanovites

of the fish industry in the Far East: Skipper Li’Oon-ho,

a Korean Young Communist Leaguer, and Skipper V aku-

lenko. They each catch as much as 200 tons of fish per

fishing boat, which is double the average. Captain Yego-

rov, on his crabber has caught as much as 270 tons of

crab per boat, whereas others of our crabbers, for in-

stance, the Tungus

,

catch only 100 tons per boat. Comrade

Yegorov has a well-selected crew, who work extremely

well in the Pacific.

Our recently created whaling flotilla is doing good

work. Comrade Zarva, captain of the whaler Trudfront,

killed as many as 193 whales. He has surpassed the for-

eign standards in this sphere and has kept the lead now

for three years running.

Need it be said that the opportunities for fishing in

the Arctic and Pacific Oceans are truly enormous? There

is no limit to the amount of fish that can be caught in the

Pacific and in the Barents Sea. Our task is to develop our

fishing fleet, our trawling fleet, to the maximum and al-

ways to fulfil and overfulfil the plan for fish catching.

The Fish Board this year fulfilled the plan for fish

catching and overfulfilled the plan for fishpacking. But

the Fish Board could have achieved even better results.

The spring fishing season passed off very well in the

North, in the Caspian Sea and in the Sea of Azov, and

we had every reason to expect a greater overfulfilment

of the plan for the year’s catch. However, the autumn

season was less successful than we expected both in Mur-

mansk and in the North Caspian. True, the weather con-

ditions in the Caspian Sea were very unfavorable this

year—frost set in earlier than usual, roughly about the
28



middle of November, and more than 3,000 fishers were

caught in the ice at sea.

The year 1936 must be one of even greater progress

for the fishermen. In 1936 the fishers in the Far East,

Astrakhan and in many other places have every oppor-

tunity of fulfilling the Five-Year Plan ahead of time. A
thing that particularly delights me is the competition that

has begun among the Murmansk trawlers. Following the

example of the trawler Kirov
f

the captains, mechanics

and crews of three of the finest trawlers—the Lebedka

,

the Navaga and the Moskava—came forward and prom-
ised to secure a catch of 3,000 tons of cod in 1936 on

each trawler and called upon all the other trawlers to

catch not less than 2,500 tons, in place of an average

catch of 1,700 tons in 1935. Comrade Skornyakov,

captain of the trawler Lebedka
}
writes

:

“Last year our trawler caught 2,500 tons, although we

spent only eight months at sea. The rest of the time was

wasted owing to the wretched organization of the work of

the administration of the trawling fleet and the ship repair

yard.

“This year we undertake to catch 3,000 tons. This is quite

feasible. If we catch 300 tons on each cruise, we shall have

to make only ten cruises.

“Each of the trawlers is able to catch not less than 2,5(10

tons a year, provided the heads of the trawling fleet and the

shipyard and the sailors of the fleet make it their fighting

task to eliminate loss of time in port and to take affectionate

care of the engines.

“Setting out to fulfil the program given us by the People’s

Commissar, we proclaim the first cruise of 1936 a Stakhanov

cruise.”

We would like the whole trawling fleet to join in the
Stakhanov cruise and to catch not less than 2,500 tons

of fish per trawler. We shall then be able to supply Len-

29



ingrad and Moscow with an abundance of excellent frozen

and cured cod, excellent herring and an abundance of

smoked bass of the finest quality.

The collective fisheries, especially in the Azov-Black

Sea territory, have done good work this year. I should

like to mention a few of the finest collective fishermen

:

Comrade Lyashko, for instance, chairman of a collective

fishery in the Azov-Black Sea territory, who caught five

and a half tons of fish and fulfilled the 1935 plan 178

per cent. Comrade Milkin, head of a fishing brigade of

the Sixteenth Party Congress Collective Fishery which

belongs to the Astrakhan Collective Fisheries Alliance,

fulfilled the 1935 plan 18 1 per cent. Comrade Simenenko,

a fisherman of the Ochakov Motor Fishing Station,

caught 16.5 tons of red fish, when the plan provided for

six tons, thus fulfilling the standard for red fish 250 per

cent. Comrade Krivulko, skipper of the Red Partisan

Collective Fishery in the Northern Maritime Region,

fulfilled the plan 300 per cent. Comrade Nadya Vash-

tchenko, a Kerch fisherwoman, member of a collective

fishery and organizer of women in fish catching, earned

about 6,000 rubles.

Here are a few figures illustrating the earnings of

members of collective fisheries. In 1933 each fisherman

earned an average of 764 rubles; in 1934, 929 rubles;

in 1935, 1,919 rubles. This does not include subsidiary

earnings from other kinds of work. In the Far East,

each fisherman earned on an average 4,600 rubles in the

year, in Murmansk the average was 5,300 rubles, where-

as in the collective fisheries in the Kuban the average

earnings were 4,209 rubles.

I should like to draw your attention to the assortment

of fish products we are selling to the population this year.

In 1935 the fish industry provided 64 per cent more

products for sale than in 1929. The supply of fresh and

30



frozen fish products was 155 per cent larger than in 1929

and the supply of smoked fish 790 per cent larger than

in 1929. There is a big lag in the case of dried fish, and

we must devote more attention to this matter. Two thou-

sand eight hundred tons of fish oil for medicinal and in-

dustrial purposes were supplied in 1934, whereas 12,500

tons of oil for industrial purposes and 2,700 tons for

medicinal purposes were supplied in 1935. The output of

canned fish amounted to 95,000,000 tins in 1935, as com-

pared with 37,000,000 tins in 1929. The increase in the

case of salt fish was much less. The supply of salt her-

rings in 1935 was 48 per cent larger than in 1929.

Our country has a very rich variety of fish. Excellent

kinds of fish are to be had in our country, such as are to

be found nowhere else in the world. There are 98 such

kinds in all. There are as many as 310 different kinds of

fish in our waters, 184 of commercial value. Ninety-eight

kinds are caught only in the U.S.S.R., including such ex-

cellent fish as osetrina, sturgeon, beluga, sterlet, belorybit-

sa, shemaya and seld-zalom. The assortment of fish prod-

ucts for sale includes 708 different kinds of goods and we

are now planning to enrich and extend the assortment of

fish products.

I should like to draw your attention to the fact that

live fish is being sold in Moscow, Leningrad and other

large cities. We did not sell live fish before, but in 1933
Comrade Stalin once asked me: “Are we selling live fish

anywhere?” “I do not know,” I replied, “most likely

not.” And Comrade Stalin continued to question me:

“Why is it not being sold? It used to be formerly.” After

this, we began to devote attention to this matter and we

now have excellent shops, chiefly in Moscow and Lenin-

grad, where 19 different kinds of live fish are sold, in-

cluding such fish as sturgeon and trout. The best of our

fish stores also sell live lobsters and oysters. Live fish in

3i



the shops ! That is good, because there are certain con-

noisseurs who insist that fish should not only be fresh

but should even squirm in the frying pan. Well, an assort-

ment of fish will be found to suit even their taste. What

is more, this is not a bad advertisement for the fish in-

dustry. The sight of live fish arouses an appetite for

other kinds of fish products. We shall extend the sale of
live fish.

[Kalinin : It’s profitable.]

Of course it’s profitable. A good thing is always prof-
itable.

Another innovation, unknown in our country before,

but one we must widely develop, is the sale of filleted fish.

We have built plants in Murmansk and Astrakhan for
the preparation of filleted fish. We shall in 1936 organ-
ize the production of filleted fish on the Azov coast as

well. This is a business of no small importance. There are

quite a number of people who prefer any other kind of

food to fish solely on account of the large number of

bones and the difficulty of cleaning fish in the kitchen.

Certain kinds of fish have a very large number of bones.

It is true that housewives know how to cook fish quite

well. But this demands a lot of time and trouble, and in

addition there is much waste—scales, insides, head, tail
and bones—which is thrown away. Yet this waste con-
tains many valuable products.

The first to protest against this waste were the Amer-

icans. They came to the conclusion that fish should be

cut up and cleaned not at home, in. the kitchen, but at

special factories. Now, in our filleting plants, they take

the fish, carefully separate the meat (fillets) from the

bones, pack it in parchment paper, freeze it well and

supply it to the consumer, while the offal is all used in

the production of industrial products and cattle feed.

Housewives, we think, will be grateful to us, because

3 2



carefully cleaned fish relieves them of unnecessary, un-

pleasant work. But, in addition, filleted fish is a big source

of revenue and saves the national economy from vast

losses. Out of the offal, which constitutes as much as 40

per cent of the weight of the fish, we manufacture fish

oil and fish flour, which makes an excellent feed for

poultry and pigs. In the manufactured state these by-

products almost cover the cost of the raw fish.

That is why we have decided to develop the produc-

tion and sale of filleted fish to the utmost. In addition to

filleted fish, we want to develop the production of other

kinds of table products. We are building big restaurants,
big central kitchens—and that is a good thing. But we
must meet the requirements of those who for one reason

or another prefer to eat at home. If there were always

on sale prepared hamburger steaks, roast beef and beef-

steaks which only required frying, filleted fish which only

had to be put on the fire, soup tablets, cold veal, ready-

made noodles which only required boiling, and so on, it

would be a great help to housewives and single people,

whose time after all is also valuable. This is something

we must develop to the utmost.

IV

Canned Goods

I

have already spoken of the fish canning industry.

But it is not only fish that is canned. We have created
a big industry for the canning of meat, fruit, vegetables

and milk.

In 1928 we produced 21,000,000 tins of canned meat,

and in 1935—146,000,000 tins, a sevenfold increase.
33



Next year we are to produce 216,000,000 tins of canned

meat and canned meat and vegetables. We produced
33.000.

000 tins of canned fish in 1928 and 136,000,000

tins in 1935, while the program for this year is 178,000,-

000 tins. Canned vegetables, 20,000,000 tins in 1928,72.000.

000 tins last year and 100,000,000 tins in 1936;

canned fruit: 3,000,000 tins in 1928, 272,000,000 tins

in 1935 and 298,000,000 tins in 1936; tomatoes, 13,000,-

000 tins in 1928, 161,000,000 tins in 1935. We produced
no canned milk in 1928. The canning of milk began only

in 1932, when we produced 2,000,000 tins. We produced
4.000.

000 tins of canned milk in 1933, 8,900,000 tins in

1934 and 16,000,000 tins in 1935. In 1936 the industry

will turn out 25,400,000 tins of canned milk.

The milk canning industry is one of prime importance.

Its prospects are unlimited. In the large cities there is a

shortage of whole milk; it can be supplied fresh only

from nearby districts, and the consumption of milk in

our country is steadily growing. Canned milk is also re-

quired for a number of branches of the food industry.

Confectionery should not be made from whole milk,

which is required for children. For the same reason we

cannot employ whole milk in the manufacture of mar-

garine, chocolate, and so on. Such articles must be made

from high-grade canned, condensed milk. Our remote

regions (for instance, Kazakstan, Siberia and Bashkiria),

from which milk cannot be consigned to the cities and

where it is so plentiful that they do not know what to do

with it, are bases for the condensed milk industry. From

these regions we shall supply condensed milk to the cities

and to the northern regions, where there are not enough

cows, to the cotton-growing districts of Uzbekistan, to

Baku, Magnitogorsk, Khalil, Murmansk, Kamchatka, to

the goldfields, and so on. There is in general a shortage

of milk in the winter. How are we to make good this

34



seasonal shortage ? The only method is condensed milk,

which is a highly nutritive and palatable product. We
are now in a position to supply a large quantity ol this

canned article. We are also producing dried milk, which
when dissolved in water yields a normal milk as tasty and

nutritive as fresh milk. We have six plants producing
condensed and dried milk, another two are in course of

construction and in 1937 we shall build seven more. We
recently began to supply condensed milk mixed with

cocoa and coffee. This is a convenient food for expedi-

tions, tourists and for our Red Army. We shall develop
the production of these canned articles in every way.

The assortment of canned goods has greatly increased.

There were 80 varieties in 1934; we are now supplying

128 varieties. Canned goods were formerly produced

solely as hors d’oeuvres. A man would take a drink and
develop an appetite for sprats, mackerel, sardines, egg-

plant, peppers. But in developing our canning industry we

shall follow the example of America, where canned goods

are something more than hors d’oeuvres. We are can-
ning whole tomatoes (in their natural state) without

dressing. We are also canning asparagus, cauliflower,
green peas and sweet corn (maize) without dressing.

The taste is as though the corn had just come off the stalk.

Incidentally, canned corn is very popular in America.

We shall intensively develop the production of new
kinds of canned goods., not only as hors d’oeuvres, but

also as foods which will make a good breakfast or supper

—even without vodka—and dietetic foods in particular.
The capacity of our canneries is enormous, there

is an abundance of raw material. All we lack is tin-

plate and glass for tins and jars. We shall ask the Peo-
ple’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry to devote more

attention to the production of tinplate and the People’s

Commissariat of Light Industry and the People’s Com-

35



missariat of Local Industry to the production of glass

jars, because it is on this that the possibility of satisfying

the demand of the population for canned goods now de-

pends.

The work of the canning industry has markedly im-

proved. I must particularly mention the good work per-

formed by Comrade Andreyev, director of the Azov-

Black Sea Trust, one of the oldest and best workers in

the canning industry, Comrade Breitman, director of the

Ukrainian Trust, Comrade Melikyan, director of the

Armenian Trust, Comrade Duche, director of the Cri-

mean Trust and Comrade Matitaishvilli, director of the

Georgian Trust.

N important branch of the food industry is meat.

The state packing plants, not counting local indus-

tries, supplied 343,000 tons of meat in 1932 and 533,000

tons in 1935, whereas in 1936 the meat packing plants will

supply 650,000 tons, or nearly double the output of 1932.

In addition to the supply of meat to the cities by the

state, a large quantity of meat is brought to the bazaars

by the collective farms. These supplies increased greatly

after the abolition of the ration system. For instance,

in the fourth quarter of 1935 the Moscow Packing Plant

put 25,000 tons of meat on to the market, while the col-

lective farmers supplied 8,000 tons. In the fourth quarter

of 1934 collective farm supplies of meat to Moscow

amounted to about 5,000 tons.

A very important branch of the meat industry is the

V

Meat and Sausage

36



production of sausage. In 1933 the sausage factories sup-

plied 36,000 tons of product, in 1934, 47,000 tons and

in 1935, 1 it,000 tons. In 1936 our output of sausage

is to be 170,000 tons.

You know, comrades, there was a time when the Ger-

mans used to pride themselves on their sausages and beer.

Sausages and beer were a sign of bourgeois abundance

and prosperity. But the other day I asked Comrade

Pyatakov, wTho had just returned from abroad, about

German sausages, and his reply was interesting. He went

into a good restaurant one day to take a glass of beer

and asked for sausages, and it turned out that there were

none to be had. And Comrade Zhukov, who also recently

returned from abroad and at one time was fond of prais-

ing German goods, complained that even sausages were

not to be found in Berlin. Yet in Moscow and Leningrad

you can get cold and hot sausages anywhere you like.

In Moscow we have recently been supplying as much as

45,000 kilograms of sausages daily. German sausages

have now adopted Soviet citizenship.

The sale of sausage and sausages must be developed

also in Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Baku, Gorky, Ivanovo,

Sverdlovsk, and other cities. In 1935 we created a large

number of sausage factories, large and small, and we

shall take care in future to develop this industry still

more and to supply even larger quantities of sausage of

good quality.

Sausage production is on the upgrade. The meat in-

dustry supplied 17 kinds of sausage and smoked meats

in 1933, 41 kinds in 1934, and 111 kinds in 1935. In

Leningrad 92,000 kilograms of sausages were produced

in December, 1934, and 560,000 kilograms in December,

1 93 5 . Moscow produced 68,000 kilograms of sausages

in December, 1934 and 974,000 kilograms in December,

37



1 93 5 • This is not the limit. We shall supply far larger
quantities.

Some people might think that Comrade Stalin, being

immersed in important questions of international and

domestic policy, would not be in a position to devote at-

tention to such matters as the production of sausages.

But that is not so. Quite the contrary, in fact. It happens

sometimes that the People’s Commissar of the Food In-

dustry forgets about something, and Comrade Stalin re-

minds him of it. I happened to say to Comrade Stalin

that I wanted to boost the production of sausages. Com-

rade Stalin approved this decision and remarked that

sausage-makers in America had made fortunes out of

this business—especially from the sale of hot frankfurters
at stadiums and other places where large numbers of

people congregate. They had become millionaires

—

“sausage kings”.

We do not want any kings of course, comrades, but the
making of sausages must be developed to the full.

I may state that the People’s Commissariat of the Food

Industry is prepared to keep our trading system regularly

supplied with meat, frankfurters, sausage and smoked

meats—and of good quality at that. We are now devot-
ing particular attention to quality. Our people are de-

manding fatter meat, but the livestock we receive, with

the exception of part of the animals supplied by the state

farms, is not fat. It must be stated that at the sugar re-

fineries the feeding up of livestock for slaughter is being

neglected. This business must be put on a higher level.

The collective farms must also pay proper attention to

fattening up livestock intended for delivery and should

supply the state with properly fattened animals. The

leaner the meat, the less nourishing it is and the greater

the number of animals that have to be slaughtered in

order to obtain a given quantity of meat.

38



Particular attention must be devoted to pig breeding.

We shall then have enough meat and we shall be in a
position to satisfy the growing demand of the population

for meat. Of course, it must not be forgotten that we are

now converting into meat twice as many pigs as before

the war. But even this level is a low one compared with

America and Europe.

There are 55,000,000 to 60,000,000 pigs in America,

the number fluctuating somewhat from year to year. Ow-

ing to the rapidity with which pigs breed and reach ma-

turity, the number of pigs slaughtered annually exceeds

this amount, and in pre-crisis years was as high as 65,-

000,000 to 75,000,000. In our country, of course, sheep

breeding will also develop to a greater extent and will

play a greater part in the supply of meat than in Amer-

ica. Comrade Stalin’s slogan regarding the production of

seven or eight billion poods of grain annually will mean

that a considerable part of the increased supply of grain

will be used for fodder and for developing stock breed-

ing, especially pigs and poultry. Pig breeding will make a

tremendous spurt, and, as you know, given enough fodder

the breeding of pigs can be very rapidly doubled and

trebled. In the U.S.S.R. there was a total of 23,500,000

pigs in 1935, and according to the plan there should be

31,500,000 pigs in 1936. It is quite possible that when we

have a harvest of seven or eight billion poods of grain we

shall be able to increase the number of pigs to seventy

or eighty million—that is, more than in America—and on
this basis to increase the consumption of meat and lard

in our country to a level unknown even in the richest

capitalist country.

39



VI

Butter and Cheese

et us now pass to food products no less palatable

than meat—butter and cheese. Cheese, which,
apart from its value as a food, has recently also acquired

diplomatic interest in connection with Uruguay.

Here are a few figures regarding the production of

butter. They refer only to factory-made butter, since we

do not keep an account of home-made butter. In 1928 the

quantity of factory-made butter amounted to 82,000 tons;

in 1932 the output declined to 71,600 tons; in 1933 it

had risen to 124,000 tons, in 1934 to 138,000 tons, and

in 1935 to 154,000 tons. In 1936 we shall produce

193,000 tons—-nearly 200,000 tons of good butter. This
is nearly three times as much as was produced in 1932

and twice as much as was produced in 1913.

In 1932 35,000 tons of butter were sold in the home

market and in 1935— 117,000 tons, or more than three
times as much as in 1932. This increase is at once ap-

parent when you visit the Soviet shops. Everybody can

see that there is enough good butter in our country. And

there will be still more.

The quality of butter has improved. Russian butter

used to be of poor quality. When this butter was exported

it was melted ir^London and used in the making of con-

fectionery. This butter was never used for food in its

natural state. And the price of a hundredweight of Rus-

sian butter used to be 9 shillings less than, let us say,

Australian or New Zealand butter. Last year, when we

exported butter, Soviet butter was already being com-

pared to the finest kinds of New Zealand and Australian

40



butter. And New Zealand and Australia are British col-

onies, so that Great Britain is interested that goods

from these countries principally be purchased in

the British market. Nevertheless, in 1935 the difference

in the price of our butter and their butter was already

one shilling and eight pence instead of nine shillings. We
are now making excellent butter. That this is true, that

this is not only our opinion, is borne out by so great a

butter expert as the Englishman, Professor Thompson,

who says of Russian butter that it is' a pasteurized prod-

uct, and in this respect comparable to the products of all

the well-known butter-making countries. He goes on to

say, however, that Russian butter is not prepared from

neutralized cream, but is an absolutely natural product,

rich in every ingredient which makes butter a wholesome

and valuable food.

One very strict judge of butter, Comrade Rosenholz,

who used to complain that our butter was bad, has now

for two years been noting in the order papers of the

People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade that Soviet but-

ter is of excellent quality. But if we supplied good butter

for export purposes, we shall supply even better butter

for our home market.

Our butter is now of higher grades and sorts, which

testifies to a radical improvement in quality. In 1932 the

quality of our butter was estimated at grade 84, and this

year at grade 89. In 1932 only 21 per cent of the butter

was of the first and superior sorts, whereas in 1935 the

proportion of first and superior sorts had increased to 70

per cent. More than two-thirds of all our Gutter is of a

superior sort.

How is it, a comrade once asked, that although there
are less cows than before the war, there is now more

butter? What is the reason? My explanation was a sim-
ple one. Dairy farming in our country has become more

41



productive. Before the war, for instance, Siberian cows

never knew what a warm barn was. Their hides were

their only protection against the rigors of the Siberian

cold, and the greater part of their vital energy went not

to the production of milk but to maintaining animal

heat. Now for the first time Siberian cows are being
housed in the warm barns of the collective farms and

state farms. They are being better tended, and are there-

fore yielding more milk. And when the yield of cows

still further increases—and it will increase rapidly—there
will be more and more milk. A second reason is that the
collective farms, and especially the state farms, provide

higher salable surpluses than the individual peasant

farms. It will suffice to say that in 1936 the state farms

alone, with a total of 1,170,000 cows (not counting the

farms of the workers’ supply organizations), will supply

72,000 tons of butter, that is to say, as much as was

supplied in 1932 by all the cows in the country.

It must however be said that the average milk yield in

our country is still low compared with other countries

and compared with the best of the collective farms and

state farms. We have cows that yield 5,000 and 6,000
litres of milk and more. The average, however, for the

collective farms in 1935 was only 1,225 litres and for the

state farms 1,500 litres per cow. In the state farms and

collective farms there are excellent milkmaids who be-

cause of the care they take of their animals obtain as

much as 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 litres of milk per cow.

Take, for instance, Nadyezhda Persiyantseva of the

Krasnaya Zarya Collective Farm in the Lukhovitsk Dis-

trict in the Moscow Region, a young milkmaid who at-

tended the rally of Staknanovites in the butter-making

industry. In 1933 Nadyezhda Persiyantseva obtained

from her 16 cows an average of 1,000 litres of milk per

cow; in 1934 an average of 1,800 litres from the same

42



cows and in 1935 an average of 3,200 litres, while from

her best cow, “Tonka”, she obtained as much as 3,700

litres. Take Comrade Chernenko, a milkmaid in the Ves-

selo-Podolyansk Breeding Station of the Sugar Trust,

who in 1935 obtained from her 16 cows an average milk

yield of 4,072 litres. The same is true of the Kirov State

Pig Farm in the Moscow Region, where Comrade Dem-

bovitskaya, a milkmaid, obtained from her 1 1 cows an

average milk yield of 1,914 litres in 1934 and 3,300

litres in 1935. There are already quite a number of such

milkmaids and there will be still more. And therefore

the prospects for the production of butter and cheese in

our country are enormous.

The butter-making industry has been to a large extent

re-equipped. We now have 403 well-equipped mechanized
butter factories. These factories produce high-class butter

of grade 92.4 on an average. But we still have many

hand dairies which must be replaced by modern, mech-

anized and larger butter factories, so as to produce

butter of the finest quality, utilize the growing supplies

of raw material and improve the quality of butter still

further. We also require far more wax paper than we are
getting at present. We shall soon be producing a great
quantity of good butter, but if there will be nothing to

wrap it in and we have to pack the butter in barrels with-

out paper we shall be spoiling an excellent product.

In 1935 we produced 19,500 tons of hard cheeses as

compared with 14,300 tons in 1932. Cheese-making is

backward in our country and we must develop it more

rapidly. There are many who still do not appreciate good

cheese, and we must cultivate the taste for it. Cheese is

one of the most nourishing of foods, rich in albumen and

fat.

Before the war Russia used to produce 10 kinds of

factory-made cheese. Today we are producing 24 kinds,

43



and in addition five kinds of soft cheese. Next year we

intend to produce 60 or 70 different kinds of cheese. But

why should we have less varieties of cheese than France?

Our country is richer, we have milk of the most varied

qualities and we can produce a large number of kinds of

cheese. The French make 160 kinds; they are proud of

their cheeses. We must see to it that we have as large a
variety of cheeses, and of equally high quality, in no

respect inferior to French cheeses—not to speak of Dutch
cheeses.

That is why in 1936 we shall build new cheese-making

plants and expedite those at present under construction.

Skimmed milk at our factories at one time used to be

wasted or fed to cattle. Now we are making a number of
valuable foods and industrial articles out of skimmed

milk.

Until 1932 we used to import casein—which is made
from skimmed milk—as a glue used in the production of
veneers. In 1930 we imported 1,218 tons to a value of

378.000 gold rubles and in 1931 we imported 1,224 tons

to a value of 224,000 gold rubles. Since 1932 we have

entirely stopped importing casein, because the People’s

Commissariat of the Food Industry is producing it in suf-

ficient quantities at its own butter-making factories. In

1 93 5 we produced 8,400 tons of casein as compared with

2.000 tons in 1932.

We have already made preparations for rapid develop-
ment of the production of milk sugar.

44



VII

Vegetable Oils and Fats

A
few words about vegetable oil. In 1932 the output

of vegetable oil amounted to 388,000 tons, in 1935

to 408,000 tons while in 1936 we shall have, according

to the plan, to produce 475,000 tons.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that the posi-

tion with regard to the supply of raw material to the oil

pressing industry is still unsatisfactory. Primary purchas-

ing of sunflower seed, flax seed, hemp seed and other

oil seed is still proceeding badly. In this respect the vege-

table oil industry differs from other industries, the raw

material supply of which has considerably improved in

recent years. I shall quote a few figures illustrating the

primary purchasing of various kinds of raw materials

for the food industry.

Primary purchasing of sugar beet increased from

6,100,000

tons in 1932 to 15,700,000 tons in 1935, which

was a record in the supply of raw material to the sugar

refineries ever since sugar beet has been grown in our

country.

Primary purchasing of makhorka increased from

75,000

tons in 1932 to 141,000 tons in 1935, i.e., almost

double.

The increase was less in the case of tobacco: in this

period primary purchases of tobacco increased from

45,000

tons to 55,000 tons.

Primary purchases of potatoes for industrial purposes

increased from 644,000 tons in 1932 to 2,050,000 tons

in 1935, or more than threefold.

There has been a more than twofold increase in the

45



primary purchases of vegetables for the canning and

preserving industry—from 131,000 tons in 1932 to
293,000 tons in 1935.

During the same period primary purchases of sun-

flower seed increased from 562,000 tons in 1932 to 847,-

000 tons in 1935, or by 50 per cent. It should, however,

be borne in mind that the sunflower seed harvest in 1932

was a poor one.

Primary purchases of flax seed somewhat decreased in

1935, amounting to 243,000 tons as compared with 267,-

000 tons in 1932.

Primary purchases of hemp seed increased by 2,300

tons, amounting to 52,600 tons in 1935 as compared with

50,300 tons in 1932.

Primary purchases of cotton seed and other oil seed

increased by 30 per cent in three years. The slow rate of

increase in the primary purchases of oil seed, especially

sunflower seed, flax seed and hemp seed, is chiefly due

to the low harvest yields of these crops. In 1934 the

yield of sunflower seed amounted to 590 kilograms per

hectare and in 1935 to 510 kilograms per hectare. The

principal reason for the low yield of sunflower seed is the

non-observance of the most elementary agronomical rules,

as expressed in sowing to spring plowing, use of inferior

seed, irregular distances between rows and, especially,

poor cultivation of the sunflower crop. In 1935, 14 per

cent of the sown area, or 448,500 hectares, was never

hoed at all, while 32.5 per cent—or 1,200,000 hectares

—

was hoed too late in the season.

The reconstruction of the vegetable oil and fat indus-

try, the creation of a network of hydrogenization and

margarine factories, the starting of powerful oil extract-

ing plants in Voroshilov and Krassnodar and the forth-

coming completion of the oil extracting plant in Katta-

Kurgan will permit us to expand the production of

46



vegetable oils. The fact that the raw material supply of the

vegetable oil industry is lagging cannot be tolerated. We
must in the next few years achieve a marked increase in

the yield of oil-bearing crops, ensure proper cultivation

of the crops and the unconditional fulfilment of the plan

for primary purchases. The local Soviets and agricultural

departments must help us in this.

Of particular importance is the question of improv-

ing and extending seed selection work in the case of oil-

bearing crops, especially as regards introducing and

spreading the use of disease-resisting sorts. At the Rostov

Agriculture Experimental Station, Comrade Zhdanov has

succeeded in developing a disease-resisting sort of sun-

flower which for two years now is being multiplied in

the collective farm fields of the Matveyevo-Kurgan Dis-

trict and the neighboring districts of the Azov-Black

Sea territory. At the Voronezh Experimental Station

for Oil-Bearing Crops two other sorts of disease-resisting

sunflower have been introduced and multiplied. If proper

work is done in the cultivation of these seeds the exten-

sion of their use to 70 or 75 per cent of the total area

under sunflower in 1937 could be ensured.

A few words about margarine. This year we produced
83,000 tons of margarine. Certain people objected to the

manufacture of margarine in our country because they

had heard that in Europe margarine is made from faked

ingredients. We, however, make margarine from excel-

lent vegetable oils, to which we add milk and eggs. Meat

cannot be fried in sunflower seed oil, nor is it good to fry

meat in mutton or beef fat, because these fats rapidly

congeal. But meat can be fried well in margarine. Mar-

garine is one of the most nutritive and at the same time

most easily digestible foods, its digestibility being almost

equivalent to that of dairy butter. We have eleven new,
first-class margarine factories. In addition to margarine,

47



these factories turn out a refined, deodorized vegetable

oil, which is sold ready bottled in our food shops.

Our margarine factories also produce various kinds

of sauces, what are known as mayonnaises. The Amer-

icans began the factory production of mayonnaise a long

time ago. There you can buy them according to taste.

We have also begun to produce mayonnaises. They form
a very valuable sauce for various dishes. Not everybody

is able or has the opportunity to produce these sauces at

home; one must know how much mustard, vinegar and

other ingredients is required, and these are not always at

hand.

Until about the end of 1933 the position was very

unsatisfactory with regard to the production of soap in

our country. Soap is essential for the health of the popula-

tion. But since there was a shortage in a number of very

essential articles, many people became accustomed to a

shortage of soap as well. But one day Comrade Stalin

summoned us and demanded that there should be enough

soap in the country, and soap of good quality. The soap-

making industry was transferred from the People’s Com-

missariat of Light Industry to the People’s Commissariat

of the Food Industry. And it was only then that an

abundance of soap of good quality began to be produced.

The output of soap in 1932 amounted to 292,000 tons

and in 1935 to 442,000 tons. There is now an adequate

supply of soap. If there is a shortage at all, it is only in

places where the trading organization fails to ensure sup-

plies.

But the important thing is that we are now producing

soap of the finest quality. When Comrades Stalin, Molo-

tov and Kaganovich considered the question of the kinds

of soap we should produce, it was forbidden to manufac-

ture soap with a fat content of less than 40 per cent.

Formerly, soaps with a fat content of 30-35 per cent

48



constituted one-third of the total amount of soap pro-

duced. Now this kind of soap is not being made in our

country at all. We are now producing ioo kinds of toilet
soap of excellent quality with a fat content of 60-78 per

cent. In order to compare our soap to foreign soap, we

had various samples sent us from Europe and America

and were able to convince ourselves that our toilet soap is

not inferior to foreign soaps.

Formerly, when there was little soap, the People’s

Commissariat of Health used to carry on propaganda

urging people to wash mote often. But there was no soap.

Now there is soap in abundance, but for some reason or
other the People’s Commissariat of Health is silent.

I shall request Comrade Kaminsky to see to it that the

public health bodies take more energetic measures to in-

culcate hygienic habits among the population.

Comrade Stalin devotes attention to matters for which

one would think he has absolutely no time. For instance,

the production of perfumes and cosmetics. We are pro-
ducing good soap and eau de cologne, but as to perfumes

we are rather below standard. Comrades Stalin and

Molotov supported us and let us have gold for the im-

portation of aromatic oils. We are now beginning to
create our own aromatic oil industry—rose, geranium
and various synthetic oils, of which we formerly used to

import as many as 72 kinds. In the next two or three

years we shall succeed in producing every kind of

aromatic oil in our own country.

The increase in the production of perfumes and cos-

metics is shown by the following figures for 1935 (1932

^=xoo) : eau de cologne, 210; perfumes, 155 ; toilet water,

287; cosmetics, 1 1 7 ; tooth powder, 244. Nor have we

forgotten tooth brushes.

We used to make very bad tooth brushes. Their
quality is now improving.

49



However, it must be frankly stated that in spite of the

fact that our perfumery, creams, pastes, tooth powder-

and tooth brushes are steadily improving, we are still far

below foreign standards.

We are making it our task to improve the quality of
the products of our perfumery and cosmetics industry.

Comrade Zhemchuzhina, the head of the Tezhe Trust, is

doing good work and carrying on an energetic fight for

improved quality of product.

The Lenzhet Trust in Leningrad, headed by Com-

rade Shaposhnikova, has also begun to work better. The

Tezhe and Lenzhet are energetically striving to fulfil the

tasks that have been set them, and there is no doubt that

they will soon be turning out such fine perfumes and cos-

metics that our Soviet women will no longer be envious

of the possessors of Parisian perfumes and powders.

Our working women and women collective farmers are

demanding good perfumes; our women want to use the

best perfumes. And they are absolutely right.

I have already spoken of the good work performed

by Comrade Zhemchuzhina. And in this connection I

should like to say that we in the food industry underrate

the work of women, we do not promote women enough.

Yet in the light and food industries women can be pro-

moted to executive posts much more energetically.

At the First Congress of Collective Farmers, Comrade

Stalin put the question of the Soviet woman very plainly.

He said

“I know that many of you underrate women and even

make fun of them. But this is a mistake, comrades, a serious

i stake. The point here is not only that women constitute

c e-half of the population. The point here primarily is that

th? collective farm movement has advanced a number of re-

markable and capable women to executive posts. Look at this

Congress, at its composition, and you will see that yeomen



have already long ago advanced from the ranks of the back-

ward to the ranks of the foremost. Women constitute a big

force in the collective farms. To conceal this force under a

bushel would be a crime. It is our duty to advance women

in the collective farms and to put this force into operation.”

This was said by Comrade Stalin two years ago. And

this year we have seen such heroines as have never been

seen before. There are such heroines both in town and in

country. We must do more to advance women to ex-
ecutive posts.

The experience of enterprises where the directors are

women fully justifies this. In the Gryazny Sugar Beet

State Farm in the Kharkov Region the director for four

years has been a woman, Comrade Roslyak. She works

better than the others, there is discipline and good order

on her farm; many men directors may envy her.

The director of the Nizov Sugar Refinery is Comrade

Demchenko whose husband is the director of a neighbor-

ing sugar refinery.

Last year she outstripped her husband and he almost

quarreled with her for doing so.

We must do more to advance women, they are more
accurate than men. When you promote them they devote

themselves heart and soul to their work. And they never

get drunk, as certain men do.

In the food and light industries women are fully en-

titled to occupy positions as directors of perfume, soap,

confectionery, textile and similar factories where women

principally are employed, and the women directors will

run these enterprises very well indeed.

5i



VIII

Milk and Ice Cream

I

shall pass to the milk industry. We now have milk
dairies in more than 50 cities; 33 of them are new

plants. The best are in Leningrad and Moscow. The im-

portance of the milk dairies is tremendous. Milk, of

course, is a very nutritious food, especially for children.

But it is also dangerous. Bad milk, stale milk, is one of

the chief causes of children’s ailments. Until now we have

been at the mercy of the peasant milk women. They

brought to town any kind of milk they liked; and they

would add as much water as they liked, sometimes even

chalk, to make the milk seem thicker. How was the con-
sumer to test the milk sold him by the peasant milk

women? But now all milk consigned to our rffilk dairies

or supplied by them is subjected to thorough analysis:

it is tested by chemists and doctors; it is tested for its

chemical content, its freshness, its acidity and its bacterial

content. Seventy-six per cent of the milk is supplied by

the factories in pasteurized form. Pasteurization is high-

ly important. It completely purifies milk of dangerous

microbes, especially tubercular germs and dangerous in-

testinal germs. At the same time pasteurization preserves

the nutritive value of milk, in distinction to boiling,

which while it kills the germs at the same time destroys

part of the vitamins, changes the structure of the al-

bumens and renders them less digestible. Pasteurization

guarantees the consumer, and especially children, milk of

the very best quality.

The People’s Commissariat of Health is doing much

to cure sickness, but it is even more important to prevent

52



sickness. And if we supply children and adults with fresh,

unadulterated and nourishing foods, they will be less

liable to get sick. After all, at least two-thirds of all sick-

ness is due to bad food. Good food is more important

for health than any medicine.

I want very much to say that our late Comrade Kirov

was greatly interested in the food industry. When we set

about building the Leningrad milk dairy he and I care-

fully selected the designs. We obtained the designs of the
finest milk dairies in Europe, and Sergei Mironovich

Kirov would examine every detail with the greatest inter-

est and ask about everything. And when we ordered from

abroad 1 1 milk tanks made of aluminum and rustless

steel, he enthusiastically set about arranging for the pro-

duction of such tanks in Leningrad. We have now re-
ceived the first lots of these excellent Soviet aluminum

milk tanks, which protect the milk from heat and cold

and permit whole milk to be brought in from points

hundreds of kilometers away.

The late S. M. Kirov frequently used to mount the

scaffolding of the Leningrad Meat Packing Plant when

it was under construction. He would attentively study

the life and work of the Murmansk fishermen. Comrade

Kirov understood perfectly how important the food in-

dustry is for a center like Leningrad.

Last year the milk dairies turned out 207,000 tons of

milk products as against 49,000 tons in 1932. In 1936

they are to turn out 285,000 tons. In cities where there

are milk dairies, 76 per cent of the milk supplied to the

population is pasteurized. These dairies produce a vast

quantity of milk products, such as various kinds of cream

cheeses (sweet and chocolate flavored), kefir, sour milk,

sour cream and ice cream.

Incidentally, about ice cream. I am a great advocate of

developing the production of ice cream. Some comrades

53



still believe that ice cream is a dainty for children, some-

thing adults have no use for.

[Kalinin: Yet everybody likes ice cream.]

They all like it, but some hypocritically conceal the

fact, considering that ice cream is a dainty for children.

We must develop the production of ice cream as much
as possible. We are learning from the U.S.A. in many
things. I have obtained information regarding the pro-

duction of ice cream in America. There they produce

over 600,000 tons of factory-made ice cream annually,

whereas we produced only 8,000 tons in 1935 and are to

produce 12,000 tons next year. True, it is hotter in Amer-

ica than it is here, they need ice cream more, but it is ob-

vious that we are extremely backward in this branch. I

am agitating on behalf of ice cream because it is a delight-

ful and very nutritious food. It can be safely said that ice

cream is the most expedient, beneficial and pleasant way

of employing milk and sugar. To make ice cream at

home is difficult, it demands time and labor. You need a

special ice cream freezer, which has to be kept exception-

ally clean to avoid the danger of contamination. Particu-

larly dangerous is the ice cream made by small dealers,

and until quite recently ice cream in our country was en-

tirely made domestically or by small dealers.

In recent years we have organized the production of

ice cream at the milk dairies and at the plants of the Cold

Storage Board. We are supplying ice cream of good
quality. The Cold Storage Board and the Milk Board

have learned to produce new kinds of ice cream, such as

eskimo pie, which is very popular, and sweetmeats, cake

and pastry made of ice cream. Our ice cream is of high

quality and is made of the finest ingredients under the

careful supervision of doctors and special laboratories

and in proper sanitary conditions.

In 1936 we are building four ice cream plants and

54



numerous ice cream departments at cold storage plants

and milk dairies. This is a new branch of industry and its

prospects are excellent. Formerly, ice cream used to be

eaten on high days, in bourgeois families, at wedding and

birthday parties, but now ice cream can and should be

made an item of the daily food of the masses and sold at

moderate prices. Ice cream should be produced summer

and winter, in the South and in the North.

few words about our cold storage industry. Noth-

ing is more characteristic of the technical and

sanitary level of the food industry than the figures illus-

trating the employment of artificial methods of refrigera-

tion. The importance of refrigeration in the food industry

is only comparable perhaps to the importance of electricity

in industry. Food cannot be preserved without refrigera-

tion. Nor can a number of food products, at least high

quality products, be produced without refrigeration.

For instance, in order to make good sausage the

preparation of the sausage meat and other processes

must take place at fairly low temperatures so as to pre-

vent the product going bad, to keep away flies, and so

on. At the best of our sausage factories we ensure this by

artificial refrigeration and by maintaining artificially low

temperatures where the food is prepared. Cold is the best

means of preserving foodstuffs.

We already have a number of large cold storage
plants, but still not enough, Before the revolution we had

a cold storage capacity of 45,000 tons, now it is 217,000

IX

55



tons. The refrigerating capacity of our cold storage

plants in 1929 was 17,000,000 calories, now it is 106,-

000,000 calories, or six times as great. But we must

develop cold storage still more, especially in the South.

Moscow, Leningrad and the Donbas are more or less

supplied with cold storage plants, but our southern cities

are poorly supplied. We have very few cold storage
plants in the districts where poultry, rabbits, milk, fruit

and vegetables are produced. We are therefore building
small cold storage plants in connection with the poultry

and butter-making industries. In 1935 the Poultry Board

built 80 cold storage plants. This year we shall start con-

struction on a number of new cold storage plants in con-

nection with other branches of industry.

While we have large cold storage plants in industry,

the number of cold storage plants in the trading system

is very small. As a rule our shops are not equipped with

refrigerators, with the result that a good food product

is chilled in the cold storage plant and is brought to the

shop in an automobile refrigerator but the heat and the

flies in the shop are such that all the previous work is

wasted. It has therefore become very urgent to start

manufacturing a large number of small refrigerators

for shops. Comrade Veitser, the People’s Commissar of

Domestic Trade, is working hard for this. He must be

supported and the production of refrigerators for shops

extended. We still have no domestic refrigerators. Good
food is brought home, there is no cool place to keep it in,

and the result is that it spoils and is wasted. But in Amer-

ica there is a big industry in the production of automatic

domestic refrigerators. In America they produce as much

as one million domestic electric refrigerators annually,

which make it possible to keep food in good condition

and to have a constant supply of ice.

I raised this question in the Central Committee of the

56



Party and in the Council of People’s Commissars, and

Comrades Stalin, Molotov and Orjonikidze supported

me. The People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry has

already begun to make the designs with the object of

widely developing the production of automatic domestic

refrigerators in 1936. We must have refrigerators every-
where—at meat-packing plants, fish-packing plants,
dairies and in shops. And there must be refrigerators at

home. What we must strive for is that from the moment

of production to the moment of consumption food prod-

ucts should be kept at the necessary temperature, so as

to guarantee high quality and to protect it against con-

tamination, decay, and so on. This is the chief task in the

fight for high quality products, which at the same time

is the fight for the health of our people—the workers,
the collective farmers and the toilers generally.

We have developed the production of artificial ice,
ordinary ice and dry ice. Taking ice from the river is ex-

pensive, and it is a mistake. River water is not always

clean, river ice cannot be used in food, because on heating

the bacteria revive. Yet in winter, at a temperature of

15
0

centigrade of frost, we can take good and pure water,

freeze it in the open air and convert it into ice. We are
now building plants in the South—in Baku, Tifiis, Odessa
and the Donbas—for producing pure ice from pure water
winter and summer, ice that can be used in food without

any risk whatever. The production of ice must be devel-

oped to the utmost. In American restaurants, for instance,

water is invariably served with ice in it. Why cannot this
be done in our country? It can and should be done.

And so you see, comrades, that even small questions in

the food industry become important. Comrade Stalin

teaches us that anything that concerns the daily needs of

the millions, however small it may be, is always big and

important.

57



X

Baking and Confectionery

I

shall not dwell in detail on the bread industry. Com-

rade Badayev will speak and tell you how we have

brought about a veritable revolution in the bread indus-

try: 6
1
per cent of the bread on sale is baked in mech-

anized bread factories, and if we include our mechanical

bakeries, 78 per cent of all the bread is baked by mech-

anical methods.

I should like to remind you of the opinion at one time

expressed by Marx of the way bread was produced in

capitalist England. I will read you this most interesting

passage

:

“Englishmen, always well up in the Bible, knew well

enough that man, unless by elective grace a capitalist, or land-

lord, or sinecurist, is commanded to eat his bread in the sweat

of his brow, but they did not know that he had to eat daily

in his bread a certain quantity of human perspiration mixed

with the discharge of abcesses, cobwebs, dead black-beetles,

and putrid German yeast, without counting alum, sand, and

other agreeable mineral ingredients.”

The picture painted by Marx speaks for itself. And

this was the case not only in England but also in Russia.

I have already once quoted the remarkable passage from

Gorky’s Twenty-Six Men and a Girl.

But now we have automatic bread factories where the

worker has a seven-hour day, where he takes a shower

daily, where he is not allowed to start work until he has

been medically examined, and where the strictest medical

supervision has been instituted. These factories are

equipped with laboratories which analyze and test the

58



quality of bread, flour, water, and so on, thus guarantee-

ing pure bread of the highest quality. Mechanized bread-

baking is a new industry, one that will grow and develop.

And the quality of bread will improve from year to year.

Baking bread in mechanized factories has many im-

portant advantages : while in ordinary bakeries the cost

of producing one pood of bread is 6 rubles, at the auto-

matic factories it costs 3 rubles—twice as cheap. We shall
try to increase the number of these factories in 1936.

Ever since the abolition of the rationing system there

has been a distinct improvement in the quality of bread

and an increase in the varieties of bread. In Moscow and

Leningrad 150 different kinds of bread are now on sale.

In cities like Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Sverdlovsk and

Minsk more than 60 different kinds of bread are sold

—

this is less than in Moscow and Leningrad, but also not

bad. But the situation is worse in other cities where only

about 10 or 12 kinds of bread are sold.

Take Moscow, for instance, where 5 kinds of rye

bread are baked, 10 kinds of white bread, over 30 kinds

of buns and sweet rolls and dozens of kinds of rusks and

bread rings.

But even this assortment is insufficient. Furthermore,

there should be more shops selling a complete range of

varieties of bread in Moscow and Leningrad, for at

present there are few shops which stock a complete as-

sortment. We must take at least a hundred shops in
Moscow and Lenigrad and see to it that they sell a com-

plete assortment of bread. And after this we must see

that the same thing is done in Kiev and Kharkov and

then in all other cities.

We now have lots of flour; we are being supplied with
it in abundance and of good quality. Formerly the bread

factories used to cry: “Give us flour, there is not enough

flour.” But now the Commission of Wholesale Purchases

59



frequently says: “Take more flour—our selling plan is
not being fulfilled.”

Other times, other conditions, other tasks. We are
now in a position to develop the production of bread to

the utmost. I think that this business will go smoothly.

Comrade Badayev, who heads the bread-baking business,

is doing good work. It is true that many of the bread

factories and bakeries are accustomed to not fulfilling the

plan, and did not fulfil the plan this year either. But we

have put before them such conditions as will eliminate

non-fulfilment of the plan. We shall reward and honor
those who fulfil and overfulfil their plans, whereas we

shall first warn those who do not fulfil the plan and then

we shall punish them by replacing them with better people,

people who know how to fulfil the plan.

Comrade Molotov has already criticized the work of

our confectionery industry. His criticism was absolutely

just. We shall try to improve the work of our confec-
tioners. True, there are still certain difficulties. If we had

all the good paper we require we would most certainly

improve the confectionery business more rapidly. But

there is not enough paper. We have not enough cello-
phane and tinfoil. The production of tissue paper must

be increased. But we are nevertheless improving the as-

sortment without awaiting a large increase of paper. We
have now been enabled to import larger quantities of

cocoa bean. The plan for the import of cocoa bean has

been approved in the amount of 900,000 rubles. Thank

you, Central Committee ! We shall now have good
chocolate and sweets in abundance.

We are no longer importing tractors; we are not im-
porting automobiles. We are rich enough to be able to
spend a modicum of foreign currency on coca bean for

chocolate. We have a technically well-equipped confec-
tionery industry and we have skilled workers, so that we

60



can produce confectionery in vast quantities and of good

quality. Why was inferior confectionery bought before?

Because there was no sugar, so that the consumer would

take sweets of any quality, even the worst. But now,

when there is an abundance of sugar, our consumer wants

only good confectionery. If the confectionery is bad he

prefers to buy sugar. We are taking measures to cut down
the production of what are known as “powdered cush-

ions”, of which Comrade Molotov spoke, and increase

the output of good confectionery.

A few words about the salt industry. A year ago there
was still not enough salt, and in 1932 there was a regular

shortage. Now salt production in Artyomovsk, Baskun-
chak and other places has been mechanized to such an

extent, has been so equipped technically, that we can

supply all the salt required. But what happens now? Or-

ganizations demand salt, but sometimes do not pay for it,

knowing that there is nothing else we can do with it any-

how. I think that we shall manage to get financial disci-

pline observed and compel people to pay us promptly. We
are preparing to extend the output of ready packed, finely

ground salt of the highest quality. In 1935 we supplied

over 1,000,000 poods of salt of this kind. But here, too,

paper is required. It seems that not only the bureaucrats,

but even industry, cannot get along without paper. We
need paper for wrapping confectionery, we need a lot of

wax paper for meat and butter, we need paper for pack-

age salt and for many other purposes. Comrade Lobov

must pay serious attention to this question.

61



XI

Tea and Tobacco

I

must also tell you what the Soviet government

and the Party are doing with regard to the produc-

tion of tea. In 1913 the tsarist government spent 62,-

000,000 gold rubles on importing tea and several mil-

lions of rubles on importing tangerines. Yet our country

has its own sub-tropical regions and can grow its own

tangerines and tea. Now, on the initiative of Comrade

Stalin, the Georgian comrades have seriously tackled the

question of growing citrus fruits and tea and have made

rapid progress. This year we have brought in a crop of

200,000,000 Soviet tangerines, which are sweeter and

better than imported tangerines. We shall soon be sup-
plying even larger quantities of tangerines and other

citrus fruits.

Before the revolution there were only five small tea

factories, supplying 130 tons of tea annually. Before

1930 there were only six tea factories. In 1935 we al-

ready had 28. By May, 1936, we shall have 34 tea fac-

tories which will be in no way inferior to foreign tea

factories and in certain respects—particularly as regards
mechanization—even superior. The foreign tea factories
employ workers of the black and yellow races on whose

labor the capitalists set no value and therefore do not

mechanize production. But we have neither black nor

yellow races; we have the finest of all races—toilers, ir-
respective of race. And w^e strive to lighten the labor of

the worker to the utmost and therefore mechanize pro-

duction. In 1937 we shall have 39 tea factories. There is

also an increase in the area of the tea plantations. In 1913

62



there were eight hundred hectares planted to tea, in 1925

there were 6,000 hectares, in 1935 over 34,000 hectares,

and in 1936 the tea plantations will have an area of 37,-

000 hectares. Azerbaijan has followed the example of

Georgia and has begun to grow tea. If we had to buy

abroad the tea which Georgia supplied this year we

should have had to pay 2,000,000 gold rubles. Georgia is

doing good work as far as tea is concerned. The average

yield of the Georgian tea plantations has been doubled in

two years. Buf this is not the limit. Even better results

can be obtained.

I shall not deal with the tobacco industry. You all know

to what extent tobacco production has been re-equipped

and mechanized.

But something must be said about the assortment of

tobaccos. We formerly used to have inferior sorts of to-
bacco; our cigarettes were also bad. Now a certain pro-
portion of the cigarettes are good, but there are still too

many bad ones. What is the reason? Firstly, bad work,

and, secondly, a part of the tobaccos, and the best at that,

used to be exported. Now, thanks to the support given

by Comrade Stalin, we have been able to reduce the ex-

port tobacco plan for 1936 to 1,000 tons as against 4,000

tons exported last year. The rest of the tobacco will

remain in the Soviet country.

[Kalinin: We are ourselves buying in exchange.]
And on the proceeds we are importing Greek tobac-

cos. When we have a large quantity of Abkhazian tobacco
in 1936, we shall be able to develop the production of

superior cigarettes, because, since life has become joyous

we must smoke high-class, aromatic cigarettes.

In 1932 cigarettes of the best and superior sorts

amounted to 9 per cent of the total, and in 1935 to 18

per cent of the total. Next year they will amount to 20

per cent of the total. There will be a considerable in-

63



crease in the tobacco output next year : we shall turn out

89 billion cigarettes, and will then assume second place

in the world, following after the U. S. A., which produces

1 12 billion cigarettes. Before we held only fourth place.

The position is now satisfactory with regard to ma-

khorka as well. There used to be a shortage of makhorka.

Now we have enough.

XII

Alcohol and Rubber

P
ermit me, comrades, in concluding my review of the

chief branches of the industry, to dwell on the al-

cohol industry. The alcohol industry has acquired

particular importance. Alcohol used to be exclusively

used for the manufacture of spiritous liquors. But now

alcohol is becoming an important factor in the chemical

industry and in the national economy generally. Speaking

of the results of the First Five-Year Plan, Comrade

Stalin said that with the exception of rubber, we had

achieved economic independence of foreign countries.

Bqt now we are in a position to say that even in the case

of rubber the U. S. S. R. is independent of the capitalist

world. The People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry has

begun to make synthetic rubber out of alcohol. Seven

thousand tons were produced in 1934 and 25,000 tons

in 1935, while in 1936 the output of rubber will be

42,000 tons. This Soviet rubber is made out of our good,

strong alcohol.

It is true that we are still importing a certain quantity

of rubber, but that will only be as long as our own produc-

tion of rubber is not sufficiently developed.

64



A few figures on the consumption of alcohol. Before
the war 75,000 decalitres were used for medicinal pur-

poses, now 600,000 decalitres. Before the war the per-

fume industry absorbed 133,000 decalitres, now 450,000

decalitres. No alcohol went for the production of rubber

before, whereas 26 per cent of our total output of alcohol

was used in the manufacture of rubber in 1935.

Before the war 95 per cent of the total output of al-

cohol was used in the manufacture of vodka, wines and

other spiritous liquors. Now 50 per cent of the total

output of alcohol is used for vodka and another 5 per

cent for wine. Thus only 55 per cent of our output of

alcohol is used for the production of spiritous liquors.

The remaining alcohol is used for industrial purposes.

Alcohol will acquire great importance in aviation and

automobile transport, where it is used in the form of ab-

solute alcohol. Our alcohol is at present 96° proof,

whereas absolute alcohol, which we are still not produc-

ing, must be 99.8° proof. Only in 1935 did we begin the

production of alcohol of this strength at one small plant.

In 1936 we shall have three such plants and, in addition,

will build and start operating in that year two large plants

using imported equipment, for the manufacture of ab-

solute alcohol. These plants will enable us to produce

5,000,000 decalitres of absolute alcohol for airplanes

and automobiles. This will considerably facilitate the

development of the aviation and automobile industries.

Comrade Molotov has already quoted figures showing

that the consumption of vodka in our country has been

reduced to one-half as compared with pre-war days and

has somewhat declined as compared with 1932.

On the other hand, there has been an increase in the
manufacture and sale of liqueurs and cordials. We for-
merly used to produce only small quantities of such kinds

of spiritous liquors. We then began to ponder over the

65



question of turning out something better, and now we are

producing 69 different kinds of liqueurs and cordials as

compared with 25 kinds in 1932. Formerly we had only

8 small departments of vodka distilleries engaged in the

production of liqueurs and cordials; now we have 23 well-

equipped plants producing various liqueurs and cordials.

True, our liqueurs cannot yet be compared in quality with

foreign liqueurs. This is due to the fact that we have not

yet fully mastered the technique of this business and be-

cause we still do not have a proper cellarage system. The

consumption of liqueurs and cordials in 1932 amounted

to 2,600,000 decalitres, and in 1935 to 4,900,000 deca-

litres.

Parallel with the increase in the consumption of li-

queurs and cordials there is also an increase in the pro-

duction and consumption of beer. In Moscow and Lenin-

grad there is still very little good beer to be had and

special attention must be paid to the brewing industry.

But while we had only one kind of beer in 1932, we now

have seven kinds, among them some good beers. It is

our desire to supply larger quantities of good beer, not

only in the capitals but also in other cities. The brewing

business will be put on a proper footing. We now have
lots of good Soviet ingredients for the brewing of beer:

in the state farms we have carefully selected malt barley

and we have Soviet hops of good quality. We also have
skilled brewers. This business will receive proper atten-

tion and I think that the production of beer will increase

and its quality improve.

There will also be a wide expansion of the production

of fruit drinks, kvas and other non-alcoholic beverages.

I return to the subject of vodka. Some people think

and say that a lot of spirits is drunk in our country and

very little is drunk abroad. This is an absolutely false

idea. Here are some figures regarding the per capita con-

66



sumption of spirits, wines and beer, in the equivalent of

pure alcohol, in 1931: France, 18.9 litres; Belgium, 11.2

litres; Great Britain, 3.2 litres; U. S. S. R., 1.6 litres.

If we take only spirits (not counting wine and beer),

the per capita consumption in France is 9.4 litres, Bel-

gium 3.5 litres, Great Britain, 1.4 litres and the U. S.

S. R. 3.7 litres. The per capita consumption of beer in

France is 35 litres, Belgium, 228 litres, Great Britain

62 litres and the U. S. S. R. 3 litres.

The per capita consumption of wine in France amounts

to 17 1 litres, in Belgium to 4 litres and in the U. S. S. R.

to only 0.6 litres. Half a litre per person! More wine

is drunk in the South and very little in the North. But

why has Russia always been notorious for drunkenness?

Because under the tsar the people lived the life of

paupers; they drank not from joy, but from sorrow and

misery. They drank deliberately to get intoxicated and

to forget their accursed existence. A man would scrape
together enough for a bottle of vodka and proceed to

consume it; he had not enough money for food, would

eat nothing and would get drunk. But now life has be-

come more joyous. Good living and good food do not

make you drunk. Fife has become more joyous. That

means that we can drink, but not so as to lose our wits

and injure our health.

<>7



XIII

Our Farms

T
he People’s Commissariat of the Food Industry pos-

sesses 874 farms, including 264 sugar beet planta-

tions. We possess tobacco and makhorka plantations,
hop farms, essential oil plantations and market gardens

producing vegetables for canning and preserving. These

farms produce from 10 to 20 per cent of the raw material

absorbed by our industry. In addition, they supply the

collective farms and collective farmers with seed for the

crops required for industrial purposes. The entire sugar

beet crop and the tobacco crop, the greater part of the

makhorka crop, vegetables for canning purposes and po-

tatoes for industrial purposes are grown from seed sup-

plied by our farms.

Our farms have produced so much sugar beet seed of

good quality that there is enough to last the whole coun-

try for over two years. This seed is of very good quality

and last year the surplus was exported. There we were

paid 450 gold rubles a ton for this seed. It is true that

the harvest abroad last year was ,a bad one. Comrade

Rosenholz secured in one year 4,500,000 rubles in for-

eign currency from our sugar beet seed.

The workers and leaders of our farms have striven

to wipe off the stain on their reputation. In 1933 we had

not enough sugar beet seed. Comrade Stalin took us to

task and gave orders to have seed to a value of 300,000

rubles imported from abroad so as not to endanger the

sugar beet crop. This, of course, was a disgrace to our

sugar producers. How is that—seed imported from
abroad when our own seed is better than foreign seed

!

68



This was a lesson to our sugar producers. They tried to

wipe off the disgrace, and last year they were able to

supply Comrade Rosenholz with 8,700 tons of first-class

seed for export purposes.

We have a three years’ supply of tobacco seed. We
supply seed to all collective farms growing tobacco. The

production of seed in our makhorka plantations and can-

nery farms already covers two-thirds of the country’s

total requirements of makhorka seed and roughly the

same proportion of the requirements of vegetable seed

in the cannery districts.

The harvest yield of all crops except fruit and vege-

tables is on an average higher in the farms of the People’s

Commissariat of the Food Industry than in the collective

farms. This applies to sugar beet, tobacco and makhorka.

But the collective farms have begun to work well, and

the state farms will be able to retain their position and

to perform their function—namely, to serve as an ex-
ample to the collective farms—only if they begin to work
considerably better than they have hitherto.

I request the local organizations, Soviet and Party, to

see that matters are so organized in the collective farms

and state farms that they produce more raw material for

our factories. We shall try to handle this raw material
properly and to turn out food products in large quantity.

We should have had no success to record in the food
industry this year had it not been for the help given us

by the local Soviet and Party bodies, had it not been for

the fact that the Commission of Wholesale Purchases of

the Council of People’s Commissars fulfilled its purchas-

ing plan, and had it not been for the fact that the People’s

Commissariat of State Farms has begun to stand on its

own feet. It is standing on its own feet and we shall now

demand more from it.

The increase of livestock in our farms has been no

69



small one. There were 159,000 pigs in the farms of the

People’s Commissariat of the Food Industry in 1932 and

there are 519,000 now, in 1935. Pig breeding is the busi-

ness chiefly of the People’s Commissariat of State Farms.

Comrade Kalmanovich has tackled this job and I think

that 1936 will see not only a turning point but also rapid

progress in pig breeding. Now, when the grain problem

has been solved and when Comrade Stalin is already set-

ting us the task of producing seven or eight billion poods

of grain, we shall, of course, have all the feed we require.

We have trained skilled pig breeders and this business
must now be developed to the utmost.

In addition to industrial enterprises, farms, and a

wholesale purchasing system, the People’s Commissariat

of the Food Industry possesses its own auxiliary trading

system consisting of about 1,750 shops. The Alcohol

Board has another 16,000 shops.

The food industry has shops which display the finest

samples of goods, serving both as exhibitions and adver-

tisements for the products of our industry. But these

goods are not only on exhibition, they can not only be

viewed; one can also taste them by buying in the shops

anything one fancies. Our shops are at the same time

feelers enabling us to ascertain the demands of the mar-

ket. We now learn about the demand not only through
the departments of the People’s Commissariat of Do-

mestic Trade but also from the experience of our own

shops. Such feelers are highly essential.

The People’s Commissariat of the Food Industry

plays an important part in the national economy of our

country. Of the total planned retail trade turnover of

100,000,000,000 rubles, 46,000,000,000 rubles will con-

sist of the products of the People’s Commissariat of the

Food Industry.

We have approved a budget of 78,000,000,000 rubles.

70



Of this sum, 26,000,000,000 rubles must be furnished by

the work of the People’s Commissariat of the Food In-

dustry. This includes both profits and turnover tax. From

the standpoint of the national economy this is a very

important business. That is why we must work so that

the plan for' 1936 is not only fulfilled but overfulfilled.

That is what we shall fight for.

xiv

IVe and They

C
omrades, the problem of producing articles of gen-

eral consumption, foodstuffs, like that of every

other branch of production in our country, is dif-

ferent from what it is abroad, in capitalist countries.

There they produce for profits. As soon as a capitalist

ceases to make profits he discontinues or curtails produc-

tion. No profits—no production.
We, on the other hand, produce not for profit but in

order to satisfy the demands of the population of our

country. It sometimes happens that the state is prepared

to produce certain articles at a loss if it is necessary for

the country. In our country the satisfaction of the re-

quirements of the country stands above all commercial

considerations, which are necessary in themselves, but

which are subordinated to the aim of satisfying the de-

mands of the country.

Not so long ago a vast quantity of coffee was destroyed

in South America, as much as 22,000,000 bags were

burned. This is what a bourgeois journalist writes:

“Santos is the largest coffee city in Brazil, the second in

importance in South America. The first thing that strikes

71



the eye of the foreigner on entering the bay in which the

city is located is a vast bonfire extending alon^ the shore for

400 metres. This huge conflagration is fed with a new kind

of fuel—coffee. Heavy leaden clouds envelop the whole bay
and are constantly fed from this beacon of the economic

crisis. The nightmare of these fires pursues the traveler far

into the heart of the country. When one travels at night to the

Chicago of South America—Sao Paolo, the largest industrial
center in Brazil—the flames of the coffee fires illuminate
the line on both sides of the track and create the gruesome

impression of an army of flaming ghosts.”

Then they began to destroy the coffee trees. They have

now succeeded in reducing stocks of coffee by one-half

and they say that the coffee output has reached the re-

quired dimensions. They say this because by destroying

and reducing the production of coffee they have attained

an increase in the price of coffee and are beginning to

earn profits. Capitalist economy destroys vast wealth. In

Denmark alone, 117,000 head of cattle were destroyed

on the ground that they were superfluous. In America

6,000,000 pigs and 225,000 sheep were destroyed. There

was no market for them, it was alleged. Of course, there

is a market for meat products, but this would involve

putting an end to unemployment and starvation, it would

involve lowering prices. Capitalists cannot consent to this,

because profits decide everything.

The situation is entirely different in our country. We
are developing production for the sake of consumption.

Speaking of the development of our national economy

and transport, Comrade Stalin said in his report at the

Seventeenth Party Congress:

“It is high time we realized that in the last analysis goods

are produced not for the sake of producing them but to be

consumed.”

72



And we make machines not for the sake of having ma-

chines but in order that they may produce goods for

consumption.

The whole idea of socialist production is to supply the

country with articles of consumption. Our final aim is not

profit and not production for the sake of production. We
are steadily increasing the production of goods. When

goods with us are plentiful, prices drop. The purchaser is

able to buy products in the market more cheaply and in

larger quantities.

And our Soviet policy is precisely to reduce prices sys-

tematically and to make goods increasingly accessible.

During the past year and a half our prices have dropped

considerably. If we examine the drop in prices since

October I, 1934, we get the following picture: the state

price for beef has been reduced 36 per cent, plain sausage

46 per cent, sander (fish) 36 per cent, cod 66 per cent,

Murmansk herring 43 per cent, Caspian herring 16 per

cent, lump sugar 73 per cent, biscuits 41 per cent, canned

goods 16 to 26 per cent, butter 56 per cent, frying oil 58

per cent, soap 24 per cent, macaroni 23 per cent, ma-

khorka 50 per cent and bread 66 per cent.

The reduction of prices in state and co-operative trade

has resulted in a considerable drop in prices in the collec-

tive farm market. In the collective farm market in Mos-

cow the price of beef has fallen 51 per cent. There has

been a considerable drop in the price of pork. The price

of butter has dropped 53 per cent.

The Party and the government are steadily conducting

a policy of reducing prices and increasing the amount of

products in the country. The result of the reduction of

state prices and the fall in market prices has been a con-

siderable increase in consumption. This testifies to a ris-

ing level of culture and prosperity.

The Stakhanov movement has provoked a vast increase

73



in the demands of the working class population. Stakha-

novite workers are now earning 600 rubles, 700 rubles

and more. The December Plenum of the Central Com-

mittee of the Party has enjoined us in this connection to

bear in mind the demands of the workers, to supply goods

in greater variety and of better quality. Quality must be

of the best!

Our Farmers' Demands

ife is changing in the villages as well as in the towns.

Our peasants are not what they used to be. They

have stopped making homespun cloth, they have stopped

wearing bast shoes, and they no longer feed exclusively

on stale bread and kvas. That is natural. The population

has grown prosperous. Life is becoming more cultured.

Take Uzbekistan, comrades. There many people still

wear the Uzbek costume. But in the very near future

they will be wearing the same sort of clothes in Uzbeki-

stan as in Moscow. The same may be said of the popula-

tion of other districts, for instance, of the peasants of

Ryazan. Do you think the women harvester-combine

operators and tractor drivers there now wear the costume

of the women of Ryazan? No. Our village women are

already wearing good city clothes. They buy good per-

fumes and scented soap—because life has become more
cultured.

The distinction between town and country is being

obliterated. The countryside has become more cultured.

And we must therefore pay even more attention to the

demands of the rural consumer. Both the food industry

XV

74



and light industry, when expanding production, must not

for a single moment forget the collective farmer, who

will be increasingly demanding good city articles. We
must not fall behind the rapidly growing demands of the

rural population.

We are advancing at tremendous strides. Instead of

15.700.000 tons of sugar beet harvested in 1935, we must

harvest 25,400,000 tons in 1936. That alone will imply

a tremendous increase in rural income. And if income

increases, the demand for goods of better quality will

also increase. When people’s earnings are small they buy

only bare necessities. When earnings are high, the demand

for more valuable goods increases and the range of the

demand widens. A correspondent of our paper The Food
Industry tells of an experiment made by the village shop

in Didenov in the Dimitroff district. This shop caters

to 19 collective farms with a total membership of over

3.000 farmers. The range of goods in this village shop

and the demand differ very little from those of a city shop.

There is a tremendous demand for sausages: 100 kilo-

grams were sold in three days. Four hundred kilograms

of sausage were sold out in one week.

Customers very unwillingly buy tea at 1.25 rubles per

100 grams. They demand tea at 1.70 rubles.

Ten cases of “Nelson” biscuits were sold out in 22

days. In this same period 25 kilograms of “mixed bis-

cuits” were sold out in two days and 40 kilograms of

“cream crackers” were sold out in xo days. There is a

demand for package biscuits.

About' 2,000 tins of canned fish were sold in three

months. In this period 240 kilograms of smoked cod and

40 kilograms of red caviar were sold out in 20 days.

From December 4 to January 10, 120 kilograms of

macaroni were sold.

Mustard, pepper, bay leaf, cooking soda and washing

75



powder are now part of the permanent stock of the vil-

lage shop. Toilet soap is being demanded in addition to

household soap. In addition to face powder, the villagers

are now purchasing tooth powder. Cigarettes, especially

“Football” at 35 kopeks a packet and “Deli” at 65 ko-

peks a packet, compete quite well with makhorka. Wines

and cordials are beginning to oust vodka. The villagers

are even acquiring a taste for liqueurs: since November

22 the village shop has sold 15 cases of liqueur.

“If I only had, well, four kinds of herrings—two bar-
rels each,” is the dream of Comrade Seleznyov, the man-

ager of this village shop, “a barrel each of three kinds of

fresh fish, 20 kilograms of salmon, 20 kilograms of Sibe-

rian salmon, 20 kilograms of red caviar, 50 kilograms of

smoked fish, 300 kilograms of pork sausage and frank-

furters, 200 kilograms of plain sausage, 200 kilograms

of ‘superior’ sausage, 50 kilograms of ham, 100 kilo-

grams of loose biscuits, about 50 kilograms of package

biscuits, likewise fine salt. Add all this to my present

stocks, and I could lead a quiet life for a week or two.”

We could cite many such examples. They signal the
tremendous development that is going on in the country-

side and the demand it is making and will make on our

trading system, on our food industry.

Our villagers now want to eat jam, canned meat, canned

fish, canned vegetables and condensed milk. One is

simply astonished how rapidly they have got to know of

all this in the countryside. But we shall strive to make it

still more widely known in the countryside. It used to

happen formerly that what was depicted on the signs

and displayed in the windows was not on sale in the shops,

and if it was it would be sold on the quiet. But there are

lots of foods now. What is needed is that everybody

should see them in the shops and that the show windows

should be better dressed.

76



XVI

Soviet. Advertising

HAT Comrade Molotov said about advertising was

absolutely right. The food industry needs adver-

tising—Soviet advertising, of course, not capitalist ad-
vertising, not blaring and deceptive advertising, not ad-

vertising for the sake of palming off an adulterated and

trashy product on the consumer. We have never had and
never will have such advertising. We shall introduce good
Soviet advertising, advertising which will tell of a good

product, develop a taste for it and help its distribution.

Many people in our country have never seen a number

of products which are being turned out by our food in-

dustry, and they know nothing about them. The other day

a comrade told me about a collective farmer who bought

ten tangerines in a fruit shop and began to eat them skin

and all. He took a bite at one, and of course did not like

it—too bitter ! It was then explained to him that he must
peel it first. He tried it, and liked it. So you see we even

have to teach people how to eat tangerines. There are

still people to be found who have never seen them, as

they have not seen many other things.

Another comrade told me that at one time he worked

as a servant boy for a certain manufacturer’s wife. She

used to give him sandwiches. One day she gave him a

cheese sandwich. He did not know what cheese was. He
took the sandwich home. Neither his mother nor father

had ever seen cheese before, nor had any of the neigh-

bors, and they wondered what it was. Some said that it

was most likely soap that had been put on the bread.

But it did not look like soap. They tasted it and did not

77



like it. They threw it away from fear of being poisoned.

They did not know what cheese was.

We must begin to develop Soviet advertising, so that
people should get to know the new kinds of foods and

buy them, so that people’s tastes shpuld develop, so that

new foods and new goods should become a part of every-

day life. What distinguishes Soviet advertising from

capitalist advertising is the fact that capitalist advertising

is largely designed to get rid of old stocks of rubbish, to

palm off adulterated products on the consumer.

In his Condition of the Working Class in England,
Engels vividly describes the way foodstuffs were adul-

terated for the toilers in capitalist countries. He said that

merchants and manufacturers adulterated foodstuffs in

the most shameless way without the slightest compunction

for the health of those who had to eat them.

Engels in this book quotes instances of food adultera-

tion. Food is adulterated now too, but not so grossly as

before, the latest “achievements” of science and tech-

nology being at the service of the capitalist food fakers.

The Soviet country holds production and trade in its

own hands. Our aim is not profit, but honest catering to

the consumer. If there are bad goods it is because there

are still bad workers, who have to be re-educated

to make them work better. We can guarantee prod-
ucts of high quality because it is our principle to sup-

ply the workers, the collective farm peasants and all the

toilers of the country with fresh, nourishing, and genuine

foodstuffs.

In this connection we must advertise not only in the

streets and in the shops but also in the newspapers. Our

newspapers must print advertisements. At the Eleventh

Party Congress, Ryazanov wanted to propose that

Pravda should not print advertisements of restaurants.

Thereupon Lenin, who was already ill, came to the Con-

73



gress and won its permission to print advertisements in

the Party press.

At one time certain comrades were contemptuous of

trade. This was understandable then, when trade was in

private hands. But now, when it is our state that conducts

trade, when it is the products of our industry that are

being sold, this is already our Bolshevik trade; and the

advertising of our products is our advertising, and there-

fore the newspapers should print advertisements and

help our trade. That is what Comrade Stalin teaches us.

We want the tastes of our workers, collective farmers
and toilers to develop, so that they should pass from sim-

ple foods to superior and more nourishing food. For this

purpose we must adopt all forms of propaganda, includ-

ing the best kinds of advertising.

The discussion of the food industry here, at the Ses-

sion of the Central Executive Committee, places great

obligations on us, the workers in the food industry. It

demands of us that we should work still better and pro-

vide the country with a still larger quantity of products

of the finest quality. The demands of the Soviet country

are unlimited. They will steadily grow. This opens up un-

limited prospects of development for the food industry.

Our Red Army is equipped with the finest airplanes

and tanks. In the event of war we shall also endeavor

to provide it with the finest foodstuffs as well.

I recall how the tsarist war commissary used to stuff

the soldiers with monotonous, coarse and insipid food.

I remember in 1919, when we, a group of Bolsheviks,

were being brought under an escort of British soldiers

from Krassnovodsk to Baku, how astonished we were to

see the British soldiers eating cake, canned chicken and

canned beef. They had sweets, jam, compot, chocolate

and condensed milk.

We can say that when the Red Army needs foodstuffs

79



in time of war it will receive an abundance of condensed

milk, coffee, cocoa, canned meat and chicken, canned

tongue, sweets, jam and many other of the things in which

our country is rich.

Comrades, we could not have achieved these successes

if we had not had the assistance and support of the Party

and the Soviet organizations in the localities and if we

had not been helped by the organizations in Moscow,

Leningrad, the Ukraine, the Crimea, Transcaucasia,

Voronezh, Kursk and other places.

I hope that this Session of the Central Executive Com-

mittee will start a new wave of the Stakhanov movement

among the workers, engineers and technicians of the food

industry. After this Session, united by this determination

for victory, the workers of the food industry will set

about their task with fresh energy and will work with

greater productivity so that the year 1936 may be marked

by new victories and by a new overfulfilment of the yearly

plan of the food industry.

Permit me, comrades, to express the wish that every

Communist, every Bolshevik, Party and non-Party, should

interest himself in the needs of the food industry, assist

it, educate it, and correct it if need be, in the way that

Comrade Stalin does.

Under the banner of Lenin and Stalin we are advanc-

ing towards an abundance of products, towards an abun-

dance of articles of general consumption, towards a new

and cultured life for every member of our society!

80



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