Leon
Trotsky: Next Tasks for Worker Correspondents
A
speech to the All-Union Conference of Worker Correspondents of
Rabochaya
Gazeta
January
13, 1926
[From
Pravda,
January 20, 1926. Leon
Trotsky: Problems of Everyday Life and
Other Writings on Culture & Science. New York – London –
Sydney 1973, p. 186-194]
We
must struggle to raise the cultural level We
must struggle to raise the cultural level, beginning with A in a
literal sense, that is, with ABC. On Monday in Moscow the congress of
the Down With Illiteracy Society opens. We put forward that slogan
quite a while ago, yet there is still plenty of illiteracy to be
found, illiteracy in the most straightforward sense of the word, and
we must not forget this; and must not forget that there are ten
million persons in our country who cannot read Rabochaya
Gazeta.
We
are going to enlarge Rabochaya
Gazeta,
and that will be a good thing, but even in its present small size it
is beyond the mental reach of ten million grown men and women. And
yet, Comrades, we want to build socialism. If socialism is to be
built in an illiterate country, a heroic effort will be needed from
the advanced people, in order to raise the dark backward masses,
first of all and at the very least to the level of ordinary literacy.
The
first task-to abolish illiteracy
As
I was leaving to come here, I glanced through the latest mail, which
had been placed on my desk. It included some emigre White Guard
newspapers. In these were accounts of the New Year celebrations. At
one party, some emigres belonging to the Nationalists, or the Cadets,
proposed a toast to the letter yat.
35
There are a lot of young people here, and I am afraid that many of
you will not know what sort of personage is meant. The letter yat,
together with the hard sign, fita,
and izhitsa,
were the estate of nobles in our alphabet, suppressed by the October
Revolution. They were unnecessary letters, superfluous and nobly
parasitic. They were abolished. And in Paris one of the leaders of
the emigres (I have forgotten his name) proposes a New Year's toast
to the letter yat
Well, there you are, it is a symbolic toast. We on our part can, at
the New Year -and today, if I'm not mistaken, is the old Russian New
Year's Day-declare that we hand over yat,
the
hard sign, fita,
and izhitsa
to the emigrants, whole and entire. In the Ukraine, I believe, they
call this giving somebody "the hole from the doughnut."
But
now all the remaining letters, which are really needed- not the noble
parasitic ones, but the functional proletarian ones that we need in
our work — in the year ahead of us, in the next two or three years,
must at all costs be made the possession of everybody in our country.
We should not have such a disgraceful situation as grown-up peasant
men and women, working men and women, not knowing how to read and
write. And it is the worker correspondent who must be the real moving
force in this work. The abolition of illiteracy is our first task in
the struggle for culture.
Women
in the fight against drunkenness
But,
Comrades, in this struggle we have another fierce adversary whom we
must overcome if we are to be able to advance. I speak of alcoholism,
of drunkenness. Various forms and methods of struggle against
drunkenness have been tried and will be tried in the future. But the
basic method is to bring about the cultural progress of the masses
themselves, to develop in them a stubborn fighting vanguard in the
battle against alcoholism.
in
this connection, the first place must be taken by the women, and of
course the worker correspondents must make their contribution to this
movement The period that lies ahead must be a period of heroic
struggle against alcoholism. The working masses still live very
poorly, but nevertheless not so poorly as in past years. We can
observe a weariness of the nerves, both from the revolutionary
upsurge of the recent past and from the present revolutionary lull,
which demands stubborn everyday work. People's nerves are badly worn.
There is a great demand for different sorts of stimulants or,
conversely, sedatives. The demand for alcohol, for intoxicating,
artificially simulating drink, is very strong among the workers in
the towns.
And,
Comrades, the worker correspondent who sets a bad example in this
matter is not worthy of the name of worker correspondent. A worker
correspondent must be a fighter against drunkenness. This is no
laughing matter. History will subject us to a hard test in this
matter. If we do not give a rebuff to drunkenness, starting in the
towns, then we shall drink away socialism and the October Revolution.
This
evil must be exposed and scourged. Together with cultural progress in
general, we need to enlist for the fight against drunkenness
particular people, the youngest, most militant, and best elements of
the working class, in the first place working women, for nothing
bears so hard upon the working woman, and especially upon the working
mother, as drunkenness. Nothing threatens the physical and moral
health of the rising generation of the working class as drunkenness
does. Without a fight against it there can be no real social service
by worker correspondents.
The
worker
correspondent in the fight for quality in production
The
third question is the question of quality in production. I have a lot
of notes on this subject
What
do we mean by quality. in production? Quality in production means
that what you do, you do well, remembering that you are doing it for
the community, for society as a whole. So far as the reports sent in
by worker correspondents are concerned, quality means
conscientiousness. Don't write from hearsay, and don't exaggerate.
Again, the newspaper itself will exaggerate; such errors do occur.
Fight against this kind of thing!
In
the matter of quality of production, of course, mistakes are made in
both directions. Sitting here is a correspondent who caught me out in
a mistake regarding the cars produced at the AMO factory. The fact is
that I was led into error and supposed that things were worse at that
factory than proved to be actually the case.
More
often, though, the mistakes made are of the other sort, mistakes of
bragging, of boasting. Don't you see, we have made the October
Revolution, and we will show up the Germans, the French, and the
Americans -with cars and machines, too, with textile goods, with
anything you care to mention. People who talk like this forget that
our cultural level is low, that we even have illiteracy, that
drunkenness still plays a big and cruel role in our people's life,
and that at present we produce worse than capitalist economies
produce.
Every
article is the product not only of living human labor, but also of
accumulated dead labor, i.e., of machinery and equipment. At present
we are weak in the latter, and we have to put forth all our efforts
to catch up with the capitalist countries economically. We must never
forget that we are building socialism amidst capitalist encirclement.
How
is one social system distinguished from another? How must socialism
be distinguished from capitalism? Socialism must provide more
products per unit of labor than capitalism provides. H we don't
achieve that, then we ourselves will have to admit that socialism is
of no use to us.
Socialism,
after all, does not consist only in the abolition of the exploiters.
If people lived more prosperously under the exploiters, more
abundantly and freely, and were materially more secure; If they lived
better with exploiters than without, then they would say "Bring
back the exploiters."
This
means that our task is, without exploiters, to create a system of
material prosperity, general security, and all-round cultured
existence, without which socialism is not socialism. The October
Revolution merely laid down the state foundations for socialism; only
now are we laying the first bricks. And when we ask ourselves whether
we are at this moment producing more goods per unit of labor-power
than are produced in other countries, the answer can only be: at
present, no, we are producing considerably less — in comparison
with America, monstrously less. This question will decide everything.
They tried to crush us with their armies, but they failed; they used
blockade and famine, but that failed, too. And now we have gone out
onto the world market — and this, you know, means that the world
market is also creeping up on us. We import foreign goods and export
our own. Thereby has begun direct and immediate competition between
our fabrics and British ones, our machines and American ones, our
grain and North America's.
The
question of quality is a question of competition
What
does competition mean? in the language of the capitalist market it
means comparison between the quality of our work and the work of the
capitalist countries. This question is a perfectly clear and simple
one. If we stitch one pair of shoes in two days, for example, and
these shoes wear out in one year, while the Americans, thanks to
better technology, correct division of labor, and greater
specialization, stitch a pair in half a day, and these shoes last the
same length of time, it means that in this branch of industry the
Americans are four times as powerful as we are.
Under
the capitalist system, every society is divided into different
classes with a very great variety of incomes, and the goods produced
reflect this structure of society. As we have seen, the old alphabet
included some aristocratic letters: well, there are aristocrats among
goods, too, which are adapted to privileged tastes. We, of course,
need in the next few years to produce mass goods, democratic goods.
This does not mean crudely and badly made goods that cannot satisfy
human tastes; but that the basic quality of goods for us is still
their durability. And we must now learn to compare our economy with
Europe's, not just by superficial appearances or by hearsay. Nor is
it enough now to make comparisons with prewar levels. The prewar
economy of czarism was backward and barbarous - that was why the
czarist government was routed in the war: it relied upon a backward
economy. We need to compare our economy with that of the countries of
Europe, so as first to catch up with them and then to surpass them.
I
repeat, we have to make comparisons not on the basis of superficial
appearances or of hearsay. People say that we work "almost"
as the Germans, the French, and others work. I am ready to declare a
holy war on that word "almost" "Almost" means
nothing. We need exact measurement. This is very simple We need to
take the cost of production; we need to establish, for example, what
it takes to make a pair of shoes, to establish how long the goods
last and how long they take to produce, and then we will have what we
need to make comparisons with other countries. In scientific
terminology, this is called finding the comparative coefficient.
I
have often quoted the example of the electric light bulb. It reveals
the heart of the problem more clearly than anything else. It is easy
to measure a light bulb, to estimate what it costs, how many hours it
will burn compared with a foreign-made one, how much electric power
it uses and how much light it gives. If we work all that out we get a
perfectly precise comparative coefficient. If, say, it proves that
one of our bulbs is only half as good as a foreign one, then the
coefficient will be 1:2. The social utility of our bulb will be equal
to one- half If we take such comparative coefficients for shoes, for
machines, for fabrics, for nails, for matches, etc., and compare them
together, we get what is called in statistics the average weighted
coefficient, which will show how far behind we are. It may turn out
that our weighted coefficient in relation to America is 1:10, i. e.,
that we work only one tenth as well as America. I give this figure
only for illustration, but I think that it is not far from the truth,
for in the U. S. they have more than forty times as much mechanical
labor- power as we have.
In
our country we have less than one unit of mechanical labor-power per
head of population, while over there they have more than forty. That
is why the national income in America is eight to ten times as big as
ours. There the population numbers 115 million, whereas we have 130
million, and yet there they turn out in a year eight to ten times as
many products of agriculture, stock breeding, and industry. These
basic figures must hit the worker correspondent in the eye, but they
ought not to call forth any feeling of dejection. There are no
grounds for that The U. S. arose and grew up on virgin territories
under the capitalist system; we have a people liberated by the
revolution, living in a country of unlimited natural resources, and
working for themselves and only for themselves.
No
communist conceit and no worker correspondent conceit
Thus,
our opportunities are very much greater. But, while recognizing our
opportunities, we ought at the same time to see clearly the degree to
which we are backward: bragging, conceit, communist conceit, worker
correspondent conceit, can have no place here at al. We must clearly
and truthfully evaluate what exists.
Recently,
I had the following experience. I won't mention any names, lest once
again I get caught out by some worker correspondent-though this time
I'm well shod. It concerns cars and rubber. We held a run to test out
cars and tires. The report on the results of this test was sent to a
newspaper. In this report it was stated that our rubber had proved to
be definitely worse than foreign rubber, and in some cases was quite
useless. And now I take up the newspaper—I won't name it, but, out
of respect for our visitors, I will say that it is not Rabochaya
Gazeta
I don't make any promises. Perhaps later on I will name this paper;
for the moment I am only making a preliminary reconnaissance.
[Laughter]
What was published in this paper? They said that our rubber was not
in any way inferior to foreign rubber, and in some cases was even
superior to it.
in
my opinion, Comrades, this is downright shamelessness. Of course, we
live in a socialist state. Corporal punishment is forbidden here;
corporal punishment is a disgraceful thing; but if we were to allow
corporal punishment for anything at all, then it should be for stunts
of this sort. Because to deceive yourself, to deceive public opinion,
means to ruin the cause of socialism. Naturally, people will offer
thousands of arguments in justification for such things. They will
say that we mustn’t let the outside world know of our shortcomings,
that this matter has a military significance, and so forth. Rubbish!
You can't hide rubber. There are plenty of foreigners here. And a
foreigner will take our rubber, weigh it in a laboratory and evaluate
it, both mechanically and technically, from all angles, with complete
accuracy. Whom, then, are we deceiving? We are deceiving our own
working men who read this paper, we are deceiving our own working
women, we are deceiving the very managers in charge of our
industries. We are deceiving the peasants, the army. We are deceiving
ourselves. And by so doing we are ruining the cause of socialist
construction. We must burn out our mendacity with a red-hot iron, and
our propensity to boast, which takes the place of real, stubborn,
relentless struggle to raise the level of our technology and our
culture. This also forms part of the task of the worker correspondent
in the fight for quality in production.
Weak
sides of our newspapers
Comrades,
I want to add only a few more words regarding a section which is
fearfully weak in all our publications, all our newspapers. I refer,
Comrades, to the section dealing with the world labor movement This
section must at all costs be strengthened and enlarged. H we were to
examine not merely the ordinary worker, not only the ordinary party
member, but even the worker correspondent, to sec if he knows the
basic facts about the life of the German or the French Communist
Party, or about the British trade unions, I am convinced that the
outcome of such an examination would be poor. And this is not the
fault of the worker correspondent; it is our fault, the fault of the
newspapermen – I, too, belong in that shop to some extent and take
part of the blame upon myself. If you take the communist press of the
prewar, pre-revolutionary period – In those days it was the Social
Democratic press – you find that incomparably more space was
allotted to this section. And the advanced elements of the working
class were not only educated on their own internal political
experience, but, as they climbed upward, they penetrated into the
life of the world working class. Things are a lot worse here in this
respect today. Of course, there are vast objective causes operating:
we have great tasks on hand, we have begun to build a new economy, to
raise millions of people to a higher level.
Our
forces, our attention, are absorbed in internal construction, but all
the same it is now not 1918, not 1919, not even 1920, but 1926. The
eight-hour working day is in our country the fundamental precondition
for the mental culture of the working class. One can study; there is
spare time available for self-education. And, of course, we shall not
surrender the eight-hour day on any account. On the contrary, we have
to raise the level of technology, through increasing the productivity
of labor, so as to be able over the years to pass from the eight-hour
to the seven-hour day, then to the six-hour day, the five-hour day,
and so on. But for the present we have the eight-hour working day, as
one of the most precious conquests of the October Revolution and as
the most important precondition for raising the level of our working
class culturally and with respect to knowledge of international
politics.
More
attention to the world working class movement
We
are too dependent on the world revolution, on the European
revolution, to dare to turn our backs upon it. What we need is for
concrete facts about the life of the working class to penetrate
through the newspapers into the minds of our advanced people. They
should find news about familiar figures in the newspapers; they
should follow the activity, say, of the parliamentary group in the
German Communist Party, the changes in policy, the radicalization,
the turn to the left of the British trade unions. The advanced
workers, and through them the wider mass of the workers, should
understand the ebbs and flows in the European and world revolutionary
movement.
We
cannot restrict ourselves in relation to the world revolution to mere
waiting and nothing else. I think that those of you who engage in
local agitational work will have noticed more than once that when one
speaks to the masses about the European revolution, they yawn, they
don't feel it, they don't sense its internal development; in short,
the European revolution has been turned for them into an empty
phrase. And yet it is not at all just a phrase: the European
revolution is growing, but it has its ebbs and flows, its mistakes
and its successes. in the course of this experience the leading
strata of the working class are being prepared and formed.
This
process must be followed, and it is the workers' press that must
follow it first and foremost. Worker correspondents must see to it
that German and French worker correspondents occupy an appropriate
place in our press, so that there may be a real international
exchange of news between worker correspondents on the basic questions
of our economic construction and of the world proletarian revolution.
No onesidedness, no narrowness or craft exclusiveness can be allowed
for worker correspondents on even a single question, beginning with
frozen meat and flared skirts and ending with the European
revolution. There, Comrades, in that little space between flared
skirts and frozen meat and the world revolution — is defined the
range of interests of worker correspondents. And only that worker
correspondent is worthy of the name who strives to embrace all of
these various interests and the entire complexity of the struggle and
of culture throughout the world. [Stormy
applause]