Another major feature of the Stalinist era was rapid state-controlled industrialization. “We are fifty to a hundred years behind the advanced countries,” declared Stalin. “We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we shall do it or we shall go under.” During the 1930s, that enormous process brought huge numbers of peasants from the countryside to the cities. Many found their way to new and distant industrial sites such as Magnitogorsk—a huge new iron and steel enterprise, and millions entered recently established technical institutes where they learned new skills and nurtured new ambitions. The brief excerpts in Document 21.3 disclose the voices of some of these workers as they celebrated the new possibilities and lamented the disappointments and injustices of Stalinist industrialization. These sources come from letters written to newspapers or to high government officials, from private letters and diaries, or from reports filed by party officials based on what they had heard in the factories.

Personal Accounts of Soviet Industrialization

1930s

Letter in a Newspaper from a Tatar Electrician

I am a Tatar.° . . . [I]n old tsarist Russia, we weren’t even considered people. We couldn’t even dream about education, or getting a job in a state enterprise. And now I’m a citizen of the USSR. Like all citizens, I have the right to a job, to education, to leisure. I can elect and be elected to the soviet [legislative council]. Is this not an indication of the supreme achievements of our country? . . .

Two years ago I worked as the chairman of a village soviet in the Tatar republic. I was the first person there to enter the kolhoz and then I led the collectivization campaign. Collective farming is flourishing with each year in the Tatar republic.

In 1931 I came to Magnitogorsk. From a common laborer I have turned into a skilled worker. I was elected a member of the city soviet. As a deputy, every day I receive workers who have questions or need help. I listen to each one like to my own brother, and try to do what is necessary to make each one satisfied.

I live in a country where one feels like living and learning. And if the enemy should attack this country, I will sacrifice my life in order to destroy the enemy and save my country.

Newspaper Commentary by an Engineer, 1938

Soon it will be seven years that I’m working in Magnitogorsk. With my own eyes I’ve seen the pulsating, creative life of the builders of the Magnitogorsk giant. I myself have taken an active part in this construction with great enthusiasm. Our joy was great when we obtained the first Magnitogorsk steel from the wonderful open-hearth ovens. At the time there was no greater happiness for me than working in the open-hearth shop. . . . Here I enriched my theoretical knowledge and picked up practical habits . . . of work. Here as well I grew politically, acquired good experience in public-political work. I came to Magnitogorsk nonparty. The party organization . . . accepted me into a group of sympathizers. Not long ago I entered the ranks of the Leninist-Stalinist [communist] party. . . . I love my hometown Magnitka with all my heart. I consider my work at the Magnitogorsk factory to be a special honor and high trust shown to me, a Soviet engineer, by the country.

Letter to a Soviet Official from a Worker, 1938

In fact, there’s been twenty years of our [Soviet] power. Fifteen to sixteen of these have been peaceful construction. . . . The people struggled with zeal, overcame difficulties. Socialism has been built in the main. As we embark on the third five-year plan we shout at meetings, congresses, and in newspapers “Hurray, we have reached a happy, joyful life!” However, incidentally, if one is to be honest, those shouts are mechanical, made from habit, pumped by social organizations. The ordinary person makes such speeches like a street newspaper-seller. In fact, in his heart, when he comes home, this bawler, eulogist, will agree with his family, his wife who reproaches him that today she has been torturing herself in queues and did not get anything—there are no suits, no coats, no meat, no butter.

Letter from a Student to His Teacher, No Date

I worked at a factory for five years. Now I’ll have to leave my studies at the institute. Who will study? Very talented Lomonosovs° and the sons of Soviet rulers, since they have the highest posts and are the best paid. In this way education will be available only to the highest strata (a sort of nobility), while for the lowest strata, the laboring people, the doors will be closed.

Two Comments from Factory Workers Found in Soviet Archives, 1930s

What is there to say about the successes of Soviet power? It’s lies. The newspapers cover up the real state of things. I am a worker, wear torn clothes, my four children go to school half-starving, in rags. I, an honest worker, am a visible example of what Soviet power has given the workers in the last twenty years.

How can we liquidate classes, if new classes have developed here, with the only difference being that they are not called classes? Now there are the same parasites who live at the expense of others. The worker produces and at the same time works for many people who live off him. From the example of our factory it is clear that there is a huge apparat of factory administrators, where idlers sit. There are many administrative workers who travel about in cars and get three to four times more than the worker. These people live in the best conditions and live at the expense of the labor of the working class.

Entry from a Worker’s Diary, 1936

[T]he portraits of party leaders are now displayed the same way icons used to be: a round portrait framed and attached to a pole. Very convenient, hoist it onto your shoulder and you’re on your way. And all these preparations are just like what people used to do before church holidays. . . . They had their own activists then, we have ours now. Different paths, the same old folderol.

Comment from an Anonymous Communist in Soviet Archives, 1938

Do you not think that comrade Stalin’s name has begun to be very much abused? . . . .Everything is Stalin, Stalin, Stalin. You only have to listen to a radio program about our achievements, and every fifth or tenth word will be the name of comrade Stalin. In the end this sacred and beloved name—Stalin—may make so much noise in people’s heads that it is very possible that it will have the opposite effect.