* My italics. -- J. St.
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Some say that, once there is self-criticism, we do not need labour discipline, we can stop working and give ourselves over to prattling a little about everything. That would be not self-criticism but an insult to the working class. Self-criticism is needed not in order to shatter labour discipline, but to strengthen it, in order that labour discipline may become conscious discipline, capable of withstanding petty-bourgeois slackness.
Others say that, once there is self-criticism, we no longer need leadership, we can abandon the helm and let things "take their natural course." That would be not self-criticism but a disgrace. Self-criticism is needed not in order to relax leadership, but to strengthen it, in order to convert it from leadership on paper and of little authority into vigorous and really authoritative leadership.
But there is another kind of "self-criticism," one that tends to destroy the Party spirit, to discredit the Soviet regime, to weaken our work of construction, to corrupt our economic cadres, to disarm the working class, and to foster talk of degeneration. It was just this kind of "self-criticism" that the Trotsky opposition was urging upon us only recently. It goes without saying that the Party has nothing in common with such "self-criticism." It goes without saying that the Party will combat such "self-criticism" with might and main.
A strict distinction must be drawn between this "self-criticism," which is alien to us, destructive and anti-Bolshevik, and our, Bolshevik self-criticism, the object of which is to promote the Party spirit, to consolidate the Soviet regime, to improve our constructive
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work, to strengthen our economic cadres, to arm the working class.
Our campaign for intensifying self-criticism began only a few months ago. We have not yet the necessary data for a review of the first results of the campaign. But it may already be said that the campaign is beginning to yield beneficial fruits.
It cannot be denied that the tide of self-criticism is beginning to mount and spread, extending to ever larger sections of the working class and drawing them into the work of socialist construction. This is borne out if only by such facts as the revival of the production conferences and the temporary control commissions.
True, there are still attempts to pigeon-hole well-founded and verified recommendations of the production conferences and temporary control commissions. Such attempts must be fought with the utmost determination, for their purpose is to discourage the workers from self-criticism. But there is scarcely reason to doubt that such bureaucratic attempts will be swept away completely by the mounting tide of self-criticism.
Nor can it be denied that, as a result of self-criticism, our business executives are beginning to smarten up, to become more vigilant, to approach questions of economic leadership more seriously, while our Party, Soviet, trade-union and all other personnel are becoming more sensitive and responsive to the requirements of the masses.
True, it cannot be said that inner-Party democracy and working-class democracy generally are already fully establishcd in the mass organisations of the working class. But there is no reason to doubt that further
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advances will be made in this field as the campaign unfolds.
Nor can it be denied that, as a result of self-criticism, our press has become more lively and vigorous, while such detachments of our press workers as the organisations of worker and village correspondents are already becoming a weighty political force.
True, our press still continues at times to skate on the surface; it has not yet learned to pass from individual critical remarks to deeper criticism, and from deep criticism to drawing general conclusions from the results of criticism and making plain what achievements have been attained in our constructive work as a result of criticism. But it can scarcely be doubted that advances will be made in this field as the campaign goes on.
However, along with these good aspects of our campaign, it is necessary to note some bad aspects. I am referring to those distortions of the slogan of self-criticism which are already occurring at the beginning of the campaign and which, if they are not resisted at once, may give rise to the danger of self-criticism being vulgarised.
1) It must be observed, in the first place, that a number of press periodicals are betraying a tendency to transplant the campaign from the field of business like criticisms of shortcomings in our socialist construction to the field of ostentatious outcries against excesses in private life. This may seem incredible. But, unfortunately, it is a fact.
Take the newspaper Vlast Truda, for example, organ of the Irkutsk Okrug Party Committee and Okrug Soviet Executive Committee (No. 128). There you will
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find a whole page peppered all over with ostentatious "slogans," such as: "Sexual Promiscuity -- a Bourgeois Vice"; "One Glass Leads to Another"; "Own Cottage Calls for Own Cow"; "Double-Bed Bandits"; "A Shot That Misfired," and so on and so forth. What, one asks, can there be in common between these "critical" shrieks, which are worthy of Birzhovka,[38] and Bolshevik self-criticism, the purpose of which is to improve our socialist construction ? It is very possible that the author of these ostentatious items is a Communist. It is possible that he is burning with hatred of the "class enemies" of the Soviet regime. But that he is straying from the right path, that he is vulgarising the slogan of self-criticism, and that his voice is the voice not of our class, of that there cannot be any doubt.
2) It must be observed, further, that even those organs of the press which, generally speaking, are not devoid of the ability to criticise correctly, that even they are sometimes inclined to criticise for criticism's sake, turning criticism into a sport, into sensation-mongering. Take Komsomolskaya Pravda, for example. Everyone knows the services rendered by Komsomolskaya Pravda in stimulating self-criticism. But take the last issues of this paper and look at its "criticism" of the leaders of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions -- a whole series of impermissible caricatures on the subject. Who, one asks, needs "criticism" of this kind, and what effect can it have except to discredit the slogan of self-criticism? What is the use of such "criticism," looked at, of course, from the standpoint of the interests of our socialist construction and not of cheap sensation-mongering designed to give the phi-
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listine something to chuckle over? Of course, all forms of arms are required for self-criticism, including the "light cavalry." But does this mean that the light cavalry must be turned into light-minded cavalry?
3) It must be observed, lastly, that there is a definite tendency on the part of a number of our organisations to turn sell-criticism into a witch-hunt against our business executives, into an attempt to discredit them in the eyes of the working class. It is a fact that certain local organisations in the Ukraine and Central Russia have started a regular witch-hunt against some of our best business executives, whose only fault is that they are not 100 per cent immune from error. How else are we to understand the decisions of the local organisations to remove these executives from their posts, decisions which have no binding force whatever and which are obviously designed to discredit them? How else are we to understand the fact that tbese executives are criticised, but are given no opportunity to answer the criticism? When did we begin to pass off a "Shemyaka court"* as self-criticism?
Of course, we cannot demand that criticism should be 100 per cent correct. If the criticism comes from below, we must not ignore it even if it is only 5 or 10 per cent correct. All that is true. But does this mean that we must demand that business executives should be l00 per cent immune from error? Is there any one in creation who is immune from error 100 per cent? Is it so hard to understand that it takes years and years to
* A "Shemyaka court": an unjust conrt. (From an ancient Russian story about a judge named Shemyaka.) --Tr.
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train our economic cadres and that our attitude towards them must be one of the utmost consideration and solicitude? Is it so hard to understand that we need self-criticism not for the sake of a witch-hunt against our economic cadres, but in order to improve and perfect them?
Criticise the shortcornings of our constructive work, but do not vulgarise the slogan of self-criticism and do not turn it into a medium for ostentatious exercises on such themes as "Double-Bed Bandits," "A Shot That Misfired," and so on.
Criticise the shortcomings in our constructive work, but do not discredit the slogan of self-criticism and do not turn it into a means of cooking up cheap sensations.
Criticise the shortcomings in our constructive work, but do not pervert the slogan of self-criticism and do not turn it into a weapon for witch-hunts against our business or any other executives.
And the chief thing: do not substitute for mass criticism from below "critical" fireworks from above ; let the working-class masses come into it and display their creative initiative in correcting our shortcomings and in improving our constructive work.
Pravda, No. 146,
June 26, 1928
Signed: J. Stalin