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"Those Who Fall Behind Get
Beaten" It is sometimes asked whether it
is not possible to slow down the tempo a bit, to put a check on the movement.
No, comrades, it is not possible! The tempo must not be reduced! On the
contrary, we must increase it as much as is within our powers and
possibilities. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the workers and
peasants of the USSR. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the working
class of the whole world. To slacken the tempo would mean
falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. No, we refuse to be
beaten! One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings
she suffered for falling behind, for her backwardness. She was beaten by the
Mongol Khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys.
She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and
Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She
was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her--for her backwardness: for
military backwardness, for cultural backwardness, for political backwardness,
for industrial backwardness, for agricultural backwardness. She was beaten
because to do so was profitable and could be done without impunity. Do you
remember the words of the pre-revolutionary poet: "You are poor and
abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia." These words of the old
poet were well learned by those gentlemen. They beat her, saying: "You are
abundant," so one can enrich oneself at your expense. They beat her,
saying: "You are poor and impotent," so you can be beaten and
plundered with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters--to beat the
backward and the weak. It is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward,
you are weak--therefore you are wrong; hence, you can be beaten and enslaved.
You are mighty--therefore you are right; hence, we must be wary of you. That is why we must no longer lag
behind. In the past we had no fatherland,
nor could we have one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power
is in the hands of the working class, we have a fatherland, and we will
defend its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten
and to lose its independence? If you do not want this you must put an end to
its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop genuine Bolshevik
tempo in building up its socialist system of economy. There is no other way.
That is why Lenin said during the October Revolution: "Either perish, or
overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries." We are fifty or a hundred years
behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years.
Either we do it, or they crush us. |
