Preface

Source: Works, Vol. 8, January-November, 1926, pp. XIII-XV
Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

The Eighth Volume of J. V. Stalin’s Works contains writings and speeches of the period January-November 1926.

The year 1926 was the first year of the all-out effort of the Bolshevik Party to put into effect the general line of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government for the socialist industrialisation of the country.

In his works Concerning Questions of Leninism and The Economic Situation of the Soviet Union and the Policy of the Party, J. V. Stalin exposes the malicious distortions of the principles of Leninism by the Zinoviev-Kamenev group, upholds the decisions of the Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.), and discloses the attempts of the “New Opposition” to infect the Party with disbelief in the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R.

In his report to the Fifteenth Conference of the C.P.S.U.(B.) The Social-Democratic Deviation in Our Party and in his reply to the discussion on the report, J. V. Stalin upholds the ideological and organisational unity of the Bolshevik Party and exposes the capitulationist ideology and the disruptive, splitting activities of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc.

In these works J. V. Stalin develops Lenin’s teaching on the possibility of the victory of socialism in individual countries, and demonstrates the possibility, necessity and international significance of the building of a socialist society in the U.S.S.R. in the conditions of capitalist encirclement, outlines the practical tasks of the Party in the field of socialist construction, and defines the concrete ways and means of putting into effect the Party’s general line for the socialist industrialisation of the country.

In “The British Strike and the Events in Poland,” “The Anglo-Russian Unity Committee,” “The Fight against Right and ’Ultra-Left’ Deviations,” the “Speech Delivered in the German Commission of the Sixth Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I.” and other works, J. V. Stalin stresses the necessity for a persistent and consistent struggle for working-class unity, against imperialist reaction, and against the danger of new imperialist wars. He exposes Trotsky’s adventurist theory of skipping-over movements which have not yet outlived their day, and indicates the lines and methods of the ideological and organisational struggle against opportunism in the Communist Parties abroad.

In the speech on “The Prospects of the Revolution in China,” J. V. Stalin analyses the distinguishing features, character and trend of the Chinese revolution.

This volume includes the following documents published for the first time: “The Peasantry as an Ally of the Working Class,” “The Possibility of Building Socialism in Our Country,” “Speech Delivered in the French Commission of the Sixth Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I.,” speech on “The Anglo-Russian Committee,” “Letter to Slepkov,” “Measures for Mitigating the Inner-Party Struggle,” and Stalin’s letter “To the Editorial Board of the Daily Worker, Central Organ of the Workers Party of America.” J. V. Stalin’s letter “To Comrade Kaganovich and the Other Members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Ukrainian C.P. (B.)” is given here for the first time in full.

Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute
of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.)