Document 58

Letter from rural correspondent P. Grigor'evich to Krest'ianskaia Gazeta proposing revisions to Constitution, 1936

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 232, ll. 59-60. Typewritten copy.

We, the farmers of the Red Fighter Kolkhoz, have heard a report on the adoption of the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R. of 1936.

Resolved:

To approve for us the joyful draft of the new Constitution and to approve the chairman of the Constitutional Commission, Comrade Stalin. We see in the person of Comrade Stalin and in the draft of the new Constitution a keen sensitivity to all working people of the U.S.S.R. We know that there is no difference in our country in labor discipline either for women or for men. Women also enjoy the same rights as men.

We see with our own eyes that women along with men are building a socialist society at all enterprises and institutions. We know that in a capitalist country women bear an eternal burden, the poor things have nowhere to appeal or complain, because they are looked upon the way women in our country were looked upon before the Revolution.

Comrade Stalin correctly noted in the draft of the new Constitution

that the people who count in our country are those who march forward together with us and build a socialist society, while whoever doesn't work, doesn't eat. We kolkhoz farmers are waging a struggle in our socialist fields. We kolkhoz farmers want to give the country seven to eight billion poods of grain, and we will give it.

We will not go to borrow grain from capitalist countries and we will not bow to the kulaks, who have had their day. We know that there is nothing frightening for hands hardened by toil. Our Red Fighter Kolkhoz has subscribed one hundred percent to the new loan. We have finished stacking the winter grain and have started threshing, above all we are fulfilling the grain [quota] for the state, the payment in kind for the MTS, and we will provide grain through the cooperatives. Last year each kolkhoz farmer produced three kg, 800 g, per work-day, and in money terms, one ruble, three kopeks. Today we plan to distribute five kg of grain and in money terms, one ruble, fifty kopeks. In the future we are going to make more use of agricultural machinery so we can turn the Red Fighter Kolkhoz into a Bolshevik kolkhoz and make kolkhoz farmers prosperous.

We know that our country is surrounded all around by capitalist

countries, and we see how the enemy is doing everything it can to get closer to the border of the U.S.S.R. live off our plot of land. In 1929 I was on the KVZhD [the Chinese and Eastern Railroad] myself. We succeeded in defending the U.S.S.R. border and will always succeed in strongly repulsing the enemy. We know that the capitalists of all countries can never accept us, they are rabidly preparing to make war on us, but we are ready.

But as soon as Europe threatens us first, we will say, excuse us to those who are bringing us war rather than peace, we will say without hesitation that our bayonets are sharp and our powder is dry too and we will point the way back with our bayonets.