No.400870
>The collectivization of lands is in theory the most questionable part of the changes in economic structure. There is no doubt that it cost dearly; indeed, it is regarded as the cruelest moment of an endeavour that was never mild. But if one judges this development of Russian resources in a general way, one risks forgetting the conditions in which it was begun and the necessity that compelled it […] These considerations had all the more force since industrialization always demands a large displacement of the population to the cities […] But a sudden [industrial] development creates a call for manpower to which the response cannot long be delayed. Only agrarian "collectivism," coupled with mechanization, could ensure the maintenance and growth of agricultural production; without them, the proliferation of factories would have only led to disequilibrium […] Situations arise in which, wrongly or rightly, acts of cruelty, harming individuals, seem negligible in view of the misfortunes they are meant to avoid […] Today it is easy to see that the Soviets organizing production were replying in advance to a question of life and death. I do not mean to justify, but to understand; given that purpose, it seems superficial to me to dwell on horror […] Apparently the Soviet Union, and, even, speaking more generally, Russia owing to the czarist legacy – would not have been able to survive without a massive allocation of its resources to industrial equipment. Apparently, if this allocation had been even a little less rigorous, even a little less hard to bear than Stalin made it, Russia could have foundered […] And we would rather die than establish a reign of terror; but a single man can die, and an immense population is faced with no other possibility than life. The Russian world had to make up for the backwardness of czarist society and this was necessarily so painful, it demanded an effort so great, that the hard way – in every sense the most costly way became its only solution.