J.V. Stalin
"The Tasks of Business Executives"
Speech Delivered at the First All-Union Conference
of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry
February 4, 1931

"It is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slow
down the tempo somewhat, 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. . . .

"To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those
who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be 
beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of the 
history of old Russia was the continual beatings
she suffered because of 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--
because of her backwardness, because of her military
backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness,
industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. . . .

"In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have had
one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is
in our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland,
and we will uphold 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 a genuine Bolshevik
tempo in building up its socialist economy. There is no
other way. That is why Lenin said on the eve of 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 we shall go under."

[Why this quote is right: 10 years after Stalin's
speech above, Hitler invaded the
Soviet Union. Hitler nearly took Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad
and thus nearly altered history. It was the largest land invasion 
of all time, and still is to this day more than 50 years later.

For this reason, the bourgeoisie considers this Stalin's greatest
prediction. Of course, the speech is also of great significance
to the international proletariat. In particular, Bukharin raised
the question of growing slower while Stalin was for the harsh
whip-hand, the slave-driving pace and the repression of anyone
who got in the way. Had Bukharin's line prevailed,
instead of Stalin's pace intolerant of backwardness, Hitler would have
taken the Soviet Union completely west of the Ural Mountains.
Who knows what would have happened then in world history? Perhaps
Hitler would have invented nuclear weapons first too. He was close
and the Soviet Union that he occupied had the materials he needed
for that project in addition to conventional supplies like oil.]