Catch up and overtake

The most often quoted statement from the work “Awesome catastrophe and how to deal with it”:

The revolution did what in a few months Russia in its political system caught up with the advanced countries.

But this is not enough. The war is relentless, it raises the question with merciless sharpness: either die, or catch up with the advanced countries and overtake them also economically .

- V.I. Lenin, Complete Works, 5th edition, vol. 34, p. 198

The expression “catch up and overtake” was used by Lenin and earlier, in a somewhat different context :

Here we come to the pressing issue of our movement, to its sore point - the organization. The improvement of revolutionary organization and discipline, the improvement of conspiratorial technology are urgently needed. We must openly admit that in this respect we have lagged behind the old Russian revolutionary parties and must make every effort to catch up and overtake them.

- V.I. Lenin, Complete Works, 5th edition, vol. 4, p. 193–194

The working press must be developed and made stronger. It takes money. Only under the condition of constant and massive gatherings among the workers will it be possible with persistent effort to achieve a satisfactory production of the workers' newspapers in Russia. In America, there is one working paper (“Call to Reason”), which has over half a million subscribers. That Russian worker is bad, - we would say, reworking one famous proverb, - who does not hope to catch up and overtake his American fellow.

- V.I. Lenin, Complete Works, 5th edition, vol. 21, p. 439

Yu. P. Annenkov recalled that in 1921, when creating a portrait of Lenin, he said to him during the session that this thesis should not be understood literally since “every optimism must be reasonable and have its limits”. According to the artist, Lenin told him that this expression “means, first of all, the need to most quickly and with all sorts of measures to put pressure on, decompose, destroy its economic and political equilibrium, undermine it and, thus, crush its strength and will to resist. Only after that can we hope to practically “catch up and overtake” the United States and their civilization ” ^[1] .

Lenin's statement was repeatedly quoted and paraphrased by both supporters and opponents of the Soviet system.

So, Stalin spoke at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on November 19, 1928 :

We caught up and overtook the advanced capitalist countries in the sense of establishing a new political system, the Soviet system. It's good. But this is not enough. In order to achieve the final victory of socialism, it is also necessary to overtake and overtake these countries also technically and economically.

- Lenin and Stalin. Collection of works, vol. III, p. 315

Mikhail Tukhachevsky in his article "New learning tasks" wrote:

We have a base in the army where we can achieve the highest forms of tactics, on which we can catch up and overtake the most technically strong and threatening capitalist armies in the art of warfare and operations

- “War and Revolution”, 1929, Vol. 11, p. 3 - 20

At the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the CPSU (b) January 7 - 12, 1933 :

Lenin said: “The revolution did what in a few months Russia in its political system caught up with the advanced countries.

But this is not enough. The war is relentless, it raises the question with ruthless sharpness: either die, or overtake the advanced countries and overtake them also economically ... Perish or rush forward at full steam. So the question is posed by history ”(see Vol. XXI, p. 191).

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These provisions formed the basis of the considerations of the party that led to the elaboration of the five-year plan, which led to the definition of the main task of the five-year plan.

- I. V. Stalin, Results of the First Five-Year Plan, report of January 7, 1933,
Pravda , Nos. 10 and 17, January 10 and 17, 1933

What dictated this basic task of the five-year plan, how did it settle?

The need to eliminate the technical and economic backwardness of the Soviet Union, which condemns it to an unenviable existence, the need to create prerequisites in the country that would give it the opportunity not only to catch up, but eventually overtake technologically and economically advanced capitalist countries .

Considering that Soviet power cannot for long hold on the basis of backward industry, that only modern large-scale industry, not only not inferior, but capable of surpassing the industry of capitalist countries over time, can serve as a real and reliable foundation for Soviet power.

- ibid

We now need Bolshevik specialists in metal, in textiles, in fuel, in chemistry, in agriculture, in transport, in trade, in accounting, etc., etc. We now need whole groups, hundreds and thousands of new cadres of Bolsheviks who are capable of being masters of the business in the most diverse branches of knowledge Without this, there is nothing to talk about the fast pace of the socialist construction of our country. Without this, there is nothing to say that we will be able to catch up and overtake the advanced capitalist countries.

- I. V. Stalin, Speech at the Eighth Congress of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League May 16, 1928

Lenin was right, speaking back in September 1917, before the Bolsheviks took power, that by establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, we can and must “catch up with the advanced countries and overtake them also economically”

- J. V. Stalin, Political Report of the Central Committee, December 3, 1921,
XV Congress of the CPSU (b) December 2—19, 1921

Already by Soviet leaders, the phrase was often used ironically:

It is known that in a number of areas of Turkestan there were already attempts to “catch up and overtake” the advanced regions of the USSR by threatening with military force, by threatening to deprive the irrigation water and industrial goods of those peasants who do not want to go to the collective farms yet.

What can there be in common between this “policy” of the non-colleague Prishibeev and the policy of the party, which relies on voluntariness and taking into account local peculiarities in collective farm building? It is clear that between them there is not and can not be anything in common.

Who needs these distortions, is it bureaucratic decreeing of the collective-farm movement, these unworthy threats against the peasants? No one except our enemies.

- I. V. Stalin, Dizzy with success ,
Pravda No. 60, March 2, 1930

The phrase was often used by Stalin’s opponents, sometimes to criticize the Soviet system. L. D. Trotsky writes in 1935 , in exile:

Having entered the socialist revolution as the “weakest link of the capitalist chain” (Lenin), the former empire of the kings and now, in the 19th year after the coup, is still facing the task of “catching up and overtaking” - hence, above all catching up - Europe and America, that is, to solve those technical and production tasks that advanced capitalism has long resolved.

Yes, could it be otherwise? The overthrow of the old ruling classes did not resolve, but only revealed to the end the task: to rise from barbarism to culture. At the same time, by concentrating ownership of the means of production in the hands of the state, the revolution made it possible to apply new, immeasurably more effective methods of management. Only thanks to the planned leadership, in a short time, what was destroyed by the imperialist and civil war was restored, new ambitious enterprises were created, and new production industries were introduced.

- L. D. Trotsky The Devoted Revolution

One way or another, the turn has taken place. The slogan " get rich! », As well as the theory of the painless growing of the kulak into socialism were belatedly, but even more strongly condemned. Industrialization is on the order of the day. The smug quietism was replaced by panic swiftness. The half-forgotten slogan of Lenin “to overtake and overtake” was supplemented with the words: “in the shortest possible time”.

- ibid

“The lowest stage of communism,” using the term Marx, begins at the level closest to the most advanced capitalism. Meanwhile, the real program of the next Soviet five-year plans is to "catch up with Europe and America."

- ibid

In May 1939, the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences heard a report by Academician E. S. Vargi "Scientific problems arising from the task of catching up and overtaking economically the main capitalist countries" ^[2] .

The promise of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, on May 22, 1957, was widely known in a speech at a zonal meeting of agricultural workers of the regions and autonomous republics of the USSR to catch up and overtake America for three years in the production of meat, milk and butter per capita. In this regard, it is a common misconception that the phrase belongs to Khrushchev himself.

This formulation itself meant the recognition of the fact that the USSR is still lagging behind the United States in a number of economic indicators; in the propaganda of the Stalin era (especially in the post-war period) such direct statements were avoided.

During the reign of Khrushchev, a large number of difficult tasks were set, which were supposed to be carried out as soon as possible. The task of the rapid growth of consumption, with the aim of the final construction of communism, instantly encountered problems that they tried to solve with adventurous methods. Attempts by Khrushchev to reform the administrative apparatus, the economy and social spheres led to a serious crisis in the early 1960s . The most famous adventures of the times of Khrushchev - " corn fever ", " meat campaign in Ryazan " and "dairy records." While industrial development was relatively fast, there was no improvement in the agricultural sector ^[3] . By 1960, it became clear that “ in terms of wealth, it was not possible to“ catch up and overtake America in 3-4 years ”. ^[four]

Khrushchev speaks at the Kirov factory:
- We, comrades, will soon not only catch up, but also overtake America!
A voice from the crowd:
- To catch up with America, we, Nikita Sergeevich, agree. Only to overtake would not be necessary.
- And why?
- A bare ass will be seen!

- anecdote of the 60s

At the same time, the years of Khrushchev’s rule were marked by significant advances in science and technology, which allowed achieving strategic parity with the United States : the launch of the first satellite and the flight of the first cosmonaut , the world's first nuclear-powered icebreaker and the world's first nuclear power plant (derived from arms race ) - significant milestones in which the Soviet Union really beat the United States.

From the poem by V. V. Mayakovsky " Americans are surprised " ( 1929 ).

At the heart of the life of the Soviet Union lies the communist idea. We have an exact goal to which the country is heading. That is why we, people, compared to America, while the average income is already much calmer and happier than it is - the country of Morgan and Ford, twenty-five million cars, one and a half million kilometers of ideal roads, the country of cold and hot water, bathrooms and service slogan about the technique that decides everything, was given by Stalin after the idea won. That is why the technique does not seem to us to leave the evil spirit out of the bottle, which cannot be driven back into this bottle. On the contrary, we want to catch up with technical America and overtake it.

From the travel essay One-story America .

• In the 1930s, there was the personal name Dognat-Peregat (variant - Dognath-Peregnaty ; for the twins - Dognat and Peregat ), formed from the slogan ^[5] .

• Political slogans
• " Ryazan miracle "
• Acceleration (slogan)
• “ Russia, forward! "
• The big leap in the PRC (1958-1960)

• Vladimir Khozikov. Rocket gods of the Kremlin. Catch up and overtake America. - Eksmo, Yauza, 2004. - ISBN 5-699-08239-5 .