page 953

^[91] The First All-Union Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry took place in Moscow, January 30-February 4, 1931. It was attended by 728 delegates, including representatives of industrial combines, factory directors and chiefs of construction works, engineers, foremen and foremost shock brigaders, and leaders of Party and trade-union organizations. The conference heard the report of G. K. Orjonikidze, Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, entitled "Control Figures for 1931 and the Tasks of Economic Organizations." On February 3, V. M. Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, addressed the conference on "The Fundamental Premises and Fulfilment of the Economic Plan." Stalin delivered a speech on "The Tasks of Economic Executives" on February 4 at the final sitting ot the conference. Taking Stalin's directives as their guide, the conference mapped out practical measures for the fulfilment of the national-economic plan for the third and decisive year of the First Five-Year Plan period. The conference laid stress on the following as the chief tasks of economic executives: mastery of technique, improvement of the quality of leadership in industry, consistent application of the principle of one-man management, introduction of business accounting and struggle for increased labour productivity, lowering of production costs and improvement of the quality of output. The conference sent greetings to the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.).    [p. 519]

^[66] This refers to the sabotage activities of a counter-revolutionary organization of bourgeois experts which had operated in Shakhty and other areas of the Don basin in 1923-28. This organization was uncovered in the beginning of 1928. The Shakhty case was examined at a special session of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. in Moscow from May 18 to July 5, 1928. (For the Shakhty affair, see Stalin, Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. 11, pp. 38 and 57-68, and also History of the C.P.S.U.(B.), Short Course, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, p. 454.)    [p. 526]

^[92] The trial of the counter-revolutionary organization of wreckers and spies known as the "Industrial Party" took place in Moscow, November 25-December 7, 1930. The case was heard at a special session of the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R. It was established at the trial that the "Industrial Party," which united the counter-revolutionary elements of the top stratum of the old, bourgeois technical intelligentsia, was an espionage and military agency of international capital in the Soviet Union. It was linked with White emigres -- former big capitalists of tsarist Russia -- and acted under the direct instructions of the French general staff, preparing for military intervention by the imperialists and armed overthrow of the Soviet government. The foreign imperialists supplied the wreckers

page 954

with directives and funds for carrying on espionage and sabotage in various branches of the national economy of the U.S.S.R.    [p. 526]

^[93] From N. A. Nekrasov's poem, "Who Lives Well in Russia?" (See N. A. Nekrasov, Selected Works, Russ. ed., 1947, p. 321.)    [p. 528]