ABSTRACT

This chapter explains that as soon as the Fourteenth Congress had broken up, after appointing a new Central Committee, Stalin submitted to the latter his resignation from the post of Secretary General of the Party. The year 1926 confronted Stalin and his Politburo with considerable economic difficulties. The receipts of the tax in kind were small, and would not suffice to feed the industrial regions and the Red Army. Of the five million tons of grain needed half had to be bought at a fixed price. The total production amounted to 7.5 million tons, of which about 2.5 million entered into the category reserved for the open market. In 1926 Stalin consulted the President of the Agricultural Commission of the Politburo in connection with the supply of cereals. A plenary assembly of the Central Committee was convoked. The debate on agriculture became a debate on the manufacture of goods to satisfy the requirements of the peasants.