J.V. Stalin. Collected Works. 1-13 volumes. English edition.

SPEECH AT A CONFERENCE OF
HARVESTER-COMBINE OPERATORS.
1 December 1935
Comrades, allow me first to congratulate you on
the successes you have achieved on the harvest front.
These successes are no mean ones. The fact that,
on an average for the whole of the U.S.S.R., the
performance per harvester combine has doubled in
one year, is no mean achievement. This achievement
is particularly important in the conditions prevailing
in our country, where our number of technically
trained people is still small. Our country was always
distinguished by a lack of technically trained cadres,
especially in the sphere of agriculture. The technical
training of cadres on a country-wide scale is a very
big job. It requires decades. And the fact that in a
comparatively short space of time, we have managed
to convert the peasant sons and daughters of yesterday
into excellent harvester-combine operators, who
are surpassing the standards of capitalist countries,
means that the training of technical cadres in our
country is proceeding at seven-league strides. Yes,
comrades, your successes are great and important
ones, and you fully deserve to be congratulated by
the leaders of the Party and the government.
And now let me pass to the essence of the matter.
It is frequently said that we have already solved
the grain problem. That, of course, is true if we are
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