4 December 1935
Comrades, the presidium of this conference has instructed me to make two announcements:
Firstly, that the presidium intends to recommend for highest award, for an order of distinction, all those present at this conference, men and women, for their excellent work. (Loud and prolonged applause and cheers. Cries of "Long live Comrade Stalin!" Shouts of greeting to the leaders of the Party and government.)
Secondly, that the government has decided to make a gift of an automobile truck to every collective farm represented here and to present every participant at this conference with a gramophone and records (applause) and watches - pocket watches for the men and wrist watches for the women. (Prolonged applause.)
I am being told on all hands that I must say something.
Voices : Quite right. (Applause.)
What is there to say? Everything has been said.
Evidently, you are going to make a success of cotton. That is apparent from everything that is going on here. Your collective farms are growing, you have the desire to work, we shall give you machines, fertilizers you will receive, every kind of assistance you may possibly need - Comrade Molotov, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, has already told you that - will be given. Consequently, you will make a success of cotton and a prosperous life is opening up.
But, comrades, there is one thing more precious than cotton - it is the friendship between the peoples of our country. The present conference, your speeches, your actions, go to show that the friendship between the peoples of our great country is growing stronger. That is a very important and noteworthy fact, comrades. In the old days, when the tsar, the capitalists, and the landlords were in power in our country, it was the policy of the government to make one people - the Russian people - the dominant people, and all the other peoples subjugated and oppressed peoples. That was a bestial, a wolfish policy. In October 1917, when the great proletarian revolution began in our country, when we overthrew the tsar, the landlords and capitalists, the great Lenin, our teacher, our father and tutor, said that henceforth there must be neither dominant nor subjugated peoples, that the people must be equal and free. In this way he buried the old tsarist, bourgeois policy and proclaimed a new policy, a Bolshevik policy - a policy of friendship, a policy of brotherhood between the peoples of our country.
Since then eighteen years have elapsed. And now we already see the beneficial results of this policy. The present conference is a vivid proof of the fact that the former-mistrust between the peoples of the U.S.S.R. has long ago been laid to rest, that mistrust has been replaced by complete and mutual trust, that the friendship between the peoples of the U.S.S.R. is growing and gaining in strength. That, comrades, is the most precious thing that the Bolshevik national policy has given us.
And friendship among the peoples of the U.S.S.R. is a great and important achievement. For as long as this friendship exists, the peoples of our country will be free and invincible. Nothing can daunt us, neither enemies at home nor enemies abroad, as long as this friendship lives and flourishes. You need have no doubt of that, comrades.
(Tumultuous applause. All rise and greet Comrade Stalin.)
Pravda