34	HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
in these words: "We must see that the efforts of our political
economists are directed towards transforming our country from
one which imports its machinery into one which manufactures
it."
Ordjonikidze illustrated this idea by quotations from Stalin's
speech at the fourteenth Congress of the Communist Party:
"The authors of the Dawes Plan/' he said, "would like to
restrict us to the manufacture, say, of boots. No, we want to
produce the machinery to make the boots." Addressing himself
to Sokolnikov, the Opposition spokesman, he declared: "Here
is the difference between the two 'principles of economic
policy3 [i.e. between that of Stalin and that of the Opposition].
A departure from our principle would be equivalent to a
surrender of the goal aimed at by Socialist reconstruction and
would mean"—here Ordjonikidze coined a new word—"the
TDawesification' of our country."
This characterization of Stalin's aim is not exaggerated. It
was Stalin's fixed idea that the Soviet Union was to be made
independent of foreign countries, not merely in respect of
primary necessities, but in every sphere. All this was to be
done in a Russia whose population until recently consisted
largely of illiterates, for the sake of an idea.
The erection of the "giants" now began, those technical
monster concerns which to-day evoke the astonishment of
foreign guests of honour. For the construction of these govern-
ment works, on which leading technical specialists from many
different countries were employed, it did not seem necessary
to make any calculations as to whether the concerns would pay.
When a party of foreign journalists recently visited the new
industrial buildings at Kharkov, one of them asked how the
new undertaking had been budgeted for and what was the
estimated yield. He was told that "that sort of thing was not
done." A particularly instructive example is the power station
on the Dnieper rapids which has become universally known by
the name Dnieprostroi. This gigantic work, which was con-