V. I. Lenin.
2.
LETTER TO COMRADE OSINSKY.
April 1, [1922]
Comrade Osinsky, After pondering our conversation with you regarding the work of the Agricultural Section of the Party Congress, I have come to the conclusion that the most pressing task now is the following:

Not to tie the hands of ourselves (neither the party, nor the Soviet government) with any sort of prescriptions, directives, or rules, until we have sufficiently collected facts of economic life on the ground, until we have sufficiently studied the actual conditions and needs of the current peasant economy; Under no circumstances to allow what would be most dangerous and harmful at present and which the authorities on the ground can easily lapse into, namely: excessive and unsuccessful, premature, and untested by experience regulation.

The last Congress of Soviets gave a line. The task of the Party Congress, in my opinion, in the agricultural section, is to discuss its application from the point of view of practice and local experience; to order both the Central Committee of the RCP and the Narkomzem (the Soviet government in general) to collect verification facts more carefully and fully; to prescribe,
or
rather to give a directive to the communist faction of the next Session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee when detailing the decision of the Congress of Soviets, i.e., when turning this decision into new and more detailed laws, to be as cautious as possible, so as not to hinder the successful development of agricultural production by inept intervention.

More than anything else in the world now, in my opinion, we must fear precisely inept intervention, until we have thoroughly studied the actual needs of local agricultural life and the actual capabilities of our local apparatus of power (the capabilities not to cause harm in the name of the pious desire to do good).

Therefore, I would imagine a desirable resolution of the Party Congress based on the work of the agricultural section, approximately in the following form:

1) The Party Congress, having heard the report on the work of the agricultural section, takes it into consideration; notes the inadequacy of the collected material on the experience of work on the ground and sets as a priority task for both the party and the communist faction in all Soviet institutions the careful collection and most attentive study of local practical experience.

2) The Congress considers erroneous measures to disband (or hastily remake) institutions of agricultural cooperation, recommends the greatest caution in this regard.

3) On the issue of the conditions for the use of hired labor in agriculture and the lease of land, the Party Congress recommends that all workers in this field not restrict either phenomenon with unnecessary formalities and limit themselves to implementing the decision of the last Congress of Soviets, as well as studying what practical measures would be advisable to limit extremes and harmful exaggerations in the indicated relations.

4) The Congress recognizes the practical assistance in the immediate expansion of sowing, increasing arable land, increasing the amount of agricultural products, and reducing the severe poverty of the peasantry as the primary and most important goal of all party work in the peasantry; while it is necessary with all forces and means to support and encourage assistance to the poorest part of the peasantry, striving through persistent work to develop measures that in practice prove to be suitable in this regard even under current difficult conditions. —

With communist greetings.