ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY AT THE IX ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS*
Government Report

1. Theme: The Internal and External Situation of the RSFSR, the Results of the Reporting Year, and the Tasks Ahead
= for the Coming Year.
NB: D + The First Reporting Year Without Invasion, Without War.

2. The International Situation: Unstable, Yet Marked by a Certain Measure of Equilibrium (Theses
% Based on My Remarks at the Third Congress of the Communist International).

3. The Incredible Has Become Fact: A Socialist Republic in a Capitalist World.
The Path of the International Revolution Is Longer, More Winding—but It Is the Right Path; Otherwise, We Would Not Have What We Have Today—A Socialist Republic Surrounded by Capitalist States.

4. The Elements of This Equilibrium:
I a) We Have Withstood All Challenges II 5. R) The Strength of Our Unity with Workers and toiling People Across All Nations Has Proved
Greater, More Resilient, More Powerful Than the Bonds That Tie the Capitalist Powers Together.
III 6. u) The Aftermath of War: The Decay of Capitalism Continues to Deepen and Spread—Both Internally (Economic

* See this volume, pp. 291–329. Ed.
** See this volume, pp. 3–12. Ed.

PLAN FOR THE REPORT TO THE IX ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
Crisis, Currency) and “Externally,” So to Speak—That Is, the Pressure Exerted by Peoples Oppressed Under Imperialism, Representing Roughly I–] of the World’s Total Population: 100 Million Colonies and Semi-Colonies; Up to One-Quarter of a Billion People Who Were Defeated and Crushed by the Treaty of Versailles, Beyond That.
EE = We Are Weaker in Every Respect (Materially, Militarily; At Present), Yet We Are Stronger in Every Way. How? Why? Because, As We Had Foreseen, Global Economic and Political Development Has Progressed—Both During and After the War.
J Military Parties L ?) Finland

7. The Imminent Dangers to the Balance of Power: a) Poland ?) Romania
U.S.A. 100 /’Alliance of Four Imperialists
England 40 Washingtonian
V Great Powers I
France 40 Conference V J
Japan 60
240 approx. < 1 Billion – ??? of the Earth’s Population.

8. A Series of Trade Agreements \ \
Or Emerging Trade Relations: With England, Sweden, Germany, Norway,
and Others…?
The Importation of New Locomotives from Abroad into Russia in 1921? Regarding Transportation:
1,000 Swedish Locomotives Ordered Overseas
+ 700 German Locomotives. In 1921, 13 Swedish Locomotives + 37 German Locomotives Were Delivered.

* - Summa Summarum – The Grand Total. Ed.

500 Canadian Tank Cars Ordered + 1,000 British Tank Cars. On Their Way to Novorossiysk—and 196 + + 304 = 500 Were Received.
Spare Parts and the Like Ordered to the Value of 15.5 Million Rubles in Gold.
60% Received, Amounting to 9 Million Rubles.
Transport:

In Transport: A Shortage of Fuel and Food. Organization Is Improving:

1920 – 83.3 Thousand Pud-Verses Per Day on

1921 – 101.4 Locomotives

1920: 567 Million Puds Transported by River

1921: 606

9. Trade Relations and Foreign Contacts—The Rise of Our Heavy Industry. A Transition to the Domestic Situation.
Russia’s Foreign Trade:
Imports in Millions

Puds.
Exports

Millions of Puds.
Imports Over
Three Years (1918, 1919, 1920) = 17.32.5
1 Year, 1921 (11 Months) = 50.011.6
First Quarter of 1921: 2.90.5
Second Quarter: 8.42.1
Third Quarter: 24.22.9

10. The Domestic Situation. A Transition to the So-Called “New Economic Policy.”

11. So to Speak, We Rushed Ahead—The Vanguard Threatened to Break Away From the Masses. The Recovery of Heavy Industry Was Delayed.

PLAN FOR THE REPORT TO THE IX ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
12. Since There Exists a Large Mass of Small Peasants, the Transition of Such a Country to Socialism Requires Either the Swiftest Possible Recovery of Heavy Industry—or Such a Flourishing State of Heavy Industry as to Satisfy the Peasants’ Demand for Agricultural Products;
Alternatively, It Calls for Close Ties, Strong Connections, and an Economic Alliance Between the Proletarian State and the Mass of Small Peasants Through Trade.

13. We Tried to Realize the First Possibility—but We Failed. To Deny This, To Downplay It, To Fear to Acknowledge It Would Be a Mistake.
Due to War and Poverty, We Had to Pursue the Most > Revolutionary Path—One Characterized by Minimal Trade, by Compulsory Distribution, by the Most > State-Controlled Allocation: Otherwise, We Would Not Have Endured the War, Nor Would We Have “Broke” the Boycott and the “Provocations” of the Bourgeoisie. Now We Have Broken Them, Forced Obedience Upon Them, and We Can—and Must—Implement a Gradual Transition.

14. We Had Been Insufficiently Supported Economically by the Peasantry; the Strength of the Military and Political Alliance Between Workers and Peasants Did Not Match the Insufficient Strength of Their Economic Alliance.
We Are Now Undertaking a Strategic Retreat That Will Grant Us a Broader Front for Offensives in the Near Future, Establishing a Deeper, More Solid Economic Link With Millions of Small Peasants, With the Mass of Peasantry, and Making Our Alliance—The Alliance Between Workers and Peasants—the Foundation of Our Entire Soviet Revolution, of Our Entire Soviet Republic, Indomitable.

15. We Are Retreating (Let Us Not Fear to Admit This; Retreat Is Not the Problem—What Is Truly Dangerous Are Illusions and Self-Deception, and What Is Deadly Is the Fear of Truth)
To What End?

To State Capitalism (Concessions) G NB
To Cooperative Capitalism ¦< And to Trade
To Private Enterprise Capitalism. govle

16. The Core Task of This Retreat: To Forge Links With Peasant Households, To Meet Their Most Urgent Economic Needs, To Build a Solid Economic Alliance, To Increase Productive Forces in the First Instance, To Restore Heavy Industry.
Trade and Turnover (Under State Control) in Industry and Agriculture.

17. The Central Union and Its Turnover Over the Last Three Months.
The Central Union. Growth in Domestic Trade:
Central Union Turnover in Millions of Rubles in Gold % of Total Expenditures Relative to Turnover—Procurement of Grain and Feed in Millions of Puds
1921IX – 36 Billion Rubles 1 VIII – 0.5
X – 116 » » 3 23V4% IX – 2.3

XI – 227 » » 6 13% X – 1.5
12% XI – 2.7
10 Days XII – I.,

18. Famine and the Struggle Against It.
Relatively Successful Completion of the Task of Delivering Seeds for the Autumn Sowing of 1921.
APA, Assistance to Workers Abroad.
Detailed Reports by Kalinin, Kamenev, Osinsky.
2.6 Million Puds Received, Approximately 630 Thousand Gold Rubles.
Kalinin.
NB 18 bis Improvement of Peasant Agricultural Practices.

* – Second Time Around. Ed.

PLAN FOR THE REPORT TO THE IX ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
Purebred seeds in state‑established nurseries
1921–60,000 poods; by 1922, 300,000 poods
Seeds were distributed to 15 famine‑stricken provinces, totaling 12 million poods.
Of these, 3.6 million dessiatins were sown— equivalent to 75% of the winter crop area cultivated in 1920.
The region, partially affected by disaster, saw production rise to 102%, while areas producing 123% of their winter crop consumed 126% of it.
18 ter.* Outcomes of the tax in kind. Deficit. We will purchase abroad—and yet a deficit remains.
We must marshal all our forces and exert every possible pressure...

19. Weak but nonetheless emerging signs of revival: Fuel:
Millions of poods. In total, Donbas per miner
Donbas, 1920: 272.6 million poods; 466 thousand poods in the first half‑year of 1921—1,631 poods.
1921: 350.0 million poods; 536 thousand poods in November 1921—3,400 poods.
Supplies delivered to the Volga region.
Oil: 233 million poods in 1920—103.
255 million poods in 1921—166.9.
Peat: 93 million poods in 1920.
1921: 139 million poods. Firewood.

* — Third time. Ed.

Hydropeat: 1921—2,112 peat pumps—1.1 million poods of peat.
Radchenko a) 1922—20 million poods, up to 10 million poods.
Morozov (10 units ordered from Germany).
Men’shikov R) Hydropeat has made an invention: a method has been discovered to artificially dehydrate peat within just a few hours.
Klasson I ^ch v | Equipment has already been ordered from Germany for a plant that will produce
Kirpichnikov^ J ^ ^ ' ^ dehydrated peat and peat powder—fuel capable of burning with an efficiency comparable to that of the finest petroleum-based fuels.
20. Metallurgy ^1, Yugostal.
Before the war, in 1920, Yugostal produced 257 million poods of pig iron—averaging 6.2 million poods per month. By early 1921, output had risen to 74 thousand poods, with an average of 69.7 million poods—131.9.
1921
November: 270.8 million poods.
Rutgers’ enterprises?
Nadezhdinsky Plant (doubled??)
+ Coal in Siberia
The Urals f aid “in bread”
Hammer and ? 1 million poods from
Vero concession^ of which 0.9 million poods for the Urals
21. Textile industry thousands of poods.
What about cotton? In 1920: 825 spinning yarn
1921: 1,080
? = 6.1%
? Pre‑war levels)

* This paragraph was crossed out in the manuscript by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

PLAN FOR THE REPORT TO THE IX ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
22. Glavzemkhoz? 1919–1922
Number of industrial enterprises: 233–1,080
Sovkhozes
Land under their control: 44 thousand dessiatins—202 thousand dessiatins.
Arable land: 5 thousand dessiatins—130 thousand dessiatins, a 26‑fold increase.
% of uncultivated land: 74%—21%.
23. Electrification. The report of the VIII Congress of Electrical Engineers—Krzysztofowski’s pamphlet—forecasts that by spring 1922, construction of the Kashirka and Utkina Zavodi power plants will be completed.
Printed in “Economic Life” 203.
1918 and 1919… 1920 and 1921…
1921:
Power stations
51–221
Power stations
136–85
Station
»
thousands of kW
3.6–12.3 thousands of kW
9.5
2.8
24. Yet another crucial aspect of the “New Economic Policy”: learning how to manage the economy—the “economic accounting”—and fostering more equitable relations between factory management and trade unions.
Trade unions can—and must—learn not only to act swiftly, grasping opportunities as they arise, but also to observe carefully, scrutinize closely, weigh decisions thoughtfully, and reflect upon outcomes.
We have begun to learn more seriously—each of us, the Party, the state organs,
the merchant, and
||| the arrogance of the trade unions
I And
I the Communist Party on a le defaut J de ses qualites
Trade unions, though less noisy, should learn to manage the economy with greater care, depth, and seriousness—learning not only to grasp opportunities at once, but also to look closely, to examine thoroughly, to weigh options carefully, and to deliberate on the consequences.
We must learn to build the economy more thoughtfully, to restore and operate large-scale industry, and to establish proper relations between the proletarian state and the peasantry.
25. After a political upheaval, its effects must be digested over a long period—and the longer the process takes, the more numerous the small producers, the more illiterate the population. Cultural and economic work. “Small matters”? Yes, these are now the crux of the matter. The transition from the world’s greatest political
upheaval to the completion of the bourgeois‑democratic revolution I
to the end of the imperialist war
^Soviet power _,
* to the world’s greatest economic achievement. A thirst for learning
¦( Learning both within and beyond the school walls—learning to drive economic recovery. ? Here, we are talking about a decade.
The growth of this thirst for learning is expressed very roughly and imprecisely.
1920
1921
Reading rooms: 34 thousand—37 (+10%)
Students enrolled in vocational schools: 47 thousand—95 thousand (+100%)
Workers’ faculties (students): 17 thousand—41 thousand (+143%)
NB VChK:
25 bis Strengthening the rule of law within the VChK and reforming its structure

* — A person’s shortcomings are, in a sense, the natural extension of their virtues. Ed.

PLAN FOR THE REPORT TO THE IX ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
26. Conclusion. There.
Tasks for weeks, months
Our task is aligned with the world’s great challenge: large-scale industry (a minority of the population) and hundreds of millions of backward, smallholder peasants.
And we shall overcome this challenge: achieving the final victory of socialism across the globe.
Written in December, no later than the 23rd, 1921.
First published in 1933 in the Lenin Collection, Volume XXIII

Printed from the manuscript