a bunch of knaves about the Bolsheviks in the spirit of our Alesksinsky, and what's more, he indulges in dancing and triumphing over the concessions. I said even then that this is a complete distortion. Yesterday international capital wanted to strangle us, and today we have a number of agreements with this international capital.
We are making sacrifices, giving foreign capital millions of the most valuable materials, on which they can make hundreds of percent profit. These are the sacrifices that we are making completely consciously. But at the same time, we must note that we allow them to take any profit they want, but at the same time we must receive the benefits we need, i.e. an increase in the quantity of products and, if possible, an improvement in the situation of our workers, both those employed in concession enterprises and those not employed.
Here, Comrade Shlyapnikov said that it would be good to give the concession to Russian workers. But it's ridiculous to say that. Then we need to guarantee fuel, etc., but we cannot guarantee this to our most shock enterprises. Things are bad with fuel. Any agreement on concessions with Russian workers is in principle quite permissible, but such a solution to the issue is not serious for our large industry, since we cannot guarantee them anything, while foreign concessionaires can bring it from abroad. That is the difference between an agreement with foreign capitalists. They have a world market, we do not have a secure economic rear and we must kill at least 10 years to create it, which we must soberly take into account. All our employees on this issue have proven this position.
We know that the electrification plan is the most economical. We cannot lease our large factories to Russian workers. Here, we must bet on small industry, develop it and not scold our food tax measures in the first place, as Comrade Ryazanov or the author of that brochure scold them, in which it is written that we are implementing anarcho-syndicalist laws.
Regarding the development of small industry, we must take several steps, since without state guarantees we can get something right now, and since we cannot guarantee even our most shock enterprises, we must develop small industry with all our might, it will give us some products necessary for the peasant.

On the issue of "chistogan" or bonuses, I will say: it was terrible when the capitalists were in power, but it cannot be terrible for us, since we have all the factories and enterprises in our hands and now we have not even leased a tenth of them to the capitalists. I repeat, bonuses are not terrible for us, since the capitalists will be obliged to keep the goods that we specify, not only salted fish, as was indicated here, but this and that. Once we take the norm of a foreign worker, then we know that according to the norm he receives even more and better products than a Russian worker.
Here
Shlyapnikov said:
"They've seen concessions."
Both Comrade Shlyapnikov and many practitioners make this mistake.
I had to hear: "You judge concessions schematically. The capitalist always fooled the most experienced
Russian lawyers."
Of course, he fooled them when the state power was with the capitalist and all the power was with the capitalist.
What did the state power represent? A committee for the affairs of the commanding propertied class - that was
state power.
A committee for the affairs of landlords and capitalists - that's what the capitalist government was. But, if we, having in our hands the majority of factories,
plants and railways and the party at the head - communist
cells from below and communists from above, if we still cannot defend
ourselves, then we must end our lives by suicide. That's what it is -:
panic!
But I think, no matter how bad we are, we are still not so bad
that we allow ourselves to be fooled and, if we have so far concluded several agreements, in which the government power in
France and England used the services of first-class bourgeois diplomats and, if under these conditions we have not been fooled even once, then why panic, as if we will be fooled with bonuses? Let us recall the Brest Treaty. What was difficult about the Brest Treaty? What was the difficulty of defending it? When I
was asked if I hoped that we would be able to fool the Germans, I was officially obliged to say that I did not hope so. But now the Brest
Treaty has receded into the realm of history.
I don't know if that brochure prepared by Comrade Kamenev came out (it talks about Ludendorff), but I know that no one other than Ludendorff wrote a brilliant volume of his memoirs, where 10 pages are devoted to the Brest negotiations. When
we and Kamenev read this chapter, we said: this is the best justification for the Brest Treaty. He there recounts how they were pressured