On the Monopoly of Foreign Trade
To Comrade Stalin, for the Plenum of the Central Committee
I believe the most crucial task is to thoroughly examine Comrade Bukharin’s letter. In the first point, he asserts that “neither Lenin nor Krasin utter a single word about the countless losses incurred by the national economy due to the Narkomtorg’s inefficiency—losses that stem from its ‘principled’ organizational structure—and not a single word is said about the losses arising from our own inability (and, for quite understandable reasons, our continued inability for a long time to come) to mobilize the peasant commodity reserve and channel it into international trade.”
This claim is plainly false, for Krasin explicitly states in Paragraph II, concerning the establishment of mixed enterprises, that such enterprises represent, first, a means of mobilizing the peasant commodity reserve and, second, a way to secure profits from this mobilization—profits that are to be directed, at least half of them, into the state treasury. It is precisely Bukharin who sidesteps the heart of the matter, refusing to acknowledge that “mobilizing the peasant commodity reserve” will yield all income—and exclusively so—to the NEPmen. The question at hand is whether our Narkomtorg will work to benefit the NEPmen or whether it will serve the interests of the proletarian state. This is a fundamental issue over which we can—and indeed must—wage a decisive struggle at the Party Congress.
The question of the Narkomtorg’s inefficiency, when compared with this first, primary, principled question, is entirely subordinate; for this inefficiency is no more and no less than the inefficiency of all our People’s Commissariats—a condition rooted in their overall social structure and one that demands years of relentless effort on our part to raise educational standards and elevate the general level of development.
In the second point of his theses, Bukharin declares that “certain provisions—such as, for example, § 5 of Krasin’s theses—are fully applicable to concessions in general.” Once again, this is an egregious falsehood: Krasin’s fifth thesis explicitly states that “in the countryside, the most vicious exploiter will be artificially introduced—the merchant, the speculator, the agent of foreign capital, wielding the dollar, the pound, the Swedish krona.” Nothing of the sort follows from concessions, in which we envisage not only the allocation of specific territories but also the granting of special licenses for trading in particular commodities—and, most importantly, we retain control over the trade in those very commodities entrusted to concessionaires. Without offering a single objection to Krasin’s argument that we cannot maintain free trade within the framework prescribed by the resolution of the Plenum of October 6—that not only smugglers but the entire peasantry will seize control of trade by sheer force of momentum—without responding in any way to this fundamental economic and class-based argument, Bukharin levels accusations against Krasin that are utterly untenable.
In the third point of his letter, Bukharin writes: “§ 3 of Krasin.” (He inadvertently refers to 3 instead of 4.) “Our border is held,” he asks, “What does that mean? In reality, it means that nothing is being done—at exactly the same level as a shop with a fine public signboard, yet devoid of goods (the system of Glavzapora).” Krasin makes it perfectly clear that our border is sustained less by customs or border security than by the very existence of a monopoly on foreign trade. Bukharin neither objects to this clear, direct, and incontrovertible fact—and he cannot possibly object to it in the slightest. The expression “Glavzapora system” belongs to that category of formulations which

On the Monopoly of Foreign Trade
At one time, Marx responded to such claims with the term “free-trader vulgaris”202—for there is nothing here except a thoroughly vulgar free-trade slogan.
Further, in the fourth point, Bukharin accuses Krasin of failing to recognize that we must move toward the refinement of our customs policy—and in the same breath, he reproaches me for mistakenly speaking of inspectors stationed throughout the country, when in fact the discussion concerns only import and export checkpoints. Once again, Bukharin’s objections betray a superficiality that misses the mark, for Krasin not only sees the need for refining our customs policy—he not only fully acknowledges it, but also points out the precise measures required, leaving no room for even the slightest doubt. Indeed, this refinement consists in our adoption of a system of monopoly over foreign trade, first, and, second, the establishment of mixed enterprises.
Bukharin fails to see—which is his most striking, and purely theoretical, error—that no customs policy can truly be effective in the age of imperialism and in an era of monstrous disparities between impoverished nations and countries of unimaginable wealth. Time and again, Bukharin appeals to customs protection, oblivious to the fact that, under the conditions he describes, any of the wealthy industrial nations could completely dismantle that very protection. All that would be needed is for such a nation to introduce an export subsidy on goods imported into Russia that are already subject to customs duties in our own country. Any industrial nation has more than enough funds to do so—and the result of such a measure would inevitably spell the doom of our indigenous industry.
Therefore, all of Bukharin’s discussions of customs policy in practice amount to nothing less than the complete defenselessness of Russian industry, cloaked only in the lightest of veils while quietly paving the way for a system of free trade. We must fight against this with every ounce of our strength—and continue to fight until the Party Congress, for there can be no talk of a serious customs policy

In the present era of imperialism, there can be no question whatsoever except within the framework of a monopoly system of foreign trade.
The accusation leveled against Bukharin by Krasin—that he fails to grasp the full significance of intensifying circulation—is utterly refuted by what Krasin himself has said about mixed enterprises, for these mixed enterprises pursue no other goal than precisely that: to boost circulation while preserving the real, rather than the fictitious, protection of our Russian industry—as was the case under customs protection.
Furthermore, in the sixth point, when Bukharin objects to me by claiming that he does not care whether the peasant strikes the most advantageous deal, and that the struggle will not be between the peasant and Soviet power, but between Soviet power and the exporter, this too is fundamentally mistaken. For under the conditions I have described—such as the price differentials I have cited (flax costs 4 rubles 50 kopeks in Russia, whereas in England it fetches 14 rubles)—the exporter mobilizes the entire peasantry around him in the swiftest, most reliable, and most certain manner. In practice, Bukharin ends up defending the speculator, the petty bourgeois, and the rural elites against the industrial proletariat—a proletariat that is utterly incapable of rebuilding its own industries or of transforming Russia into an industrial nation—unless such transformation is achieved not through any form of customs policy, but solely through the monopoly of foreign trade. Any other kind of protectionism under the conditions prevailing in modern Russia is nothing more than a purely illusory, paper‑based protectionism that yields absolutely nothing to the proletariat. Therefore, from the standpoint of the proletariat and its industry, this struggle assumes the most fundamental, the most principled significance. The system of mixed enterprises is the only one capable of genuinely improving the woefully inadequate apparatus of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade; for under this system, both foreign merchants and Russian traders operate side by side. If we are unable even under such conditions to learn, to acquire knowledge, and to master our craft thoroughly, then our people will truly be doomed—nothing short of a nation of fools.
If we begin to talk about “customs protection,” then we are merely muddying the waters for ourselves—

ON THE MONOPOLY OF FOREIGN TRADE
and closing our eyes to the dangers that Krasin had pointed out with complete clarity—and which Bukharin failed to refute in a single respect.
I would add that partial border openings carry with them the gravest risks with regard to currency, for we would find ourselves in a situation virtually identical to Germany’s; they also entail the most serious dangers in terms of infiltration into Russia, leaving us—along with the petty bourgeoisie and all manner of agents of foreign Russia—completely without any effective means of control.
To make use of mixed enterprises in order to learn seriously and over the long term—that is the sole path toward restoring our industry.
Lenin
Dictated over the telephone on December 13, 1922.
First published, in incomplete form, on January 26, 1924, in the newspaper Izvestia of the VTsIK, No. 21.
First published in full in 1930 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya, Nos. 2–3.

Printed from the secretary’s record (a typewritten copy).