V. I.

Lenin

1

SPEECH ON THE QUESTION OF SETTING UP
A SUPREME ECONOMIC
COUNCIL [1]

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Lenin speaks in defence of the Soviet draft, pointing out that the Supreme Economic Council cannot be reduced
to a parliament, but must be the same kind of fighting organ
for combating the capitalists and landowners in the economy
as the Council of People’s Commissars is in politics.

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Notes:
[1]
The question of setting up a Supreme Economic Council (S.E.C.)
was raised directly after the October Revolution. On October
26 or 27 (November 8 or 9), 1917, a meeting of the Central Council
of the Petrograd factory committees in which Lenin took part
discussed the project for a governing economic body. In his speech at an enlarged meeting of the Petrograd Trade Union Council
on November 9 (22), Lenin drew attention to the need to create
machinery for running the Soviet economy and said that preparations for the establishment of such organisations were already
under way. The draft for the organisation of a supreme economic
body was worked out by a special commission set up by the
Council of People’s Commissars.

The Bolshevik group of the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee discussed the matter and stressed the need to make the
Supreme Economic Council a militant organ of the working-class
dictatorship by investing it with legislative powers. On
December 1 (14) the question was taken up by the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee. The Left S.R.s demanded an enlargement
of the S.E.C.’s peasant section and insisted that the Council
should be under the All-Russia Central Executive Committee
instead of the Council of People’s Commissars, as the draft proposed.
This was opposed by Lenin and the amendments were, voted down
by a majority. The decree on the Supreme Economic Council was
approved and published in Gazeta Vremennogo Rabochego i Krestyanskogo Pravitelstva (Gazette of the Provisional Workers’
and Peasants’ Government) No. 25 on December 5 (18).

Lenin devoted much attention to organising the work of the
Supreme Economic Council, directed its activity and spoke at
congresses of economic councils. The question of organising its
activity was repeatedly discussed by the Council of People’s
Commissars. Thus, a government decision of December 23, 1917
(January 5, 1918) said that the S.E.C. must be transformed from
a discussion body into one actually directing industry. On
January 19 (February 1), 1918, the government discussed the question of
the S.E.C.’s activity and the need to eliminate duplication in
the work of the S.E.C. and economic commissariats and departments, and adopted a circular binding the S.E.C. and all
commissariats to work in close contact with each other. The draft
circular had been amended and edited by Lenin (see Lenin Miscellany XXI , pp. 122–23).

When large-scale industry was fully nationalised, the S.E.C.
became its organ of management.