V. I. Lenin

March 29- April 5, 1920 [1]

Opening Speech March 29
Report Of The Central Committee March 29
Reply To The Discussion On The Report Of The Central Committee March 30
Speech On Economic Development March 31
Speech On The Co-Operatives April 3
Speech Closing The Congress April 5
Endnotes

1

Opening Speech

March 29

First of all allow me on behalf of the Central
Committee of the Russian Communist Party to greet the delegates
who have assembled for the Party Congress.

Comrades, we are opening this present Congress of the Party at
a highly important moment. The internal development of our
revolution has led to very big and rapid victories over the enemy
in the Civil War, and, in view of the international situation,
these victories, we find, are nothing more nor less than the
victory of the Soviet revolution in the first country to make this
revolution—a very weak and backward country—a victory over the combined forces of world capitalism and imperialism. And
after these victories we may now proceed with calm and firm
assurance to the immediate tasks of peaceful economic development,
confident that the present Congress, having reviewed the
experience of over two years of Soviet work, will be able to
utilise the lesson gained in order to cope with the more difficult
and complex task of economic development that now confronts
us. From the international standpoint, our position has never been
as favourable as it is now; and what fills us with particular joy
and vigour is the news we are daily receiving from Germany, which
shows that, however difficult and painful the birth of a socialist
revolution may be, the proletarian Soviet power in Germany is
spreading irresistibly. The part played by the German
Kornilov-type putsch was similar to that of Kornilov revolt in
Russia. After that a swing towards a workers’ government
began, not only among the masses of urban workers, but also among
the rural proletariat of Ger- many. And this swing is of historic
importance. Not only is it one more absolute confirmation of the
correctness of the line, but it gives us the assurance that the
time is not far off when we shall be marching hand in hand with a
German Soviet government. ( Applause. )

I hereby open the Congress and request you to nominate a
presidium.

2

Report Of The Central Committee

March 29

Comrades, before beginning my report I must say that, like the
report at the preceding Congress, it is divided into two parts:
political and organisational. This division first of all leads one
to think of the way the work of the Central Committee has
developed in its external aspect, the organisational aspect. Our
Party has now been through its first year without Y. M. Sverdlov,
and our loss was bound to tell on the whole organisation of the
Central Committee. No one has been able to combine organisational
and political work in one person so successfully as Comrade
Sverdlov did and we have been obliged to attempt to replace his
work by the work of a collegium.

During the year under review the current daily work of the
Central Committee has been conducted by the two collegiums elected
by the plenary meeting of the Central Committee—the
Organising Bureau of the Central Committee and the Political
Bureau of the Central Committee. In order to achieve co-ordination
and consistency in the decisions of these two bodies, the
Secretary was a member of both. In practice it has become the main
and proper function of the Organising Bureau to distribute the
forces of the Party, and that of the Political Bureau to deal with
political questions. It goes without saying that this distinction
is to a certain extent artificial; it is obvious that no policy
can be carried out in practice without finding expression in
appointments and transfers. Consequently, every organisational
question assumes a political significance; and it has become the
established practice for the request of a single member of the
Central Committee to be sufficient to have any question, for one
reason or another, examined as a political question. To have
attempted to divide the functions of the Central Committee in any
other way would hardly have been expedient and in practice would
hardly have achieved its purpose.

This method of conducting business has produced extremely good
results: no difficulties have arisen between the two bureaus on
any occasion. The work of these bodies has on the whole proceeded
harmoniously, and practical implementation has been facilitated by
the presence of the Secretary who acted, furthermore, solely and
exclusively in pursuance of the will of the Central Committee. It
must be emphasised from the very outset, so as to remove all
misunderstanding, that only the corporate decisions of the Central
Committee adopted in the Organising Bureau or the Political
Bureau, or by a plenary meeting of the Central
Committee—only these decisions were carried out by the
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party. The work of the
Central Committee cannot otherwise proceed properly.

After these brief remarks on the arrangement of work within the
Central Committee, I shall get on with my job, which is the report
of the Central Committee. To present a report on the political
work of the Central Committee is a highly difficult task if
understood literally. A large part of the work of the Political
Bureau has this year consisted in making the current decision on
the various questions of policy that have arisen, questions of
co-ordinating the activities of all the Soviet and Party
institutions and all organisations of the working class, of
co-ordinating and doing their utmost to direct the work of the
entire Soviet Republic. The Political Bureau adopted decisions on
all questions of foreign and domestic policy. Naturally, to
attempt to enumerate these questions, even approximately, would be
impossible. You will find material for a general summary in the
printed matter prepared by the Central Committee for this
Congress. To attempt to repeat this summary in my report would be
beyond my powers, and I do not think it would be interesting to
the delegates. All of us who work in a Party or Soviet organisation keep daily track of the extraordinary succession of
political questions, both foreign and domestic. The way these
questions have been decided, as expressed in the decrees of the
Soviet government, and in the activities of the Party organisations, at every turn, is in itself an evaluation of the
Central Committee of the Party. It must be said that the questions
were so numerous that they frequently had to be decided under
conditions of extreme haste, and it was only because the members
of the body concerned were so well acquainted with each other,
knew every shade of opinion and had confidence in each other, that
this work could be done at all. Otherwise it would have been
beyond the powers of a body even three times the size. When
deciding complex questions it frequently happened that meetings
had to be replaced by telephone conversations. This was done in
the full assurance that obviously complicated and disputed
questions would not be overlooked. Now, when I am called upon to
make a general report, instead of giving a chronological review
and a grouping of subjects, I shall take the liberty of dwelling
on the main and most essential points, such, moreover, as link up
the experience of yesterday, or, more correctly, of the past year,
with the tasks that now confront us.

The time is not yet ripe for a history of Soviet government. And even if it were, I must say for myself—and I
think for the Central Committee as well—that we have no
intention of becoming historians. What interests us is the present
and the future. We take the past year under review as material, as
a lesson, as a stepping-stone, from which we must proceed
further. Regarded from this point of view, the work of the Central
Committee falls into two big categories—work connected with
war problems and those determining the international position of
the Republic, and work of internal, peace-time economic
development, which only began to come to the fore at the end of
the last year perhaps, or the beginning of this year, when it
became quite clear that we had won a decisive victory on the
decisive fronts of the Civil War. Last spring our military
situation was an extremely difficult one; as you remember, we were
still to experience quite a number of defeats, of new, huge and
unexpected offensives on the part of the counter-revolution and
the Entente, none of which could have been anticipated by us. It
was therefore only natural that the greater part of this period
was devoted to the military problem, the problem of the Civil War,
which seemed unsolvable to all the faint-hearted, not to speak of
the parties of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and
other petty-bourgeois democrats, and to all the intermediate
elements; this induced them to declare quite sincerely that the
problem could not be solved, that Russia was backward and
enfeebled and could not vanquish the capitalist system of the
entire world, seeing that the revolution in the West had been
delayed. And we therefore had to maintain our position and to
declare with absolute firmness and conviction that we would win,
we had to implement the slogans “Everything for victory!” and “Everything for the war!”

To carry out these slogans it was necessary to deliberately and
openly leave some of the most essential needs unsatisfied, and
time and again to deny assistance to many, in the conviction that
all forces had to be concentrated on the war, and that we had to
win the war which the Entente had forced upon us. It was only
because of the Party’s vigilance and its strict discipline,
because the authority of the Party united all government
departments and institutions, because the slogans issued by the
Central Committee were adopted by tens, hundreds, thousands and
finally millions of people as one man, because incredible
sacrifices were made—it was only because of all this that
the miracle which occurred was made possible. It was only because
of all this that we were able to win in spite of the campaigns of
the imperialists of the Entente and of the whole world having been
repeated twice, thrice and even four times. And, of course, we not
only stress this aspect of the matter; we must also bear in mind
that it teaches us that without discipline and centralisation we
would never have accomplished this task. The incredible sacrifices
that we have made in order to save the country from counter-revolution and in order to ensure the victory of the
Russian revolution over Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak are a
guarantee of the world social revolution. To achieve this, we had
to have Party discipline, the strictest centralisation and the
absolute certainty that the untold sacrifices of tens and hundreds
of thousands of people would help us to accomplish all these
tasks, and that it really could be done, could be accomplished. And for this purpose it was essential that our Party
and the class which is exercising the dictatorship, the working
class, should serve as elements uniting millions upon millions of
working people in Russia and all over the world.

If we give some thought to what, after all, was the underlying
reason for this historical miracle, why a weak, exhausted and
backward country was able to defeat the most powerful countries in
the world, we shall find that it was centralisation, discipline
and unparalleled self-sacrifice. On what basis? Millions of
working people in a country that was anything but educated could
achieve this organisation, discipline and centralisation only
because the workers had passed through the school of capitalism
and had been united by capitalism, because the proletariat in all
the advanced countries has united—and united the more, the
more advanced the country; and on the other hand, because
property, capitalist property, small property under commodity
production, disunites. Property disunites, whereas we are uniting,
and increasingly uniting, millions of working people all over the
world. This is now clear even to the blind, one might say, or at
least to those who will not see. Our enemies grew more and more
disunited as time went on. They were disunited by capitalist
property, by private property under commodity production, whether
they were small proprietors who profiteered by selling surplus
grain at exorbitant prices and enriched themselves at the expense
of the starving workers, or the capitalists of the various
countries, even though they possessed military might and were
creating a League of Nations, a “great united league” of all the foremost nations of the world. Unity of this kind is a
sheer fiction, a sheer fraud, a sheer lie. And we have seen—and this was a great example—that this notorious
League of Nations, which attempted to hand out mandates for the
government of states, to divide up the world—that this notorious alliance proved to be a soap-bubble which at once burst,
because it was an alliance founded on capitalist property. We have
seen this on a vast historical scale, and it confirms that
fundamental truth which told us that our cause was just, that the
victory of the October Revolution was absolutely certain, and that
the cause we were embarking on was one to which, despite all
difficulties and obstacles, millions and millions of working
people in all countries would rally. We knew that we had allies,
that it was only necessary for the one country to which history
had presented this honourable and most difficult task to display a
spirit of self-sacrifice, for these incredible sacrifices to be
repaid a hundredfold—every month we held out in our country
would win us millions and millions of allies in all countries of
the world.

If, after all, we give some thought to the reason we were able
to win, were bound to win, we shall find that it was only because
all our enemies—who were formally tied by all sorts of bonds
to the most powerful governments and capitalists in the
world—however united they may have been formally, actually
turned out to be disunited. Their internal bond in fact disunited
them, pitted them against each other. Capitalist property
disintegrated them, transformed them from allies into savage
beasts, so that they failed to see that Soviet Russia was
increasing the number of her followers among the British soldiers
who had been landed in Archangel, among the French sailors in
Sevastopol, among the workers of all countries, of all the
advanced countries without exception, where the social-compromisers took the side of capital. In the final
analysis this was the fundamental reason, the underlying reason,
that made our victory certain and which is still the chief,
insuperable and inexhaustible source of our strength; and it
permits us to affirm that when we in our country achieve the
dictatorship of the proletariat in full measure, and the maximum
unity of its forces, through its vanguard, its advanced party, we
may expect the world revolution. And this in fact is an expression
of will, an expression of the proletarian determination to fight;
it is an expression of the proletarian determination to achieve an
alliance of millions upon millions of workers of all countries.

The bourgeoisie and the pseudo-socialist gentry of the Second
International have declared this to be mere propagandist talk. But
it is not, it is historical reality, borne out by the bloody and
painful experience of the Civil War in Russia. For this Civil War
was a war against world capital; and world capital disintegrated
of itself, devoured itself, amidst strife, whereas we, in a
country where the proletariat was perishing from hunger and
typhus, emerged more hardened and stronger than ever. In this
country we won the support of increasing numbers of working
people. What the compromisers formerly regarded as propagandist
talk and the bourgeoisie were accustomed to sneer at, has been
transformed in these years of our revolution, and particularly in
the year under review, into an absolute and indisputable
historical fact, which enables us to say with the most positive
conviction that our having accomplished this is evidence that we
possess a world-wide basis, immeasurably wider than was the case
in any previous revolution. We have an international alliance, an
alliance which has nowhere been registered, which has never been
given formal embodiment, which from the point of view of
“constitutional law” means nothing, but which, in the disintegrating capitalist world, actually means everything. Every
month that we gained positions, or merely held out against an
incredibly powerful enemy, proved to the whole world that we were
right and brought us millions of new supporters.

This process has been a difficult one; it has been accompanied
by tremendous defeats. In this very year under review the
monstrous White terror in Finland [2] was followed by the
defeat of the Hungarian revolution, which was stifled by the
governments of the Entente countries that deceived their
parliaments and concluded a secret treaty with Rumania.

It was the vilest piece of treachery, this conspiracy of the
international Entente to crush the Hungarian revolution by means
of a White terror, not to mention the fact that in order to
strangle the German revolution they were ready for any understanding with the German compromisers, [3] and that
these people, who had declared Liebknecht to be an honest German,
pounced on this honest German like mad dogs together with the
German imperialists. They exceeded all conceivable bounds; but
every such act of suppression on their part only strengthened and
consolidated us, while it undermined them.

And it seems to me that we must first and foremost draw a
lesson from this fundamental experience. Here we must make a
special point of basing our agitation and propaganda on an
analysis, an explanation of why we were victorious, why the
sacrifices made in the Civil War have been repaid a hundredfold,
and how we must act, on the basis of this experience, in order to
succeed in another war, a war on a bloodless front, a war which
has only changed its form, but which is being waged against us by
those same representatives, lackeys and leaders of the old
capitalist world, only still more vigorously, still more
furiously, still more zealously. More than any other, our
revolution has proved the rule that the strength of a revolution,
the vigour of its assault, its energy, determination, its victory
and its triumph intensify the resistance of the bourgeoisie. The
more victorious we are the more the capitalist exploiters learn to
unite and the more determined their onslaught. For, as you all
distinctly remember—it was not so long ago when judged by
the passage of time, but a long time ago when judged by the march
of events—at the beginning of the October Revolution
Bolshevism was regarded as a freak; this view, which was a
reflection of the feeble development and weakness of the
proletarian revolution, very soon had to be abandoned in Russia
and has now been abandoned in Europe as well. Bolshevism has
become a world-wide phenomenon, the workers’ revolution has
raised its head. The Soviet system, in creating which in October
we followed the traditions of 1905, developing our own experience—this Soviet system has become a phenomenon of
world-historic importance.

Two camps are now quite consciously facing each other all over
the world; this may be said without the slightest exaggeration. It
should be noted that only this year have they become locked in a
decisive and final struggle. And now, at the time of this very
Congress, we are passing through what is perhaps one of the
greatest, most acute but not yet completed periods of transition
from war to peace.

You all know what happened to the leaders of the imperialist
powers of the Entente who loudly announced to the whole world:
“We shall never stop fighting those usurpers, those bandits,
those arrogators of power, those enemies of democracy, those
Bolsheviks”—you know that first they lifted the blockade, that their attempt to unite the small states failed,
because we succeeded in winning over not only the workers of all
countries, but also the bourgeoisie of the small countries, for
the imperialists oppress not only the workers of their own
countries but the bourgeoisie of the small states as well. You
know that we won over the vacil- lating bourgeoisie in the
advanced countries. And the present position is that the Entente
is breaking its former promises and assurances and is violating
the treaties which, incidentally, it concluded dozens of times
with various Russian whiteguards. And now, as far as these
treaties are concerned, the Entente is the loser, for it
squandered hundreds of millions on them but failed to complete the
job.

It has now lifted the blockade and has virtually begun peace
negotiations with the Soviet Republic. But it is not completing
these negotiations, and therefore the small states have lost faith
in it and in its might. So we see that the position of the
Entente, its position in foreign affairs, defies all definition
from the standpoint of the customary concepts of law. The states
of the Entente are neither at peace with the Bolsheviks nor at war
with them; they have recognised us and they have not recognised
us. And this utter confusion among our opponents, who were so
convinced that they represented something, proves that they
represent nothing but a pack of capitalist beasts who have fallen
out among themselves and are absolutely incapable of doing us any
harm.

The position today is that Latvia has officially made peace
proposals [4] to us. Finland has sent a telegram which officially speaks of a demarcation line but actually
implies a swing to a policy of peace. [5] Lastly, Poland, the
Poland whose representatives have been, and still are, sabre-rattling so vigorously, the Poland that has been, and
still is, receiving so many trainloads of artillery and promises
of help in everything, if only she would continue the war with
Russia—even Poland, the unstable position of whose government compels her to consent to any military gamble, has
invited us to begin negotiations for peace. [6] We must be extremely cautious. Our policy demands the most careful
thought. Here it is hardest of all to find the proper policy,
for nobody as yet knows on what track the train is standing; the
enemy himself does not know what he is going to do next. The
gentlemen who represent French policy and who are most zealous
in egging Poland on, and the leaders of landowner and bourgeois
Poland do not know what will happen next; they do not know what
they want. Today they say, “Gentlemen, let us have a few
trainloads of guns and a few hundred millions and we are
prepared to fight the Bolsheviks.” They are hushing up the
news of the strikes that are spreading in Poland; they are
tightening up the censorship so as to conceal the truth. But the
revolutionary movement in Poland is growing. The spread of
revolution in Germany, in its new phase, in its new stage, now
that the workers, after the German Kornilov-type putsch, are
creating Red Armies, plainly shows (as can be seen from the
recent dispatches from Germany) that the temper of the workers
is rising more and more. The Polish bourgeoisie and landowners
are themselves beginning to wonder whether it is not too late,
whether there will not be a Soviet Republic in Poland before the
government acts either for war or for peace. They do not know
what to do. They do not know what the morrow will bring.

But we know that our forces are growing vastly every month, and
will grow even more in future. The result is that our international position is now more stable than ever. But we must
watch the international crisis with extreme care and be prepared
for any eventuality. We have received a formal offer of peace from
Poland. These gentlemen are in desperate straits, so desperate
that their friends, the German monarchists, people with better
training and more political experience and knowledge, plunged into
a venturous gamble, a Kornilov-type putsch. The Polish bourgeoisie
are throwing out offers of peace because they know that any
venturous gamble may prove to be a Polish Kornilov-type
affair. Knowing that our enemy is in desperate straits, that our
enemy does not know what he wants to do or what he will do
tomorrow, we must tell ourselves quite definitely that in spite of
the peace overtures war is possible. It is impossible to foretell
what their future conduct will be. We have seen these people
before, we know these Kerenskys, these Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries. During the past two years we have seen
them one day drawn towards Kolchak, the next day almost towards
the Bolsheviks, and then towards Denikin—and all this camouflaged by talk about freedom and democracy. We know these
gentlemen, and therefore we grasp at the proposal of peace with
both hands and are prepared to make the maximum concessions, in
the conviction that the conclusion of peace with the small states
will further our cause infinitely more than war. For the
imperialists used war to deceive the working masses, they used it
to conceal the truth about Soviet Russia. Any peace, therefore,
will open channels for our influence a hundred times wider, which,
as it is, has grow n considerably in these past few years. The
Third, Communist International has achieved unparalleled
successes. But at the same time we know that war may be forced
upon us any day. Our enemies do not themselves know as yet what
they are capable of doing in this respect.

That war preparations are under way, of that there is not the
slightest doubt. Many of the states bordering on Russia—and
perhaps many of those not bordering on Russia—are now arming. That is why we must manoeuvre so flexibly in our
international policy and adhere so firmly to the course we have
taken, that is why we must be prepared for anything. We have waged
the war for peace with extreme vigour. This war is yielding
splendid results. We have made a very good showing in this sphere
of the struggle, at any rate, not inferior to the showing made by
the Red Army on the front where blood is being shed. But the
conclusion of peace with us does not depend on the will of the
small states even if they desire it. They are up to their ears in
debt to the countries of the Entente, who are wrangling and
competing desperately among themselves. We must therefore remember
that peace is of course possible from the point of view of the
world situation, the historical situation created by the Civil War
and by the war against the Entente.

But the measures we take for peace must be accompanied by
intensified preparedness for defence, and in no case must our army
be disarmed. Our army offers a real guarantee that the imperialist
powers will not make the slightest attempt or encroachment on us;
for although they might count on certain ephemeral successes at
first, not one of them would escape defeat at the hands of Soviet
Russia. That we must realise, that must be made the basis of our
agitation and propaganda, that is what we must prepare for, in
order to solve the problem which, in view of our growing fatigue,
compels us to combine the one with the other.

I now pass to those important considerations of principle which
induced us to direct the working masses so resolutely along the
lines of using the army for the solution of certain basic and
immediate problems. The old source of discipline, capital, has
been weakened, the old source of unity has disappeared. We must
create a different kind of discipline, a different source of
discipline and unity. Coercion evokes the indignation, the howls,
the yells and outcries of the bourgeois democrats, who make great
play of the words “freedom” and “equality”, but do not understand that freedom for
capital is a crime against the working people, that equality
between the rich and the destitute is a crime against the working
people. In our fight against falsehood, we introduced labour
conscription and proceeded to unite the working people, not
hesitating to use coercion. For no revolution has ever been
effected without coercion, and the proletariat has a right to
exercise coercion in order to hold its own at all costs. When
those gentry, the bourgeois, the compromisers, the German
Independents, the Austrian Independents, and the French
Longuetists, argued about the historical factor, they always
forgot such a factor as the revolutionary determination, firmness
and steadfastness of the proletariat. And that factor is precisely
the steadfastness and firmness of the proletariat of our country,
which declares, and has proved by its deeds, that we are prepared
to perish to a man rather than yield our territory, rather than
yield our principle, the principle of discipline and firm policy,
for the sake of which everything else must be sacrificed. At the
time when the capitalist countries and the capitalist class are
disintegrating, at this moment of crisis and despair, this
political factor is the only decisive one. Talk about minority and
majority, about democracy and freedom decides nothing, however
much the heroes of a past historical period may invoke them. It is
the class-consciousness and firmness of the working class that
count here. If the working class is prepared to make sacrifices,
if it shows that it is able to strain every nerve, the problem
will be solved. Everything must be directed to the solution of
this problem. The determination of the working class, its
inflexible adherence to the watchword “Death rather than
surrender!” is not only a historical factor, it is the decisive, the winning factor.

We are now going over from this victory and this conviction to
problems of peaceful economic development, the solution of which
is the chief function of our Congress. In this respect we cannot,
in my opinion, speak of a report of the Political Bureau of the
Central Committee, or, rather, of a political report of the
Central Committee. We must say frankly and bluntly that this,
comrades, is a question which you must decide, which you must
weigh with all your authority as the supreme Party body. We have
laid the question before you quite clearly. We have taken up a
definite stand. It is your duty finally to endorse, correct or
amend our decision. But in its report the Central Committee must
say that on this fundamental and urgent question it has adopted an
absolutely definite stand. Yes, the thing now is to apply to the
peaceful work of economic development, to the restoration of our
shattered industry, everything that can weld the proletariat into
an absolute unity. Here we need the iron discipline, the iron
system, without which we could not have held on for two months,
let alone over two years. We must be able to utilise our
success. On the other hand, it must be realised that this
transition will demand many sacrifices, of which the country has
already made so many.

On the principle involved the Central Committee was quite
clear. Our activities were entirely governed by this policy and
conducted in this spirit. Take, for example, the question of
corporate management versus individual management, which you will
have to settle—a question which may appear to be a subsidiary one, and which in itself, if torn from its context,
cannot of course claim to be a fundamental question of principle. This question should be examined only from the point of
view of our basic knowledge, experience and revolutionary
practice. For instance, we are told that “corporate management is one of the forms in which the masses participate in
the work of administration”. But we on the Central Committee
discussed this question and took our decision, which we have to
report to you—comrades, such theoretical confusion cannot be
tolerated. Had we permitted a tenth part of this theoretical
confusion in the fundamental question of our military activities,
of our Civil War, we would have been beaten, and would have
deserved to be beaten.

Permit me, comrades, in connection with the report of the
Central Committee and with this question of whether the new class
should participate in the work of administration on a corporate or
an individual basis, to introduce a little bit of theory, to point
out how a class governs and what class domination actually
is. After all, we are not novices in these matters, and what
distinguishes our revolution from former revolutions is that there
is nothing utopian about it. The new class, having replaced the
old class, can maintain itself only by a desperate struggle
against other classes; and it will finally triumph only if it can
bring about the abolition of classes in general. That is what the
vast and complex process of the class struggle demands; otherwise
you will sink into a morass of confusion. What is class
domination? In what way did the bourgeoisie dominate over the
feudal lords? The Constitution spoke of freedom and equality. That
was a lie. As long as there are working men, property-owners are
in a position to profiteer, and indeed, as property-owners, are
compelled to profiteer. We declare that there is no equality, that
the well-fed man is not the equal of the hungry man, that the
profiteer is not the equal of the working man.

How is class domination expressed today? The domination of the
proletariat consists in the fact that the landowners and
capitalists have been deprived of their property. The spirit and
basic idea of all previous constitutions, even the most republican
and democratic, amounted to one thing—property. Our
Constitution has the right, has won itself the right, to a place
in history by virtue of the fact that the abolition of property is
not confined to a paper declaration. The victorious proletariat
has abolished property, has completely annulled it—and therein lies its domination as a class. The prime thing is the
question of property. As soon as the question of property was
settled practically, the domination of the class was assured. When, after that, the Constitution recorded on paper what
had been actually effected, namely, the abolition of capitalist
and landed property, and added that under the Constitution the
working class enjoys more rights than the peasantry, while
exploiters have no rights whatever—that was a record of the
fact that we had established the domination of our class, thereby
binding to ourselves all sections and all small groups of working
people.

The petty-bourgeois property-owners are disunited; those who
have more property are the enemies of those who have less
property; and the proletarians, by abolishing property, have
declared open war on them. There are still many unenlightened and
ignorant people who are wholly in favour of any kind of freedom of
trade, but who cannot fight when they see the discipline and
self-sacrifice displayed in securing victory over the exploiters;
they are not with us, but are powerless to come out against us. It
is only the domination of a class that determines property
relations and which class is to be on top. Those who, as we so
frequently observe, associate the question of the nature of class
domination with the question of democratic centralism create such
confusion that all successful work on this basis becomes
impossible. Clarity in propaganda and agitation is a fundamental
condition. When our enemies said and admitted that we had
performed miracles in developing agitation and propaganda, that
was not to be understood in the superficial sense that we had
large numbers of agitators and used up large quantities of paper,
but in the intrinsic sense that the truth contained in that
propaganda penetrated to the minds of all; there is no escaping
from that truth.

Whenever classes displaced each other, they changed property
relations. When the bourgeoisie superseded the feudals, it changed
property relations; the Constitution of the bourgeoisie says:
“The man of property is the equal of the beggar.” That was bourgeois freedom. This kind of “equality” ensured
the domination of the capitalist class in the state. But do you
think that when the bourgeoisie superseded the feudals they
confused the state with the administration? No, they were no such
fools. They declared that the work of administration required
people who knew how to administer, and that they would adapt
feudal administrators for that purpose. And that is what they
did. Was it a mistake? No, comrades, the art of administration
does not descend from heaven, it is not inspired by the Holy
Ghost. And the fact that a class is the leading class does not
make it at once capable of administering. We have an example of
this: while the bourgeoisie were establishing their victory they
took for the work of administration members of another class, the
feudal class; there was nowhere else to get them from. We must be
sober and face the facts. The bourgeoisie had recourse to the old
class; and we, too, are now confronted with the task of taking the
knowledge and training of the old class, subordinating it to our
needs, and using it all for the success of our class. We,
therefore, say that the victorious class must be mature, and
maturity is attested not by a document or certificate, but by
experience and practice.

When the bourgeoisie triumphed, they did not know how to
administer; and they made sure of their victory by proclaiming a
new constitution and by recruiting, enlisting administrators from
their own class and training them, utilising for this purpose
administrators of the old class. They began to train their own new
administrators, fitting them for the work with the help of the
whole machinery of state; they sequestrated the feudal institutions and admitted only the wealthy to the schools; and in
this way, in the course of many years and decades, they trained
administrators from their own class. Today, in a state which is
constructed on the pattern and in the image of the dominant class,
we must act as every state has acted. If we do not want to be
guilty of sheer utopianism and meaningless phrase-mongering, we
must say that we must take into account the experience of the
past; that we must safeguard the Constitution won by the
revolution, but that for the work of administration, of organising
the state, we need people who are versed in the art of administration, who have state and business experience, and that
there is nowhere we can turn to for such people except the old
class.

Opinions on corporate management are all too frequently imbued
with a spirit of sheer ignorance, a spirit of opposition to the
specialists. We shall never succeed with such a spirit. In order
to succeed we must understand the history of the old bourgeois
world in all its profundity; and in order to build communism we
must take technology and science and make them available to wider
circles. And we can take them only from the bourgeoisie—there is nowhere else to get them
from. Prominence must be given to this fundamental question, it
must be treated as one of the basic problems of economic
development. We have to administer with the help of people
belonging to the class we have overthrown; they are imbued with
the prejudices of their class and we must re-educate them. At the
same time we must recruit our own administrators from our own
class. We must use the entire machinery of state to put the
schools, adult education, and all practical training at the
service of the proletarians, the factory workers and the labouring
peasants, under the guidance of the Communists.

That is the only way to get things going. After our two
years’ experience we cannot argue as though we were only
just setting about the work of socialist construction. We
committed follies enough in and around the Smolny period. That is
nothing to be ashamed of. How were we to know, seeing that we were
undertaking something absolutely new? We first tried one way, then
another. We swam with the current, because it was impossible to
distinguish the right from the wrong; that requires time. Now that
is all a matter of the recent past, which we have got beyond. That
past, in which chaos and enthusiasm prevailed, is now over. One
document from that past is the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It is a
historic document—more, it was a period of history. The
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was forced upon us because we were
helpless in every way. What sort of period was it? It was a period
of impotence, from which we emerged victorious. It was a period in
which corporate management was universal. You cannot escape that
historical fact by declaring that corporate management is a school
of administration. You cannot stay for ever in the preparatory
class of a school! ( Applause. ) That will not do. We are
grown-up now, and we shall be beaten and beaten again in every
field if we behave like schoolboys. We must push forward. We must
push higher with energy and unanimity of will. Tremendous
difficulties face the trade unions. We must get them to regard
this task in the spirit of the fight against the survivals of the
celebrated democracy. All these outcries against appointees, all
this old and dangerous rubbish which finds its way into various
resolutions and conversations must be swept away. Otherwise we
cannot succeed. If we have failed to master this lesson in these
two years, we are lagging, and those who lag, get beaten.

The task is an extremely difficult one. Our trade unions have
been of tremendous assistance in building the proletarian
state. They were a link between the Party and the unenlightened
millions. Let us not close our eyes to the fact that the trade
unions bore the brunt of the struggle against all our troubles
when the state needed help in food work. Was this not a tremendous
task? The recent issue of the Bulletin of the Central Statistical Board contains summaries by statisticians who
certainly cannot be suspected of Bolshevism. Two interesting
figures are given: in 1918 and 1919 the workers in the consuming
gubernias received seven poods a year, while the peasants in the producing gubernias consumed seventeen
poods a year. Before the war they used to consume sixteen
poods a year. There you have two figures illustrating the
relation of classes in the struggle for food. The proletariat
continued to make sacrifices. People shout about coercion! But the
proletariat justified and legitimatised coercion; it justified it
by making the greatest sacrifices. The majority of the population,
the peasants of the producing gubernias of our starving
and impoverished Russia, for the first time had more food than
throughout the centuries of tsarist and capitalist Russia. And we
say that the masses will go on starving until the Red Army is
victorious. The vanguard of the working class had to make this
sacrifice. This struggle is a school; but when we leave this
school we must go forward. This step must now be taken at all
costs. Like all trade unions, the old trade unions have a history
and a past. In the past they were organs of resistance to those
who oppressed labour, to capitalism. But now that their class has
become the governing class, and is being called upon to make great
sacrifices, to starve and to perish, the situation has changed.

Not everybody understands this change, not everybody grasps its
significance. And certain Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries
who are demanding that corporate management be substituted for
individual management have helped us in this matter. No, comrades,
that won’t work. We have got beyond that. We are now faced
with a very difficult task; having gained victory on the bloody
front, we must now gain victory on the bloodless front. This war
is a more difficult one. This front is the most arduous. We say
this frankly to all class-conscious workers. The war which we have
withstood at the front must be followed by a bloodless war. The
fact is that the more we were victorious, the more regions we
secured like Siberia, the Ukraine and the Kuban. In those regions
there are rich peasants; there are no proletarians, and what
proletariat there is, has been corrupted by petty-bourgeois
habits. We know that everybody who has a piece of land in those
parts says: “A fig for the government, I’ll get all I can out of the starving. A fat lot I care for the
government.” The peasant profiteer who, when left to the
tender mercies of Denikin, was swinging towards us will now be
aided by the Entente. The war has changed its front and its
forms. It is now taking the form of trade, of food profiteering,
which it has made international. In Comrade Kamenev’s theses
published in the Bulletin of the C.C. , R.C.P.(B.) the underlying principles are stated
fully. They want to make food profiteering international. They
want to turn peaceful economic development into the peaceful
disintegration of Soviet power. No you don’t, my imperialist
gentlemen! We are on our guard. We declare: we have fought and
won, and we shall therefore retain as our basic slogan the one
which helped us to victory; we shall fully preserve that slogan
and apply it to the field of labour. That slogan is the firmness
and unity of will of the proletariat. The old prejudices, the old
habits that still remain, must be discarded.

I should like in conclusion, to dwell on Comrade Gusev’s
pamphlet, [7] which in my opinion deserves attention for two reasons. It is a
good pamphlet not only from the formal standpoint, not only
because it has been written for our Congress. Somehow, up to now
we have all been accustomed to writing resolutions. They say that
all literature is good except tedious literature. Resolutions, I
take it, should he classed as tedious literature. It would be
better if we followed Comrade Gusev’s example and wrote
fewer resolutions and more pamphlets, even though they bristled
with errors as his does. The pamphlet is good in spite of these
errors, because it centres attention on a fundamental economic
plan for the restoration of industry and production throughout the
country, and because it subordinates everything to this
fundamental economic plan. The Central Committee has introduced
into the theses distributed today a whole paragraph taken entirely
from Comrade Gusev’s theses. This fundamental economic plan
can be worked out in greater detail with the help of experts. We
must remember that the plan is designed for many years to come. We
do not promise to deliver the country from hunger all at once. We
say that the struggle will be much harder than the one on the war
front. But it is a struggle that interests us more; it brings us
nearer to our immediate and main tasks. It demands that maximum
exertion of effort and that unity of will which we have displayed
before and must display now. If we accomplish this, we shall gain
no less a victory on the bloodless front than on the front of
civil war. ( Applause. )

3

Reply To The Discussion On The Report Of The Central
Committee

March 30

Comrades, the part of the political report of the Central
Committee which evoked chief attack was the one Comrade Sapronov
called vituperation. Comrade Sapronov lent a very definite
character and flavour to the position he defended; and in order to
show you how matters actually stand, I would like to begin by
reminding you of certain basic dates. Here I have before me
Bulletin of the C.C. , R.C.P.(B.) for March 2 in which we printed a letter from the Central Committee to
R.C.P. organisations on the subject of the organisation of the
Congress. And in this first letter we said: “Happily, the
time for purely theoretical discussions, disputes over general
questions and the adoption of resolutions on principles has
passed. That stage is over; it was dealt with and settled
yesterday and the day before yesterday. We must march ahead, and
we must realise that we are now confronted by a practical task , the business task of rapidly overcoming
economic chaos, and we must do it with all our strength, with
truly revolutionary energy, and with the same devotion with which
our finest worker and peasant comrades, the Red Army men, defeated
Kolchak, Yudenich and Denikin.”

I must confess that I was guilty of optimism in thinking that
the time of theoretical discussions had passed. We had theorised
for fifteen years before the revolution, we had been administering
the state for two years, and it was about time we displayed
practical, business-like efficiency; and so, on March 2 we
appealed to comrades with practical experience. In reply,
Tomsky’s theses were published in Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn on March 10, the theses of Comrades Sapronov, Osinsky
and Maximovsky on March 23, and on March 27 the theses of the
Moscow Gubernia Committee appeared—that is, all after our
appeal to the Party. And in all the theses the question was
treated wrongly from the theoretical standpoint. The view we
expressed in the letter was optimistic, mistaken; it had seemed to
us that this period had already passed, but the theses showed that
it had not yet passed, and the comrades from the trade unions have
no right to complain of having been treated unfairly. The question
now is, which is right—our view, or the position advocated
after our appeal of March 2 by all these theses? All of them
contain a lot of practical material to which attention must be
given. If the Central Committee did not give it serious attention,
it would be an absolutely worthless institution.

But listen to what Comrade Tomsky says:

“§7. The basic structural principle of the regulation and management of industry, the only one that can ensure the
participation of broad masses of non-party workers through the
trade unions, is the existing principle of corporate management
of industry, from the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council
down to the factory managements. Only in special cases, and by
mutual agreement between the Presidiums of the Supreme Economic
Council and the All-Russia Central Trade Union Council, or the
Central Committees of the trade unions concerned, should one-man
management be permitted in certain enterprises, but only on the
obligatory condition that control be exercised over the
administrators by the trade unions and their bodies.

“§8. To ensure a single plan of economic development and co-ordination of the activities of the
trade unions and the economic bodies, the participation of the
trade unions in the management and regulation of industry should
be based on the following principles: (a) general questions of
economic policy shall be discussed by the Supreme Economic Council
and its organs with the participation of the trade unions; (b) the
directing economic collegiums shall be formed by the Supreme
Economic Council and its organs in conjunction with the relevant
trade union bodies; (c) the collegiums of economic bodies, while
discussing general questions of the economic policy of any branch
of production in conjunction with the trade unions and furnishing
them with periodical reports on their activities, shall be
regarded as organs of the Supreme Economic Council only, and shall
be obliged to carry out the decisions only of that body, (d) all
collegiums of economic bodies shall unreservedly carry out the
decisions of the higher organs of the Supreme Economic Council,
individually and corporately, and be accountable for their
fulfilment only to the Supreme Economic Council.”

Here the most elementary theoretical questions are terribly
muddled.

It is true that management is the job of the individual
administrator; but who exactly that administrator will be—an
expert or a worker—will depend on how many administrators we
have of the old and the new type. That is elementary theory. Well,
then, let us talk about that. But if you want to discuss the
political line of the Central Committee, do not attribute to us
things we did not suggest and did not say. On March 2 we appealed
to the comrades to give us practical support, and what did we get
in reply? From the comrades in the localities we got in reply
things that are obviously wrong from the theoretical standpoint. The theses of Comrades Osinsky, Maximovsky and
Sapronov that appeared on March 23 contain nothing but theoretical
blunders. They say that corporate management in one form or
another is an indispensable basis of democracy. I assert that you
will find nothing like it in the fifteen years’ pre-revolutionary history of the Social-Democratic
movement. Democratic centralism means only that representatives
from the localities get together and elect a responsible body,
which is to do the administering. But how? That depends on how
many suitable people, how many good administrators are available. Democratic centralism means that the congress
supervises the work of the Central Committee, and can remove it
and appoint another in its place. But if we were to go into the
theoretical errors contained in these theses, we should never be
done. I personally will not deal with this any more, and will only
say that the Central Committee adopted the only line that could be
adopted on this question. I know very well that Comrade Osinsky,
and the others do not share the views of Makhno and Makhaisky, but
Makhno’s followers are bound to seize upon their arguments. They are connected with them. Take the theses of the
Moscow Gubernia Committee of the Party that we have been given. It
says there that in a developed socialist society, where there will
be no social division of labour or fixed professions, the
periodical replacement of people performing administrative
functions in rotation will be possible only on the basis of a
broad corporate principle, and so on and so forth. This is a sheer
muddle!

We appealed to the experienced people in the localities to
help us with their practical advice. Instead, we are told that the
Central Committee ignores the localities. What does it ignore?
Dissertations on socialist society? There is not a trace of
anything practical or business-like here. Of course, we have some
splendid workers, who are borrowing a lot from the intelligentsia;
but sometimes they borrow the worst, not the best. Then something
has to be done about it. But if in reply to an appeal of the
Central Committee for practical advice you bring up questions of
principle, we have to talk about those questions. We have to say
that errors of principle must be combated. And the theses
published since March 2 contain preposterous errors of principle.

That is what I affirm. Well, let us talk about that and argue
it out. Don’t try to evade it! It is no use claiming that
you are not theoreticians. Pardon me, Comrade Sapronov, your
theses are the theses of a theoretician. You would see if they
were put into practice that you would have to turn back and settle
questions in an unbusiness-like manner. Anybody who tried to take
the theses of Comrades Maximovsky, Sapronov and Tomsky as
practical guidance, would be profoundly mistaken; they are
fundamentally wrong. I consider that their idea of the attitude of
the class to the structure of the state is fundamentally wrong and
would drag us back. Naturally, it is backed by all the elements
who are lagging behind and have not yet got beyond all this. And
the authors of these theses are to be blamed not for deliberately
advocating inefficiency, but for their theoretical mistake on the
question the Central Committee asked them to discuss; a mistake
which in a way provides a banner, a justification, for the worst
elements. And why? From want of thought. Authentic documents prove
this beyond all doubt.

I now pass to the accusation made by Comrade Yurenev in
connection with Comrade Shlyapnikov. If the Central Committee had
removed Comrade Shlyapnikov, as a representative of the
opposition, just before the Congress, that certainly would have
been infamous. When we had established that Comrade Shlyapnikov
was leaving, we said in the Political Bureau that we were not
giving him any instructions before his departure; and on the eve
of his departure Comrade Shlyapnikov came to me and said that he
was not going on the instructions of the Central Committee. And so
Comrade Yurenev simply heard a rumour and is now spreading
it. ( Yurenev : “Shlyapnikov told me so himself. . . .”)

I do not know how he could have told you so himself, seeing
that he came to me before he left and said that he was not going
on the instructions of the Central Committee. Yes, of course, if
the Central Committee had banished the opposition before the
Congress that would have been an unpardonable thing. But, in
general, when there is talk about banishing people, I say:
“Well, then, just try to elect a Central Committee which
could distribute forces properly without giving any cause for
complaint.” How can forces be distributed so that everybody
is satisfied? If forces are not distributed, how can you talk
about centralism? And if there were distortions of principles, let
us have instances. If you say that we banished representatives of
the opposition, give us an instance, and we shall examine it, for
there may have been mistakes. Perhaps Comrade Yurenev, who
complained to the Political Bureau of having been wrongfully
withdrawn from the Western Front—perhaps he was banished?
The Political Bureau examined the matter and found it correct. And
whatever Central Committee you elected, it would have to
distribute its forces.

Further, as regards the division of business between the
Organising Bureau and the Political Bureau. Comrade Maximovsky is
more experienced in matters of organisation than I am, and he says
that Lenin is mixing Organising Bureau and Political Bureau
questions. Well, let us see. In our opinion, the Organising Bureau
should distribute forces and the Political Bureau deal with
policy. If such a division is wrong, how are the functions of
these two bodies to be divided? Do you want us to write a
constitution? It is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between
the Political Bureau and the Organising Bureau, to delimit their
functions precisely. Any question may become a political one, even
the appointment of the superintendent of a building. If anyone has
any other solution to suggest, please let us have it. Comrades
Sapronov, Maximovsky and Yurenev, let us have your proposals; just
try to divide, to delimit the Organising Bureau and the Political
Bureau. As we have it, the protest of a single member of the
Central Committee is enough for us to treat the question as a
political one. Yet in all this time there has not been a single
protest. Independence is not hampered in any way: any member of
the Central Committee may declare a question to be a political
one. And anybody who has any practical experience in organisation,
even if he is not as competent as Comrade Maximovsky, even if he
has worked in this field only six months, ought to have made a
different sort of criticism from the one Comrade Maximovsky
made. Let the critics make definite recommendations. We shall
accept them, and advise the election of a new Central Committee,
which will carry out these recommendations. But all we have had is
abstract criticism and false assertions.

Let us suppose you keep the Organising Bureau away from
political leadership. What, then, I ask, will political leadership
amount to? Who does the leading, if not people? And how can you
lead except by distributing forces? How can you compel a man to
carry out instructions if he is incompetent? He is given certain
instructions, his work is checked, and finally he is put on
another job. What more must we do to bring this home to Comrades
Maximovsky, Sapronov and Osinsky, who in their theses propose a
theoretical amendment that was rejected long ago? What they are
doing in practice is even worse, and they are making it quite
clear that they have no material for serious criticism.

I heard one practical point in Comrade Sapronov’s speech
and jumped at it. Comrade Sapronov said: “The Seventh
Congress of Soviets gave a ruling, and we are violating it; the
decree on requisitioning flax is an infringement of the decision
of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee.” I cannot
remember even a tenth of the decrees we pass. But I made inquiries
in the Secretariat of the Council of People’s Commissars
about the regulations governing flax procurements. The decree was
passed on February 10. And what has happened? There is not a
comrade, whether on the Political Bureau or on the All-Russia
Central Executive Committee, who is opposed to independent
initiative. We haveseen them all here on this platform. Comrades
know that they can speak for themselves. Why did they not appeal
against this decision? Let us have your complaints! There was no
such complaint after February 10. After a long fight, we adopted
this decision, which was proposed by Comrade Rykov and agreed to
by Comrade Sereda and the People’s Commissariat of
Food. “You have made a mistake!” we are told. Perhaps we have. Correct us. Submit this question to the Political
Bureau. That will be a formal decision. Let us have the
minutes. If they show that we have violated a decision of the
Congress, we ought to be put on trial. Where is the charge? On the
one hand, they reproach us on account of Shlyapnikov; on the
other, they say that the flax business was a violation of a
decision. Be good enough to bring facts to show that we violated
the decision. But you do not bring any facts. All your words are
mere words: initiative, appointments, and so on. Why then have
centralism? Could we have held out for even two months if we had
made no appointments during this period, during these two years
when in various places we passed from complete exhaustion and
disruption to victory again? Just because you are displeased with
the recall of Comrade Shlyapnikov or Comrade Yurenev, you fling
these words among the crowd, among the unenlightened masses. Comrade Lutovinov says that the question has not been
settled. It will have to be settled. If two people’s commissars differ in their opinion of Ivan Ivanovich, and one says
that a question of policy is involved, what is to be done? What
method do you propose? Do you think that it is only in the
Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee that
tedious questions arise? Let me tell you that there is not a
single institution where tedious questions do not arise, and we
all have to deal with questions of Maria Ivanovna and Sidor
Ivanovich. But you cannot say that no politics are involved here,
for politics fill all minds. Comrade Lutovinov had—I do not
know how to put it; I fear to offend Comrade Sapronov’s
delicate ear and I shrink from using a polemical expression—but he said that Comrade Krestinsky threatened to
bring about a split. A meeting of the Bureau was held on the
subject. We have the minutes of the Bureau, and I would ask all
the Congress delegates to take these minutes and read them. We
came to the conclusion that Comrade Krestinsky was hot-headed and
that you, Comrade Lutovinov and Comrade Tomsky, had raised a very
malodorous scandal. Perhaps we were wrong—then correct our
decision; but it is preposterous to say what you said, without
having read the documents and without mentioning that there was a
special meeting and that the matter was investigated in the
presence of Tomsky and Lutovinov.

There are two other points I still have to deal with. First,
the appointment of Comrades Bukharin and Radek. It is said that we
sent them to the All-Russia Central Trade Union Council as
political commissars, and the attempt is being made here to
represent this as a violation of independence, as bureaucracy. Perhaps you know better theoreticians than Radek and
Bukharin. Then by all means let us have them. Perhaps you know
people better acquainted with the trade union movement. Let us
have them. Do you mean to say that the Central Committee has no
right to reinforce a trade union with people who have the best
theoretical knowledge of the trade union movement, who are
acquainted with the experience of the Germans, and who can
counteract an incorrect line? A Central Committee which did not do
that could not be a directing body. The more we are surrounded by
peasants and Kuban Cossacks the more difficulties we have with the
proletarian dictatorship. Therefore the line must be straightened
out at all costs and made as hard as steel, and this is the line
we recommend to the Party Congress.

Comrade Bubnov told us here that he has close connections with
the Ukraine and thereby betrayed the true character of his
objections. He said that the Central Committee is responsible for
the growing strength of the Borotba Party. This is a very
complex and important issue, and I think in this important issue,
which demanded manoeuvring, and very complex manoeuvring at that,
we emerged victorious. When we said in the Central Committee that
the maximum concessions should be made to the Borotbists, we were
laughed at and told that we were not following a straight
line. But you can fight in a straight line when the enemy’s
line is straight. But when the enemy moves in zigzags, and not in
a straight line, we have to follow him and catch him at every
turn. We promised the maximum concessions to the Borotbists, but
on condition that they pursued a communist policy. In this way we
showed that we are in no way intolerant. And that these
concessions were made quite rightly is shown by the fact that all
the best elements among the Borotbists have now joined our
Party. We have carried out a re-registration of this party, and
instead of a revolt of the Borotbists, which seemed inevitable, we
find that, thanks to the correct policy of the Central Committee,
which was carried out so splendidly by Comrade Rakovsky, all the
best elements among the Borotbists have joined our Party under our
control and with our recognition, while all the rest have
disappeared from the political scene. This victory was worth a
couple of good tussles. So anybody who says that the Central
Committee is guilty of strengthening the Borotbists does not
understand the political line on the national question.

I shall just touch on the speech of the last comrade, who said
that everything in the programme about the trade unions should be
deleted. There you have an example of hastiness. We don’t do
things so simply. We say that nothing should be deleted, that the
question should be discussed in pamphlets, articles in the press,
and so on. The trade unions are heading for the time when they
will take economic life, namely industry, into their hands. The
talk about not admitting bourgeois specialists into the trade
unions is a prejudice. The trade unions are educational bodies,
and strict demands must be made on them. The Central Committee
will not tolerate bad educators. Education is a long and difficult
business. A decree is not enough here; patient and skilful
handling is required. And that is what we are aiming at and will
continue to aim at. It is a matter in which we must be cautious
but firm.

4

Speech On Economic Development

March 31

Comrades, first two brief remarks. Comrade Sapronov continued
to accuse me of forgetfulness, but the question he raised he left
unexplained. He continued to assure us that the flax requisitioning decree is a violation of the decision of the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee. I maintain that you cannot
hurl unsupported accusations, very serious accusations, at a Party
Congress in that way. Of course, if the Council of People’s
Commissars has violated a decision of the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee it should be put on trial. But how is it that
from February 10 to this day no complaint has been received that
this decree is a violation? All we get is an absolutely
unsupported accusation of the sort that are handed out easily
enough, but such methods of fighting are not to be taken
seriously.

Comrade Milyutin says that there are practically no points of
difference between us, and that therefore it looks as if Lenin
opposes squabbling and himself provokes this squabble. But Comrade
Milyutin is distorting things somewhat, which he ought not to
do. The first draft of the resolution, compiled by Comrade
Trotsky, was then edited corporately in the Central Committee. We
sent this draft to Comrades Milyutin and Rykov. They returned it
with the statement that they would give battle on it. This is what
actually happened. After we had developed agitation and obtained
allies, they organised an all-round opposition at the Congress;
and it was only when they saw that nothing would come of it that
they began to say they were almost in agreement. That is so, of
course; but you must carry it through to the end and admit that
your agreement means that you failed completely after the
opposition came forward here and tried to consolidate itself on
the issue of corporate management. Only after Comrade Milyutin had
spoken for fifteen minutes, and his time was up, did it occur to
him that it would be well to put the matter on a practical
footing. He was quite right there. But I am afraid it is too late:
although Comrade Rykov has still to close the discussion, the
opposition cannot be saved. If the advocates of corporate
management had during the past two months practised what they
preached, if they had given us even a single example—not by
saying there is a certain director and an assistant, but by an
inquiry promoting a detailed investigation of the problem,
comparing corporate management with individual management as was
decided by the Congress of Economic Councils and by the Central
Committee—we would have been much the wiser; at the Congress
we would then have had something more than not very relevant
discussions of principle, and the advocates of corporate
management might have furthered matters. Their position would have
been a strong one if they could have produced even ten factories
with similar conditions managed on the corporate principle and
compared them in a practical manner with the state of affairs in
factories with similar conditions, but managed on the individual
principle. We could have allowed any speaker an hour for such a
report, and he would have furthered matters considerably. We might
perhaps have established practical gradations in this question of
corporate management. But the whole point is that none of them,
neither the Economic Council members nor the trade unionists, who
should have had practical data at their disposal, gave us
anything, because they had nothing to give. They have nothing,
absolutely nothing!

Comrade Rykov objected here that I want to remake the French
Revolution, that I deny that the bourgeoisie grew up within the
feudal system. That is not what I said. What I said was that when
the bourgeoisie replaced the feudal system they took the feudal
lords and learned from them how to administer; and this in no way
contradicts the fact that the bourgeoisie grew up within the
feudal system. And as for my thesis that, after it has seized
power, the working class begins to put its principles into effect,
nobody, absolutely nobody, has refuted it. After it has seized
power, the working class maintains it, preserves it and
consolidates it as every other class does, namely, by a change of
property relations and by a new constitution. That is my first and
fundamental thesis; and it is incontrovertible. My second thesis
that every new class learns from its predecessor and takes over
administrators from the old class, is also an absolute truth. And,
lastly, my third thesis is that the working class must increase
the number of administrators from its own ranks, establish
schools, and train executives on a nation-wide scale. These three
theses are indisputable, and they fundamentally contradict the
theses of the trade unions.

At the meeting of the group, when we examined their theses,
and when Comrade Bukharin and I were defeated, [8] I told
Comrade Tomsky that article 7 in the theses is the result of
complete theoretical confusion. It says:

“The basic structural principle of the regulation and management of industry, the only one that can ensure the
participation of broad masses of non-party workers through the
trade unions, is the existing principle of corporate management
of industry, from the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council
down to the factory managements. Only in special cases, and by
mutual agreement between the Presidiums of the Supreme Economic
Council and the All-Russia Central Trade Union Council, or the
Central Committees of the trade unions concerned should one-man
management be permitted in certain enterprises but only on the
obligatory condition that control be exercised over the
administrators by the trade unions and their bodies.”

This is sheer nonsense, because everything—the role of the working class in winning state power, the interrelation of
methods—everything is muddled! Such things cannot be tolerated. Such things drag us back theoretically. The same must
be said of the democratic centralism of Comrades Sapronov,
Maximovsky and Osinsky. Comrade Osinsky forgets that when he comes
forward and claims that I call democratic centralism nonsense. You
cannot distort things in that way! What has the question of
appointments, of endorsement by local organisations, got to do
with it? You can have things endorsed by collegiums and you can
also appoint collegiums. That has nothing to do with the
case. They say that democratic centralism consists not only in the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee ruling; but in the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee ruling through the local
organisations. What has corporate management or individual
management got to do with it?

Comrade Trotsky recalled his report made in 1918 and, reading
the speech he then made, pointed out that at that time not only
did we argue about fundamental questions but a definite decision
was taken by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. I dug up
my old pamphlet The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government , which I had completely
forgotten, and find that the question of individual management was
not only raised but even approved in the theses of the All-Russia
Central Executive Committee. We work in such a way that we forget
not only what we ourselves have written but even what has been
decided by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, and
subsequently dig up these decisions. Here are some passages from
this pamphlet.

“Those who deliberately (although most of them probably do not realise it) promote petty-bourgeois laxity
would like to see in this granting of ‘unlimited’ (i.e., dictatorial) powers to individuals a departure from the
collegiate principle, from democracy and from the principles of
Soviet government. Here and there, among Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries, a positively hooligan agitation, i.e.,
agitation appealing to the base instincts and to the small
proprietor’s urge to ‘grab all he can’, has been developed against the dictatorship decree. . . . [9] “Large-scale machine industry—which
is precisely the material source, the productive source, the
foundation of socialism—calls for absolute and strict unity of will , which directs the joint labours of
hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people. The
technical, economic and historical necessity of this is obvious,
and all those who have thought about socialism have always
regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism”
. . . this is the only way in which “strict unity of will
can be ensured. . . .

“But be that as it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for
the success of processes organised on the pattern of large-scale
machine industry. On the railways it is twice and three times as
necessary. . . .

“And our whole task, the task of the
Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which is the class-conscious vehicle
of the strivings of the exploited for emancipation, is to
appreciate this change, to understand that it is necessary, to
stand at the head of the exhausted people who are wearily seeking
a way out and lead them along the true path, along the path of
labour discipline, along the path of co-ordinating the task of
arguing at mass meetings about the conditions of work with the task of unquestioningly obeying the will of the Soviet
leader, of the dictator, during the work. . . .

“It required precisely the October victory of the working people over the exploiters, it required a whole
historical period in which the working people themselves could
first of all discuss the new conditions of life and the new tasks,
in order to make possible the durable transition to superior forms
of labour discipline, to the conscious appreciation of the
necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat, to unquestioning obedience to the orders of individual
representatives of the Soviet government during the work. . . .

“We must learn to combine the ‘public meeting’ democracy of the working people—turbulent,
surging, overflowing its banks like a spring nood with iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning obedience to the will of a single person, the Soviet leader,
while at work.”

On April 29, 1918, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee
adopted a resolution fully endorsing the basic propositions set
forth in this report and instructed its Presidium to recast them
as theses representing the principal tasks of the Soviet
government. We are thus reiterating what was approved two years
ago in an official resolution of the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee! And we are now being dragged back on a matter that was
decided long ago, a matter which the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee endorsed and explained, namely, that Soviet socialist
democracy and individual management and dictatorship are in no way
contradictory, and that the will of a class may sometimes be
carried out by a dictator, who sometimes does more alone and is
frequently more necessary. At any rate, the attitude towards the
principles of corporate management and individual management was
not only explained long ago, but was even endorsed by the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee. In this connection our
Congress is an illustration of the sad truth that instead of
advancing from the explanation of questions of principle to
concrete questions, we are advancing backward. Unless we get away
from this mistake we shall never solve the economic problem.

I should also like to say a few words about certain remarks of
Comrade Rykov’s. He asserts that the Council of
People’s Commissars is putting obstacles in the way of the
amalgamation of the commissariats running the economy. And when
Comrade Rykov is told that he wants to swallow up Comrade
Tsyurupa, he replies, “I don’t care if it is Tsyurupa that swallows me up, as long as the economic commissariats are
amalgamated.” I know where this leads, and I must say that
the attempt of the Supreme Economic Council to form a sort of
separate bloc of the economic commissariats, separate from the
Council of Defence and the Council of People’s Commissars,
did not pass unnoticed by the Central Committee, and met with
disfavour. The Council of Defence has now been renamed the Council
of Labour and Defence. You want to separate yourselves from the
Commissariat of the Army, which is giving its best forces to the
war and is an institution without which you cannot even carry out
labour conscription. And we cannot carry out labour conscription
without the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs either. Take the post office; we cannot send a letter without the
Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs. Take the People’s
Commissariat of Health. How will you conduct the economy if
seventy per cent are down with typhus? What it amounts to is that
every matter must be co-ordinated and referred to an economic
commissariat. Is not such a plan absolutely absurd? Comrade Rykov
had no serious argument. That is why it was opposed and the
Central Committee did not support it.

Further, Comrade Rykov joked about a bloc with Comrade
Holtzmann, which Comrade Trotsky seems to be forming. I should
like to say a few words on this. A bloc is always needed between
Party groups that are in the right. That should always be regarded
as an essential condition for a correct policy. If Comrade
Holtzmann, whom, I regret to say, I know very little, but of whom
I have heard as a representative of a certain trend among the
metalworkers, a trend that particularly insists on sensible
methods—which I stress in my theses, too—if it, is on these grounds that he insists on individual management, that, of
course, can only be extremely useful. A bloc with this trend would
be an exceedingly good thing. If the representation of the trade
unions on the Central Committee is to be increased, it would be
useful to have on it representatives of this trend too—though it may be wrong on certain points, it is at least
original and has a definite shade of opinion of its own—side
by side with the extremist champions of corporate management who
are battling in the name of democracy but who are mistaken. Let
them both be represented on the Central Committee—and you
will have a bloc. Let the Central Committee be so constituted
that, with the help of a bloc, a field of operation may be found
that functions all the year round, and not only during the week a
Party Congress is held. We have always rejected the principle of
regional representation, because it leads to a lot of regional
cliquism. When it is a question of closer fusion with the trade
unions, of being alive to every shade of opinion in the trade
unions, of maintaining contacts—it is essential for the
Central Committee to be constituted in such a way as to have a
transmission belt to the broad masses of the trade unions (we have
600,000 Party members and 3,000,000 trade union members) to
connect the Central Committee simultaneously with the united will
of the 600,000 Party members and the 3,000,000 trade union
members. We cannot govern without such a transmission belt. The
more we won back of Siberia, the Kuban area and the Ukraine, with
their peasant population, the more difficult the problem became,
and the more laboriously the machine revolved, because in Siberia
the proletariat is numerically small, and it is weaker in the
Ukraine too. But we know that the Donets Basin and Nikolayev
workers have bluntly refused to defend the semi-demagogic
corporate principle into which Comrade Sapronov has lapsed. There
can be no question but that the proletarian element in the Ukraine
differs from the proletarian element in Petrograd, Moscow and
Ivanovo Voznesensk—not because it is no good, but for purely
historical reasons. They did not have occasion to become, so
steeled by hunger, cold and strife as the proletarians of Moscow
and Petrograd. We therefore need such a bond with the trade
unions, such a form of organisation of the Central Committee, as
would enable it to know every shade of opinion, not only among the
600,000 Party members, but also among the 3,000,000 trade union
members, so that it may be able at any moment to lead them all as
one man! Such an organisation is essential. That is the basic
factor, the political factor without which the dictatorship of the
proletariat will not be a dictatorship. If we are to have a bloc,
let it be a real bloc! We should not be afraid of it, but should
welcome it and practise it more vigorously and more extensively
right in the central institutions of the Party.

5

Speech On The Co-Operatives [10]

April 3

It was only last night and today that I have had an opportunity
of partially acquainting myself with the two resolutions. I think
that the resolution of the minority of the commission is the more
correct. Comrade Milyutin attacked it with a great battery of
terrifying words: he discovered half measures in it, even
quarter-measures; he accused it of opportunism. But it seems to me
that the devil is not as black as he is painted. If you get down
to the root of the matter you will see that Comrade Milyutin, who
tried to give the matter a basis in principle, showed by his own
arguments that the resolution he advocated was incorrect and
unsuitable specifically from the standpoint of practice and of
Marxism. It is incorrect for the following reasons; Milyutin
stated that his resolution, the resolution of the majority of the
commission, advocated fusion with the volost executive committees,
subordination to the volost executive committees, and that is why
he sees in his resolution directness and decisiveness as compared
with the insufficiently revolutionary character of the minority
resolution. During the long course of our revolutionary campaign
we have seen that whenever we made proper preparations for our
revolutionary actions they were crowned with success; but that
when they were merely imbued with revolutionary fervour they ended
in failure.

What does the resolution of the minority of the commission say?
The resolution of the minority says: direct your attention to
intensifying communist work in the consumers’ societies and
to securing a majority within them; first make ready the organs to
which you want to hand them over, then you can hand them
over. Compare this with the line pursued by Milyutin. He says: the
co-operatives are no good, therefore hand them over to the volost
executive committees. But have you a communist basis in the
co-operatives you want to hand over? The essence of the
matter—preparation—is ignored; only the ultimate slogan is given. If this communist work has been done, and organs
have been set up to take them over and guide them, the transfer is
quite natural, and there is no need to proclaim it at a Party
congress. But have you not been threatening the peasants enough?
Has not the Supreme Economic Council shaken its fist enough at the
peasants and the co-operatives in the matter of the flax
procurement? If you recall the practical experience of our work in
the localities and in the Council of People’s Commissars,
you will admit that this is a wrong attitude to take, and that the
right resolution is the one which declares that the work of
communist education and the training of executives are necessary,
for otherwise the transfer will be impossible.

The second question of cardinal importance is that of contacts
with the consumers’ co-operatives. Here Comrade Milyutin
says something utterly inconsistent. If the consumers’ co-operatives are not fulfilling all their assignments—which
is what we have been saying for two years in a number of decrees
directed against the kulaks—it must be remembered that government measures against the kulaks can also be applied against
the co-operative societies. And this is being done in full. The
most important thing at the moment is to increase production and
the quantity of goods. If the consumers’ co-operatives do
not get this done, they will be punished for it. But if, owing to
their connection with the producers’ co-operatives, they
give even a small increase of products, we must welcome it and
foster the initiative. If the consumers’ co-operatives, in
spite of their closer, intimate local connections with production,
do not show an increase, it will mean that they have not fulfilled
the direct assignment of the Soviet government. If there are even
two or three energetic comrades in a district who are prepared to
combat the kulaks and the bourgeoisie, victory is assured. In what
way was Comrade Chuchin’s initiative thwarted? He did not
cite a single instance. But the idea that we must link up the
producers’ co-operatives with the consumers’ cooperatives and agree to any concession that may increase the
amount of products in the near future follows logically from our
experience of the past two years. It in no way hampers either
communist functionaries or Soviet officials in their war on the
kulak co-operative, the bourgeois type of co-operative. Far from
hampering them, it provides them with a new weapon. If you succeed
in organising anything at all we shall give you a bonus; but if
you do not fulfil this assignment we shall punish you, not only
because you are counter-revolutionary-we have the Cheka for that,
as was rightly pointed out here-no, we shall punish you for not
fulfilling the assignment of the state, of the Soviet government
and the proletariat.

Comrade Milyutin has not produced a single sound argument
against amalgamating the consumers’ co-operativesall ho said
was that this seemed to him to be opportunism or a half-measure. This is strange coming from Comrade Milyutin, who,
with Comrade Rykov, was prepared to make big strides, hut
discovered that lie cannot even make a tenth of one stride. From
this aspect, connections with the consumers’ cooperatives
will ho an advantage; they will make it possible to tackle
production immediately. All means are available to prevent
interference in political matters; and as to obedience in the
production and economic sphere, that depends entirely on the
People’s Commissariat of Agriculture and the Supreme
Economic Council. These means are adequate for you to be able to
control the co-operatives.

I now come to the third question, the question of nationalisation, which Milyu tin advocated in a way that was
strange to hear. A commission was set up. Comrade K restinsky was
in a minority on the commission and Comrade Mi. lyutin was the
victor. But now he says: "On the question of nationalisation I am
prepared not to argue." Then what was the commission arguing
about? If your standpoint is the same as Comrade Chuchin’s
you are wrong in renouncing nationalisation. It has been asked
here why, if the capitalists have been nationalised, the kulaks
cannot be nationalised too. It is not surprising that this
argument evoked hilarity. For however you count the well-to-do
peasants, those who exploit the labour of others, you will find
there are no less than half a million, perhaps even something like
a million. How do you propose to nationalise them? It is
fantastic. We have not the means for that as yet.

Comrade Chuchin is quite right when he says that there are a
lot of counter-revolutionaries in the co-operatives. But that is a
horse of another colour. What was said about the Cheka was quite
in place here. If you are too shortsighted to expose individual
leaders of the co-operatives, then just install one Communist to
detect the counter-revolution; if he is a good Communist—and
a good Communist has the qualities of a good member of the
Cheka—he should, when assigned to a consumers’ society, bag at least two counter-revolutionary co-operators.

That is why Comrade Chuchin is wrong when he advocates immediate nationalisation. It would be a good thing, but it is
impossible, for we are dealing with a class which is least
susceptible to our influence and which certainly cannot be
nationalised. We have not even nationalised all the industrial
enterprises. By the time an order of the chief administrations and
central boards reaches the localities it becomes absolutely
ineffective; it is completely lost in a sea of documents, because
of lack of roads and telegraph, etc. It is therefore impossible to
speak of the nationalisation of the co-operatives as yet. Comrade
Milyutin is wrong in principle too. He feels that his position is
weak and thinks that he can simply withdraw this point. But in
that case, Comrade Milyutin, you are undermining your own
resolution, you are issuing a certificate to the effect that the
resalution of the minority is right; for the spirit of your
resolution—to subordinate them to the volost executive committees (that is exactly what is said ill the first
clause—"take measures")is a Cheka spirit, wrongly introduced
into an economic issue. The other resolution says that the first
thing to do is to increase the number of Communists, to intensify
communist propaganda and agitation-that a basis must be
created. There is nothing grandiloquent here, no immediate
promises of a land flowing with milk and honey. But if there are
Communists in the localities, they will know what has to be done,
and there will be no need for Comrade Chillchin to explain where
counter-revolutionaries should be taken to. Secondly, an organ
must be created. Create an organ and test it in action, check whether production is
increasing-that is what the resolution of the minority says. First
of all create a basis, and then-then we shall see. What has to be
done will follow from this of itself. We have enough decrees
saying that counter-revolutionaries should he handed over to the
Choke, and if there is no Cheka, to the Revolutionary
Committee. We need less of this fist-shaking. We must adopt the
resolution of the minority, which lays down a basic line of
policy.

6

Speech Closing The Congress

April 5

Comrades, in making a brief summary of the work of our Congress
we must, in my opinion, first of all dwell upon the tasks of our
Party. The Congress has adopted a detailed resolution on the
question of organisation, and as might have been expected, a very
important place in that resolution is occupied by the question of
the education, the training, the organisational deployment of the
members of our Party. The Credentials Committee has reported that
over 600,000 members of our Party are represented at this
Congress. We are all fully aware of the tremendous difficulties
the Party has had to cope with in these strenuous times, when
measures had to be taken to prevent the worst elements, the offal
of the old capitalist system, from seeping into the government
party, from fastening themselves on to it—it is naturally an
open party, for it is the government party, and as such opens the
way to power. One of these measures was the institution of Party
Weeks. Under such conditions, at such moments, when the Party and
the movement were in exceptionally trying situations, when Denikin
stood north of Orel, and Yudenich within fifty versts of
Petrograd, it was only people who were sincerely devoted to the
cause of the emancipation of the working people who could have
joined the Party.

Such conditions will not occur again, at least not in the near
future, and it must be said that the huge membership (as compared
with previous congresses) our Party has attained gives rise to a
certain apprehension. And there is one very real danger, which is
that the rapid growth of our Party has not always been commensurate with the extent to which we have educated this mass
of people for the performance of the tasks of the moment. We must
always bear in mind that this army of 600,000 must be the vanguard
of the working class, and that we should scarcely have been able
to carry out our tasks during these two years if it had not been
for iron discipline. The basic condition for the maintenance and
continuance of strict discipline is loyalty; all the old means and
sources of discipline have ceased to exist, and we base our
activities solely on a high degree of understanding and political
consciousness. This has enabled us to achieve a discipline which
is superior to that of any other state and which rests on a basis
different from that of the discipline which is being maintained
with difficulty, if it can be maintained at all, in capitalist
society. We must therefore remember that our task in the coming
year, after the brilliant successes achieved in the war, is not so
much the growth of the Party as work inside the Party, the
education of the membership of our Party. It is not for nothing
that our resolutions on organisation devote as much space as
possible to this question.

We must spare no effort to make this vanguard of the proletariat, this army of 600,000 members, capable of coping with
the tasks that confront it. And it is confronted by tasks of
gigantic international and internal importance. As to the
international tasks, our international position has never been as
good as it is now. News about the life of the workers abroad
seldom reaches us, yet every time you receive a couple of letters
or a few issues of European or American working-class socialist
newspapers you experience real pleasure, because everywhere, in
all parts of the world, you see among masses formerly entirely
untouched by propaganda, or steeped in wretched opportunism, in
purely parliamentary socialism, a tremendous growth of interest in
the Soviet power, in the new tasks, a growth much greater than we
imagine; everywhere you see intense revolutionary movement,
ferment, and revolution has become a current issue.

I had occasion yesterday to glance through an issue of the
newspaper of the British Socialist Labour Party. The British
workers, whose leaders were intellectuals and who for decades were
distinguished by their contempt for theory, are talking in quite
definite tones; and the paper shows that the British workers are
now taking an interest in the question of revolution, that there
is a growing interest in the fight against revisionism,
opportunism, and parliamentary socialism, the social-treachery we
have got to know so well. This struggle is becoming an issue of
the day. We can say quite definitely that our American Comrade R.,
who has published a voluminous book containing a number of
articles by Trotsky and myself, thus giving a summary of the
history of the Russian revolution, was quite right when he said
that the French Revolution was victorious on a world-wide scale,
and that, if it was directly crushed, it was only because it was
surrounded on the European continent by more backward countries,
in which a movement of emulation, sympathy and support could not
immediately arise. The Russian revolution, which, owing to the
yoke of tsarism and a number of other factors (continuity with
1905, etc.), started before the others, is surrounded by countries
which are on a higher level of capitalist development and are
approaching the revolution more slowly, but more surely, durably
and firmly. We find that with every year, and even with every
month, the number of supporters and friends of the Soviet Republic
is increasing tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold in every
capitalist country; and it must be said that we have more friends
and allies than we imagine!

The attempt of world imperialism to crush us by military force
has collapsed completely. The international situation has now
given us a much longer and more durable respite than the one we
had at the beginning of the revolution. But we must remember that
this is nothing more than a respite. We must remember that the
whole capitalist world is armed to the teeth and is only waiting
for the moment, choosing the best strategical conditions, and
studying the means of attack. We must never under any circumstances forget that all the economic power and all the
military power is still on its side. We are still weak on an
international scale, but we are rapidly growing and gaining
strength, wresting one weapon after another from the hands of the
enemy. But the enemy is lurking in wait for the Soviet Republic at
every step. International capital has definite designs, a
calculated plan, now that the blockade has been removed, to unite,
to fuse, to weld together international food speculation,
international freedom of trade, with our own internal food
speculation, and on the basis of this speculation to pave the way
for a new war against us, to prepare a new series of traps and
pitfalls.

And this brings us to that fundamental task which constituted
the chief theme, the chief object of attention of our
Congress. That is the task of development. In this respect the
Congress has done a lot. A resolution has been unanimously adopted
on the principal question, the question of economic development
and transport. And now, by means of Party education, we shall be
able to get this resolution carried into effect by the three
million working-class members of the trade unions, acting as one
man. We shall ensure that this resolution channels all our
strength, discipline and energy to the restoration of the
country’s economic life—first of all to the restoration of the railways, and then to the improvement of the
food situation.

We have now quite a number of subjects for propaganda and every
item of news we get from abroad and every new dozen members of the
Party provide us with fresh material. Propaganda must be carried
on systematically, without the dispersion and division of
forces. We must bear firmly in mind that we achieved successes and
performed miracles in the military sphere because we always
concentrated on the main and fundamental thing, and solved
problems in a way that capitalist society could not solve
them. The point is that in capitalist society everything that
particularly interests the citizens—their economic conditions, war and peace—is decided secretly, apart from
society itself. The most important questions—war, peace,
diplomatic questions—are decided by a small handful of capitalists, who deceive not only the masses, but very often
parliament itself. No parliament in the world has ever said
anything of weight on the question of war and peace. In capitalist
society the major questions affecting the economic life of the
working people—whether they are to live in starvation or in
comfort—are decided by the capitalist—who is the lord, a god! In all capitalist countries, including the democratic
republics, the attention of the people is diverted at such times
by the corrupt bourgeois press, which wears the label of freedom
of speech, and which will invent and circulate anything to fool
and deceive the masses. In our country, on the other hand, the
whole apparatus of state power, the whole attention of the
class-conscious worker have been entirely and exclusively centred
on the major and cardinal issue, on the chief task. We have made
gigantic progress in this way in the military sphere, and we must
now apply our experience to the economic sphere.

We are effecting the transition to socialism, and the most
urgent question—bread and work—is not a private question, not the private affair of an employer, but the affair of
the whole of society, and any peasant who thinks at all must
definitely realise and understand that if the government raises
the question of the railways in its whole press, in every article,
in every newspaper issue, it is because it is the common affair of
all. This work to develop the country will lead the peasant out of
the blindness and ignorance that doomed him to slavery; it will
lead him to real liberty, to a state of affairs in which the
working folk will be aware of all the difficulties that confront
them and will direct all the forces of public organisation, all
the forces of the state apparatus, all the forces of agitation to
the simplest and most essential things, rejecting all the tinsel
and trimmings, all the playing at resolutions and the artful
promises which form the subject of the newspaper agitation of all
capitalist countries. All our forces, all our attention must be
centred on these simple economic tasks, which are clear to every
peasant, to which the middle, even the well-to-do, peasant, if he
is at all honest, cannot object, and which we are always
absolutely right in raising at every meeting. Even the masses of
the least politically-conscious workers and peasants will confirm
that the chief thing at the moment is to restore the economy in a
way that will prevent it from falling again into the hands of the
exploiters and will not offer the slightest indulgence to those
who, having a surplus of grain in a starving country, use it to
enrich themselves and to make the poor starve. You will not find a
single man, however ignorant and unenlightened, who does not have
the feeling that this is unjust, to whom the idea has not
occurred, vague and unclear perhaps, that the arguments of the
supporters of the Soviet government fully accord with the
interests of the working people.

It is to these simple tasks, which in the big capitalist
societies are kept in the background and are regarded as the
private affair of the bosses, that we must direct the attention of
the whole army of 600,000 Party members, among whom we must not
tolerate a single one who does not do his duty; and for the sake
of this we must get the whole mass of the workers to join us and
to display the greatest self-sacrifice and devotion. It will be
difficult to organise this, but since, from the point of view of
the working people it is just, it has tremendous moral weight and
immense power of conviction. And so, confident that, thanks to the
work of the Congress, this task can now be accomplished as
brilliantly as we accomplished the military task (although again
at the price of a number of defeats and mistakes), we may say that
the workers of all European and American countries are now looking
towards us, looking with expectancy to see whether we shall
accomplish the more difficult task confronting us—for it is
more difficult than the achievement of military victory. It cannot
be accomplished by enthusiasm, by self-sacrifice and heroic
fervour alone. In this work of organisation, in which we Russians
have been weaker than others in this work of self-discipline, in
this work of rejecting the incidental and striving for the main
thing, nothing can be done in a hurry. And in this sphere of
requisitioning grain, repairing the railways, restoring the
economy, where progress is made only inch by inch, where the
ground is being prepared, and where what is being done is perhaps
little, but is durable—in this work, the eyes of the workers
of all countries are upon us, they expect new victories of us. I
am convinced that, guided by the decisions of our Congress, with
the 600,000 members of the Party working like one man, and
establishing closer ties with the economic bodies and the trade
union bodies, we shall accomplish this task as successfully as we
accomplished the military task, and shall march swiftly and surely
towards the victory of the World Socialist Soviet Republic!
( Applause. )

Endnotes

[1]
The Ninth Party Congress was held in Moscow from March 29
to April 5, 1920. The Congress opened in the Bolshoi Theatre with
an introductory speech by Lenin. The following meetings of the
Congress took place in one of the buildings of the
Kremlin. Present at the Congress were 715 delegates, of whom 553
had the right to vote and 162 were delegates with voice but no
vote; they represented 611,973 Party members. At the Congress
there were delegates from the Party organisations of Central
Russia, the Ukraine, Urals Siberia and of other districts recently
liberated by the Red Army. Many delegates came to the Congress
straight from the front.

The Congress adopted the following agenda: (1)
Report of the Central Committee; (2) Immediate tasks of economic
development; (3) Trade union movement; (4) Organisational
questions; (5) Tasks of the Communist International, (6) Attitude
to the co-operatives; (7) Transition to the militia system; (8)
Election to the Central Committee, (9) Other business.

Lenin guided the work of the Congress. He delivered the report on the political work of the Central
Committee and closed the debate on the report. He also spoke on
economic development and on co- operation, and made the speech on
the closing of the Congress. He submitted a proposal on the list
of candidates for membership to the C.C.

In its resolution “The Immediate Tasks of Economic Construction” the Congress pointed out that
“the basic condition of economic rehabilitation of the country is steady implementation of the single economic plan for
the coming historical epoch”.

The Ninth Congress directives were taken as the basis for a plan by the State Commission for the
Electrification of Russia (GOELRO); the final draft of which was
approved in December 1920 by the All-Russia Congress of
Soviets. It was the first long-term scientific plan in history for
the economic development of a vast country; it was calculated to
create the production and technical basis of socialism.

Special attention was devoted to the organisation of production management. The resolution on the
question pointed out the necessity of competent, firm and
energetic one-man management.

The Congress emphasised the importance of utilising the achievements of science, technology and culture in
the interests of socialist economy. The Congress put forward the
task of enlisting specialists into the sphere of production and of
establishing the atmosphere of comradely co-operation between
workers and specialists.

The factional group of Democratic Centralists (Sapronov, Osinsky, V. Smirnov and others) opposed the Party line
on economic development. Using phrases about democratic
centralism, this group spoke against the use of specialists,
against centralised state administration, against one-man
management and the personal responsibility of managers of
enterprise’s; they insisted on unlimited corporate management. That group was supported at the Congress by Rykov,
Tomsky, Milyutin, and Lomov, who also spoke against the principle
of one-man management and claimed that corporate management was
the only principle of management of industry from the Supreme
Economic Council down to the management of a single factory.

The Congress resolutely denounced the democratic centralism group and rejected their anti-Party
proposals.

Another important question discussed at the
Congress was that of trade unions in connection with the
adaptation of their work for economic tasks. The Congress severely
criticised syndicalist elements (Shlyapnikov, Lozovsky, Tomsky,
Lutovinov), who advocated the “independence” of trade unions and counterposed them to the Communist Party and the Soviet
power. The Congress pointed out that the trade unions, as school
of communism, should organise the proletarian masses, train them
in the work of management, raise their cultural and political
level to the standards of communism, and prepare them for the role
of active builders of communism.

At its closed meeting on April 4, the
Congress elected a new Central Committee of 19 members and 12
alternate members. A .A. Andreyev, F. E. Dzerzhinsky,
M. I. Kalinin, V. I. Lenin, Y. E. Rudzutak, F. A. Sergeyev
(Artyom) were among the newly elected C.C. members.

[2]
Lenin refers to the savage terror resorted to by the Finnish
bourgeoisie to suppress the proletarian revolution in 1918. Over
90,000 people were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps,
nearly 18,000 were executed and nearly as many died of hunger or
tortures. The number of victims of White Terror ten times exceeded
the number of Finnish workers killed in the battles for the
revolution.

[3]
After the November revolution of 1918 in Germany the Right-wing
leaders of German Social-Democracy exerted every effort to save
the capitalist system. The Right Social-Democrats and the
Independents seized the majority of seats in the
Arbeiterräte which had sprung up during the revolution, and at their First All-Germany Congress, held
December 16-21, 1918, in Berlin, succeeded in carrying through a
resolution on handing over power to a government representing
the interests of the bourgeoisie and on convening a Constituent
Assembly. This actually meant the end of the
Arbeiterräte. In January 1919 counter-revolutionary detachments set up by the War Minister
Noske, Right Social-Democrat, brutally suppressed the revolutionary action of the Berlin proletariat. On January 15,
armed detachments arrested and brutally murdered the leaders of
the German working class, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg. Having crushed the January uprising and destroyed the
best leaders of the German working class, the German bourgeoisie
ensured the victory of the bourgeois parties during the
elections to the Constituent Assembly on January 19, 1919.

[4]
The rout of the foreign interventionists and whiteguards in 1919
and the consolidation of Soviet Russia’s position in the
world compelled the bourgeois rulers of Latvia to seek a peace
treaty with the R.S F.S.R. On March 25, 1920, the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs of Latvia addressed a proposal to the Soviet
Government to start peace negotiations. The peace conference of
R.S.F.S.R. and Latvian representatives opened on April 16 in
Moscow. The peace treaty was signed in Riga on August 11.

[5]
By the beginning of 1920 Soviet Russia’s position at home
and abroad had been consolidated, and the ruling circles of
Finland had to conclude a peace treaty with the R.S.F.S.R. On
March 25 the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland proposed to
the Soviet Government to demarcate the frontier that was
tantamount to starting negotiations on peace. The peace treaty
between the R.S.F.S.R. and Finland was signed on October 14, 1920
in the town of Yuryev (now Tartu). It confirmed the independence
and sovereignty of Finland granted her by the Soviet Government in
1917.

[6] The Polish Government’s agreement to
start negotiations was merely a manoeuvre to cover war preparations against the Soviet Republic. In reply to the Soviet
Government’s many proposals (De-cember 22, 1919, January 28,
February 2, March 6 1920), the Polish Government gave its consent
only on March 2, 1920. But the Polish reactionaries sabotaged the
negotiations and started hostilities on April 25, 1920. In the
autumn of 1920, however, as a result of the Red Army’s offensive the Polish Government had to agree to sign a peace
treaty. The Treaty on an Armistice and Preliminary Peace Terms was
signed in Riga on October 12, and the Peace Treaty between the
R.S.F.S.R. and the Ukrainian S.S.R. on the one side and Poland on
the other was signed in Riga on March 18, 1921.

[7]
Lenin refers to S. I. Gusev’s pamphlet “Immediate
Problems of Economic Development (On C.C., R.C.P.[B.]
Theses. Materials for the Ninth Party Congress, Saratov,
1920)”. The paragraph referred to by Lenin was included in
the draft resolution with slight alterations.

In Gusev’s pamphlet this point is worded as follows: “All enterprises which are not subsidiary to the
chief economic task of the period should be developed to the
extent that they do not interfere with the fulfilment of the main
task. Subsidiary enterprises should be developed as required by
the main task. In view of this a single economic plan should not
be the sum total of production programmes worked out by individual
industries and local economic councils on the basis of orders
received from central and local organisations, but, on the
contrary, such a plan should envisage the volume of production for
each industry.

[8]
Lenin refers to the meeting of the group of the All-Russia Central
Council of Trade Unions on March 15, 1920, at which Tomsky’s
theses on the “Tasks of the Trade Unions” were discussed. Lenin sharply criticised the theses, particularly
article 7 on corporate management as the main method. But the
All-Russia C.C.T.U. group took up an incorrect stand, and its
majority voted for Tomsky’s theses.

[9]
The Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars “On
Centralisation of Management, Protection of Roads and Raising
Their Traffic Capacity”, published in Izvestia
No. 59, March 28, 1918, was demagogically called the “Decree
on Dictatorship” by the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries.

[10]
The Ninth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) set up a special committee to
discuss the co-operative movement. At its meeting of April 2,
1920, the committee examined several variants of the theses on the
co-operatives submitted for discussion at the Congress. The
committee took as the basis the theses by V. P. Milyutin, who
proposed to subordinate co-operatives to the state. After
Lenin’s speech against Milyutin’s theses, the Congress by a majority vote passed a resolution which Lenin had
supported.