V. I.

Lenin

December 6, 1920

Comrades, so many notes have been sent up that I cannot
possibly answer them all. On the other hand, most of the arguments have
already been refuted in the debate, so

I shall first comment on the booklet On Concessions . [1]
I shall deal with this in greater detail. Comrade Lomov’s
one-and-a-half page preface deals with the subject all too briefly. Then
there is the decree itself of November 23, which sets forth the idea of the
interests of world economy. “The process of restoring the productive
forces of Russia, and at the same time, of world economy as a whole, can be
accelerated many times over by enlisting the co-operation of foreign state
and municipal institutions, private enterprises, joint-stock companies,
co-operative societies and workers’ organisations of other countries in the
extraction and processing of Russia’s natural resources.” Of course, this
is merely of propaganda value, but it is economically indisputable. World
economy has got to be restored. Capitalism acts in such and such a way, and
we have our own proposals, but so far world economy remains
capitalist.

We wanted to attract foreigners. Therefore the end of the decree lists
these conditions:

Point One: “The concessionaire is to receive reward in the form of a
share of the produce stipulated in the agreement with the right of
exporting it abroad.” Without this they won’t go. The share is not
specified. There will be a fight over this, we shall bargain and each of us
will try to get the best of it. Comrades here said we shall have to keep
our eyes skinned, and that’s quite right.

Point Two: “In the event of special technical improvements being
employed on a large scale the concessionaire will be granted trade
priorities (such as the purchase of machinery, special agreements on large
orders, etc.).” What do trade priorities mean? They mean we shall give
this or that firm a priority agreement to the exclusion of another
firm. And if the firm takes concessions, we can buy them out, we may pay
them extra on the price. The main thing is that we shall be given
machines. I think this consideration is clear enough, and here again we
shall maintain elements of propaganda.

Point Three: “Depending on the nature and conditions of the concession
prolonged concession terms will be granted to ensure full compensation for
the concessionaire’s risk and technical facilities invested in the
concession.” Here we have the duration of the concessions. It is quite an indefinite period, and we couldn’t give Kamchatka on any other conditions,
and Comrades Fedotov and Skvortsov are right about this being a special
concession, which we are granting for important political reasons. In
granting them under such conditions we are willingly giving away what we do
not need ourselves, and we shall be no worse off for the loss of it neither
economically nor politically.

Point Four: “The Government of the R.S.F.S.R. guarantees that the
concessionaire’s property invested in the enterprise shall not be subject
to nationalisation, confiscation or requisition.” Haven’t you forgotten
that we still have the law court? This is a well-considered phrase with
which we were deeply concerned. We wanted to mention it at first, then
thought better of it and decided to say nothing. Speech is silver but
silence is gold. There won’t be confiscation or requisition, but there
remains the law court, and that court is ours, and if I am not mistaken it
is composed of people elected by the Soviets. Personally, I hold anything
but a gloomy view about our court being a poor one. So we shall make use of
it.

Point Five: “The concessionaire shall have the right to hire workers
and other employees for his enterprises in the R.S.F.S.R. with due
observance of the code of labour laws or a special agreement guaranteeing
workers definite conditions of work that protect their lives and health.”
There is nothing cautious here. If the workers go on strike and that strike
is a reasonable one, we shall then be able secretly to support the
strikers. What threat do the capitalists use? “We’ll throw you out into
the street and you will starve.” But here they may find themselves
getting a ration from somewhere or other, it all depends on us. We can and
shall give it to them. And if the strike is a silly one, unreasonable,
we’ll have them up on the Soviet carpet and tell them off good and
proper. It speaks here of a special agreement, but it is worded very
carefully. By way of exception, however, it will have to be applied to
Kamchatka, as we are not in a position to set up any Soviet bodies
there. This is where Vanderlip was to demand a special agreement. We
haven’t even started yet to apply our own laws to Kamchatka.

Point Six: “The Government of the R.S.F.S.R. guarantees the
concessionaire against any unilateral change in the terms of the concession agreement by any order or decree of the
Government.” We undertake not to change the terms of the agreement
unilaterally, otherwise no one will sign it. This means there must be some
go-betweens. Who? The neutral states are all capitalist states. Workers’
organisations? We may have to invite Menshevik workers’ organisations. In
Western Europe they are in a majority. Maybe the Mensheviks will decide in
turn-even number for the Bolsheviks, odd number for the capitalists. But if
we don’t come to terms, the agreement may be broken. That danger remains,
but if it is a property agreement there is no harm in that. According to
the basic principles of international law this is a private agreement, and
you can break it, paying compensation, of course. If you broke it you’ve
got to pay. There have been cases in the practice of international law when
the ship of another country has been sunk by mistake during the war. It was
taken for an enemy ship, but proved to be a neutral vessel. What is to be
done? Pay up. The same here, as a last resort you buy yourself off. There
still remains withdrawal from the war, though. War, of course, in the final
analysis, is the ultimate argument. Of course, so long as there are
capitalists in the world you must be prepared for war, once you have a
socialist state. Further, we here are worrying now, but no one has taken a
concession yet. When certain comrades say, “Ah well, this is the end,
they’ll all come crowding in now,” I repeat, it’s possible that no one
will care to take it at all.

Section One: “Timber concessions in Western Siberia.” The Northern
Sea Passage is open for shipping, but we have no merchant fleet. A comrade
says representatives have arrived, wishing to receive 6000 dessiatines in
checkered order. The northern booklet says that if we take the extra
electric stations of Petrograd we could use them for taking timber out of
the northern districts and develop a production that would give us foreign
currency to the value of five hundred thousand gold rubles a year. And
total electrification, according to the estimate of the State Commission,
will cost over a thousand million. It is a question whether we shall he
able to do it. Concessions, however, will make this task easier. You don’t
go about offering concessions because you find life good, and when that
life is a hungry one, when you have to wangle things so as to give the people a respite, you
have to argue differently.

Section Three: “Mining concessions in Siberia.” Siberia is
fabulously rich in copper. Copper has an extremely high value in world
economy and is one of the principal metals used in electrification. We are
offering a concession but do not know who will take it. America or the
Germans. America will think that if she doesn’t take it, Germany will.

When we carry through electrification we shall be a hundred times
stronger economically. We shall then speak a different language. We shall
speak about redemption. They know that the socialist society is not only
quick at creating a Red Army, but can be quick in other things as
well.

Further, separate concessions. Three million dessiatines in the
European part of Russia alone. Of these, over 800,000 dessiatines in the
former Don Cossack Region. There are no state farms or livestock. Whole
stanitsas along the river Ural are ruined, splendid virgin lands are lying
idle. Even if we give away three quarters of the wheat crop raised there,
we shall receive one quarter. We must strengthen our transport and we can
stipulate that tractors be delivered cheaper.

If we cannot put three million dessiatines of magnificent land to the
plough, which will yield us 100 poods of wheat per dessiatine—then what
sort of farming is it? What sort of policy is it?

The Italians are interested in this, and Italy is on the eve of a
revolution. In Italy the main argument against a revolution is “We won’t
be able to feed ourselves, the capitalist powers won’t give us any
food”. But the socialist power says, “I have three million dessiatines of
land, I have oil and benzine”. You must realise that you can agitate on
various planes about capitalism being a dead thing, and that it must be
strangled. We have seen a good deal. The European is living in the same
conditions as the Russian did when he went towards revolution from the
agonies of war. With them the war is over, they are living by robbing other
peoples. All the more weight does this argument carry. They are unable to
restore their economy, and we offer them to start restoring it now. We have
here combined a political argument and socialist agitation, but in a different form. You must learn to carry on agitation, otherwise your
economic plans will come to nothing. And we are not only agitators, we are
a Socialist Republic standing up to all the capitalist states in the
world. You can’t run your economy, but we can. There is a possibility of
comparison here.

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Notes:
[1]
Lenin has in view the booklet On Concessions. Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of November 23, 1920. Text of the Decree. Concession Objects. Maps. Moscow, 1920.