V. I. Lenin

The New Economic Policy

And The Tasks Of The Political Education Departments

Report To The Second All-Russia Congress Of Political Education Departments October 17, 1921 [1]

Comrades, I intend to devote this report, or rather talk, to the
New Economic Policy, and to the tasks of the Political Education
Departments arising out of this policy, as I understand them. I
think it would be quite wrong to limit reports on questions that
do not come within the scope of a given congress to bare
information about what is going on generally in the Party or in
the Soviet Republic.

Abrupt Change Of Policy Of The Soviet
Government And The R.C.P.

While I do not in the least deny the value of such information
and the usefulness of conferences on all questions, I nevertheless find that the main defect in the proceedings of
most of our congresses is that they are not directly and
immediately connected with the practical problems before
them. These are the defects that I should like to speak about
both in connection with and in respect of the New Economic
Policy.

I shall speak about the Now Economic Policy briefly and in
general terms. Comrades, the overwhelming majority of you are
Communists, and although some of you are very young, you have
worked magnificently to carry out our general policy in the
first years of our revolution. Having done a large part of this
work you cannot help seeing the abrupt change made by our Soviet
government and our Communist Party in adopting the economic
policy which we call “new", new, that is, in respect of
our previous economic policy.

In substance, however, this new policy contains more elements of
the old than our previous economic policy did.

Why? Because our previous economic policy, if we cannot say
counted on (in the situation then prevailing we did little
counting in general), then to a certain degree assumed—we
may say uncalculatingly assumed—that there would be a direct transition from the old Russian economy to state
production and distribution on communist lines.

If we recall the economic literature that we ourselves issued in
the past, if we recall what Communists wrote before and very
soon after we took power in Russia—for example, in the beginning of 1918, when the first political assault upon old
Russia ended in a smashing victory, when the Soviet Republic was
created, when Russia emerged from the imperialist war, mutilated, it is true, but not so mutilated as she would have
been had she continued to “defend the fatherland” as she was advised to do by the imperialists, the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries—if we recall all this we shall
understand that in the initial period, when we had only just
completed the first stage in the work of building up the Soviet
government and had only just emerged from the imperialist war,
what we said about our tasks in the field of economic development was much more cautious and circumspect than our
actions in the latter half of 1918 and throughout 1919 and
1920.

The 1918 Decision Of The All-Russia Central Executive
Committee On The Role Of The Peasantry

Even if all of you were not yet active workers in the Party and
the Soviets at that time, you have at all events been able to
make, and of course have made, yourselves familiar with
decisions such as that adopted by the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee at the end of April 1918. [2] That decision pointed to the necessity to take peasant farming into
consideration, and it was based on a report which made allowance
for the role of state capitalism in building socialism in a
peasant country; a report which emphasised the importance of
personal, individual, one-man responsibility; which emphasised
the significance of that factor in the administration of the
country as distinct from the political tasks of organising state
power and from military tasks.

Our Mistake

At the beginning of 1918 we expected a period in which peaceful
construction would be possible. When the Brest peace was signed
it seemed that danger had subsided for a time and that it would
be possible to start peaceful construction. But we were
mistaken, because in 1918 a real military danger overtook us in
the shape of the Czechoslovak mutiny and the outbreak of civil
war, which dragged on until 1920. Partly owing to the war
problems that overwhelmed us and partly owing to the desperate
position in which the Republic found itself when the imperialist
war ended—owing to these circumstances, and a number of
others, we made the mistake of deciding to go over directly to
communist production and distribution. We thought that under the
surplus-food appropriation system the peasants would provide us
with the required quantity of grain, which we could distribute
among the factories and thus achieve communist production and
distribution.

I cannot say that we pictured this plan as definitely and as
clearly as that; but we acted approximately on those lines. That, unfortunately, is a fact. I say unfortunately,
because brief experience convinced us that that line was wrong,
that it ran counter to what we had previously written about the
transition from capitalism to socialism, namely, that it would
be impossible to bypass the period of socialist accounting and
control in approaching even the lower stage of communism. Ever
since 1917, when the problem of taking power arose and the
Bolsheviks explained it to the whole people, our theoretical
literature has been definitely stressing the necessity for a
prolonged, complex transition through socialist accounting and
control from capitalist society (and the less developed it is
the longer the transition will take) to even one of the
approaches to communist society.

A Strategical Retreat

At that time, when in the heat of the Civil War we had to take
the necessary steps in economic organisation, it seemed to have
been forgotten. In substance, our New Economic Policy signifies
that, having sustained severe defeat on this point, we have
started a strategical retreat. We said in effect: “Before
we are completely routed, let us retreat and reorganise
everything, but on a firmer basis. “ If Communists deliberately examine the question of the New Economic Policy
there cannot be the slightest doubt in their minds that we have
sustained a very severe defeat on the economic front. In the
circumstances it is inevitable, of course, for some people to
become very despondent, almost panic-stricken, and because of
the retreat, these people will begin to give way to panic. That
is inevitable. When the Red Army retreated, was its flight from
the enemy not the prelude to its victory? Every retreat on every
front, however, caused some people to give way to panic for a
time. But on each occasion—on the Kolchak front, on the
Denikin front, on the Yudenich front, on the Polish front and on
the Wrangel front—once we had been badly battered (and sometimes more than once) we proved the truth of the proverb:
“A man who has been beaten is worth two who haven’t.” After being beaten we began to advance
slowly, systematically and cautiously.

Of course, tasks on the economic front are much more difficult
than tasks on the war front, although there is a general
similarity between the two elementary outlines of strategy. In
attempting to go over straight to communism we, in the spring of
1921, sustained a more serious defeat on the economic front than
any defeat inflicted upon us by Kolchak, Denikin or
Pilsudski. This defeat was much more serious, significant and
dangerous. It was expressed in the isolation of the higher
administrators of our economic policy from the lower and their
failure to produce that development of the productive forces
which the Programme of our Party regards as vital and urgent.

The surplus-food appropriation system in the rural districts—this direct communist approach to the problem of
urban development—hindered the growth of the productive
forces and proved to be the main cause of the profound economic
and political crisis that we experienced in the spring of
1921. That was why we had to take a step which from the point of
view of our line, of our policy, cannot be called anything else
than a very severe defeat and retreat. Moreover, it cannot be
said that this retreat is—like retreats of the Red
Army—a completely orderly retreat to previously prepared
positions. True, the positions for our present retreat were
prepared beforehand. That can be proved by comparing the
decisions adopted by our Party in the spring of 1921 with the
one adopted in April 1918, which I have mentioned. The positions
were prepared beforehand; but the retreat to these positions
took place (and is still taking place in many parts of the
country) in disorder, and even in extreme disorder.

Purport Of The New Economic Policy

It is here that the task of the Political Education Departments
to combat this comes to the forefront. The main problem in the
light of the New Economic Policy is to take advantage of the
situation that has arisen as speedily as possible.

The New Economic Policy means substituting a tax for the
requisitioning of food; it means reverting to capitalism to a
considerable extent—to what extent we do not know. Concessions to foreign capitalists (true, only very few
have been accepted, especially when compared with the number we
have offered) and leasing enterprises to private capitalists
definitely mean restoring capitalism, and this is part and
parcel of the New Economic Policy; for the abolition of the
surplus-food appropriation system means allowing the peasants to
trade freely in their surplus agricultural produce, in whatever
is left over after the tax is collected—and the tax~ takes
only a small share of that produce. The peasants constitute a
huge section of our population and of our entire economy, and
that is why capitalism must grow out of this soil of free
trading.

That is the very ABC of economics as taught by the rudiments of
that science, and in Russia taught, furthermore, by the
profiteer, the creature who needs no economic or political
science to teach us economics with. From the point of view of
strategy the root question is: who will take advantage of the
new situation first? The whole question is—whom will the
peasantry follow? The proletariat, which wants to build
socialist society? Or the capitalist, who says, “Let us
turn back; it is safer that way; we don’t know anything
about this socialism they have invented”?

Who Will Win, The Capitalist Or Soviet Power?

The issue in the present war is—who will win, who will first take advantage of the situation: the capitalist, whom we
are allowing to come in by the door, and even by several doors
(and by many doors we are not aware of, and which open without
us, and in spite of us), or proletarian state power? What has
the latter to rely on economically? On the one hand, the
improved position of the people. In this connection we must
remember the peasants. It is absolutely incontrovertible and
obvious to all that in spite of the awful disaster of the
famine—and leaving that disaster out of the reckoning for
the moment—the improvement that has taken place in the position of the people has been due to the change in our
economic policy.

On the other hand, if capitalism gains by it, industrial
production will grow, and the proletariat will grow too. The
capitalists will gain from our policy and will create an
industrial proletariat, which in our country, owing to the war
and to the desperate poverty and ruin, has become declassed,
i. e., dislodged from its class groove, and has ceased to exist
as a proletariat. The proletariat is the class which is engaged
in the production of material values in large-scale capitalist
industry. Since large-scale capitalist industry has been
destroyed, since the factories are at a standstill, the
proletariat has disappeared. It has sometimes figured in
statistics, but it has not been held together economically.

The restoration of capitalism would mean the restoration of a
proletarian class engaged in the production of socially useful
material values in big factories employing machinery, and not in
profiteering, not in making cigarette-lighters for sale, and in
other “work” which is not very useful, but which is inevitable when our industry is in a state of ruin.

The whole question is who will take the lead. We must face this
issue squarely—who will come out on top? Either the capitalists succeed in organising first—in which case they
will drive out the Communists and that will be the end of it. Or
the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry,
will prove capable of keeping a proper rein on those gentlemen,
the capitalists, so as to direct capitalism along state channels
and to create a capitalism that will be subordinate to the state
and serve the state. The question must be put soberly. All this
ideology, all these arguments about political liberties that we
hear so much of, especially among Russian ßmigrßs, in
Russia No. 2, where scores of daily newspapers published by all
the political parties extol these liberties in every key and
every manner—all these are mere talk, mere phrase-mongering. We must learn to ignore this phrase
mongering.

The Fight Will Be Even Fiercer

During the past four years we have fought many hard battles and
we have learnt that it is one thing to fight hard battles and
another to talk about them—something onlookers particularly indulge in. We must learn to ignore all this
ideology, all this chatter, and see the substance of things. And
the substance is that the fight will be even more desperate and
fiercer than the fight we waged against Kolchak and
Denikin. That fighting was war, something we were familiar
with. There have been wars for hundreds, for thousands of
years. In the art of human slaughter much progress has been
made.

True, nearly every landowner had at his headquarters
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who talked loudly
about government by the people, the Constituent Assembly, and
about the Bolsheviks having violated all liberties.

It was, of course, much easier to solve war problems than those
that confront us now; war problems could be solved by assault,
attack, enthusiasm, by the sheer physical force of the hosts of
workers and peasants, who saw the landowners marching against
them. Now there are no avowed landowners. Some of the Wrangels,
Kolchaks and Denikins have gone the way of Nicholas Romanov, and
some have sought refuge abroad. The people no longer see the
open enemy as they formerly saw the landowners and capitalists. The people cannot clearly picture to themselves
that the enemy is the same, that he is now in our very midst,
that the revolution is on the brink of the precipice which all
previous revolutions reached and recoiled from—they cannot
picture this because of their profound ignorance and illiteracy. It is hard to say how long it will take all sorts of
extraordinary commissions to eradicate this illiteracy by
extraordinary means.

How can the people know that instead of Kolchak, Wrangel and
Denikin we have in our midst the enemy who has crushed all
previous revolutions? If the capitalists gain the upper hand
there will be a return to the old regime. That has been
demonstrated by the experience of all previous revolutions. Our
Party must make the masses realise that the enemy in our midst
is anarchic capitalism and anarchic commodity exchange. We
ourselves must see clearly that the issue in this struggle is:
Who will win? Who will gain the upper hand? and we must make the
broadest masses of workers and peasants see it clearly. The
dictatorship of the proletariat is the sternest and fiercest
struggle that the proletariat must wage against the whole world,
for the whole world was against us in supporting Kolchak and
Denikin.

Now the bourgeoisie of the whole world are supporting the
Russian bourgeoisie, and they are still ever so much stronger
than we are. That, however, does not throw us into a panic. Their military forces were stronger than
ours. Nevertheless, they failed to crush us in war, although,
being immeasurably superior to us in artillery and aircraft, it
should have been very easy for them to do so. Perhaps they would
have crushed us had any of the capitalist states that were
fighting us mobilised a few army corps in time, and had they not
grudged a loan of several millions in gold to Kolchak.

However, they failed because the rank-and-file British soldiers
who came to Archangel, and the sailors who compelled the French
fleet to leave Odessa, realised that their rulers were wrong and
we were right. Now, too, we are being attacked by forces that
are stronger than ours; and to win in this struggle we must rely
upon our last source of strength. That last source of strength
is the mass of workers and peasants, their class-consciousness
and organisation.

Either organised proletarian power—and the advanced workers and a small section of the advanced peasants will
understand this and succeed in organising a popular movement
around themselves—in which case we shall be victorious; or
we fail to do this—in which case the enemy, being technologically stronger, will inevitably defeat us.

Is This The Last Fight?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is fierce war. The proletariat has been victorious in one country, but it is still
weak internationally. It must unite all the workers and peasants
around itself in the knowledge that the war is not over. Although in our anthem we sing: “The last fight let
us face", unfortunately it is not quite true; it is not our last
fight. Either you succeed in uniting the workers and peasants in
this fight, or you fail to achieve victory.

Never before in history has there been a struggle like the one
we are now witnesses of; but there have been wars between
peasants and landowners more than once in history, ever since
the earliest times of slavery. Such wars have occurred more than
once; but there has never been a war waged by a government
against the bourgeoisie of its own country and against the
united bourgeoisie of all countries.

The issue of the struggle depends upon whether we succeed in
organising the small peasants on the basis of the development of
their productive forces with proletarian state assistance for
this development, or whether the capitalists gain control over
them. The same issue has arisen in scores of revolutions in the
past; but the world has never witnessed a struggle like the one
we are waging now. The people have had no way of acquiring
experience in wars of this kind. We ourselves must create this
experience and we can rely only on the class-consciousness of
the workers and peasants. That is the keynote and the enormous
difficulty of this task.

We Must Not Count On Going Straight To Communism

We must not count on going straight to communism. We must build
on the basis of peasants’ personal incentive. We are told
that the personal incentive of the peasants means restoring
private property. But we have never interfered with personally
owned articles of consumption and implements of production as
far as the peasants are concerned. We have abolished private
ownership of land. Peasants farmed land that they did not
own—rented land, for instance. That system exists in very
many countries. There is nothing impossible about it from the
standpoint of economics. The difficulty lies in creating
personal incentive. We must also give every specialist an
incentive to develop our industry.

Have we been able to do that? No, we have not! We thought that
production and distribution would go on at communist bidding in
a country with a declassed proletariat. We must change that now,
or we shall be unable to make the proletariat understand this
process of transition. No such problems have ever arisen in
history before. We tried to solve this problem straight out, by
a frontal attack, as it were, but we suffered defeat. Such
mistakes occur in every war, and they are not even regarded as
mistakes. Since the frontal attack failed, we shall make a
flanking movement and also use the method of siege and undermining.

The Principle Of Personal Incentive
And Responsibility

We say that every important branch of the economy must be built
up on the principle of personal incentive. There must be
collective discussion, but individual responsibility. At every
step we suffer from our inability to apply this principle. The. New Economic Policy demands this line of
demarcation to be drawn with absolute sharpness and distinction. When the people found themselves under new economic
conditions they immediately began to discuss what would come of
it, and how things should be reorganised. We could not have
started anything without this general discussion because for
decades and centuries the people had been prohibited from
discussing anything, and the revolution could not develop
without a period in which people everywhere hold meetings to
argue about all questions.

This has created much confusion. This is what happened—this was inevitable, but it must be said that it
was not dangerous. If we learn in good time to separate what is
appropriate for meetings from what is appropriate for administration we shall succeed in raising the position of the
Soviet Republic to its proper level. Unfortunately, we have not
yet learnt to do this, and most congresses are far from
business-like.

In the number of our congresses we excel all other countries in
the world. Not a single democratic republic holds as many
congresses as we do; nor could they permit it.

We must remember that ours is a country that has suffered great
loss and impoverishment, and that we must teach it to hold
meetings in such a way as not to confuse, as I have said, what
is appropriate for meetings with what is appropriate for
administration. Hold meetings, but govern without the slightest
hesitation; govern with a firmer hand than the capitalist
governed before you. If you do not, you will not vanquish
him. You must remember that government must be much stricter and
much firmer than it was before.

After many months of meetings, the discipline of the Red Army
was not inferior to the discipline of the old army. Strict,
stern measures were adopted, including capital punishment,
measures that even the former government did not apply. Philistines wrote and howled, “The Bolsheviks have
introduced capital punishment.” Our reply is, “Yes, we have introduced it, and have done so deliberately.”

We must say: either those who wanted to crush us—and who
we think ought to be destroyed—must perish, in which case
our Soviet Republic will live or the capitalists will live, and
in that case the Republic will perish. In an impoverished
country either those who cannot stand the pace will perish, or
the workers’ and peasants’ republic will perish. There is not and cannot be any choice or any room for
sentiment. Sentiment is no less a crime than cowardice in
wartime. Whoever now departs from order and discipline is
permitting the enemy to penetrate our midst.

That is why I say that the New Economic Policy also has its
educational aspect. You here are discussing methods of education. You must go as far as saying that we have no room for
the half-educated. When there is communism, the methods of
education will be milder. Now, however, I say education must be
harsh, otherwise we shall perish.

Shall We Be Able To Work For Our Own Benefit?

We had deserters from the army, and also from the labour
front. We must say that in the past you worked for the benefit
of the capitalists, of the exploiters, and of course you did not
do your best. But now you are working for yourselves, for the
workers’ and peasants’ state. Remember that the question at issue is whether we shall be able to work for
ourselves, for if we cannot, I repeat, our Republic will
perish. And we say, as we said in the army. that either those
who want to cause our destruction must perish, or we must adopt
the sternest disciplinary measures and thereby save our
country—and our Republic will live.

That is what our line must be, that is why (among other things)
we need the New Economic Policy.

Get down to business, all of you! You will have capitalists
beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and
leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to
hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating
alongside of you. Let them. Meanwhile you will learn from them
the business of running the economy, and only when you do that
will you be able to build up a communist republic. Since we must
necessarily learn quickly, any slackness in this respect is a
serious crime. And we must undergo this training, this severe,
stern and sometimes even cruel training, because we have no
other way out.

You must remember that our Soviet land is impoverished after
many years of trial and suffering, and has no socialist France
or socialist England as neighbours which could help us with
their highly developed technology and their highly developed
industry. Bear that in mind! We must remember that at present
all their highly developed technology and their highly developed
industry belong to the capitalists, who are fighting us.

We must remember that we must either strain every nerve in
everyday effort, or we shall inevitably go under.

Owing to the present circumstances the whole world is developing
faster than we are. While developing, the capitalist world is
directing all its forces against us. That is how the matter
stands! That is why we must devote special attention to this
struggle.

Owing to our cultural backwardness we cannot crush capitalism by
a frontal attack. Had we been on a different cultural level we
could have approached the problem more directly; perhaps other
countries will do it in this way when their turn comes to build
their communist republics. But we cannot do it in the direct
way.

The state must learn to trade in such a way that industry
satisfies the needs of the peasantry, so that the peasantry may
satisfy their needs by means of trade. We must see to it that
everyone who works devotes himself to strengthening the
workers’ and peasants’ state. Only then shall we be able to create large-scale industry.

The masses must become conscious of this, and not only conscious
of it, but put it into practice. This, I say, suggests what the
functions of the Central Political Education Department should
be. After every deep-going political revolution the people
require a great deal of time to assimilate the change. And it is
a question of whether the people have assimilated the lessons
they received. To my deep regret, the answer to this question
must be in the negative. Had they assimilated the lessons we
should have started creating large-scale industry much more
quickly and much earlier.

After we had solved the problem of the greatest political
revolution in history, other problems confronted us, cultural
problems, which may be called “minor affairs". This political revolution must be assimilated; we must help the
masses of the people to understand it. We must see to it that
the political revolution remains something more than a mere
declaration.

Obsolete Methods

At one time we needed declarations, statements, manifestos and
decrees. We have had enough of them. At one time we needed them
to show the people how and what we wanted to build, what new and
hitherto unseen things we were striving for. But can we go on
showing the people what we want to build? No. Even an ordinary
labourer will begin to sneer at us and say: “What use is
it to keep on showing us what you want to build? Show us that
you can build. If you can’t build, we’re not with you, and you can go to hell!” And he will be right.

Gone is the time when it was necessary to draw political
pictures of great tasks; today these tasks must be carried out
in practice. Today we are confronted with cultural tasks, those
of assimilating that political experience, which can and must be
put into practice. Either we lay an economic foundation for the
political gains of the Soviet state, or we shall lose them
all. This foundation has not yet been laid—that is what we
must get down to.

The task of raising the cultural level is one of the most urgent
confronting us. And that is the job the Political Education
Departments must do, if they are capable of serving the cause of
“political education", which is the title they have adopted for themselves. It is easy to adopt a title; but how
about acting up to it? Let us hope that after this Congress we
shall have precise information about this. A Commission for the
Abolition of Illiteracy was set up on July 19, 1920. Before
coming to this Congress I purposely read the decree establishing
that commission. It says: All-Russia Commission for the
Abolition of Illiteracy. . . . More than that—Extraordinary Commission for the Abolition of
Illiteracy. Let us hope that after this Congress we shall
receive information about what has been done in this field, and
in how many gubernias, and that the report will be concrete. But
the very need to set up an Extraordinary Commission for the
Abolition of Illiteracy shows that we are (what is the mildest
term I can use for it?), well, something like semi-savages
because in a country that was not semi-savage it would be
considered a disgrace to have to set up an Extraordinary
Commission for the Abolition of Illiteracy. In such countries
illiteracy is abolished in schools. There they have tolerably
good schools where people are taught. What are they taught?
First of all they are taught to read and write. If we have not
yet solved this elementary problem it is ridiculous to talk
about a New Economic Policy.

The Greatest Miracle Of All

What talk can there be of a new policy? God grant that we manage
to stick to the old policy if we have to resort to extraordinary
measures to abolish illiteracy. That is obvious. But it is still
more obvious that in the military and other fields we performed
miracles. The greatest miracle of all, in my opinion, would be
if the Commission for the Abolition of Illiteracy were completely abolished, and if no proposals, such as I have heard
here, were made for separating it from the People’s
Commissariat of Education. If that is true, and if you give it
some thought, you will agree with me that an extraordinary
commission should be set up to abolish certain bad proposals.

More than that—it is not enough to abolish illiteracy, it
is necessary to build up Soviet economy, and for that literacy
alone will not carry us very far. We must raise culture to a
much higher level. A man must make use of his ability to read
and write; he must have something to read, he must have
newspapers and propaganda pamphlets, which should be properly
distributed and reach the people and not get lost in transit, as
they do now, so that no more than half of them are read, and the
rest are used in offices for some purpose or other. Perhaps not
even one-fourth reach the people. We must learn to make full use
of the scanty resources we do possess.

That is why we must, in connection with the New Economic Policy,
ceaselessly propagate the idea that political education calls
for raising the level of culture at all costs. The ability to
read and write must be made to serve the purpose of raising the
cultural level; the peasants must be able to use the ability to
read and write for the improvement of their farms and their
state.

Soviet laws are very good laws, because they give everyone an
opportunity to combat bureaucracy and red tape, an opportunity
the workers and peasants in any capitalist state do not
have. But does anybody take advantage of this? Hardly anybody!
Not only the peasants, but an enormous percentage of the
Communists do not know how to utilise Soviet laws to combat red
tape and bureaucracy, or such a truly Russian phenomenon as
bribery. What hinders the fight against this? Our laws? Our
propaganda? On the contrary! We have any number of laws! Why
then have we achieved no success in this struggle? Because it
cannot be waged by propaganda alone. It can be done if the
masses of the people help. No less than half our Communists are
incapable of fighting, to say nothing of those who are a
hindrance in the fight. True, ninety-nine per cent of you are
Communists, and you know that we are carrying out an operation
on these latter Communists. The operation is being carried out
by the Commission for Purging the Party, and we have hopes of
removing a hundred thousand or so from our Party. Some say two
hundred thousand, and I much prefer that figure.

I hope very much that we shall expel a hundred thou sand to two
hundred thousand Communists who have attached themselves to the
Party and who are not only incapable of fighting red tape and
bribery, but are even a hindrance in this fight.

Tasks Of Political Educationalists

If we purge the Party of a couple of hundred thousand it will be
useful, but that is only a tiny fraction of what we must do. The
Political Education Departments must adapt all their activities
to this purpose. Illiteracy must be combated; but literacy alone
is likewise not enough. We also need the culture which teaches
us to fight red tape and bribery. It is an ulcer which no
military victories and no political reforms can heal. By the
very nature of things, it cannot be healed by military victories
and political reforms, but only by raising the cultural
level. And that is the task that devolves upon the Political
Education Departments.

Political educationalists must not understand their job as that
of functionaries, as often seems to be the case when people
discuss whether representatives of Gubernia Political Education
Departments should or should not be appointed to gubernia
economic conferences. [3] Excuse me for saying so, but I do
not think you should be appointed to any office; you should do
your job as ordinary citizens. When you are appointed to some
office you become bureaucrats; but if you deal with the people,
and if you enlighten them politically, experience will show you
that there will be no bribery among a politically enlightened
people. At present bribery surrounds us on all sides. You will
be asked what must be done to abolish bribery, to prevent
so-and-so on the Executive Committee from taking bribes. You
will he asked to teach people how to put a stop to it. And if a
political educationalist replies that it does not come within
the functions of his department, or that pamphlets have been
published and proclamations made on the subject, the people will
say that he is a bad Party member. True, this does not come
within the functions of your department, we have the
Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection for that; but are you not members of the Party? You have adopted the title of
political educationalists. When you were about to adopt that
title you were warned not to choose such a pretentious one, to
choose something more modest. But yon wanted the title of
political educationalists, and that title implies a great
deal. You did not take the title of general educationalists, but
of political educationalists. You may be told, “It is a
good thing that you are teaching the people to read and write
and to carry on economic campaigns; that is all very well, but
it is not political education, because political education is
the sum total of everything.”

We are carrying on propaganda against barbarism and against
ulcers like bribery, and I hope you are doing the same, but
political education is much more than this propaganda—it
means practical results, it means teaching the people how to
achieve these results, and setting an example to others, not as
members of an Executive Committee, but as ordinary citizens who,
being politically better educated, are able not only to hurl
imprecations at red tape—that is very widely practised among us—but to show how this evil can really be
overcome. This is a very difficult art, which cannot be
practised until the general level of culture is raised, until
the mass of workers and peasants is more cultured than now. It
is to this function that I should like most of all to draw the
attention of the Central Political Education Department.

I should now like to sum up all that I have said and to suggest
practical solutions for the problems that confront the Gubernia
Political Education Departments.

The Three Chief Enemies

In my opinion, three chief enemies now confront one, irrespective of one’s departmental functions; these tasks
confront the political educationalist, if he is a
Communist—and most of the political educationalists are. The three chief enemies that confront him are the
following: the first is communist conceit; the second—illiteracy, and the third—bribery.

The First Enemy—Communist Conceit

A member of the Communist Party, who has not yet been combed
out, and who imagines he can solve all his problems by issuing
communist decrees, is guilty of communist conceit. Because he is
still a member of the ruling party and is employed in some
government office, he imagines this entitles him to talk about
the results of political education. Nothing of the sort! That is
only communist conceit. The point is to learn to impart
political knowledge; but that we have not yet learnt; we have
not yet learnt how to approach the subject properly.

The Second Enemy—Illiteracy

As regards the second enemy, illiteracy, I can say that so long
as there is such a thing as illiteracy in our country it is too
much to talk about political education. This is not a political
problem; it is a condition without which it is useless talking
about politics. An illiterate person stands outside politics, he
must first learn his ABC. Without that there can be no politics;
without that there are rumours, gossip, fairy-tales and
prejudices, but not politics.

The Third Enemy—Bribery

Lastly, if such a thing as bribery is possible it is no use
talking about politics. Here we have not even an approach to
politics; here it is impossible to pursue politics, because all
measures are left hanging in the air and produce absolutely no
results. A law applied in conditions which permit of widespread
bribery can only make things worse. Under such conditions no
politics whatever can be pursued; the fundamental condition for
engaging in politics is lacking. To be able to outline our
political tasks to the people, to be able to say to the masses
what things we must strive for (and this is what we should be
doing!), we must understand that a higher cultural level of the
masses is what is required. This higher level we must achieve,
otherwise it will be impossible really to solve our problems.

Difference Between Military And Cultural Problems

A cultural problem cannot be solved as quickly as political and
military problems. It must be understood that conditions for
further progress are no longer what they were. In a period of
acute crisis it is possible to achieve a political victory
within a few weeks. It is possible to obtain victory in war in a
few months. But it is impossible to achieve a cultural victory
in such a short time. By its very nature it requires a longer
period; and we must adapt ourselves to this longer period, plan
our work accordingly, and display the maximum of perseverance,
persistence and method. Without these qualities it is impossible
even to start on the work of political education. And the only
criterion of the results of political education is the improvement achieved in industry and agriculture. We must not
only abolish illiteracy and the bribery which persists on the
soil of illiteracy, but we must get the people really to accept
our propaganda, our guidance and our pamphlets, so that the
result may be an improvement in the national economy.

Those are the functions of the Political Education Departments
in connection with the New Economic Policy, and I hope this
Congress will help us to achieve greater success in this
field.

Endnotes

[1] Held in Moscow on
October 17-22, 1921, this Congress was attended by 307 delegates.

Its main object was to endorse a plan of work for 1922 and work
out the forms and methods of agitation and propaganda in the
situation called forth by the New Economic Policy.

Lenin, who was given an ovation by the delegates, spoke at the
evening session on October 17.

The Political Education Departments were formed by local (volost, uyezd and gubernia) public education bodies in
conformity with a decree issued on February 23, 1920. Their work
was guided by the Central Political Education Committee at the
People’s Commissariat of Education.

[2] The All-Russia
Central Executive Committee passed its decision of April 29,
1918 on the basis of Lenin’s report On the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government . The propositions in that report and
in the article The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government were summed up by Lenin in six theses,
which, with some additions, were unanimously endorsed by the
Party Central Committee on May 3, 1918. See Six Theses on the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government .

[3] Gubernia economic conferences were local organs of the Council of
Labour and Defence. They were set up by the Executive Committees
of the gubernia Soviets in conformity with the decision passed
by the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December
1920.