The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of Political Educators

1. Not in a directly communist manner, but “by roundabout routes and with a measured approach.”

2. Defeat and retreat—only to launch a new offensive.

3. Who will be quicker to seize the opportunity: the capitalists, or we?

4. “Personal self-interest”… Peasants, workers, specialists—how many absurdities still surround our attitudes toward them!

5. Learn from both tenant farmers and capitalists—a serious, rigorous science indeed.

6. Raise production at all costs.
Are you outside the institutions? Even better—if you’re outside them.

7. Literacy. Eradicate illiteracy—not through lofty abstractions, but by establishing a commission for literacy eradication and then following through on its work. July 19, 1920.
A shameful list of backward provinces and counties when it comes to illiteracy.

8. Raising cultural standards
(after every great political upheaval, there follows a long period of “digestion,” of “assimilation,” of learning how to make use of what has been achieved, of refining and perfecting the rough, crude initial structures).

* See this volume, pp. 155–175. Ed.

OUTLINE OF THE REPORT TO THE II ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF POLITICAL EDUCATION
9. Strengthening the rule of law… Teach people to fight for legality in a cultured, civilized way, never forgetting the limits of legality even within the context of revolution. The real evil today does not lie in the law itself, but in the darkness of lawlessness.

10. Bribery, specifically. What has each of us done to combat bribery?
10 bis. Bureaucracy and red tape.

11. Production-oriented propaganda—highlighting the economic successes that are, at that very moment, within reach of the peasant; mastering the art of bringing these successes to light, of propagating them, and of closely monitoring their implementation.

12. The true essence of economic construction lies in practical achievements.
Test everything against this standard.
Four commandments:
Three enemies: communist arrogance—this is the enemy; illiteracy; bribery.
?? ??
{
(1) Do not play clever tricks, do not strut about in the name of communism, do not hide negligence, idleness, stagnation, and backwardness behind grandiloquent rhetoric; { (2) eradicate illiteracy; { (3) fight against bribery;
(4) scrutinize all your work, so that words do not remain mere words, but are translated into concrete, practical successes in economic construction.
Written in October, before the 17th of 1921.
First published in 1924 in the journal “Young Guard,” Nos. 2–3.

Printed from manuscript.

* – second edition. Ed.
** – Summa summarum: the ultimate conclusion. Ed.