V. I. Lenin

March 27-April 2, 1922

1
Speech In Opening The Congress March 27

Comrades, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Party I
declare the Eleventh Congress of the R.C.P. open.

Comrades, you have gathered in congress after a whole year, in
the course of which we have, for the first time, been free from
the intervention and invasion of capitalist countries, at all
events, in their most direct form. This is the first year that
we have had the opportunity of devoting our efforts to the real,
main and fundamental tasks of socialist construction.

In this field we have undoubtedly taken only the first steps. But I am sure that if we soberly appraise what we have
achieved and are not afraid to look facts—which are not
always pleasant, and sometimes very unpleasant—straight in
the face, we shall certainly overcome all the difficulties that
only now are looming ahead of us in all their magnitude.

The disasters that befell us in the past year were, if anything,
even more severe than those of the preceding years.

It seemed as if all the consequences of the imperialist war and
of the war which the capitalists forced upon us had combined and
hurled themselves upon us in the shape of famine and the most
desperate ruin. These disasters have as yet been far from
overcome; and none of us expects that they can be overcome
soon.

But if we maintain and strengthen the unity of our Party, if we
emerge from international difficulties as successfully as we
have done up to now, if we concentrate all our efforts on the
tasks that now necessarily arise from present conditions, there
can be no doubt that we shall overcome these difficulties.

All over the world the communist movement is growing, if not as
fast as those of us who measured it by wartime and immediate
post-war standards expected, at all events it is growing and is
becoming sound, solid, broad and deep. And if we, in co-operation with the Communist Parties that now exist in all,
or nearly all, countries, soberly assess our position and are
not afraid to admit our mistakes, we shall victoriously emerge
from all these difficulties.

2

Political Report Of The Central Committee Of The R.C.P. (B.)
March 27 ( Applause .) Comrades, permit me to start the political
report of the Central Committee from the end and not from the
beginning of the year. The political question most discussed
today is Genoa. But since a great deal has already been said on
the subject in our press, and since I have already said what is
most essential to it in my speech on March 6, which has been
published, I would ask you to permit me to refrain from going
into details unless you particularly wish me to do so.

On the whole you know everything about Genoa, because much has
been written about it in the newspapers—in my opinion too
much, to the detriment of the real, practical and urgent
requirements of our work of construction in general, and of our
economic development in particular. In Europe, in all bourgeois
countries, of course, they like to occupy people’s minds,
or stuff their heads, with all sorts of trash about Genoa. On
this occasion (I would say not only on this occasion) we are
copying them, and copying them far too much.

I must say that in the Central Committee we have taken very
great pains to appoint a delegation of our best diplomats (we
now have a fair number of Soviet diplomats, which was not the
case in the early period of the Soviet Republic). The Central
Committee has drawn up sufficiently detailed instructions for
our diplomats at the Genoa Conference; we spent a long time
discussing these instructions and considered and reconsidered
them several times. It goes without saying that the question
here is, I shall not say of war, because that term is likely to
be misunderstood, but at all events one of rivalry. In the
bourgeois camp there is a very strong trend, much stronger than
any other, that wants to wreck the Genoa Conference. There are
trends which greatly favour the Genoa Conference and want it to
meet at all costs. The latter have now gained the upper
hand. Lastly, in all bourgeois countries there are trends which
might be called pacifist trends, among which should be included
the entire Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals. It is this
section of the bourgeoisie which is advocating a number of
pacifist proposals and is trying to concoct something in the
nature of a pacifist policy. As Communists we have definite
views about this pacifism which it would be superfluous to
expound here. Needless to say, we are going to Genoa not as
Communists, but as merchants. We must trade, and they must
trade. We want the trade to benefit us; they want it to benefit
them. The course of the issue will be determined, if only to a
small degree, by the skill of our diplomats.

Insofar as we are going to Genoa as merchants it is obviously by
no means a matter of indifference to us whether we shall deal
with those people from the bourgeois camp who are inclined to
settle the problem by war, or with those who are inclined
towards pacifism, even the worst kind of pacifism, which from
the communist viewpoint will not stand the slightest criticism. It would be a bad merchant, indeed, if he were unable
to appreciate this distinction, and, by shaping his tactics
accordingly, achieve practical aims.

We are going to Genoa for the practical purpose of expanding
trade and of creating the most favourable conditions for its
successful development on the widest scale. But we cannot
guarantee the success of the Genoa Conference. It would be
ridiculous and absurd to give any guarantees on that score. I
must say, however, that, weighing up the present possibilities
of Genoa in the most sober and cautious manner, I think that it
will not be an exaggeration to say that we shall achieve our
object.

Through Genoa, if the other parties in the negotiations are sufficiently shrewd and not too stubborn; bypassing Genoa if
they take it into their heads to be stubborn. But we shall
achieve our goal!

The fact of the matter is that the most urgent, pressing and
practical interests that have been sharply revealed in all the
capitalist countries during the past few years call for the
development, regulation and expansion of trade with
Russia. Since such interests exist, we may argue, we may
quarrel, we may disagree on specific combinations—it is
highly probable that we shall have to disagree—this fundamental economic necessity will, nevertheless, after all is
said and done, make a way for itself. I think we can rest
assured of that I cannot vouch for the date; I cannot vouch for
success; but at this gathering we can say with a fair amount of
certainty that regular trade relations between the Soviet
Republic and all the capitalist countries in the world are
certain to continue developing. When I come to it in another
part of my report I shall mention the hitches that may possibly
occur; but I think that this is all that need be said on the
question of Genoa.

Needless to say, the comrades who desire to study the question
in greater detail and who are not content with the list of
delegates published in the newspapers may set up a commission,
or a section, and acquaint themselves with all the material of
the Central Committee, and all the correspondence and instructions. Of course, the details we have outlined are
provisional, for no one up to now knows exactly who will sit
round the table at Genoa, and what terms, or preliminary terms
or provisions will be announced. It would be highly inexpedient,
and I think practically impossible, to discuss all this here. I
repeat, this Congress, through the medium of a section, or a
commission, has every opportunity to collect all the documents
on this question—both the published documents and those in
the possession of the Central Committee.

I shall not say any more, for I am sure that it is not here that
our greatest difficulties lie. This is not the question on which
the attention of the whole Party should be focussed. The
European bourgeois press is artificially and deliberately
inflating and exaggerating the importance of this Conference in
order to deceive the masses of the working people (as nine-tenths of the bourgeois press in all
these free democratic countries and republics always does). We
have succumbed to the influence of this press to some extent. As
usual, our press still yields to the old bourgeois habits; it
refuses to adopt new, socialist methods, and we have made a
greater fuss about this subject than it deserves. In fact, for
Communists, especially for those who have lived through such
stern years as we have lived through since 1917, and witnessed
the formidable political combinations that have appeared in that
period, Genoa does not present any great difficulties. I cannot
recall any disagreement or controversy on this question either
in the Central Committee or in the ranks of the Party. This is
natural, for there is nothing controversial here from the point
of view of Communists, even bearing in mind the various shades
of opinion among them. I repeat: we are going to Genoa as
merchants for the purpose of securing the most favourable terms
for promoting the trade which has started, which is being
carried on, and which, even if someone succeeded in forcibly
interrupting it for a time, would inevitably continue to develop
after the interruption.

Hence, confining myself to these brief remarks about Genoa, I
shall now proceed to deal with the issues which, in my opinion,
have been the major political questions of the past year and
which will be such in the ensuing year. It seems to me that the
political report of the Central Committee should not merely deal
with the events of the year under review, but also point out
(that, at any rate, is what I usually do) the main, fundamental
political lessons of the events of that year, so that we may
learn something for the ensuing year and be in a position to
correctly determine our policy for that year.

The New Economic Policy is, of course, the major question. This
has been the dominant question throughout the year under
review. If we have any important, serious and irrevocable gain
to record for this year (and I am not so very sure that we
have), it is that we have learnt something from the launching of
this New Economic Policy. If we have learnt even a little, then,
during the past year, we have learnt a great deal in this
field. And the test of whether we have really learnt anything, and to what extent, will
probably be made by subsequent events of a kind which we
ourselves can do little to determine, as for example the
impending financial crisis. It seems to me that in connection
with the New Economic Policy, the most important things to keep
in mind as a basis for all our arguments, as a means of testing
our experience during the past year, and of learning practical
lessons for the ensuing year are contained in the following
three points.

First, the New Economic Policy is important for us primarily as
a means of testing whetherwe are really establishing a link with
the peasant economy. In the preceding period of development of
our revolution, when all our attention and all our efforts were
concentrated mainly on, or almost entirely absorbed by, the task
of repelling invasion, we could not devote the necessary
attention to this link; we had other things to think about. To
some extent we could and had to ignore this bond when we were
confronted by the absolutely urgent and overshadowing task of
warding off the danger of being immediately crushed by the
gigantic forces of world imperialism.

The turn towards the New Economic Policy was decided on at the
last Congress with exceptional unanimity, with even greater
unanimity than other questions have been decided by our Party
(which, it must be admitted, is generally distinguished for its
unanimity). This unanimity showed that the need for a new
approach to socialist economy had fully matured. People who
differed on many questions, and who assessed the situation from
different angles, unanimously and very quickly and unhesitantly
agreed that we lacked a real approach to socialist economy, to
the task of building its foundation; that the only means of
finding this approach was the New Economic Policy. Owing to the
course taken by the development of war events, by the development of political events, by the development of
capitalism in the old, civilised West, and owing also to the
social and political conditions that developed in the colonies,
we were the first to make a breach in the old bourgeois world at
a time when our country was economically, if not the most
backward, at any rate one of the most backward countries in the
world. The vast majority of the peasants in our country are
engaged in small individual farming. The items of our programme
of building a communist society, that we could apply immediately, were to some extent outside the sphere of activity
of the broad mass of the peasantry, upon whom we imposed very
heavy obligations, which we justified on the grounds that war
permitted no wavering in this matter. Taken as a whole, this was
accepted as justification by the peasantry, not withstanding the
mistakes we could not avoid. On the whole, the mass of the
peasantry realised and understood that the enormous burdens
imposed upon them were necessary in order to save the workers’ and peasants’ rule from the landowners and
prevent it from being strangled by capitalist invasion, which
threatened to wrest away all the gains of the revolution. But
there was no link between the peasant economy and the economy
that was being built up in the nationalised, socialised
factories and on state farms.

We saw this clearly at the last Party Congress. We saw it so
clearly that there was no hesitation whatever in the Party on
the question as to whether the New Economic Policy was inevitable or not.

It is amusing to read what is said about our decision in the
numerous publications of the various Russian parties abroad. There are only trifling differences in the opinions they
express. Living with memories of the past, they still continue
to reiterate that to this day the Left Communists are opposed to
the New Economic Policy. In 1921 they remembered what had
occurred in 1918 and what our Left Communists themselves have
forgotten; and they go on chewing this over and over again,
assuring the world that these Bolsheviks are a sly and false
lot, and that they are concealing from Europe that they have
disagreements in their ranks. Reading this, one says to oneself,
“Let them go on fooling themselves.” If this is what they imagine is going on in this country, we can judge the
degree of intelligence of these allegedly highly educated old
fogies who have fled abroad. We know that there have been no
disagreements in our ranks, and the reason for this is that the
practical necessity of a different approach to the task of
building the foundation of socialist oconomy was clear to
all.

There was no link between the peasant economy and the new
economy we tried to create. Does it exist now? Not yet. We are
only approaching it. The whole significance of the New Economic
Policy—which our press still often searches for everywhere
except where it should search—the whole purpose of this
policy is to find a way of establishing a link between the new
economy, which we are creating with such enormous effort, and
the peasant economy. That is what stands to our credit; without
it we would not be communist revolutionaries.

We began to develop the new economy in an entirely new way,
brushing aside everything old. Had we not begun to develop it we
would have been utterly defeated in the very first months, in
the very first years. But the fact that we began to develop this
new economy with such splendid audacity does not mean that we
must necessarily continue in the same way. Why should we? There
is no reason.

From the very beginning we said that we had to undertake an
entirely new task, and that unless we received speedy assistance
from our comrades, the workers in the capitalistically more
developed countries, we should encounter incredible difficulties
and certainly make a number of mistakes. The main thing is to be
able dispassionately to examine where such mistakes have been
made and to start again from the beginning. If we begin from the
beginning, not twice, but many times, it will show that we are
not bound by prejudice, and that we are approaching our task,
which is the greatest the world has ever seen, with a sober
outlook.

Today, as far as the New Economic Policy is concerned the main
thing is to assimilate the experience of the past year correctly. That must be done, and we want to do it. And if we
want to do it, come what may (and we do want to do it, and shall
do it!), we must know that the problem of the New Economic
Policy, the fundamental, decisive and overriding problem, is to
establish a link between the new economy that we have begun to
create (very badly, very clumsily, but have nevertheless begun
to create, on the basis of an entirely new, socialist economy,
of a new system of production and distribution) and the peasant economy, by which millions and millions of peasants obtain their
livelihood.

This link has been lacking, and we must create it before
anything else. Everything else must be subordinated to this. We
have still to ascertain the extent to which the New Economic
Policy has succeeded in creating this link without destroying
what we have begun so clumsily to build.

We are developing our economy together with the peasantry. We
shall have to alter it many times and organise it in such a way
that it will provide a link between our socialist work on
large-scale industry and agriculture and the work every peasant
is doing as best he can, struggling out of poverty, without
philosophising (for how can philosophising help him to extricate
himself from his position and save him from the very real danger
of a painful death from starvation?).

We must reveal this link so that we may see it clearly, so that
all the people may see it, and so that the whole mass of the
peasantry may see that there is a connection between their
present severe, incredibly ruined, incredibly impoverished and
painful existence and the work which is being done for the sake
of remote socialist ideals. We must bring about a situation
where the ordinary, rank and-file working man realises that he
has obtained some improvement, and that he has obtained it not
in the way a few peasants obtained improvements under the rule
of landowners and capitalists, when every improvement (undoubtedly there were improvements and very big ones) was
accompanied by insult, derision and humiliation for the muzhik,
by violence against the masses, which not a single peasant has
forgotten, and which will not be forgot ten in Russia for
decades. Our aim is to restore the link, to prove to the peasant
by deeds that we are beginning with what is intelligible,
familiar and immediately accessible to him, in spite of his
poverty, and not with some thing remote and fantastic from the
peasant’s point of view. We must prove that we can help
him and that in this period, when the small peasant is in a
state of appalling ruin, impoverishment and starvation, the
Communists are really helping him. Either we prove that, or he
will send us to the devil. That is absolutely inevitable.

Such is the significance of the New Economic Policy; it is the
basis of our entire policy; it is the major lesson taught by the
whole of the past year’s experience in applying the New
Economic Policy, and, so to speak, our main political rule for
the coming year. The peasant is allowing us credit, and, of
course, after what he has lived through, he cannot do otherwise. Taken in the mass, the peasants go on saying:
“Well, if you are not able to do it yet, we shall wait;
perhaps you will learn.” But this credit cannot go on for
ever.

This we must know; and having obtained credit we must hurry. We
must know that the time is approaching when this peasant country
will no longer give us credit, when it will demand cash, to use
a commercial term. It will say: “You have postponed payment for so many months, so many years. But by this time,
dear rulers, you must have learnt the most sound and reliable
method of helping us free ourselves from poverty, want,
starvation and ruin. You can do it, you have proved it.”
This is the test that we shall inevitably have to face; and, in
the last analysis, this test will decide everything: the fate of
NEP and the fate of communist rule in Russia.

Shall we accomplish our immediate task or not? Is this NEP fit
for anything or not? If the retreat turns out to be correct
tactics, we must link up with the peasant masses while we are in
retreat, and subsequently march forward with them a hundred
times more slowly, but firmly and unswervingly, in a way that
will always make it apparent to them that we are really marching
forward. Then our cause will be absolutely invincible, and no
power on earth can vanquish us. We did not accomplish this in
the first year. We must say this frankly. And I am profoundly
convinced (and our New Economic Policy enables us to draw this
conclusion quite definitely and firmly) that if we appreciate
the enormous danger harboured by NEP and concentrate all our
forces on its weak points, we shall solve this problem.

Link up with the peasant masses, with the rank-and-file working
peasants, and begin to move forward immeasurably, infinitely
more slowly than we expected, but in such a way that the entire
mass will actually move forward with us. If we do that we shall
in time progress much more quickly than we even dream of
today. This, in my opinion, is the first fundamental political
lesson of the New Economic Policy.

The second, more specific lesson is the test through competition
between state and capitalist enterprises. We are now forming
mixed companies—I shall have something to say about these
later on—which, like our state trade and our New Economic
Policy as a whole, mean that we Communists are resorting to
commercial, capitalist methods. These mixed companies are also
important because through them practical competition is created
between capitalist methods and our methods. Consider it
practically. Up to now we have been writing a programme and
making promises. In its time this was absolutely necessary. It
is impossible to launch on a world revolution without a
programme and without promises. If the whiteguards, including
the Mensheviks, jeer at us for this, it only shows that the
Mensheviks and the socialists of the Second and Two-and-a-Half
Internationals have no idea, in general, of the way a revolution
develops. We could proceed in no other way.

Now, however, the position is that we must put our work to a
serious test, and not the sort of test that is made by control
institutions set up by the Communists themselves, even though
these control institutions are magnificent, even though they are
almost the ideal control institutions in the Soviet system and
the Party; such a test may be mockery from the point of view of
the actual requirements of the peasant economy, but it is
certainly no mockery from the standpoint of our construction. We
are now setting up these control institutions but I am referring
not to this test but to the test from the point of view of the
entire economy.

The capitalist was able to supply things. He did it inefficiently, charged exorbitant prices, insulted and robbed
us. The ordinary workers and peasants, who do not argue about
communism because they do not know what it is, are well aware of
this.

“But the capitalists were, after all, able to supply things—are you? You are not able to do it.” That is
what we heard last spring; though not always clearly audible, it
was the

undertone of the whole of last spring’s crisis. “As people you are splendid, but you cannot cope
with the economic task you have undertaken.” This is the
simple and withering criticism which the peasantry—and through the peasantry, some sections of workers—levelled
at the Communist Party last year. That is why in the NEP
question, this old point acquires such significance.

We need a real test. The capitalists are operating along side
us. They are operating like robbers; they make profit; but they
know how to do things. But you—you are trying to do it in
a new way: you make no profit, your principles are communist,
your ideals are splendid; they are written out so beautifully
that you seem to be saints, that you should go to heaven while
you are still alive. But can you get things done? We need a
test, a real test, not the kind the Central Control Commission
makes when it censures somebody and the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee imposes some penalty. Yes, we want a real
test from the viewpoint of the national economy.

We Communists have received numerous deferments, and more credit
has been allowed us than any other government has ever been
given. Of course, we Communists helped to get rid of the
capitalists and landowners. The peasants appreciate this and
have given us an extension of time, longer credit, but only for
a certain period. After that comes the test: can you run the
economy as well as the others? The old capitalist can; you
cannot.

That is the first lesson, the first main part of the political
report of the Central Committee. We cannot run the economy. This
has been proved in the past year. I would like very much to
quote the example of several Gos-trests (if I may express myself
in the beautiful Russian language that Turgenev praised so
highly)*

* An ironical reference to the habit, then emerging, of abbreviating the names of various institutions. Here the abbreviation stands for state trusts. — Ed to show how we run the economy.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, and largely owing to ill
health, I have been unable to elaborate this part of my report
and so I must confine myself to expressing my conviction, which
is based on my observations of what is going on. During the past year we showed quite clearly that we
cannot run the economy. That is the fun damental lesson. Either
we prove the opposite in the coming year, or Soviet power will
not be able to exist. And the greatest danger is that not
everybody realises this. If all of us Communists, the responsible officials, clearly realise that we lack the ability
to run the economy, that we must learn from the very beginning,
then we shall win—that, in my opinion, is the fundamental
conclusion that should be drawn. But many of us do not appreciate this and believe that if there are people who do
think that way, it can only be the ignorant, who have not
studied communism; perhaps they will some day learn and
understand. No, excuse me, the point is not that the peasant or
the non-Party worker has not studied communism, but that the
time has passed when the job was to draft a programme and call
upon the people to carry out this great programme. That time has
passed. Today you must prove that you can give practical
economic assistance to the workers and to the peasants under the
present difficult conditions, and thus demonstrate to them that
you have stood the test of competition.

The mixed companies that we have begun to form, in which private
capitalists, Russian and foreign, and Communists participate,
provide one of the means by which we can learn to organise
competition properly and show that we are no less able to
establish a link with the peasant economy than the capitalists;
that we can meet its requirements; that we can help the peasant
make progress even at his present level, in spite of his
backwardness; for it is impossible to change him in a brief span
of time.

That is the sort of competition confronting us as an absolutely
urgent task. It is the pivot of the New Economic Policy and, in
my opinion, the quintessence of the Party’s policy. We are
faced with any number of purely political problems and difficulties. You know what they are: Genoa, the danger of
intervention. The difficulties are enormous but they are nothing
compared with this economic difficulty. We know how things are
done in the political field; we have gained considerable
experience; we have learned a lot about bourgeois diplomacy. It
is the sort of thing the Mensheviks taught us for fifteen years,
and we got something useful out of it. This is not new.

But here is something we must do now in the economic field. We
must win the competition against the ordinary shop assistant,
the ordinary capitalist, the merchant, who will go to the
peasant without arguing about communism. Just imagine, he will
not begin to argue about communism, but will argue in this
way—if you want to obtain something, or carry on trade properly, or if you want to build, I will do the building at a
high price; the Communists will, perhaps, build at a higher
price, perhaps even ten times higher. It is this kind of
agitation that is now the crux of the matter; herein lies the
root of economics.

I repeat, thanks to our correct policy, the people allowed us a
deferment of payment and credit, and this, to put it in terms of
NEP, is a promissory note. But this promissory note is undated,
and you cannot learn from the wording when it will be presented
for redemption. Therein lies the danger; this is the specific
feature that distinguishes these political promissory notes from
ordinary, commercial promissory notes. We must concentrate all
our attention on this, and not rest content with the fact that
there are responsible and good Communists in all the state
trusts and mixed companies. That is of no use, because these
Communists do not know how to run the economy and, in that
respect, are inferior to the ordinary capitalist salesmen, who
have received their training in big factorics and big firms. But
we refuse to admit this; in this field communist conceit— komchvanstvo ,*

* Literally, “comconceit”. — Ed to use the great Russian
language again—still persists. The whole point is that the
responsible Communists, even the best of them, who are unquestionably honest and loyal, who in the old days suffered
penal servitude and did not fear death, do not know how to
trade, because they are not businessmen, they have not learnt to
trade, do not want to learn and do not understand that they must
start learning from the beginning. Communists, revolutionaries
who have accomplished the greatest revolution in the world, on
whom the eyes of, if not forty pyramids, then, at all events, forty
European countries are turned in the hope of emancipation from
capitalism, must learn from ordinary salesmen. But these
ordinary salesmen have had ten years’ warehouse experience
and know the business, whereas the responsible Communists and
devoted revolutionaries do not know the business, and do not
even realise that they do not know it.

And so, comrades, if we do away with at least this elementary
ignorance we shall achieve a tremendous victory. We must leave
this Congress with the conviction that we are ignorant of this
business and with the resolve to start learning it from the
bottom. After all, we have not ceased to be revolutionaries
(although many say, and not altogether without foundation, that
we have become bureaucrats) and can understand this simple
thing, that in a new and unusually difficult undertaking we must
be prepared to start from the beginning over and over again. If
after starting you find yourselves at a dead end, start again,
and go on doing it ten times if necessary, until you attain your
object. Do not put on airs, do not be conceited because you are
a Communist while there is some non-Party salesman, perhaps a
whiteguard—and very likely he is a whiteguard—who can do things which economically must be done at all costs, but
which you cannot do. If you, responsible Communists, who have
hundreds of ranks and titles and wear communist and Soviet
Orders, realise this, you will attain your object, because this
is something that can be learned.

We have some successes, even if only very tiny ones, to record
for the past year, but they are insignificant. The main thing is
that there is no realisation nor widespread conviction among all
Communists that at the present time the responsible and most
devoted Russian Communist is less able to perform these
functions than any salesman of the old school. I repeat, we must
start learning from the very beginning. If we realise this, we
shall pass our test; and the test is a serious one which the
impending financial crisis will set—the test set by the
Russian and international market to which we are subordinated,
with which we are connected, and from which we cannot isolate ourselves. The test is a crucial one, for here we may be beaten
economically and politically.

That is how the question stands and it cannot be otherwise, for
the competition will be very severe, and it will be decisive. We
had many outlets and loopholes that enabled us to escape from
our political and economic difficulties. We can proudly say that
up to now we have been able to utilise these outlets and
loopholes in various combinations corresponding to the varying
circumstances. But how we have no other outlets. Permit me to
say this to you without exaggeration, because in this respect it
is really “the last and decisive battle”, not against international capitalism—against that we shall yet
have many “last and decisive battles”—but against Russian capitalism, against the capitalism that is
growing out of the small peasant economy, the capitalism that is
fostered by the latter. Here we shall have a fight on our hands
in thc immediate future, and the date of it cannot be fixed
exactly. Here the “last and decisive battle” is impending; here there are no political or any other flanking
movements that we can undertake, because this is a test in
competition with private capital. Either we pass this test in
competition with private capital, or we fail completely. To help
us pass it we have political power and a host of economic and
other resources; we have everything you want except ability. We
lack ability. And if we learn this simple lesson from the
experience of last year and take it as our guiding iine for the
whole of 1922, we shall conquer this difficulty, too, in spite
of the fact that it is much greater than the previous difficulty, for it rests upon ourselves. It is not like some
external enemy. The difficulty is that we ourselves refuse to
admit the unpleasant truth forced upon us; we refuse to
undertake the unpleasant duty that the situation demands of us,
namely, to start learning from the beginning. That, in my
opinion, is the second lesson that we must learn from the New
Economic Policy.

The third, supplementary lesson is on the question of state
capitalism. It is a pity Comrade Bukharin is not present at the
Congress. I should have liked to argue with him a little, but
that had better be postponed to the next Congress. On the
question of state capitalism, I think that generally our press
and our Party make the mistake of dropping into intellectualism,
into liberalism; we philosophise about how state capitalism is
to be interpreted, and look into old books. But in those old
books you will not find what we are discussing; they deal with
the state capitalism that exists under capitalism. Not a single
book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It
did not occur even to Marx to write a word on thissubject; and
he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite
instruction on it. That is why we must overcome the difficulty
entirely by ourselves. And if we make a general mental survey of
our press and see what has been written about state capitalism,
as I tried to do when I was preparing this report, we shall be
convinced that it is missing the target, that it is looking in
an entirely wrong direction.

The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that
which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings
under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But
ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it
gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the
medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks
of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through
the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are
misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must
remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form
we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books,
for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with
this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist
society. Our society is one which has left the rails of
capitalism, but has not yot got on to new rails. The state in
this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the
proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the
vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism
which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we
shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with
the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of
the workers, the vanguard. We are the state.

State capitalism is capitalism that we must confine within
certain bounds; but we have not yet learned to confine it within
those bounds. That is the whole point. And it rests with us to
determine what this state capitalism is to be. We have sufficient, quite sufficient political power; we also have
sufficient economic resources at our command, but the vanguard
of the working class which has been brought to the forefront to
directly supervise, to determine the boundaries, to demarcate,
to subordinate and not be subordinated itself, lacks sufficient
ability for it. All that is needed here is ability, and that is
what we do not have.

Never before in history has there been a situation in which the
proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient
political power and had state capitalism existing along side
it. The whole question turns on our understanding that this is
the capitalism that we can and must permit, that we can and must
confine within certain bounds; for this capitalism is essential
for the broad masses of the peasantry and for private capital,
which must trade in such a way as to satisfy the needs of the
peasantry. We must organise things in such a way as to make
possible the customary operation of capitalist economy and
capitalist exchange, because this is essential for the people. Without it, existence is impossible. All the rest is not
an absolutely vital matter to this camp. They can resign
themselves to all that. You Communists, you workers, you, the
politically enlightened section of the proletariat, which under
took to administer the state, must be able to arrange it so that
the state, which you have taken into your hands, shall function
the way you want it to. Well, we have lived through a year, the
state is in our hands; but has it operated the New Economic
Policy in the way we wanted in this past year? No. But we refuse
to admit that it did not operate in the way we wanted. How did
it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that guided
it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the
driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if
it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows
whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of
both. Be that as it may, the car is not going quite in the
direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it goes in an
altogether different direction.

This is the main thing that must be remembered in regard to
state capitalism. In this main field we must start learning from
the very beginning, and only when we have thoroughly understood
and appreciated this can we be sure that we shall learn.

Now I come to the question of halting the retreat, a question I
dealt with in my speech at the Congress of Metalworkers. Since
then I have not heard any objection, either in the Party press,
or in private letters from comrades, or in the Central
Committee. The Central Committee approved my plan, which was,
that in the report of the Central Committee to the present
Congress strong emphasis should be laid on calling a halt to
this retreat and that the Congress should give binding instructions on behalf of the whole Party accordingly. For a
year we have been retreating. On behalf of the Party we must now
call a halt. The purpose pursued by the retreat has been
achieved. This period is drawing, or has drawn, to a close. We
now have a different objective, that of regrouping our forces. We have reached a new line; on the whole, we have
conducted the retreat in fairly good order. True, not a few
voices were heard from various sides which tried to convert this
retreat into a stampede. Some—for example, several members
of the group which bore the name of Workers’ Opposition (I
don’t think they had any right to that name)—argued that we were not retreating properly in some sector or
other. Owing to their excessive zeal they found themselves at
the wrong door, and now they realise it. At that time they did
not see that their activities did not help us to correct our
movement, but merely had the effect of spreading panic and
hindering our effort to beat a disciplined retreat.

Retreat is a difficult matter, especially for revolutionaries
who are accustomed to advance; especially when they have been
accustomed to advance with enormous success for several years;
especially if they are surrounded by revolutionaries in other
countries who are longing for the time when they can launch an
offensive. Seeing that we were retreating, several of them burst
into tears in a disgraceful and childish manner, as was the case
at the last extended Plenary Meeting of the Executive Committee
of the Communist International. Moved by the best communist
sentiments and communist aspirations, several of the comrades
burst into tears because—oh horror!—the good Russian
Communists were retreating. Perhaps it is now difficult for me
to understand this West-European mentality, although I lived for
quite a number of years in those marvellous democratic countries
as an exile. Perhaps from their point of view this is such a
difficult matter to understand that it is enough to make one
weep. We, at any rate, have no time for sentiment. It was clear
to us that because we had advanced so successfully for many
years and had achieved so many extraordinary victories (and all
this in a country that was in an appalling state of ruin and
lacked the material resources!), to consolidate that advance,
since we had-gained so much, it was absolutely essential for us
to retreat. We could not hold all the positions we had captured
in the first onslaught. On the other hand, it was because we had
captured so much in the first onslaught, on the crest of the
wave of enthusiasm displayed by the workers and peasants, that
we had room enough to retreat a long distance, and can retreat
still further now, without losing our main and fundamental
positions. On the whole, the retreat was fairly orderly,
although certain panic-stricken voices, among them that of the
Workers’ Opposition (this was the tremendous harm it did!), caused losses in our ranks, caused a relaxation of
discipline, and disturbed the proper order of retreat. The most
dangerous thing during a retreat is panic. When a whole army (I
speak in the figurative sense) is in retreat, it cannot have the
same morale as when it is advancing. At every step you find a
certain mood of depression. We even had poets who wrote that
people were cold and starving in Moscow, that “everything
before was bright and beautiful, but now trade and profiteering
abound”. We have had quite a number of poetic effusions of
this sort.

Of course, retreat breeds all this. That is where the serious
danger lies; it is terribly difficult to retreat after a great
victorious advance, for the relations are entirely different. During a victorious advance, even if discipline is
relaxed, everybody presses forward on his own accord. During a
retreat, however, discipline must be more conscious and is a
hundred times more necessary, because, when the entire army is
in retreat, it does not know or see where it should halt.

It sees only retreat; under such circumstances a few panic-stricken voices are, at times, enough to cause a
stampede. The danger here is enormous. When a real army is in
retreat, machine-guns are kept ready, and when an orderly
retreat degenerates into a disorderly one, the command to fire
is given, and quite rightly, too.

If, during an incredibly difficult retreat, when everything
depends on preserving proper order, anyone spreads panic—even from the best of motives—the slightest
breach of discipline must be punished severely, sternly,
ruthlessly; and this applies not only to certain of our internal
Party affairs, but also, and to a greater extent, to such gentry
as the Mensheviks, and to all the gentry of the Two-and-a-Half
International.

The other day I read an article by Comrade Rakosi in No. 20 of
The Communist International on a new book by Otto
Bauer, from whom at one time we all learned, but who, like
Kautsky, became a miserable petty bourgeois after the war. [2] Bauer now writes: “There, they
are now retreating to capitalism! We have always said that it
was a bourgeois revolution.”

And the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, all of whom
preach this sort of thing, are astonished when we declare that
we shall shoot people for such things. They are amazed; but
surely it is clear. When an army is in retreat a hundred times
more discipline is required than when it is advancing, because
during an advance everybody presses forward. If everybody
started rushing back now, it would spell immediate and inevitable disaster.

The most important thing at such a moment is to retreat in good
order, to fix the precise limits of the retreat, and not to give
way to panic. And when a Menshevik says, “You are now retreating; I have been advocating retreat all the time, I agree
with you, I am your man, let us retreat together,” we say
in reply, “For the public manifestations of Menshevism our
revolutionary courts must pass the death sentence, otherwise
they are not our courts, but God knows what.”

They cannot understand this and exclaim: “What dictatorial
manners these people have!” They still think we are persecuting the Mensheviks because they fought us in Geneva. [3] But had we done that we should have
been unable to hold power even for two months. Indeed, the
sermons which Otto Bauer, the leaders of the Second and
Two-and-a Half Internationals, the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries preach express their true nature—“The revolution has gone too far. What you
are saying now we have been saying all the time, permit us to
say it again.” But we say in reply: “Permit us to put you before a firing squad for saying that. Either you
refrain from expressing your views, or, if you insist on
expressing your political views publicly in the present
circumstances, when our position is far more difficult than it
was when the whiteguards were directly attacking us, then you
will have only yourselves to blame if we treat you as the worst
and most pernicious whiteguard elements.” We must never
forget this.

When I speak about halting the retreat I do not mean that we
have learned to trade. On the contrary, I am of the opposite
opinion; and if my speech were to create that impression it
would show that I had been misunderstood and that I am unable to
express my thoughts properly.

The point, however, is that we must put a stop to the nervousness and fuss that have arisen with the introduction of
NEP—the desire to do everything in a new way and to adapt
everything. We now have a number of mixed companies. True, we
have only very few. There are nine companies formed in conjunction with foreign capitalists and sanctioned by the
Commissariat of Foreign Trade. The Sokolnikov

Commission [4] has sanctioned six and the Northern
Timber

Trust [5] has sanctioned two. Thus we now have seventeen companies with an aggregate capital amounting to many
millions, sanctioned by several government departments (of
course, there is plenty of confusion with all these departments,
so that some slip here is also possible). At any rate we have
formed companies jointly with Russian and foreign capitalists. There are only a few of them. But this small but
practical start shows that the Communists have been judged by
what they do. They have not been judged by such high institutions as the Central Control Commission and the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee. The Central Control
Commission is a splendid institution, of course, and we shall
now give it more power. For all that, the judgement these
institutions pass on Communists is not--just imagine—recognised on the international
market. ( Laughter .) But now that ordinary Russian and
foreign capitalists are joining the Communists in forming mixed
companies, we say, “We can do things after all; bad as it
is, meagre as it is, we have got something for a start.”
True, it is not very much. Just think of it: a year has passed
since we declared that we would devote all our energy (and it is
said that we have a great deal of energy) to this matter, and in
this year we have managed to form only seventeen companies.

This shows how devilishly clumsy and inept we are; how much
Oblomovism still remains, for which we shall inevitably get a
good thrashing. For all that, I repeat, a start, a reconnaissance has been made. The capitalists would not agree to
have dealings with us if the elementary conditions for their
operations did not exist. Even if only a very small section of
them has agreed to this, it shows that we have scored a partial
victory.

Of course, they will cheat us in these companics, cheat us so
that it will take several years before matters are straightened
out. But that does not matter. I do not say that that is a
victory; it is a reconnaissance, which shows that we have an
arena, we have a terrain, and can now stop the retreat.

The reconnaissance has revealed that we have concluded an
insignificant number of agreements with capitalists; but we have
concluded them for all that. We must learn from that and
continue our operations. In this sense we must put a stop to
nervousness, screaming and fuss. We received notes and telephone
messages, one after another asking, “Now that we have NEP,
may we be reorganised too?” Everybody is bustling, and we
get utter confusion, nobody is doing any practical work;
everybody is continuously arguing about how to adapt oneself to
NEP, but no practical results are forthcoming.

The merchants are laughing at us Communists, and in all
probability are saying, “Formerly there were
Persuaders-in-Chief, [6] now we have Talkers-in-Chief.”
That the capitalists gloated over the fact that we started late,
that we were not sharp enough—of that there need not be
the slightest doubt. In this sense, I say, these instructions
must be endorsed in the name of the Congress.

The retreat is at an end. The principal methods of operation, of
how we are to work with the capitalists, are outlined. We have
examples, even if an insignificant number.

Stop philosophising and arguing about NEP. Let the poets write
verses, that is what they are poets for. But you economists, you
stop arguing about NEP and get more companies formed; check up
on how many Communists we have who can organise successful
competition with the capitalists.

The retreat has come to an end; it is now a matter of regrouping
our forces. These are the instructions that the Congress must
pass so as to put an end to fuss and bustle. Calm down, do not
philosophise; if you do, it will be counted as a black mark
against you. Show by your practical efforts that you can work no
less efficiently than the capitalists. The capitalists create an
economic link with the peasants in order to amass wealth; you
must create a link with peasant economy in order to strengthen
the economic power of our proletarian state. You have the
advantage over the capitalists in that political power is in
your hands; you have a number of economic weapons at your
command; the only trouble is that you cannot make proper use of
them. Look at things more soberly. Cast off the tinsel, the
festive communist garments, learn a simple thing simply, and we
shall beat the private capitalist. We possess political power;
we possess a host of economic weapons. If we beat capitalism and
create a link with peasant farming we shall become an absolutely
invincible power. Then the building of socialism will not be the
task of that drop in the ocean, called the Communist Party, but
the task of the entire mass of the working people. Then the
rank-and-file peasants will see that we are helping them and
they will follow our lead. Consequently, even if the pace is a
hundred times slower, it will be a million times more certain
and more sure.

It is in this sense that we must speak of halting the retreat;
and the proper thing to do is, in one way or another, to make
this slogan a Congress decision.

In this connection, I should like to deal with the question:
what is the Bolsheviks’ New Economic
Policy—evolution or tactics? This question has been raised
by the Smena Vekh people, who, as you know, are a trend
which has arisen among Russian émigrés; it is a socio-political
trend led by some of the most prominent
Constitutional-Democrats, several Ministers of the former
Kolchak government, people who have come to the conclusion that
the Soviet government is building up the Russian state and
therefore should be supported. They argue as follows:
“What sort of state is the Soviet government building? The
Communists say they are building a communist state and assure us
that the new policy is a matter of tactics: the Bolsheviks are
making use of the private capitalists in a difficult situation,
but later they will get the upper hand. The Bolsheviks can say
what they like; as a matter of fact it is not tactics but
evolution, internal regeneration; they will arrive at the
ordinary bourgeois state, and we must support them. History
proceeds in devious ways.”

Some of them pretend to be Communists; but there are others who
are more straightforward, one of these is Ustryalov. I think he
was a Minister in Kolchak’s government. He does not agree
with his colleagues and says: “You can think what you like
about communism, but I maintain that it is not a matter of
tactics, but of evolution.” I think that by being straightforward like this, Ustryalov is rendering us a great
service. We, and I particularly, because of my position, hear a
lot of sentimental communist lies; “communist fibbing”, every day, and sometimes we get sick to death of
them. But now instead of these “communist fibs” I get a copy of Smena Vekh , which says quite plainly:
“Things are by no means what you imagine them to be. As a
matter of fact, you are slipping into the ordinary bourgeois
morass with communist flags inscribed with catchwords stuck all
over the place.” This is very useful. It is not a repetition of what we are constantly hearing around us, but the
plain class truth uttered by the class enemy. It is very useful
to read this sort of thing; and it was written not because the
communist state allows you to write some things and not others,
but because it really is the class truth, bluntly and frankly
uttered by the class enemy. “I am in favour of supporting
the Soviet government,” says Ustryalov, although he was a
Constitutional-Democrat, a bourgeois, and supported intervention. “I am in favour of supporting Soviet power
because it has taken the road that will lead it to the ordinary
bourgeois state.”

This is very useful, and I think that we must keep it in
mind. It is much better for us if the Smena Vekh people
write in that strain than if some of them pretend to be almost
Communists, so that from a distance one cannot tell whether they
believe in God or in the communist revolution. We must say
frankiy that such candid enemies are useful. We must say frankly
that the things Ustryalov speaks about are possible. History
knows all sorts of metamorphoses. Relying on firmness of
convictions, loyalty, and other splendid moral qualities is
anything but a serious attitude in politics. A few people may be
endowed with splendid moral qualities, but historical issues are
decided by vast masses, which, if the few do not suit them, may
at times treat them none too politely.

There have been many cases of this kind; that is why we must
welcome this frank utterance of the Smena Vekh people. The enemy is speaking the class truth and is pointing to
the danger that confronts us, and which the enemy is striving to
make inevitable. Smena Vekh adherents express the sentiments of thousands and tens of thousands of bourgeois, or
of Soviet employees whose function it is to operate our New
Economic Policy. This is the real and main danger. And that is
why attention must be concentrated mainly on the question:
“Who will win?” I have spoken about competition. No direct onslaught is being made on us now; nobody is clutching us
by the throat. True, we have yet to see what will bappen
tomorrow; but today we are not being subjected to armed
attack. Nevertheless, the fight against capitalist society has
become a hundred times more fierce and perilous, because we are
not always able to tell enemies from friends.

When I spoke about communist competition, what I had in mind
were not communist sympathies but the development of economic
forms and social systems. This is not competition but, if not
the last, then nearly the last, desperate, furious, life-and-death struggle between capitalism and communism.

And here we must squarely put the question: Wherein lies our
strength and what do we lack? We have quite enough political
power. I hardly think there is anyone here who will assert that
on such-and-such a practical question, in such and-such a
business institution, the Communists, the

Communist Party, lack sufficient power. There are people who think only of this, but
these people are hopelessly looking backward and cannot
understand that one must look ahead. The main economic power is
in our hands. All the vital large enterprises, the railways,
etc., are in our hands. The number of leased enterprises,
although considerable in places, is on the whole insignificant;
altogether it is infinitesimal compared with the rest. The
economic power in the hands of the proletarian state of Russia
is quite adequate to ensure the transition to communism. What
then is lacking? Obviously, what is lacking is culture among the
stratum of the Communists who perform administrative functions. If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in
responsible positions, and if we take that huge bureaucratic
machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom?
I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the
Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are
not directing, they are being directed. Some thing analogous
happened here to what we were told in our history lessons when
we were children: sometimes one nation conquers another, the
nation that conquers is the conqueror and the nation that is
vanquished is the conquered nation. This is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to the culture of these
nations? Here things are not so simple. If the conquering nation
is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the former imposes
its culture upon the latter; but if the opposite is the case,
the vanquished nation imposes its culture upon the conqueror. Has not something like this happened in the capital
of the R.S.F.S.R.? Have the 4,700 Communists (nearly a whole
army division, and all of them the very best) come under the
influence of an alien culture? True, there may be the impression
that the vanquished have a high level of culture. But that is
not the case at all. Their culture is miserable, insignificant,
but it is still at a higher level than ours. Miserable and low
as it is, it is higher than that of our responsible Communist
administrators, for the latter lack administrative ability. Communists who are put at the head of
departments—and sometimes artful saboteurs deliberately put them in these positions in order to use them as
a shield—are often fooled. This is a very unpleasant admission to make, or, at any rate, not a very pleasant one; but
I think we must admit it, for at present this is the salient
problem. I think that this is the political lesson of the past
year; and it is around this that the struggle will rage in
1922.

Will the responsible Communists of the R.S.F.S.R. and of the
Russian Communist Party realise that they cannot administer;
that they only imagine they are directing, but are, actually,
being directed? If they realise this they will learn, of course;
for this business can be learnt. But one must study hard to
learn it, and our people are not doing this. They scatter orders
and decrees right and left, but the result is quite different
from what they want.

The competition and rivalry that we have placed on the order of
the day by proclaiming NEP is a serious business. It appears to
be going on in all government offices; but as a matter of fact
it is one more form of the struggle between two irreconcilably
hostile classes. It is another form of the struggle between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It is a struggle that has not
yet been brought to a head, and culturally it has not yet been
resolved even in the central government departments in
Moscow. Very often the bourgeois officials know the business
better than our best Communists, who are invested with authority
and have every opportunity, but who cannot make the slightest
use of their rights and authority.

I should like to quote a passage from a pamphlet by Alexander
Todorsky. [7] It was published in Vesyegonsk (there is an uyezd town of that name in Tver Gubernia) on the
first anniversary of the Soviet revolution in Russia, on
November 7, 1918, a long, long time ago. Evidently this
Vesyegonsk comrade is a member of the Party—I read the pamphlet a long time ago and cannot say for certain. He
describes how he set to work to equip two Soviet factories, and
for this purpose enlisted the services of two bourgeois. He did
this in the way these things were done at that time—threatened to imprison them and to confiscate all
their property. They were enlisted for the task of restoring the
factories. We know how the services of the bourgeoisie were
enlisted in 1918 ( laughter ); so there is no need for me to go into details. The methods we are now using to enlist
the bourgeoisie are different. But here is the conclusion he
arrived at: “This is only half the job. It is not enough
to defeat the bourgeoisie, to overpower them; they must be
compelled to work for us.”

Now these are remarkable words. They are remarkable for they
show that even in the town of Vesyegonsk, even in 1918, there
were people who had a correct understanding of the relationship
between the victorious proletariat and the vanquished bourgeoisie.

When we rap the exploiters’ knuckles, render them innocuous, overpower them, it is only half the job. In Moscow,
however, ninety out of a hundred responsible officials imagine
that all we have to do is to overpower, render innocuous and rap
knuckles. What I have said about the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and whiteguards is very often inter
preted solely as rendering innocuous, rapping knuckles (and,
perhaps, not only the knuckles, but some other place) and
overpowering. But that is only half the job. It was only half
the job even in 1918, when this was written by the Vesyegonsk
comrade; now it is even less than one-fourth. We must make these
hands work for us, and not have responsible Communists at the
head of departments, enjoying rank and title, but actually
swimming with the stream together with the bourgeoisie. That is
the whole point.

The idea of building communist society exclusively with the
hands of the Communists is childish, absolutely childish. We
Communists are but a drop in the ocean, a drop in the ocean of
the people. We shall be able to lead the people along the road
we have chosen only if we correctly determine it not only from
the standpoint of its direction in world history. From that
point of view we have determined the road quite correctly, and
this is corroborated by the situation in every country. We must
also determine it correctly for our own native land, for our
country. But the direction in world history is not the only
factor. Other factors are whether there will be intervention or
not, and whether we shall be able to supply the peasants with
goods in exchange for their grain. The peasants will say:
“You are splendid fellows; you defended our country. That
is why we obeyed you. But if you cannot run the show, get
out!” Yes, that is what the peasants will say.

We Communists shall be able to direct our economy if we succeed
in utilising the hands of the bourgeoisie in building up this
economy of ours and in the meantime learn from these bourgeoisie
and guide them along the road we want them to travel. But when a
Communist imagines that he knows everything, when he says:
“I am a responsible Communist, I have beaten enemies far
more formidable than any salesman. We have fought at the front
and have beaten far more formidable enemies”—it is this prevailing mood that is doing us great harm.

Rendering the exploiters innocuous, rapping them over the
knuckles, clipping their wings is the least important part of
the job. That must be done; and our State Political
Administration and our courts must do it more vigorously than
they have up to now. They must remember that they are proletarian courts surrounded by enemies the world over. This is
not difficult; and in the main we have learned to do it. Here a
certain amount of pressure must be exercised; but that is
easy.

To win the second part of the victory, i.e., to build communism
with the hands of non-Communists, to acquire the practical
ability to do what is economically necessary, we must establish
a link with peasant farming; we must satisfy the peasant, so
that he will say: “Hard, bitter and painful as starvation
is, I see a government that is an unusual one, is no ordinary
one, but is doing something practically useful, something
tangible.” We must see to it that the numerous elements
with whom we are co-operating, and who far exceed us in number,
work in such a way as to enable us to supervise them; we must
learn to understand this work, and direct their hands so that
they do something useful for communism. This is the key point of
the present situation; for although individual Communists have
understood and realised that it is necessary to enlist the
non-Party people for this work, the rank-and-file of our Party
have not. Many circulars have been written, much has been said
about this, but has anything been accomplished during the past
year? Nothing. Not five Party committees out of a hundred can
show practical results. This shows how much we lag behind the
requirements of the present time; how much we are still living
in the traditions of 1918 and 1919. Those were great years; a
great historical task was then accomplished. But if we only look
back on those years and do not see the task that now confronts
us, we shall be doomed, certainly and absolutely. And the whole
point is that we refuse to admit it.

I should now like to give two practical examples to illustrate
how we administer. I have said already that it would be more
correct to take one of the state trusts as an example, but I
must ask you to excuse me for not being able to apply this
proper method, for to do so it would have been necessary to
study the concrete material concerning at least one state
trust. Unfortunately, I have been unable to do that, and so I
will take two small examples. One example is the accusation of
bureaucracy levelled at the People’s Commissariat of
Foreign Trade by the Moscow Consumers’ Co-operative
Society. The other example I will take from the Donets
Basin.

The first example is not quite relevant—I am unable to find a better—but it will serve to illustrate my main
point. As you know from the newspapers, I have been unable to
deal with affairs directly during these past few months. I have
not been attending the Council of People’s Commissars, or
the Central Committee. During the short and rare visits I made
to Moscow I was struck by the desperate and terrible complaints
levelled at the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade. I
have never doubted for a moment that the People’s
Commissariat of Foreign Trade functions badly and that it is
tied up with red tape. But when the complaints became particularly bitter I tried to investigate the matter, to take a
concrete example and for once get to the bottom of it; to
ascertain the cause, to ascertain why the machine was not
working properly.

The M.C.C.S. wanted to purchase a quantity of canned goods. A
French citizen appeared and offered some. I do not know whether
he did it in the interests of the international policy and with
the knowledge of the leadership of the Entente countries, or
with the approval of Poincaré and the other enemies of the
Soviet government (I think our historians will investigate and
make this clear after the Genoa Conference), but the fact is
that the French bourgeoisie took not only a theoretical, but
also a practical interest in this business, as a French
bourgeois turned up in Moscow with an offer of canned goods. Moscow is starving; in the summer the situation will be
worse; no meat has been delivered, and knowing the merits of our
People’s Commissariat of Railways, probably none will be
delivered.

An offer is made to sell canned meat for Soviet currency
(whether the meat is entirely bad or not will be established by
a future investigation). What could be simpler? But if the
matter is approached in the Soviet way, it turns out to be not
so simple after all. I was unable to go into the matter
personally, but I ordered an investigation and I have before me
the report which shows how this celebrated case developed. It
started with the decision adopted on February 11 by the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party on the report of Comrade Kamenev concerning the
desirability of purchasing food abroad. Of course, how could a
Russian citizen decide such a question without the consent of
the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party! Think of it! How could 4,700 responsible
officials (and this is only according to the census) decide a
matter like purchasing food abroad without the consent of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee? This would be
something supernatural, of course. Evidently, Comrade Kamenev
understands our policy and the realities of our position
perfectly well, and therefore, he did not place too much
reliance on the numerous responsible officials. He started by
taking the bull by the horns—if not the bull, at all events the Political Bureau—and without any difficulty (I
did not hear that there was any discussion over the matter)
obtained a resolution stating: “To call the attention of
the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade to the desirability of importing food from abroad; the import duties
. . . “, etc. The attention of the People’s
Commissariat of Foreign Trade was drawn to this. Things started
moving. This was on February 11. I remember that I had occasion
to be in Moscow at the very end of February, or about that time,
and what did I find? The complaints, the despairing complaints
of the Moscow comrades. “What’s the matter?” I ask. “There is no way we can buy these provisions.”
“Why?” “Because of the red tape of the
People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade.” I had not been taking part in affairs for a long time and I did not know
that the Political Bureau had adopted a decision on the matter. I merely ordered the Executive Secretary of our Council
to investigate, procure the relevant documents and show them to
me. The matter was settled when Krasin arrived. Kamenev
discussed the matter with him; the transaction was arranged, and
the canned meat was purchased. All’s well that ends well.

I have not the least doubt that Kamenev and Krasin can come to
an understanding and correctly determine the political line
desired by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the
Russian Communist Party. If the political line on commercial
matters were decided by Kamenev and Krasin, ours would be the
best Soviet Republic in the world. But Kamenev, a member of the
Political Bureau, and Krasin—the latter is busy with diplomatic affairs connected with Genoa, affairs which have
entailed an enormous, an excessive amount of labour—cannot
be dragged into every transaction, dragged into the business of
buying canned goods from a French citizen. That is not the way
to work. This is not new, not economic, and not a policy, but
sheer mockery. Now I have the report of the investigation into
this matter. In fact, I have two reports: one, the report of the
investigation made by Gorbunov, the Executive Secretary of thc
Council of People’s Commissars, and his assistant, Miroshnikov; and the other, the report of the investigation made
by the State Political Administration. I do not know why the
latter interested itself in the matter, and I am not quite sure
whether it was proper for it to do so; but I will not go into
that now, because I am afraid this might entail another
investigation. The important thing is that material on the
matter has been collected and I now have it before me.

On arriving in Moscow at the end of February I heard bitter
complaints, “We cannot buy the canned goods”, although in Libau there was a ship with a cargo of canned goods,
and the owners were prepared to take Soviet currency for real
canned goods! ( Laughter .) If these canned goods are not
entirely bad (and I now emphasise the “if”, because
I am not sure that I shall not call for another investigation,
the results of which, however, we shall have to report at the
next Congress), if, I say, these goods are not entirely bad and
they have been purchased, I ask: why could not this matter have
been settled without Kamenev and Krasin? From the report I have
before me I gather that one responsible Communist sent another
responsible Communist to the devil. I also gather from this
report that one responsible Communist said to another responsible Communist: “From now on I shall not talk to
you except in the presence of a lawyer.” Reading this report I recalled the time when I was in exile in Siberia,
twenty-five years ago, and had occasion to act in the capacity
of a lawyer. I was not a certified lawyer, because, being
summarily exiled, I was not allowed to practise; but as there
was no other lawyer in the region, people came and confided
their troubles to me. But sometimes I had the greatest difficulty in understanding what the trouble was. A woman would
come and, of course, start telling me a long story about her
relatives, and it was incredibly difficult to get from her what
she really wanted. I said to her: “Bring me a copy.”
She went on with her endless and pointless story. When I
repeated, “Bring me a copy”, she left, complaining:
“He won’t hear what I have to say unless I bring a copy.” In our colony we had a hearty laugh over this
copy. I was able, however, to make some progress. People came to
me, brought copies of the necessary documents, and I was able to
gather what their trouble was, what they complained of, what
ailed them. This was twenty five years ago, in Siberia, in a
place many hundreds of versts from the nearest railway station.

But why was it necessary, three years after the revolution, in
the capital of the Soviet Republic, to have two investigations,
the intervention of Kamenev and Krasin and the in structions of
the Political Bureau to purchase canned goods? What was lacking?
Political power? No. The money was forth coming, so they had
economic as well as political power. All the necessary institutions were available. What was lacking, then?
Culture. Ninety-nine out of every hundred officials of the
M.C.C.S.—against whom I have no complaint to make whatever, and whom I regard as excellent Communists—and of
the Commissariat of Foreign Trade lack culture. They were unable
to approach the matter in a cultured manner.

When I first heard of the matter I sent the following written
proposal to the Central Committee: “All the officials concerned of the Moscow government departments—except the
members of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, who, as
you know, enjoy immunity—should be put in the worst prison
in Moscow for six hours, and those of the People’s
Commissariat of Foreign Trade for thirty-six hours.” And
then it turned out that no one could say who the culprits were
( laughter ), and from what I have told you it is evident that the culprits will never be discovered. It is simply
the usual inability of the Russian intellectuals to get things
done—inefficiency and slovenliness. First they rush at a
job, do a little bit, and then think about it, and when nothing
comes of it, they run to complain to Kamenev and want the matter
to be brought before the Political Bureau. Of course, all
difficult state problems should be brought before the Political
Bureau—I shall have to say something about that later on—but one should think first and then act. If you want to
bring up a case, submit the appropriate documents. First send a
telegram, and in Moscow we also have telephones; send a
telephone message to the competent department and a copy to
Tsyurupa saying: I regard the transaction as urgent and will
take proceedings against anyone guilty of red tape.” One
must think of this elementary culture, one must approach things
in a thoughtful manner. If the business is not settled in the
course of a few minutes, by telephone, collect the documents and
say: “If you start any of your red tape I shall have you
clapped in gaol.” But not a moment’s thought is given to the matter, there is no preparation, the usual bustle,
several commissions, everybody is tired out, exhausted, run
down, and things begin to move only when Kamenev is put in touch
with Krasin. AlI this is typical of what goes on not only in the
capital, Moscow, but also in the other capitals, in the capitals
of all independent republics and regions. And the same thing,
even a hundred times worse, constantly goes on in the provincial
towns.

In our struggle we must remember that Communists must be able to
reason. They may be perfectly familiar with the revolutionary
struggle and with the state of the revolutionary movement all
over the world; but if we are to extricate ourselves from
desperate poverty and want we need culture, integrity and an
ability to reason. Many lack these qualities.

It would be unfair to say that the responsible Communists do not fulfil their
functions conscientiously. The overwhelming majority of them,
ninety-nine out of a hundred, are not only conscientious—they proved their devotion to the revolution
under the most difficult conditions before the fall of tsarism
and after the revolution; they were ready to lay down their
lives. Therefore, it would be radically wrong to attribute the
trouble to lack of conscientiousness. We need a cultured
approach to the simplest affairs of state. We must all understand that this is a matter of state, a business matter;
and if obstacles arise we must be able to overcome them and take
proceedings against those who are guilty of red tape. We have
proletarian courts in Moscow; they must bring to account the
persons who are to blame for the failure to effect the purchase
of several tens of thousands of poods of canned food. I think
the proletarian courts will be able to punish the guilty; but in
order to punish, the culprits must be found. I assure you that
in this case no culprits will be found. I want you all to look
into this business: no one is guilty; all we see is a lot of
fuss and bustle and nonsense. Nobody has the ability to approach
the business properly; nobody understands that affairs of state
must not be tackled in this way. And all the whiteguards and
saboteurs take advantage of this. At one time we waged a fierce struggle against the saboteurs ; that struggle
confronts us even now. There are saboteurs today, of course, and they must be fought. But can we fight them when the
position is as I have just described it? This is worse than any
sabotage. The saboteur could wish for nothing better than that two Communists should argue over the question of when
to appeal to the Political Bureau for instructions on principles
in buying food; and of course he would soon slip in between them
and egg them on. If any intelligent saboteur were to stand behind these Communists, or behind each of them in turn,
and encourage them, that would be the end. The matter would be
doomed for ever. Who is to blame? Nobody, because two responsible Communists, devoted revolutionaries, are arguing
over last year’s snow; are arguing over the question of
when to appeal to the Political Bureau for instructions on
principles in buying food.

That is how the matter stands and that is the difficulty that
confronts us. Any salesman trained in a large capitalist
enterprise knows how to settle a matter like that; but ninety-nine responsible Communists out of a hundred do not. And
they refuse to understand that they do not know how and that
they must learn the ABC of this business. Unless we realise
this, unless we sit down in the preparatory class again, we
shall never be able to solve the economic problem that now lies
at the basis of our entire policy.

The other example I wanted to give you is that of the Donets
Basin. You know that this is the centre, the real basis of our
entire economy. It will be utterly impossible to restore
large-scale industry in Russia, to really build socialism—for it can only be built on the basis of large
scale industry—unless we restore the Donets Basin and bring it up to the proper level. The Central Committee is
closely watching developments there.

As regards this region there was no unjustified, ridiculous or
absurd raising of minor questions in the Political Bureau; real,
absolutely urgent business was discussed.

The Central Committee ought to see to it that in such real
centres, bases and foundations of our entire economy, work is
carried on in a real business-like manner. At the head of the
Central Coal Industry Board we had not only undoubtedly devoted,
but really educated and very capable people. I should not be
wrong even if I said talented people. That is why the Central
Committee has concentrated its attention on it. The Ukraine is
an independent republic. That is quite all right. But in Party
matters it sometimes—what is the politest way of saying
it?—takes a roundabout course, and we shall have to get at
them. For the people in charge there are sly, and their Central
Committee I shall not say deceives us, but somehow edges away
from us. To obtain a general view of the whole business, we
discussed it in the Central Committee here and discovered that
friction and disagreement exist. There is a Commission for the
Utilisation of Small Mines there and, of course, severe friction
between it and the Central Coal Industry Board. Still we, the
Central Committee, have a certain amount of experience and we
unanimously decided not to remove the leading people, but if
there was any friction it was to be reported to us, down to the
smallest detail. For since we have not only devoted but capable
people in the region, we must back them up, and enable them to
complete their training, assuming that they have not done so. In
the end, a Party Congress was held in the Ukraine—I do not
know what happened there; all sorts of things happened. I asked
for information from the Ukrainian comrades, and I asked Comrade
Orjonikidze particularly—and the Central Committee did the
same—to go down there and ascertain what had happened. Evidently, there was some intrigue and an awful mess,
which the Commission on Party History would not be able to clear
up in ten years should it undertake to do so. But the upshot of
it all was that contrary to the unanimous instructions of the
Central Committee, this group was superseded by another
group. What was the matter? In the main, notwithstanding all its
good qualities, a section of the group made a mistake. They were
overzealous in their methods of administration. There we have to
deal with workers. Very often the word “workers” is taken to mean the factory proletariat. But it does not mean that
at all. During the war people who were by no means proletarians
went into the factories; they went into the factories to dodge
the war. Are the social and economic conditions in our country
today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the
factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did
not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole,
beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period
of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day
Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not
proletarians; they are casual elements of every description.

The task is to learn to organise the work properly, not to lag
behind, to remove friction in time, not to separate administration from politics. For our administration and our
politics rest on the ability of the entire vanguard to maintain
contact with the entire mass of the proletariat and with the
entire mass of the peasantry. If anybody forgets these cogs and
becomes wholly absorbed in administration, the result will be a
disastrous one. The mistake the Donets Basin officials made is
insignificant compared with other mistakes of ours, but this
example is a typical one. The Central Committee unanimously
ordered: “Allow this group to remain; bring all conflicts,
even minor ones, before the

Central Committee, for the Donets
Basin is not an ordinary district, but a vital one, without
which socialist construction would simply remain a pious
wish.” But all our political power, all the authority of
the Central Committee proved of no avail.

This time there was a mistake in administration, of course; in
addition, a host of other mistakes were made.

This instance shows that it is not a matter of possessing
political power, but of administrative ability, the ability to
put the right man in the right place, the ability to avoid petty
conflicts, so that state economic work may be carried on without
interruption. This is what we lack; this is the root of the
mistake.

I think that in discussing our revolution and weighing up its
prospects, we must carefully single out the problems which the
revolution has solved completely and which have irrevocably gone
down in history as an epoch-making departure from capitalism. Our revolution has such solutions to its credit. Let
the Mensheviks and Otto Bauer of the Two-and-a-Half
International shout: “Theirs is a bourgeois revolution.” We say that our task was to consummate the
bourgeois revolution. As a certain whiteguard newspaper
expressed it: Dung had accumulated in our state institutions for
four hundred years; but we cleaned it all out in four years. This is the great service we rendered. What have the
Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries done? Nothing. The dung
of medievalism has not been cleared out either in our country,
or even in advanced, enlightened Germany. Yet they reproach us
for doing what stands very much to our credit. The fact that we
have consummated the revolution is an achievement that can never
be expunged from our record.

War is now in the air. The trade unions, for example, the
reformist trade unions, are passing resolutions against war and
are threatening to call strikes in opposition to war. Recently,
if I am not mistaken, I read a report in the newspapers to the
effect that a certain very good Communist delivered an anti-war
speech in the French Chamber of Deputies in the course of which
he stated that the workers would prefer to rise in revolt rather
than go to war. This question cannot be formulated in the way we
formulated it in 1912, when the Basle Manifesto was issued. The
Russian

revolution alone has shown how it is possible to emerge
from war, and what effort this entails. It showed what emerging
from a reactionary war by revolutionary methods means. Reactionary imperialist wars are inevitable in all parts
of the world; and in solving problems of this sort mankind
cannot and will not forget that tens of millions were slaughtered then, and will be slaughtered again if war breaks
out. We are living in the twentieth century, and the only nation
that emerged from a reactionary war by revolutionary methods not
for the benefit of a particular government, but by overthrowing
it, was the Russian nation, and it was the Russian revolution
that extricated it. What has been won by the Russian revolution
is irrevocable. No power on earth can erase that; nor can any
power on earth erase the fact that the Soviet state has been
created. This is a historic victory. For hundreds of years
states have been built according to the bourgeois model, and for
the first time a non-bourgeois form of state has been discovered. Our machinery of government may be faulty, but it is
said that the first steam engine that was invented was also
faulty. No one even knows whether it worked or not, but that is
not the important point; the important point is that it was
invented. Even assuming that the first steam engine was of no
use, the fact is that we now have steam engines. Even if our
machinery of government is very faulty, the fact remains that it
has been created; the greatest invention in history has been
made; a proletarian type of state has been created. Therefore,
let all Europe, let thousands of bourgeois newspapers broadcast
news about the horrors and poverty that prevail in our country,
about suffering being the sole lot of the working people in our
country; the workers all over the world are still drawn towards
the Soviet state. These are the great and irrevocable gains that
we have achieved. But for us, members of the Communist Party,
this meant only opening the door. We are now confronted with the
task of laying the foundations of socialist economy. Has this
been done? No, it has not. We still lack the socialist foundation. Those Communists who imagine that we have it are
greatly mistaken. The whole point is to distinguish firmly,
clearly and dispassionately what constitutes the historic
service rendered by the Russian revolution from what we do very
badly, from what has not yet been created, and what we shall
have to redo many times yet.

Political events are always very confused and complicated. They
can be compared with a chain. To hold the whole chain you must
grasp the main link. Not a link chosen at random. What was the
central event in 1917? Withdrawal from the war. The entire
nation demanded this, and it overshadowed everything. Revolutionary Russia accomplished this withdrawal
from the war. It cost tremendous effort; but the major demand of
the people was satisfied, and that brought us victory for many
years. The people realised, the peasants saw, every soldier
returning from the front understood perfectly well that the
Soviet government was a more democratic government, one that
stood closer to the working people. No matter how many outrageous and absurd things we may have done in other spheres,
the fact that we realised what the main task was proved that
everything was right.

What was the key feature of 1919 and 1920? Military resistance. The all-powerful Entente was marching against us,
was at our throats. No propaganda was required there. Every
non-Party peasant understood what was going on. The landowners
were coming back. The Communists knew how to fight them. That is
why, taken in the mass, the peasants followed the lead of the
Communists; that is why we were victorious.

In 1921, the key feature was an orderly retreat. This required
stern discipline. The Workers’ Opposition said: “You are underrating the workers; the workers should display greater
initiative.” But initiative had to be displayed then by
retreating in good order and by maintaining strict discipline. Anyone who introduced an undertone of panic or
insubordination would have doomed the revolution to defeat; for
there is nothing more difficult than retreating with people who
have been accustomed to victory, who are imbued with revolutionary views and ideals, and who, in their hearts, regard
every retreat as a disgraceful matter. The greatest danger was
the violation of good order, and the greatest task was to
maintain good order.

And what is the key feature now? The key feature now—and I
would like to sum up my report with this—is not that we
have changed our line of policy. An incredible lot of nonsense
is being talked about this in connection with NEP. It is all hot
air, pernicious twaddle. In connection with NEP some people are
beginning to fuss around, proposing to reorganise our government
departments and to form new ones. All this is pernicious
twaddle. In the present situation the key feature is people, the
proper choice of people. A revolutionary who is accustomed to
struggle against petty reformists and uplift educators finds it
hard to understand this. Soberly weighed up, the political
conclusion to be drawn from the present situation is that we
have advanced so far that we cannot hold all the positions; and
we need not hold them all.

Internationally our position has improved vastly these last few
years. The Soviet type of state is our achievement; it is a step
forward in human progress; and the information the Communist
International receives from every country every day corroborates
this. Nobody has the slightest doubt about that. From the point
of view of practical work, however, the position is that unless
the Communists render the masses of the peasants practical
assistance they will lose their support. Passing laws, passing
better decrees, etc., is not now the main object of our
attention. There was a time when the passing of decrees was a
form of pro paganda. People used to laugh at us and say that the
Bolsheviks do not realise that their decrees are not being
carried out; the entire whiteguard press was full of jeers on
that score. But at that period this passing of decrees was quite
justified. We Bolsheviks had just taken power, and we said to
the peasant, to the worker: “Here is a decree; this is how
we would like to have the state administered. Try it!”
From the very outset we gave the ordinary workers and peasants
an idea of our policy in the form of decrees. The result was the
enormous confidence we enjoyed and now enjoy among the masses of
the people. This was an essential period at the beginning of the
revolution; without it we should not have risen on the crest of
the revolutionary wave; we should have wallowed in its trough. Without it we should not have won the confidence of all
the workers and peasants who wanted to build their lives on new
lines. But this period has passed, and we refuse to understand
this. Now the peasants and workers will laugh at us if we order
this or that government department to be formed or reorganised. The ordinary workers and peasants will display no
interest in this now, and they will be right, because this is
not the central task today. This is not the sort of thing with
which we Communists should now go to the people. Although we who
are engaged in government departments are always over whelmed
with so many petty affairs, this is not the link that we must
grasp, this is not the key feature. The key feature is that we
have not got the right men in the right places; that responsible
Communists who acquitted themselves magnificently during the
revolution have been given commercial and industrial functions
about which they know nothing; and they prevent us from seeing
the truth, for rogues and rascals hide magnificently behind
their backs. The trouble is that we have no such thing as
practical control of how things have been done. This is a
prosaic job, a small job; these are petty affairs. But after the
greatest political change in history, bearing in mind that for a
time we shall have to live in the midst of the capitalist
system, the key feature now is not politics in the narrow sense
of the word (what we read in the newspapers is just political
fireworks; there is nothing socialist in it at all), the key
feature is not resolutions, not departments and not reorganisation. As long as these things are necessary we shall
do them, but don’t go to the people with them. Choose the
proper men and introduce practical control. That is what the
people will appreciate.

In the sea of people we are after all but a drop in the ocean,
and we can administer only when we express correctly what the
people are conscious of. Unless we do this the Communist Party
will not lead the proletariat, the proletariat will not lead the
masses, and the whole machine will collapse. The chief thing the
people, all the working people, want today is nothing but help
in their desperate hunger and need; they want to be shown that
the improvement needed by the peasants is really taking place in
the form they are accustomed to. The peasant knows and is
accustomed to the market and trade. We were unable to introduce
direct communist distribution. We lacked the factories and
their equipment for this. That being the case, we must provide
the peasants with what they need through the medium of trade,
and provide it as well as the capitalist did, otherwise the
people will not tolerate such an administration. This is the key
to the situation; and unless something unexpected arises, this,
given three conditions, should be the central feature of our
activities in 1922.

The first condition is that there shall be no intervention. We
are doing all we can in the diplomatic field to avoid it;
nevertheless, it may occur any day. We must really be on the
alert, and we must agree to make certain big sacrifices for the
sake of the Red Army, within definite limits, of course. We are
confronted by the entire bourgeois world, which is only seeking
a way in which to strangle us. Our Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries are nothing more nor less than the
agents of this bourgeoisie. Such is their political status.

The second condition is that the financial crisis shall not be
too severe. The crisis is approaching. You will hear about that
when we discuss financial policy. If it is too severe and
rigorous we shall have to revise many things again and concentrate all efforts on one thing. If it is not too severe it
may even be useful; it will give the Communists in all the state
trusts a good shaking; only we must not forget to do it. The
financial crisis will shake up government departments and
industrial enterprises, and those that are not equal to their
task will be the first to burst; only we must take care that all
the blame for this is not thrown on the specialists while the
responsible Communists are praised for being very good fellows
who have fought at the fronts and have always worked well. Thus,
if the financial crisis is not too severe we can derive some
benefit from it and comb the ranks of the responsible Communists
engaged in the business departments not in the way the Central
Control Commission and the Central Verification Commission [8] comb them, but very thoroughly.

The third condition is that we shall make no political mistakes
in this period. Of course, if we do make political mistakes all
our work of economic construction will be disrupted and we shall
land ourselves in controversies about how to rectify them and
what direction to pursue. But if we make no sad mistakes, the
key feature in the near future will be not decrees and politics
in the narrow sense of the word, not departments and their
organisation—the responsible Communists and the Soviet institutions will deal with these things whenever
necessary—the main thing in all our activities will be choosing the right people and making sure that decisions are
carried out. If, in this respect, we learn something practical,
if we do something practically useful, we shall again overcome
all difficulties.

In conclusion I must mention the practical side of the question
of our Soviet institutions, the higher government bodies and the
Party’s relation to them. The relations between the Party
and the Soviet government bodies are not what they ought to
be. On this point we are quite unanimous. I have given one
example of how minor matters are dragged before the Political
Bureau. It is extremely difficult to get out of this by formal
means, for there is only one governing party in our country; and
a member of the Party cannot be prohibited from lodging
complaints. That is why everything that comes up on the Council
of People’s Commissars is dragged before the Political
Bureau. I, too, am greatly to blame for this, for to a large
extent contact between the Council of People’s Commissars
and the Political Bureau was maintained through me. When I was
obliged to retire from work it was found that the two wheels
were not working in unison and Kamenev had to bear a treble load
to maintain this contact. Inasmuch as it is barely probable that
I shall return to work in the near future, all hope devolves on
the fact that there are two other deputies—Comrade
Tsyurupa, who has been cleansed by the Germans, and Comrade
Rykov, whom they have splendidly cleansed. It seems that even
Wilhelm, the German Emperor, has stood us in good stead—I
never expected it. He had a surgeon, who happened to be the
doctor treating Comrade Rykov, and he removed his worst part,
keeping it in Germany, and left the best part intact, sending
that part of Comrade Rykov thoroughly cleansed to us. If that
method continues to be used it will be a really good thing.

Joking aside, a word or two about the main instructions. On this
point there is complete unanimity on the Central Committee, and
I hope that the Congress will pay the closest attention to it
and endorse the instructions that the Political Bureau and the
Central Committee be relieved of minor matters, and that more
should be shifted to the responsible officials. The
People’s Commissars must be responsible for their work and
should not bring these matters up first on the Council of
Peeple’s Commissars and then on the Political
Bureau. Formally, we cannot abolish the right to lodge complaints with the Central Committee, for our Party is the only
governing party in the country. But we must put a stop to the
habit of bringing every petty matter before the Central
Committee; we must raise the prestige of the Council of
People’s Commissars. The Commissars and not the Deputy
Commissars must mainly attend the meetings of the Council. The
functions of the Council must be changed in the direction in
which I have not succeeded in changing them during the past
year, that is, it must pay much more attention to executive
control. We shall have two more deputies—Rykov and
Tsyurupa. When Rykov was in the Extraordinary Authorised Council
of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defence for the Supply of the Red Army and Navy he tightened things up and the work went
well. Tsyurupa organised one of the most efficient
People’s Commissariats. If together they make the maximum
effort to improve the People ’s Commissariats in the sense
of efficiency and responsibility, we shall make some, even if a
little, progress here. We have eighteen People’s
Commissariats of which not less than fifteen are of no use at
all—efficient People’s Commissars cannot be found everywhere, and I certainly hope that people give this more of
their attention. Comrade Rykov must be a member, of the Central
Committee Bureau and of the Presidium of the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee because there must be a tie-up between these
two bodies, for without this tie-up the main wheels some times
spin in the air.

In this connection, we must see to it that the number of
commissions of the Council of People’s Commissars and of
the Council of Labour and Defence is reduced. These bodies must
know and settle their own affairs and not split up into an
infinite number of commissions. A few days ago the commissions
were overhauled. It was found that there were one hundred and
twenty of them. How many were necessary? Sixteen. And this is
not the first cut. Instead of accepting responsibility for their
work, preparing a decision for the Council of People’s
Commissars and knowing that they bear responsibility for this
decision, there is a tendency to take shelter behind commissions. The devil himself would lose his way in this maze
of commissions. Nobody knows what is going on, who is responsible; everything is mixed up, and finally a decision is
passed for which everybody is held responsible.

In this connection, reference must be made to the need for
extending and developing the autonomy and activities of the
regional economic conferences. The administrative division of
Russia has now been drawn up on scientific lines; the economic
and climatic conditions, the way of life, the conditions of
obtaining fuel, of local industry, etc., have all been taken
into account. On the basis of this division, district and
regional economic conferences have been instituted. Changes may
be made here and there, of course, but the prestige of these
economic conferences must be enhanced.

Then we rnust see to it that the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee works more energetically, meets in session more
regularly, and for longer periods. The sessions of the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee should discuss bills
which sometimes are hastily brought before the Council of
People’s Commissars when there is no need to do so. It would be better to postpone such bills and give the local
workers an opportunity to study them carefully. Stricter demands
should be made upon those who draft the bills. This is not
done.

If the sessions of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee
last longer, they can split up into sections and subcommissions,
and thus will be able to verify the work more strictly and
strive to achieve what in my opinion is the key, the quintessence of the present political situation: to concentrate
attention on choosing the right people and on verifying how
decisions are carried out.

It must be admitted, and we must not be afraid to admit, that in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the responsible Communists
are not in the jobs they are now fit for; that they are unable
to perform their duties, and that they must sit down to
learn. If this is admitted, and since we have the opportunity to
learn—judging by the general international situation we
shall have time to do so—we must do it, come what may. ( Stormy applause .)

3

Closing Speech On The Political Report Of The Central Committee
Of The R.C.P.(B.) March 28 ( Applause. ) First of all I shall have to devote a
little time to criticising the remarks made here by Comrades
Preobrazhensky and Osinsky. I think that on the most important
and fundamental question Comrades Preobrazhensky and Osinsky
were wide of the mark, and their own statements have proved
their line of policy to be wrong.

Comrade Preobrazhensky spoke about capitalism and said that we
ought to open a general discussion on our Programme. I think
that this would be the most unproductive and unjustified waste
of time.

First of all about state capitalism.

“State capitalism is capitalism,” said
Preobrazhensky, “and that is the only way it can and should be interpreted.” I say that that is pure
scholasticism. Up to now nobody could have written a book about
this sort of capitalism, because this is the first time in human
history that we see anything like it. All the more or less
intelligible books about state capitalism that have appeared up
to now were written under conditions and in a situation where
state capitalism was capitalism. Now things are different; and
neither Marx nor the Marxists could foresee this. We must not
look to the past. When you write history, you will write it
magnificently; but when you write a textbook, you will say:
State capitalism is the most unexpected and absolutely unforeseen form of capitalism—for nobody could foresee
that the proletariat would achieve power in one of the least
developed countries, and would first try to organise large-scale
production and distribution for the peasantry and then, finding
that it could not cope with the task owing to the low standard
of culture, would enlist the services of capitalism. Nobody ever
foresaw this; but it is an incontrovertible fact.

Comrade Larin, in his speech, revealed that he has a very vague
conception of the New Economic Policy and of how it should be
handled.

Not a single serious objection has been raised to our adoption
of the New Economic Policy. The proletariat is not afraid to
admit that certain things in the revolution went off magnificently, and that others went awry. All the revolutionary
parties that have perished so far, perished because they became
conceited, because they failed to see the source of their
strength and feared to discuss their weaknesses. We, however,
shall not perish, because we are not afraid to discuss our
weaknesses and will learn to overcome them. ( Applause.
) The capitalism that we have permitted is essential. If it is
ugly and bad, we shall be able to rectify it, because power is
in our hands and we have nothing to fear. Everybody admits this,
and so it is ridiculous to confuse this with panic-mongering. If
we were afraid to admit this our doom would be sealed. But the
fact that we will learn and want to learn this is proved by the
experience of the past three, four, five years, during which we
learnt more complicated matters in a shorter period. True, then
we were driven by necessity. During the war we were driven very
hard; I think there was neither a front nor a campaign in which
we were not hard pressed. The enemy came within a hundred versts
of Moscow; was approaching Orel; was within five versts of
Petrograd. That was the time we really woke up and began to
learn and to put the lessons we had learnt into practice, and we
drove out the enemy.

The position now is that we have to deal with an enemy in
mundane economics, and this is a thousand times more difficult. The controversies over state capitalism that have
been raging in our literature up to now could at best be
included in textbooks on history. I do not in the least deny
that textbooks are useful, and recently I wrote that it would be
far better if our authors devoted less attention to newspapers
and political twaddle and wrote textbooks, as many of them,
including Comrade Larin, could do splendidly. His talent would
prove most useful on work of this kind and we would solve the
problem that Comrade Trotsky emphasised so well when he said
that the main task at the present time is to train the younger
generation, but we have nothing to train them with. Indeed, from
what can the younger generation learn the social sciences? From
the old bourgeois junk. This is disgraceful! And this is at a
time when we have hundreds of Marxist authors who could write
textbooks on all social problems, but do not do so because their
minds are taken up with other things.

As regards state capitalism, we ought to know what should be the
slogan for agitation and propaganda, what must be explained,
what we must get everyone to understand practically. And that is
that the state capitalism that we have now is not the state
capitalism that the Germans wrote about. It is capitalism that
we ourselves have permitted. Is that true or not? Everybody
knows that it is true!

At a congress of Communists we passed a decision that state
capitalism would be permitted by the proletarian state, and we
are the state. If we did wrong we are to blame and it is no use
shifting the blame to somebody else! We must learn, we must see
to it that in a proletarian country state capitalism cannot and
does not go beyond the framework and conditions delineated for
it by the proletariat, beyond conditions that benefit the
proletariat. It was quite rightly pointed out here that we had
to give consideration to the peasants as a mass, and enable them
to trade freely. Every intelligent worker appreciates that this
is necessary for the proletarian dictatorship, and only Comrade
Shlyapnikov can joke about and mock it. This is appreciated by
everybody and has been chewed over a thousand times, but you
simply refuse to understand it. If under present conditions the
peasant must have freedom to trade within certain limits, we
must give it to him, but this does not mean that we are
permitting trade in raw brandy. We shall punish people for that
sort of trade. It does not mean that we are permitting the sale
of political literature called Menshevik and
Socialist-Revolutionary and financed by the capitalists of the
whole world.

That is what I meant when I mentioned machine-guns, and Comrade
Shlyapnikov should have understood it. What he says is nonsensical!

You will not frighten anybody and you will not win any sympathy!
( Applause. Laughter. )

Poor Shlyapnikov! Lenin had planned to use machine-guns against
him!

What I had in mind was Party disciplinary measures, and not
machine-guns as such. When we talk about machine-guns we have in
mind the people in this country whom we call Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries and who argue as follows: “You
say you are retreating towards capitalism, and we say the same
thing; we agree with you!” We are constantly hearing this
sort of thing; and abroad a gigantic propaganda campaign is
being conducted to prove that while we Bolsheviks are keeping
the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in prison, we
ourselves are permitting capitalism. True, we are permitting
capitalism, but within the limits that the peasants need. This
is essential! Without it the peasants could not exist and
continue with their husbandry. But we maintain that the Russian
peasants can do very well without Socialist-Revolutionary and
Menshevik propaganda. To those who assert the contrary we say:
We would rather perish to the last man than yield to you! And
our courts must understand all this. Now that we are passing
from the Cheka to state-political courts we must say at this
Congress that there is no such thing as above-class courts. Our
courts must be elected, proletarian courts; and they must know
what it is that we are permitting. They must clearly understand
what state capitalism is.

This is the political slogan of the day and not a controversy
about what the German professors meant by state capitalism and
what we mean by it. We have gone through a great deal since
then, and it is altogether unseemly for us to look back.

The degree to which Comrade Preobrazhensky goes off the
political track is shown by what he said about an Economic
Bureau and about the Programme. [9] What a magnificent thing our Programme is, but how frightfully we garble it! How is
that possible? Because some people read it word for word and
line by line, and beyond that they will not look. They pick out
a passage and say: “There was a controversy over this.” Some say that the line of the Workers’
Faculties and of the Communist local cells was correct, but the
line of those who said: “Go easy, treat those specialists
more carefully”, was wrong. True, the Communist cells are
splendid and so are the Workers’ Faculties, but they are
not infallible; they are not saints. . . .

Yes, the Communist cells are the representatives of our Party,
and the Workers’ Faculties are the representatives of our
class; but the fact that they make mistakes and that we must
correct them is an elementary truism. How they are to be
corrected I do not know, because I did not attend the meetings
of the Central Committee at which this question was discussed. But I do know that the Workers’ Faculties and
the Communist cells overdo things in the line they have taken
against the professors. After our Central Committee has examined
this question in all its aspects and has decided that things
have been overdone and that a more cautious line must be adopted
towards these professors, who are the representatives of an
alien class, Comrade Preobrazhensky comes along, takes out the
Programme and says: “No political concessions to this stratum; that would be an infringement of the
Programme.”

If we start guiding the Party in this way we shall inevitably go
under. And this is not because Comrade Preobrazhensky has wrong
ideas about politics in general, a but because he approaches
everything from the angle of what is his strongest point; he is
a theoretician whose mind is restricted by what is customary and
usual; he is a propagandist whose mind is taken up with measures
directed to the purpose of propaganda. Everybody is aware of and
appreciates this strong point of his, but when he approaches
things from the political and administrative angle the result is
simply monstrous. Set up an Economic Bureau?! But everybody has
just said, everybody has agreed, and we have complete unanimity
on the point (and this is very important, for action depends
upon this unity) that the Party machinery must be separated from
the Soviet government machinery.

It is terribly difficult to do this; we lack the men! But
Preobrazhensky comes along and airily says that Stalin has jobs
in two Commissariats. [10] Who among us has not sinned in this
way? Who has not undertaken several duties at once? And how can
we do otherwise? What can we do to preserve the present
situation in the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities;
to handle all the Turkestan, Caucasian, and other questions?
These are all political questions! They have to be settled. These are questions that have engaged the attention of
European states for hundreds of years, and only an infinitesimal
number of them have been settled in democratic republics. We are
settling them; and we need a man to whom the representatives of
any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in
all detail. Where can we find such a man? I don’t think
Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better candidate than
Comrade Stalin.

The same thing applies to the Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection. This is a vast business; but to be able to handle
investigations we must have at the head of it a man who enjoys
high prestige, otherwise we shall become submerged in and
overwhelmed by petty intrigue.

Comrade Preobrazhensky proposes that an Economic Bureau should
be set up; but if we do that all our talk about separating Party
activities from Soviet government activities will be just hot
air. Comrade Preobrazhensky proposes what appears to be a
splendid scheme: on the one hand the Political Bureau, then the
Economic Bureau, and then the Organising Bureau. But all this is
very fine only on paper; in actual practice it is ridiculous! I
positively cannot understand how, after Soviet power has been in
existence for five years, a man who has an intuition for vital
politics can make and insist upon such a proposal.

What is the difference between the Organising Bureau and the
Political Bureau? You cannot draw a hard and fast line between a
political question and an organisation question. Any political
question may be an organisation question, and vice versa. Only
after established practice had shown that questions could be
transferred from the Organising Bureau to the Political Bureau
was it possible to organise the work of the Central Committee
properly.

Has anybody ever proposed anything different? No, because no
other rational solution can be proposed. Political questions
cannot be mechanically separated from organisation questions. Politics are conducted by definite people; but if
other people are going to draft documents, nothing will come of
it.

You know perfectly well that there have been revolutions in
which parliamentary assemblies drafted documents which were put
into effect by people from another class. This led to friction,
and they were kicked out. Organisation questions cannot be
separated from politics. Politics are concentrated economics.

Comrade Kosior complained about the Central Committee and
mentioned names (I have written them all down). I am not
personally familiar with the subject, and so I can not answer;
but if you, as the Party Congress, are interested, it is your
duty to elect a commission to investigate every case and subject
Kosior and the persons concerned to examination by third
degree. The whole point here is that if the Central Committee is
deprived of the right to distribute forces, it will be unable to
direct policy. Although we make mistakes when we transfer people
from one place to another, nevertheless, I take the liberty of
asserting that all the time it has been functioning, the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee has made the minimum
of mistakes. This is not self-praise. The activities of the
Political Bureau are tested not by commissions, not by people
appointed by our Party, but by the whiteguards, by our enemies;
and the proof is the results of its policy, in which no serious
mistakes have been committed.

Comrade Osinsky’s strong point is that if he undertakes
anything he pursues it with energy and vigour. We must do all we
can to cultivate this strong point of his and to curb his weak
points (even if Osinsky raises a howl—he is such a vigorous fellow—this must be done; otherwise, as a worker,
he will be done for). We on the Central Committee have taken
measures which, I think, will combine his weak points with his
strong ones.

If I wanted to polemise with Comrade Osinsky—which I do
not want to do—I would say that the weightiest evidence
that could be brought against him is the speech he delivered
here today. I would have it printed and posted up on a board. . . . There was once a man. . . .

A Deputy People’s Commissar and a leading figure in one of
the most important People’s Commissariats, and foremost
among those who can draw up a platform on any question, this man
proposes that we should adopt the Cabinet system. [11] I
assert that this man is absolutely done for. . . . I will not go
into this in detail, or polemise; what interests me most is that
Comrade Osinsky’s vast energy should be directed into proper channels. If Comrade Osinsky does not, in a comradely
way, heed the advice that has been often given to him by the
Central Committee, and for which I have been largely responsible, and if he does not moderate his zeal in this
matter, he will inevitably find himself in the mire, as he found
himself today.

This is very unpleasant for a man who is fond of displaying his
character; and it is quite legitimate for a man gifted with a
strong character to want to display it. Would to God that
everybody had such a character to display. But the Central
Committee must see to it that this character is displayed for a
useful purpose. The Central Committee must see to it that this
talk about a Cabinet is cut short, even if the man who undergoes
this circumcision, so to speak, complains about it. This will be
beneficial. He must put a curb on his talents to prevent himself
from landing in the mire; and he must consult comrades in the
other People’s Commissariats and adhere to the general line. Has any one of our Commissariats done anything without
controversy? No.

“Improvement of the system of administration and the psychological mobilisation of the masses.” This is sheer
murder! If the Congress were to adopt this politically reactionary point of view it would be the surest and best method
of committing suicide.

“Improvement of the system of administration”?! Pray
God that we succeed, at least, in getting out of the muddle that
we are in today.

We have no system?! For five years we have been spending our
best efforts in the endeavour to create this system! This system
is a tremendous step forward.

The machinery of state is faulty! Do we know what the trouble
is? We do not! But Comrade Osinsky talks as if he does. Why, he
can sit down and in ten minutes devise a whole system of
administration. It will be harmful and a political mistake if
his zeal is not curbed. In other channels, however, the zeal he
is displaying now will be very useful.

Well, that’s one illustration. And then Comrades
Preobrazhensky and Osinsky bore out in their comments what I
said about the most important thing, and Comrade Larin proved it
still more thoroughly. Look what he did. He hurled accusations
at me and laughed and jested very merrily.

He does this magnificently; this is his strong point. If Comrade
Larin could display this strong point of his in some field other
than that of state activities he would be a thousand times more
useful for our Republic; for he is a very capable man and has a
vivid imagination. This quality is extremely valuable; it is
wrong to think that only poets need imagination. That is a silly
prejudice! It is needed even in mathematics; it would have been
impossible to discover the differential and integral calculus
without imagination. Imagination is a very valuable asset; but
Comrade Larin has a little too much of it. I would say, for
example, that if Comrade Larin’s stock of imagination were
divided equally among all the members of the R.C.P., there would
be very good results. ( Laughter. Applause. ) But until
we can perform this operation, Comrade Larin must be kept away
from state, administrative, planning, and economic affairs. Otherwise, we shall have the same thing occurring as
did in the old Supreme Economic Council, when Comrade Rykov had
not yet recovered, and affairs were directed and documents
signed by “Y. Larin” on behalf of the entire Supreme
Economic Council. Things were run badly not because Comrade
Larin displayed his worst qualities, but on the contrary; it was
because he displayed his best qualities—and nobody can have even a shadow of doubt about his devotion and knowledge of
affairs. Nevertheless, things were run badly.

This is exactly what I said. True, all these are copybook
maxims. As for copybook maxims, even Kamkov poked fun at me for
this at the Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

He said:
“Today, Lenin is preaching:
’Thou shalt not steal’; and tomorrow he will add:
’Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ This is all that
Lenin’s wisdom amounts to.” I heard this from
Kamkov, the Socialist-Revolutionary, as far back as 1918. And if
Kamkov, who backed these arguments with artillery, made no
impression on anyone, what impression can Comrade Larin’s
jokes make? Now we must concentrate all our attention on the
major problems of our New Economic Policy. Here Comrade Larin
tried to divert the Party on to the wrong road. If he were
engaged with matters on which he could usefully display his
numerous talents, where he could be of great benefit to the
younger generation, and where he would not play such a trick as
he played in the State Planning Commission, it would be entirely
different. If he were engaged in such work he would make an
impression on the younger generation—I think I am speaking
plainly enough—and we should not have the confusion that
he has caused here. [12]

I said that Comrade Kamenev proposed on the Political Bureau
that a resolution be adopted to the effect that it would be
useful to import food and that canned goods be purchased with
Soviet currency. Larin sat here, heard this perfectly well, and
remembering it perfectly well, said as soon as he got on to the
platform: “Lenin forgot, owing to ill health—we shall forgive him this time—that the permission of the
Political Bureau has to be obtained for disbursements from the
gold reserve.” Had Comrade Kamenev proposed that we should
take money out of the gold reserve and give it to French
profiteers in exchange for canned goods we would not have
listened to him. We did not offer a single gold kopek for the
canned goods, we offered Soviet paper cumncy and—just imagine—it was accepted. Wolfson even assured me yesterday
that these canned goods were of good quality (although they have
not arrived yet); but I shall not believe him until we have
tasted them, because here they may try to cheat us. The point
is, however, that Comrade Larin garbled the facts; we did not
spend a single gold kopek; we spent 160,000 million Soviet paper
rubles.

Of course, it would be ridiculous and absurd to think that
Comrade Larin did this with malicious intent. No, that is not
the point. The point is that his imagination soars a trillion
kilometres high and, as a consequence, he mixes everything
up.

Then he went on to say that the State Planning Commission had
proposed to lease out three-fourths of our railways. It is a
good thing that he said this at the Party Congress, where
Krzhizhanovsky immediately refuted him. It does not often happen
like that. You think that talk of this sort is heard only at
Party congresses? Inquire at the Central Control Commission and
they will tell you how they examined the case of the Moscow
Debating Club, [13] and what brought up the case of the
Moscow Debating Club, where Comrades Larin and
Ryazanov. . . . ( Ryazanov from his seat : “I said nothing about the gold reserve there; worse things were
said.”) I was not in Moscow and took no part in the investigation of this case, I merely had a brief
report. . . . ( Ryazanov : “Don’t believe every rumour.”) I learned this from a conversation I had
with Comrade Solts; it is not a rumour, but a conversation I had
with a man whom our supreme body, the Party Congress, had
appointed to the Central Control Commission. It was he who told
me; and what he told me cannot rouse the slightest doubt. One
must be very thoughtless to call this a rumour. The Central
Control Commission investigated the affair of the Debating Club
and was obliged to state unanimously that it was not being run
properly. What is wrong is quite clear to me. Today, Larin, in
passing, carried away by his own eloquence, went to the length
of saying that a proposal had been made to lease out three-fourths of our railways, but that the Central Committee
had put the matter right. Krzhizhanovsky said that nothing of
the kind had happened; the Central Committee had put nothing
right; Larin had simply muddled up his facts. This is constantly
happening.

For four years we have been unable to put a useful worker like
Larin to really useful work and to relieve him of work where he
causes harm, in spite of himself.

The situation is rather unnatural, I think. We have the
dictatorship of the proletariat, a reign of terror, victory over
all the armies in the world, but no victory over Larin’s
army! Here we have suffered utter defeat! He is always doing
what he has no business to do. His vast knowledge and his
ability to enthuse people would be of real benefit to the
younger generation, which is groping in the dark. We are unable
to utilise his knowledge, and this gives rise to friction and
resistance. Here the Political Bureau, the Organising Bureau of
the Central Committee and the Plenary Meetings of the Central
Committee, which are accused of enjoying too much authority,
turn out to have insufficient authority, or prestige, to
distribute all the comrades properly.

We must think this question over and discuss it seriously. This
is the pivot of our work, and we must set things right here. If
we do, we shall emerge from our difficulties. We shall achieve
this by rectifying things, but not by talking about the new
tasks of the Agrarian Programme as Osinsky and Larin did. I
wrote a review of this programme for the Central Committee. [14] I shall not discuss it now; every
member of the Party interested in the subject has a right to go
to the Secretariat and read it there. Please do so. If we divert
the efforts of Larin and Osinsky into the proper channels and
curb their misguided zeal, enormous benefit will accrue.

In conclusion I shall say a few words about Shlyapnikov. I
intended to speak about him at greater length, but ninety nine
per cent of this subject has been covered by Trotsky and
Zinoviev, who on instructions of the Central Committee replied
to the Statement of the Twenty-Two [15] at the meeting of
the Communist International.

Firstly, Comrade Shlyapnikov pretended not to understand why I
referred to machine-guns and panic-mongers; and he jokingly said
that he had been tried lots of times. Of course, comrades, it is
not a bad thing to make a joke. One cannot speak at a big
meeting without cracking a joke or two, because one’s audience gets weary. One must be human. But there are certain
things that one must not joke about; there is such a thing as
Party unity.

At a time when we are completely surrounded by enemies; when the
international bourgeoisie is sufficiently astute to shift
Milyukov to the left, to supply the Socialist-Revolutionaries
with money for the publication of all sorts of newspapers and to
incite Vandervelde and Otto

Bauer to launch a campaign against the trial of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and to howl that the
Bolsheviks are brutes; when all these people, who have studied
politics for ages and have thousands of millions of gold rubles,
francs, etc., at their disposal, are arrayed against us, for
Comrade Shlyapnikov to crack jokes and to say: “I have been tried by the Central Committee”, and so forth, is a
deplorable thing, comrades. The Party Congress must draw
definite conclusions. We do not arrange trials at the Central
Committee for nothing! Comrade Shlyapnikov was tried by the
Central Committee, and we were short of three votes to expel him
from the Party. [16] The members of the Party gathered at this Congress should interest themselves in the matter and
read the minutes of that meeting of the Central Committee. This
is no laughing matter!

You have a legitimate right to appeal to the Communist
International. But a long time before that appeal was lodged a
large majority of the Central Committee was in favour of
expelling Comrade Shlyapnikov; only the necessary two-third vote
was lacking. You cannot trifle with a thing like that! It will
do you no harm to know that at the meeting of the Communist
group at the Metalworkers’ Congress Comrade Shlyapnikov
openly advocated a split.

Comrade Trotsky has already dealt with the significance of
Comrade Kollontai’s pamphlet.

If we trifle with things like this it will be utterly hopeless
to expect that we shall hold on in the difficult situation in
which we now find ourselves. I have indicated the three
conditions under which it will be possible for us to hold on:
first, that there shall be no intervention; second, that the
financial crisis shall not be too severe; and third, that we
shall make no political mistakes.

One of the speakers stated that I said political complications. No, I said political mistakes. If we make no
political mistakes, I say, 99 per cent of the Party membership
will be with us, and so also will the non-Party workers and
peasants, who will understand that this is the time to learn.

I remember that in the article he wrote on the anniversary of
the Red Army Comrade Trotsky said: “A year of tuition.” This slogan applies equally to the Party and to
the working class. During this period we have rallied around us
a vast number of heroic people who have undoubtedly made the
turn in world history permanent. But this does not justify our
failure to understand that we now have ahead of us a “year
of tuition”.

We are standing much more firmly on our feet today than we stood
a year ago. Of course, even today the bourgeoisie may attempt
another armed intervention, but they will find it much more
difficult than before; it is much more difficult today than it
was yesterday.

To ensure ourselves the opportunity to learn we must make no
political mistakes. We must waste no time playing with the unity
of the Party, as Comrade Shlyapnikov is doing. We cannot afford
games of that kind! We know that the conflict within the Party
is costing us a great deal. Comrades, we must not forget this
lesson! Concerning the past year, the Central Committee has
every right to say that at the opening of this Congress there
was less factional strife in the Party, it was more united than
last year. I do not want to boast that all factionalism in the
Party has vanished. But it is an incontrovertible fact that
there is less factionalism in the Party today. This has been
proved.

You know that the present Workers’ Opposition is only a
wreck of the former Workers’ Opposition. Compare the signatures appended to the Statement of the Twenty-Two with
those appended to the platform that was issued before the Tenth
Congress. You will find that many of those signatures are
missing. We must tell those people who legitimately used their
right to appeal to the Communist International that they had no
right to appeal on behalf of Myasnikov. The Myasnikov case came
up last summer, [17] I was not in Moscow at the time, but I wrote Myasnikov a long letter, [18] which he inserted
in his pamphlet. I saw that he was a capable man and that it was
worth while having a talk with him; but this man must be told
that if he comes out with criticism of this sort it will not be
tolerated.

He writes a letter saying: “Collect all the discontented
in the district.” Yes, it is not a very difficult matter
to collect all the discontented in a district. Take the speeches
that Shlyapnikov delivers here, and which Comrade Medvedyev delivers elsewhere. ( Medvedyev from his seat :
“Where did you obtain your information?”) I obtained my information from the bodies appointed by the Congress of the
R.C.P.: the Organising Bureau of the Central Committee, the
Secretariat of the Central Committee, and the Central Control
Commission. Make inquiries there, if you like, and you will
learn what sort of speeches Comrade Medvedyev delivers. If we do
not put a stop to this sort of thing we shall be unable to
maintain unity which, perhaps, is our greatest asset. We must
ruthlessly expose our mistakes and discuss them. If we clearly
understand this—and we are beginning to understand it at
this Congress—there is not the slightest doubt that we shall be able to overcome them. ( Stormy applause. )

4
Speech In Closing The Congress April 2

Comrades, we have reached the end of our Congress.

The first difference that strikes one in comparing this Congress
with the preceding one is the greater solidarity, the greater
unanimity and greater organisational unity that have been
displayed.

Only a small part of one of the sections of the opposition that
existed at the last Congress has placed itself outside the
Party.

On the trade union question and on the New Economic Policy no
disagreements, or hardly any disagreements, have been revealed
in our Party.

The radically and fundamentally “new” achievement of this Congress is that it has provided vivid proof that our
enemies are wrong in constantly reiterating that our Party is
becoming senile and is losing its flexibility of mind and
body.

No. We have not lost this flexibility.

When the objective state of affairs in Russia, and all over the
world, called for an advance, for a supremely bold, swift and
determined onslaught on the enemy, we made that onslaught. If
necessary, we shall do it again and again.

By that we raised our revolution to a height hitherto unparalleled in the world. No power on earth, no matter how much
evil, hardship and suffering it may yet cause millions and
hundreds of millions of people, can annul the major gains of our
revolution, for these are no longer our but historic gains.

But when in the spring of 1921 it turned out that the vanguard
of the revolution was in danger of becoming isolated from the masses of the people, from the masses of the
peasants, whom it must skilfully lead forward, we unanimously
and firmly decided to retreat. And on the whole, during the past
year we retreated in good revolutionary order.

The proletarian revolutions maturing in all advanced countries
of the world will be unable to solve their problems unless they
combine the ability to fight heroically and to attack with the
ability to retreat in good revolutionary order. The experience
of the second period of our struggle, i.e., the experience of
retreat, will in the future probably be just as useful to the
workers of at least some countries, as the experience of the
first period of our revolution, i.e., the experience of bold
attack, will undoubtedly prove useful to the workers of all
countries.

Now we have decided to halt the retreat.

This means that the entire object of our policy must be
formulated in a new way.

The central feature of the situation now is that the vanguard
must not shirk the work of educating itself, of remoulding
itself, must not be afraid of frankly admitting that it is not
sufficiently trained and lacks the necessary skill. The main
thing now is to advance as an immeasurably wider and larger
mass, and only together with the peasantry, proving to them by
deeds, in practice, by experience, that we are learning, and
that we shall learn to assist them, to lead them forward. In the
present international situation, in the present state of the
productive forces of Russia, this problem can be solved only
very slowly, cautiously, in a business-like way, and by testing
a thousand times in a practical way every step that is taken.

If voices are raised in our Party against this extremely slow
and extremely cautious progress, these voices will be isolated
ones.

The Party as a whole has understood—and will now prove by
deeds that it has understood—that at the present time its
work must be organised exactly along these lines, and since we
have understood it, we shall achieve our goal.

I declare the Eleventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party
closed.

Endnotes

[1] The Eleventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) was held in Moscow on March
27-April 2, 1922.

It was convened a year after the Civil War ended and the country went over to peaceful economic
devolopment. Its purpose was to sum up the results of the first
year of the New Economic Policy and map out the further plan of
socialist construction.

This was the last Party Congress in which Lenin participated. It was attended by 522 delegates with
a casting vote and 165 delegates with a consultative voice. It
discussed 1) the political report of the Central Committee, 2)
the organisation report of the Central Committee, 3) the report
of the Auditing Commission, 5) the report of thc Central Control
Commission, 5) the report of the Communist International, 6) the
trade unions, 7) the Red Army, 8) the financial policy, 9) the
results of the Party purge and the accompanying strengthening of
the Party ranks, and the co-reports on work with young people
and on the press and propaganda, and 10) elections to the
Central Committee and the Central Control Commission.

Lenin opened the Congress, delivered the political report of the
R.C.P.(B.), a closing speech on the report and a speech closing
the Congress.

[2] Here Lenin refers
to Matyas Rakosi’s article “The New Economic Policy in Soviet Russia, which analyses Otto Bauer’s pamphlet
“ Der neue Kurs” in Sowjetrussland (“The New Policy” in Soviet Russia), published in
Vienna in 1921. Rakosi’s article appeared in March 22 in
the magazine Communist International , No. 20. Communist International , organ of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International, was published in
Russian, German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese. The first
issue was put out on May 1, 1919. Publication was stopped in
June 1943 following the decision of the Presidium of the
Comintern Exccutive Committee of May 15, 1943 to dissolve the
Conmunist International.

[3] Lenin has in mind
the struggle waged abroad between the Bolsheviks and the
Mensheviks.

[4] The Commission for
Mixed Companies under the Council of Labour and Defence. This
Commission was set up by a decision of the Council of Labour
and Defence on February 15, 1922. Its Chairman was Sokolnikov.

[5] The Northern Timber Trust was a special administrative body of the
timber industry of the North White Sea area. It was established
in 1921.

[6]
Persuader-in-Chief was the nickname given by the soldiers to A. F. Kerensky, then the War and Navy Minister of
the Provisional Government, for trying to persuade the soldiers
to start an offensive when he toured the front in the summer of
1917. This attempt was made on orders from the Anglo-French
imperialists and the Russian bourgeoisie.

[7] Alexander
Todorsky’s book A Year With a Rifle and a Plough was published in 1918 by the Vesyegonsk Uyezd Executive
Committee of Soviets, Tver Gubernia. Lenin speaks of this book
in his article “A Little Picture in Illustration of Big
Problems” (see present edition, Vol. 28, pp. 386-89).

[8] The Central Verification Commission was set up on June 25, 1921 by the
C.C., R.C.P.(B.) to direct the work of local verification
commissions during the period of the Party purge. It consisted
of five men.

[9] At the Congress
E. A. Preobrazhensky suggested that another organ of the Central
Committee, an Economic Bureau, should be set up in addition to
the Political Bureau and the Organising Bureau. He accused the
Central Committee of violating that part of the Party Programme
dealing with bourgeois specialists, which stated that while
creating a comradely atmosphere for the work of these people and
showing concern for their material welfare no political
concessions should be made to them and their counter-revolutionary impulses should be curbed. He alleged that
the C.C. had made a political concession to the professors who
had taken part in the strikes at institutions of higher learning
in Moscow, Kazan, Petrograd and other cities in 1921-22. One of
their basic demands was that the new Rules of Institutions of
Higher Learning, drawn up by the Central Administration of
Vocational and Political Schools and Institutions of Higher
Learning and endorsed in the autumn of 1921 by the Council of
People’s Commissars, should be revised. They objected to
the Workers Faculties at institutions of higher learning and to
the procedure, laid down in the new Rules, of forming the boards
of these institutions with the participation of representatives
of the students, trade unions and the Central Administration of
Vocational and Political Schools and Institutions of Higher
Learning. They demanded that the latter right be transferred to
the teachers’ boards, and also made a number of economic
demands. The Central Administration of Vocational and Political
Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning, which was at that
time headed by Preobrazhensky, made the mistake of insisting on
stern measures, including detention, against the striking
instructors. The same stand was taken by the Communist cells and
Workers’ Faculties of some institutions of higher learning. The Political Bureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) took this
question up several times. In view of the need for a flexible
approach to specialists, it rectified the mistake of the Central
Administration of Vocational and Political Schools and
Institutions of Higher Learning, instructing A. V. Lunacharsky,
M. N. Pokrovsky and other leading officials of the
People’s Commissariat of Public Education to examine the
teachers’ demands and, without making any fundamental, political concessions, to reach agreement with them. In February
1922 the Political Bureau set up a commission consisting of
representatives of the People’s Commissariat of Public
Education, the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Public
Education Workers and teachers to examine the economic position
of institutions of higher learning and recognise the need or new
Rules of Institutions of Higher Learning. After repeated
conferences between the teachers and the commission, and a
number of other measures that were taken by the People’s
Commissariat of Public Education on instructions from the Party
C.C., the strikes were stopped.

[10] J. V. Stalin was
People’s Commissar of Nationalities from the time the
People’s Commissariat of Nationalities was set up on
October 26 (November 8), 1917 to its dissolution in July
1923. As from March 1919, he was also People’s Commissar
of State Control, and after the reorganisation of this
Commissariat in February 1920, he was People’s Commissar
of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection until April 25, 1922.

[11] N. Osinsky
(V. V. Obolensky), speaking at the Congress, proposed that a
“Cabinet” of Commissars be set up. His suggestion was that it should be formed not by the All-Russia Central
Executive Cornmittee but unilaterally by its Chairman, who would
be responsible to A.R.C.E.C. While Osinsky spoke Lenin made the
following entry in his note book: “( Set up a cabinet! ) one member should form the Cabinet” ( Lenin Miscellany XIII , 1930, p. 22).

[12] At the Congress
Y. Larin alleged that an authorised body of the State Planning
Commission had proposed that at the Genoa Conference the Soviet
delegation should offer to lease (as a concession)
three-quarters of the country’s railways, the
Petrograd-Rybinsk waterway, the iron and steel plants in the
Urals with a railway network of 3,000 versts, and the power
engineering industry. This allegation was refuted by
G. M. Krzhizhanovsky.

[14] The Debating Club at the Moscow Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) was
organised in August 1921. Similar clubs were opened in various
parts of Moscow. They debated Party and Soviet development, the
Soviet Republic’s economic policy and other problems. However, the Debating Club soon began to be used by
opposition groups as a forum for propagandising their views. On
February 20,1922, the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.)
examined the question of the Debating Club on the basis of a
report from the Central Control Commission and instructed the
Moscow Committee to reconsider the composition of the
Club’s board and to organise its work in conformity with
the Party’s tasks.

[14] See present
volume, To Comrade Molotov For The Members Of The Political Bureau .

[15] This anti-Party
statement was sent on February 26, 1922 to the Presidium of the
Extended Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive Committee by
a group of members of the former Workers’ Opposition (A. G. Shlyapnikov, S. P. Medvedyev, A. M. Kollontai,
G. I. Myasnikov and others, which continued to exist as a
faction despite the resolution “On Party Unity” passed by the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.). The statement
claimed that “matters were unsatisfactory with regard to a
united front in our country”, that the leading Party bodies were ignoring the requirements and interests of the
workers and that a split was impending in the Party. The
Comintern Executive Committee appointed a commission consisting
of Clara Zetkin, Marcel Cachin, Jacob Friis, Vasil Kolarov, Karl
Krejbich, Umberto Terracini and Arthur McManus to look into the
Statement of the Twenty-Two. On March 4, on the basis of the
report of this commission, a Plenary Meeting of the Comintern
Executive Committee, with four abstentions, passed a resolution
rejecting the accusations in the statement and censured the
stand of the twenty-two as running counter to the decisions of
the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.). The Eleventh Congress of
the R.C.P.(B.) appointed a commission of 19 persons to examine
the Statement of the Twenty Two. On April 2, on the basis of the
report of this commission, a closed session of the Congress
adopted a special resolution “On Certain Members of the
Former Workers’ Opposition”, in which it stigmatised the anti-Party behaviour of members of the Workers’
Opposition group, and warned the leaders of the group that they
would be expelled from the Party if they renewed their factional
activity.

[16] On a motion
proposed by Lenin, the joint sitting of the Plenary Meeting of
the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission on
August 9, 1921, exmined the question of expelling A. Shlyapnikov
from the Central Committee and from the Party for anti-Party
activity.

[17] In Motovilikha
District, Perm Gubernia, G. I. Myasnikov organised an anti-Party
group which opposed the Party’s policy. On July 29, 1921,
the Organising Bureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) examined
Myasnikov’s statements in the Perm organisation, found that they were directed against the Party and set up a
commission to investigate Myasnikov’s activities. On
August 22, acting on the basis of the report of this commission,
the Organising Bureau found Myasnikov’s theses incompatible with Party interests, prohibited him from speaking
of his theses at official Party meetings, recalled him from the
Perm organisation and placed him at the disposal of the Central
Committee. Myasnikov disobeyed the Central Committee, returned
to Motovilikha and continued his anti-Party activities. At the
same time, he tried to organise an anti-Party group in
Petrograd. After investigating his activities, the C.C.,
R.C.P.(B.) commission proposed that he should be expelled from
tho Party for repeated violations of Party discipline and for
organising a special anti-Party group in defiance of the Tenth
Party Congress decision on Party unity. On February 20, 1922,
the Political Bureau approved the commission’s decision on
Myasnikov’s expulsion from the Party, with the provision
that he should have the right to apply for Party membership in a
year (see Eleventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.). Verbatim Report , Moscow, 1961, pp. 748-49).

[18] See present
edition, Vol. 32, pp. 504-09.