Preface To The Pamphlet

Old Articles Or Almost New Subjects

Preface To The 1922 Edition [1]

This pamphlet has been published on the recommendation of the
Communists of Moscow, not on mine. I was, at first, opposed to the
republication of this old stuff, as I considered it to be out of date.

After reading the material prepared by the Moscow comrades for
publication I found that it was not as obsolete as might have been
expected. In fact, most of it is not obsolete at all, in spite of the
extremely turbulent and rapid revolutionary development of the past four
years.

The situation in the spring of 1922 duplicates on a broad scale
the main features of the situation in the spring of 1918. At that
time we had a “respite” between two wars between the imperialist
war, which we brought to an end (it would be more correct to say almost
brought to an end) in February 1918, and the Civil War, which did
not come to an end with our first victory over counter-revolutionaries of
the Bogayevsky type, but for which preparations were being made by the
Czechoslovaks, Kornilov, Denikin and Co.

Today Genoa represents another “respite” on a very much
larger, on a world scale. It is a respite between the war against Soviet
Russia, that was fought and lost by the world bourgeoisie, and the new war
which this bourgeoisie is preparing, but is not yet ready for (I am writing
these lines on April 28, 1922, when the latest news indicates the
danger of a rupture).

Now, as then, the “pivot” of Soviet policy is organisation,
accounting and control, a slow, cautious and businesslike approach to
practical tasks, to executive control and the study of our practical
experience. I spoke about this at the Eleventh Congress of the R.C.P. a few
weeks ago. The Congress accepted this ’line”, as is evident from
the resolution it passed on the report of the Central Committee, and from
other resolutions. And I tried to sum up that line in my speech in closing
the Eleventh Congress.

The republication of this old pamphlet of 1918 will be useful because the
controversies that raged at that time will go a long way to explain the
problems that face our Party today. Speeches like those delivered by
Comrades Preobrazhensky, Osinsky and Larin during the debate on the report
of the Central Committee at the Eleventh Party Congress clearly revealed
that very many prominent and leading Party officials are not concentrating
their attention on what they should. In their speeches they wrongly defined
the “pivot” of the problems that now confront the Party. I hope
to be able to discuss this matter with the reader in greater detail in the
near future. For the time being, I must limit myself to the remark that the
object of the present pamphlet is to explain why the task that was in the
forefront when this pamphlet was first published was (and at the
present time still is) “to learn to work efficiently to learn how to
put the right men in the right place, to establish individual responsibility
for a definite job, carefully to study and test practical experience instead
of hankering after “new” plans of new government departments, or
after new methods of organisation, reorganisation, and so forth.

Just one more absolutely necessary remark in conclusion. have deleted
from this pamphlet the speech I delivered in closing the session of the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee in the spring of 1918. [2] This speech was
recorded in such a way as to render it absolutely useless. I must repeat
what I once wrote to the Petrograd comrades in 1919, or 1920, in a letter
intended for publication in the press, but which, unfortunately, they did
not publish, [See Preface To The Pamphlet; The Problem Of The New Economic Policy — Transcriber ] viz., that I
cannot accept responsibility for the reports of my speeches in the way they
are usually printed in the press, and I earnestly request that they should
not be reprinted—except in case of extreme necessity, and, in any
case, together with my present definite statement. Whether it is due to the
fact that I often speak too fast; whether in many cases my style of delivery
is faulty, or whether the ordinary records of speeches are made too
hurriedly and are very unsatisfactory-for all these reasons, and for certain
others all taken together, the fact remains that I cannot accept
responsibility for the text of my speeches as recorded, and request that
they should not be reproduced. Let those who make these records be
responsible. If it is necessary to reprint anything, there are plenty of
pamphlets and articles that can be reprinted, and for the text of which I
take full and complete responsibility.

April 28, 1922

N. Lenin

Endnotes

[1]
Lenin’s pamphlet Old Articles on Almost New Subjects. On the Question of the New Economic Policy (Two Articles and a Speech, 1918)
was published in 1922 by the Moscow branch of the State Publishing
House. The pamphlet included the Preface to the 1922 Edition, the article
The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government , report on the immediate tasks of the Soviet Government at
the session of the All-Russia C.E.C. on April 29, 1918, and the article Left-Wing Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality

[2] See present
edition, Vol. 27, pp. 306-13