V. I. Lenin

Letter To The Fifth

All-Russia Congress Of Trade Unions [1]

September 17, 1922

Dear Comrades, This is the first time since my long illness that I am able to address a
Congress, even though in writing. Permit me, therefore, to confine myself to
expressing to you my cordial greetings, and to a few brief remarks on the
position and tasks of our industry and of our Republic. Our position is
particularly difficult because we lack the means to restore our fixed
assets, i.e., machinery, tools, buildings, etc.; and it is precisely that
part of industry known as heavy industry which is the main basis of
socialism. In capitalist countries these fixed assets are usually restored
by means of loans. We are refused loans until we restore the property of the
capitalists and landowners; but this we cannot and will not do. The only
road open to us is the long and extremely arduous road of slowly
accumulating our savings, of raising taxes in order to be able gradually to
repair our destroyed railways, machinery, buildings, etc. So far, we are the
only country in the world in which the working peasants, under the
leadership of the workers, are building socialism, flatly rejecting the
leadership of the bour-geoisie who, under cover of florid phrases about
democracy, liberty, etc., are actually consolidating the private owner-ship
of the capitalists and landowners and establishing the rule of a handful of
rich men who have divided the entire globe among themselves and are fighting
one another for its redivision, for the enslavement of hundreds of millions
of people in the weaker and more backward nations.

As long as we remain in the field alone the task of restoring our economy
will be an extremely heavy burden on our shoulders. All the peasants and all
the workers will have to exert themselves to the very utmost; our machinery
of state, which is still working very inefficiently, must be improved and
made less costly so that we may improve the conditions of the working
people, and, to some extent at least, restore our economy, which was
destroyed by the imperialist and civil wars.

Let every politically conscious peasant and worker who may become
despondent over our hard conditions of life, or over the extremely slow
progress of our work of state construction, remember the recent past, when
the capital-ists and landowners were in power. This will give him new zest
in his work. The only way to save the workers’ and peasants’
rule is to make every effort to intensify and improve our work in all
fields.

With comradely greetings,

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Endnotes

[1] The
Filth All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions was held in Moscow on
September 17-22, 1922. It was attended by 970 delegates representing
5,100,000 trade union members. The Congress elected Lenin an honorary member
of its presidium. Lenin's letter was	read at the first sitting on
September 17, 1922. The Congress sent Lenin greetings in reply.