Date: 1922-11-20
Source: ru:PSS/v45

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL ON NOVEMBER 20, 1922
(Bursts of enthusiastic applause; “The Internationale.”) Comrades! I deeply regret—and I offer my sincerest apologies—for not being able to attend your session earlier. As far as I know, you had planned several weeks ago to give me the opportunity to visit the Moscow Council. However, I was unable to do so because, following an illness that began in December, I—putting it in professional terms—lost my capacity to work for a rather lengthy period. Due to this decline in my working ability, I found myself postponing this very speech week after week. Moreover, I had to shift a considerable portion of the work that I had initially entrusted to Comrade Tsyurupa, and later to Comrade Rykov, onto Comrade Kamenev. And I must say that, to use a comparison I’ve already employed, he suddenly found himself saddled with two heavy loads. Though, continuing with that same analogy, I should add that the horse turned out to be exceptionally capable and eager to pull his weight. (Applause.) Still, it’s not proper to haul two loads at once, and I now eagerly await the day when Comrades Tsyurupa and Rykov return, so that we may divide our work, if only a little more equitably. Because of my diminished capacity, I am now forced to devote far more time than I would have liked to scrutinizing matters.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL ON NOVEMBER 20, 1922
In December 1921, when I was compelled to completely suspend my work, we were nearing the end of the year. At that time, we were implementing the New Economic Policy—and it soon became clear that this transition, though we had begun to pursue it as early as 1921, was quite difficult; I would even say, exceedingly difficult. More than a year and a half had passed since we embarked on this transition, and one might have thought that by now most of us ought to have settled into new roles, adjusting ourselves to the emerging conditions—especially those dictated by the New Economic Policy.
When it came to foreign policy, we experienced the fewest changes. Here, we continued along the course we had set before, and I can honestly tell you that we pursued it with complete consistency and with tremendous success. In fact, there is no need for me to elaborate on this point: the capture of Vladivostok, the subsequent demonstration, and the state-federal declaration that you recently read in the newspapers—all of these clearly demonstrated and underscored that, in this regard, we had nothing to change. We stand on a path that is perfectly clear and firmly defined, and we have secured our success in the eyes of nations across the globe—though some among them still insist on declaring that they are unwilling to sit down at the same table with us. Nevertheless, economic relations, and with them diplomatic ties, are being established—and must be established; they will inevitably be established. Any state that resists this process risks falling behind, and perhaps, in certain crucial respects, finds itself at a distinct disadvantage. We see this now—not only from the press, from the newspapers. I believe that even our comrades who have traveled abroad are becoming increasingly convinced of just how profound the changes have been. In this respect, we have, so to speak—and to employ an old analogy—made no transfers, neither to other trains nor to different teams of horses.
But when it comes to our domestic policies, the shift we made in the spring of 1921, which was dictated by circumstances of extraordinary urgency and compelling force—so much so that there was no debate or disagreement among us regarding this shift—this very shift continues to present us with certain difficulties, indeed, I would say, with significant challenges. Not because we doubted the necessity of this turn—there was no such doubt—but not because we questioned whether the trials of our New Economic Policy had yielded the successes we had hoped for. On this score, I can state with absolute certainty that there is no doubt whatsoever, either within the ranks of our Party or among the vast masses of non‑party workers and peasants.
In this sense, the question itself presents no real difficulty. The difficulties arise because we now face a task that requires us to frequently enlist new people, to implement extraordinary measures and adopt unconventional approaches. We still harbor doubts about the correctness of certain decisions, we are making adjustments in various directions—and it must be said that both of these processes will continue for quite some time to come. “The New Economic Policy”! What a strange name. This policy is called the New Economic Policy because it represents a reversal. We are retreating, as it were, but we retreat in order to first step back—and then to leap forward with greater vigor. It is only under this condition that we have retreated in the implementation of our New Economic Policy. Where and how we must now reorganize, adapt, and restructure ourselves—so that, after our retreat, we may launch an even more determined offensive—we do not yet know. To carry out all these tasks in a proper and systematic manner, as the saying goes, one must try ten times, not just once, before making a decision. We must do so in order to overcome the incredible difficulties that confront us in the pursuit of all our goals and tasks. You know full well how many sacrifices were made in the course of achieving what has been accomplished; you know how long the Civil War dragged on and how much strength it exacted. And then, the capture of Vlad—

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL ON NOVEMBER 20, 1922
The capture of the East showed us—after all, Vladivostok is far away, but it is, nonetheless, our own city—(prolonged applause)—it showed us all the universal longing for us, for our achievements. Here and there—within the RSFSR. This longing freed us not only from internal enemies but also from external foes who had been pressing upon us. I am speaking of Japan.
We have secured a fully defined diplomatic situation—one that is, in essence, a diplomatic landscape recognized by the entire world. You can see this for yourselves. You witness the results of this effort—and consider how much time it took to achieve it! Today, we have gained recognition of our rights from our adversaries, both in economic policy and in trade policy. This is evidenced by the conclusion of trade agreements.
We can understand why, for us who embarked on the path of the so‑called New Economic Policy a year and a half ago, it has proven so incredibly difficult to move forward along this path. We live in a state that has been so ravaged by war, so utterly thrown off any semblance of normalcy, so deeply wounded and impoverished that we are now, almost against our will, forced to begin our calculations from the tiniest fraction—the pre‑war percentage. We apply this standard to the conditions of our lives, sometimes with great impatience, with burning fervor, and always find that the difficulties here are immense. The task we have set for ourselves appears all the more daunting because we compare it to the conditions of a typical bourgeois state. We set this task for ourselves because we understood that we could expect no help from the wealthiest powers—help that usually arrives in such circumstances. After the Civil War, we were placed in conditions bordering on outright boycott, that is,

* The stenographic record further states: “And even if we were to take into account those extraordinarily high percentages—let’s say, those double-digit percentages—that are typically imposed on a state which, as is commonly said, receives assistance—these percentages are, in truth, far from constituting genuine aid. To put it plainly, they deserve a designation far less polite than ‘aid’—but even these ordinary conditions proved burdensome for us.” Ed.

we were told: “We will not provide you with the kind of economic ties we have grown accustomed to offering, the kind that are considered normal in the capitalist world.”
More than a year and a half has passed since we entered the path of the New Economic Policy; considerably more time has elapsed since we concluded our first international treaty—and yet, to this day, this boycott by the bourgeoisie and by all governments continues to weigh heavily upon us. When we ventured into these new economic conditions, we could not hope for anything else—but we never doubted that we must forge ahead and that we would succeed on our own. The longer we go on, the clearer it becomes that any assistance that might be offered to us—or that will be offered to us by the capitalist powers—will not only fail to eliminate these conditions; in the vast majority of cases, it will likely only exacerbate them, intensify their severity. “On our own,” we told ourselves. “On our own,” nearly every capitalist state tells us, whether we enter into any kind of transaction with them, establish any sort of agreement with them, or initiate any negotiations with them. And therein lies a particular difficulty. We must recognize this difficulty. We have forged our own state structure through more than three years of work—work that was incredibly arduous, filled with heroic resolve. In the conditions we faced until now, we had no time to ponder whether we might break something unnecessary; we had no time to consider whether the cost would be too great, for the sacrifices had already been numerous—because the struggle we had begun then (as you know well, and there is no need to dwell on it), that struggle was not merely a fight for survival, but a life‑and‑death struggle against the old social order, against which we fought in order to carve out for ourselves the right to exist, to develop peacefully. We have won that right. These are not our words, nor are they the testimonies of witnesses who might be accused of bias toward us. These are the testimonies of witnesses who stood in the camp of our enemies and who—

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL ON NOVEMBER 20, 1922
who, of course, were biased—but not in our favor, rather in the opposite direction. These witnesses had served in Denikin’s camp, had led the occupation forces. And we know that their bias cost us dearly, exacting countless devastations. Through them, we suffered all manner of losses—losing all kinds of valuable assets, and above all, losing human lives on an unimaginably large scale. Now, as we carefully examine our tasks, we must understand that our primary task will be to safeguard our past achievements. We will not surrender a single one of our former conquests. (Applause.) At the same time, we are confronted with an entirely new challenge; the old ways may actually become a direct obstacle. This challenge is the hardest to grasp—but it must be understood, so that we may learn to work, as it were, by turning ourselves completely inside out when necessary. I believe, comrades, that these words and slogans are self‑evident, for during the nearly year that I was absent, you have spoken and thought about this subject countless times, in countless contexts, handling the matter in your own hands. And I am confident that your reflections on this topic can only lead to one conclusion: we are now required to exercise even greater flexibility than we have shown thus far in the arena of the Civil War.
We must not abandon the old. A series of concessions that align us with the capitalist powers—these concessions grant the powers full access to engage in relations with us, ensuring them profits, perhaps even greater profits than they ought to receive. At the same time, we cede only a small portion of the means of production that our state has held almost entirely in its own hands. Just the other day, the newspapers debated the concession proposed by the Englishman Urquhart—a man who had spent nearly the entire Civil War fighting against us. He said, “We will achieve our goal in the Civil War against Russia—against that very Russia which dared to deprive us of this and that.” And after all that, we were forced to enter into relations with him.

We did not reject them; we accepted them with great joy—but we said, “Excuse us, we will not give back what we have conquered. Russia is so vast, our economic potential is so rich, and we believe we have every right not to refuse your generous offer, but to discuss it calmly, like businesspeople.” To be sure, our first conversation did not yield results, for we were unable to agree to his proposal for political reasons. We had to respond with a refusal. While the British did not yet recognize the possibility of our participation in the issue of the straits, of the Dardanelles, we had to respond with a refusal—but immediately after that refusal, we had to begin examining the matter in earnest. We discussed whether it would be advantageous for us, whether it would be profitable to conclude this concession—and if so, under what circumstances. We had to talk about the price. This is what makes it clear to you, comrades, to what extent we must now approach questions differently than we did in the past. In the past, a communist would say, “I will give my life,” and it often seemed very simple to him—though it was not always so simple. Now, however, we communists face an entirely different task. We must calculate everything, and each of you must learn to be calculating. We must calculate in a capitalist environment: how will we secure our existence? How will we profit from our adversaries—who, of course, will bargain, who have never ceased to bargain, and who will bargain at our expense? We do not forget this, nor do we imagine that anywhere, representatives of commerce will suddenly become lambs, and, having become lambs, will bestow all manner of benefits upon us gratis. That does not happen—and we do not rely on it; instead, we count on the fact that, having grown accustomed to resisting, we will, by turning ourselves inside out, prove capable of bargaining, of profiting, and of emerging from difficult economic situations. This task is extremely challenging. This is the task we are working on.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL ON NOVEMBER 20, 1922
I would like us to clearly recognize—and to acknowledge to ourselves—the vast gulf that separates the tasks of the old and the new. No matter how wide that gulf may be, we have learned to maneuver in war, and we must understand that the maneuver we are now undertaking, the maneuver in which we now find ourselves, is the most difficult—but it is also, apparently, the last. We must test our strength here and prove that we have not merely memorized yesterday’s lessons and are simply repeating what we have learned. Please forgive me—I say this with humility—but we have begun to relearn, and we will continue to relearn, until we achieve a certain, universally evident success. It is in the spirit of this relearning that I believe we should once again make a firm promise to one another: that under the banner of the New Economic Policy, we have turned back—and turned back in such a way that we will not give up anything new, while at the same time granting capitalists such advantages that even the most hostile state, however opposed it may be to us, will be compelled to enter into deals and establish relations with us. Comrade Krassin, who had many conversations with Urquhart—the head and mainstay of the entire intervention—said that after all his attempts to impose the old order upon us at all costs, throughout Russia, Urquhart finally sat down at the table with Krassin and began to ask, “How much? How long? For how many years?” (Applause.) We are still quite far from concluding a series of concessionary agreements and thereby entering into precisely defined, unshakable—according to the standards of bourgeois society—contractual relationships. But we can already see that we are approaching this goal, that we are almost there—but we have not yet arrived. Comrades, we must acknowledge this reality and avoid arrogance. We have not yet fully achieved that which will make us strong, independent, and confidently assured that we fear no capitalist deal; we are confidently assured that no matter how difficult a deal may be, we will conclude it, delve into its substance, and resolve it. Therefore, the work we have begun in this field—both political and party-related—must be continued,

and therefore, we must move from old methods to entirely new ones.
Our apparatus remains old, and our task now is to retool it in a new way. We cannot accomplish this overnight, but we must arrange things so that the communists we have are properly positioned. We must ensure that these communists truly master the apparatuses they are assigned to, rather than—as is often the case with us—allowing the apparatuses to dominate them. Let us be honest about this; let us speak openly about it. These are the tasks before us, these are the difficulties we face—and this is precisely the moment when we have embarked on our practical path, when we must approach socialism not as an icon painted in solemn colors. We must take the right direction; we must ensure that every mass, every segment of the population, examines our path and says, “Yes, this is better than the old order.” This is the task we have set for ourselves. Our Party—small in number compared to the country’s total population—has taken up this task. This tiny seed has set itself the goal of transforming everything, and it will transform everything. We have proven that this is not utopia, but a cause that people live for. We have seen it all—this has already been done. We must retool so that the vast majority of working people—peasants and workers—can say, “You are not praising yourselves; we are praising you. We say that you have achieved results so superior that no reasonable person would ever think of returning to the old order.” But that has not yet happened. Therefore, the NEP remains today the central, ongoing, all‑comprehensive slogan of our time. We will not forget a single slogan we learned yesterday. We can say this with complete calmness, without the slightest trace of hesitation, to anyone—and every step we take bears witness to this. Yet we must still adapt to the New Economic Policy. All of its negative aspects—those that need not be enumerated, those that you know all too well—must be mastered, brought down to a definite minimum, and we must

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL ON NOVEMBER 20, 1922
manage everything with calculation. Our legislation provides us with ample opportunity to do so. Will we succeed in setting things right? That question remains far from resolved. We are studying it. Each issue of our Party newspaper offers you a dozen articles that tell you: at such-and-such a factory, under such-and-such a manufacturer, the rental terms are thus and so; and over here, where the director is our comrade–communist, the terms are thus and so. Does this bring in revenue, or not? Does it justify itself, or not? We have moved to the very heart of everyday concerns—and in this lies a tremendous achievement. Socialism is no longer a question of a distant future, or some abstract ideal, or some sacred icon. As for icons, we have remained stuck in old, rather poor conceptions. We have brought socialism into daily life, and here we must grapple with it. This is the task of our day, this is the task of our era. Let me conclude by expressing my confidence that, however difficult this task may be, however new it may be compared to our previous tasks, and however many difficulties it may bring us—yet together, not tomorrow, but within a few years, we will solve this task at all costs, so that from a NEP‑era Russia, we will emerge as a socialist Russia. (Boisterous and prolonged applause.)
“Pravda,” No. 263, November 21, 1922

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Pravda,” verified against the stenographic record.