V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v44;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

DRAFT DECISION OF THE C.C., R.C.P.(B.) ON THE TASKS OF THE SOVIET DELEGATION AT GENOA
For members of the Political Bureau only Draft decision of the C.C.

1. The C.C. recognises as correct the appraisal of the situation and of the tasks (of our delegation at Genoa) given in Comrade Litvinov’s theses.

2. The C.C. confirms that Comrade Chicherin, as Vice-Chairman, has all the rights of chairman of the delegation.

3. In the event of Comrade Chicherin’s illness or departure, his rights shall be transferred in turn to one of the following two groups of three: (a) Litvinov, Krasin, Rakovsky; (b) Litvinov, Joffe, Borovsky.

4. Our delegation must try to avoid the question of recognising the Cannes conditions. If this does not succeed, and if we are presented with a direct ultimatum, we should try to put forward Krasin’s formula: “All countries recognise their state debts and undertake to make good the damage and losses caused by the actions of their governments.” If this also fails, we should go to the length of a break, at the same time stating definitely that we are prepared to recognise private debts, but, not wishing to play at hide-and-seek, we point out that we consider them covered, as also the whole sum of our obligations in general, by our counter-claims. We will not allow a super-arbitrator between us and all the bourgeois countries, for the dispute is between two systems of property.
If it becomes necessary to break, we must make it as clear as possible that the sole and fundamental cause of the break is the greed of a handful of private capitalists, Urquhart and the like, whom the governments serve.
As a further maximum concession to these capitalists, we might offer them a preferential right to concessions (i.e., if we grant a concession for their former properties, wholly or in part, to X on such-and-such terms, we undertake to grant it on the same terms to the former owner).

5. In view of the possibility that the bourgeoisie may try to prevent us from expounding our programme, all efforts must be directed to ensuring that in the very first speech this programme is, if not expounded, at least set forth, or indicated, or at least outlined (and immediately published in greater detail).

6. Our programme is, without concealing our communist views, to confine ourselves, however, to the most general and brief indication of them (for instance, in a subordinate clause), with a direct statement that we consider it inappropriate to preach our views here, since we have come for a trade agreement and for an attempt to reach agreement with the pacifist section of the other (bourgeois) camp.
We must consider and call the pacifist section of that camp (or some other, specially chosen polite expression) the petty-bourgeois, pacifist and semi-pacifist democracy, of the type of the Second International and the Two-and-a-Half International, then of the type of Keynes, etc.
One of our main, if not our main, political tasks at Genoa is to single out this wing of the bourgeois camp from the whole of their camp, to try to flatter this wing, to declare that from our point of view an agreement with it is admissible and desirable, not only a trade agreement but also a political agreement (as one of the few chances for a peaceful evolution of capitalism into a new system, which we, as communists, do not believe very much in, but are willing to help test and consider it our duty to do so, as representatives of one power, in the face of the hostile majority of other powers).
To do everything possible and a little of the impossible to strengthen the pacifist wing of the bourgeoisie and at least slightly increase the chances of its victory at the elections;

that is the first thing; and the second is to disunite the bourgeois countries united at Genoa against us—such is our twofold political task at Genoa. By no means the propagation of communist views.

7. To try in every way to develop in as great detail as possible and to give the widest publicity (if not in speeches, then in the press) to the plan for rehabilitating the national economy in Russia and in Europe, in the spirit of the work of the State Planning Commission and on the basis of that work.

8. If the bourgeois camp at Genoa presents us with an ultimatum: not to touch on questions of pacifism, but to speak only on narrow trade subjects, we must express regret, but submit to this ultimatum, saying that we have two aims at this conference: a pacifist aim and a trade aim. One will remain.

9. The detailed elaboration of how to develop the pacifist programme the C.C. entrusts to the delegation, confining itself to the general directive: to try to develop it as broadly as possible, in order to split the pacifist camp of the international bourgeoisie more deeply from the camp of the grossly bourgeois, aggressively bourgeois, reactionary bourgeois.

10. In the trade and concessions question (including the question of loans) we should advance the forests in the north, etc., as the main guarantee. We will not agree to any derogation of the rights of our state. No agreements shall be concluded without the special consent of the C.C. by telegraph.
Lenin
Written on February 24, 1922