Date: 1922
Source: ru:PSS/v45

ON COOPERATION
I
It seems to me that we have not paid nearly enough attention to cooperation. Few truly grasp that, since the October Revolution—and quite independently of the New Economic Policy (indeed, in this regard we must say: it is precisely thanks to the NEP)—cooperation has come to assume an utterly exceptional significance in our country. The old cooperators’ visions are often steeped in fantasy; their imaginings can be downright fanciful, even ridiculous. But what, exactly, is so fantastical about them? It lies in their failure to understand the fundamental, root-level importance of the working class’s political struggle to overthrow the rule of the exploiters. Now that this overthrow has taken place, much of what once seemed fantastic—indeed, romantic, even somewhat vulgar—in the dreams of those old-time cooperators is beginning to emerge as the most stark and unvarnished reality.
With state power now firmly in the hands of the working class, and with all the means of production under the control of that very same state, our task has, in essence, become nothing more than the cooperative organization of the population. Provided that the population is organized into cooperatives to the greatest possible extent, socialism—once the object of legitimate ridicule, of scornful smiles, of condescending dismissals from those who had long been convinced of the necessity of class struggle, of the struggle for political power, and so on—will naturally come to fruition. Yet not all comrades fully appreciate just how immense and far‑reaching the significance of Russia’s cooperative movement has now become.

Under the NEP, we made a concession to the peasantry—not as merchants, but as traders—by embracing the principle of private trade; and it is precisely from this that the colossal importance of cooperation derives (contrary to what many might suppose). In essence, to sufficiently and thoroughly organize the Russian population through cooperation while the NEP is in effect is all that we need, because we have now found that delicate balance between private interest, private commercial interests, their oversight and control by the state, and their subordination to the common good—a balance that, in earlier times, had proven to be a stumbling block for countless socialists. Indeed, with state control over all major means of production, with state power vested in the proletariat, with the proletariat forging alliances with millions upon millions of small and very small peasants, with the proletariat assuming leadership over the peasantry, and so forth—surely this is all that is required to transform cooperation—indeed, cooperation alone—into something we once dismissed as mere merchant activity, something we may even, in certain respects, have had reason to continue to regard as such under the NEP. Is this not, then, all that is necessary—and sufficient—to build a fully socialist society? This is not yet the construction of a socialist society, but it is everything that is both necessary and sufficient for that endeavor.
Yet this very fact remains vastly underestimated by many of our practical workers. We tend to look down upon cooperation, failing to recognize just how exceptional its significance is—first, from a principled standpoint (with ownership of the means of production residing in the state), and second, in terms of transitioning to new social arrangements in a way that is as simple, as easy, and as accessible to the peasantry as possible.
And again, this is where the real crux lies. One thing is to dream up all manner of workers’ associations in order to build socialism; quite another is to learn, in practice, how to construct socialism in such a way that every small peasant can participate in that very construction. It is precisely this

stage that we have now reached—and there is no doubt that, having reached it, we are still making far too little use of it.
We went too far when we turned to the NEP—not in the sense that we devoted too much attention to the principle of free industry and free trade, but rather in the sense that we neglected to think about cooperation, that we have come to underestimate cooperation, that we have begun to forget the immense significance of cooperation in the two key dimensions I have just outlined.
I now intend to discuss with readers what can—and should—be done immediately, based on this “cooperative” principle. By what means can we begin, right now, to develop this “cooperative” principle so that its socialist significance becomes clear to everyone?
We must position cooperation politically in such a way that not only does cooperation, in general and at all times, enjoy certain preferential treatment—but that this preferential treatment takes the form of purely property-based benefits (such as lower bank interest rates, and the like). We must extend state loans to cooperatives in amounts that, if only slightly, exceed the sums we lend to private enterprises—even extending these loans to heavy industry and beyond.
Every social order arises only with the financial backing of a particular class. There is no need to recall the hundreds upon hundreds of millions of rubles that were spent to bring “free” capitalism into being. Today, we must recognize—and put into practice—that the social order we must now sustain above and beyond the ordinary is a cooperative order. But we must sustain it in the truest sense of the word: to regard this support as merely any old cooperative venture would be insufficient—we must understand this support as the kind of cooperative endeavor in which genuine masses of the population actually take part. Awarding a bonus to the peasant who participates in a cooperative venture is certainly a sound approach—but we must also scrutinize that participation, and

assess its level of consciousness and its quality—this is where the heart of the matter lies. When a cooperative organizer arrives in a village and sets up a cooperative store, the local population, strictly speaking, is not directly involved in the venture; yet, driven by their own self-interest, they will quickly be eager to try out participation in the cooperative enterprise.
This undertaking has another dimension as well. From the perspective of the “civilized” (and above all, literate) European, we still have quite a bit more to do if we are to ensure that everyone participates—not passively, but actively—in cooperative operations. In truth, we have “only” one remaining task: to make our population sufficiently “civilized” so that it understands the full range of benefits that come from participating in cooperation en masse—and to establish that participation. That is “all.” We no longer require any other lofty wisdom or intricate strategies in order to move toward socialism. But to accomplish this “one” task requires a complete cultural revolution, a sweeping transformation of the entire national populace. Therefore, our guiding principle must be: as little theorizing as possible, and as few grand gestures as possible. In this respect, the NEP represents progress insofar as it adapts to the level of the most ordinary peasant, requiring nothing beyond his basic capabilities. Yet to achieve, through the NEP, the goal of ensuring that every single member of the population participates in cooperative ventures—this will demand an entire historical epoch. We may well traverse that epoch in just a decade or two. But even so, it will remain a distinct historical era—and without that historical epoch, without universal literacy, without a sufficient degree of education, without a proper habituation of the population to the use of books, and without the material foundations to support that—without, say, adequate safeguards against crop failures, against famine, and the like—we will never reach our goal. The crucial task now is to know how to combine that revolutionary momentum, that revolutionary fervor we have already demonstrated in ample measure and successfully—

achieved full success—with the ability to be a shrewd, literate trader—enough to make a fine cooperative organizer. By “being a trader,” I mean the capacity to be a cultured trader. Let Russians—or simply peasants—who think, “He trades, therefore he knows how to be a trader,” take note: that is entirely mistaken. He may trade, but there is still a great distance between trading in the traditional Asian manner and knowing how to be a cultured trader. He trades in an Asiatic style today; to become a trader in the European sense, one must learn to trade in a European fashion—and a whole epoch separates the two.
To conclude: a series of economic, financial, and banking privileges should be granted to cooperatives; this is how our socialist state ought to support the new principle of organizing the population. Yet this task has only been set out in broad terms, for the specific content of the task—how to practically implement it—remains undefined and not yet fully elaborated. We must learn to identify the appropriate forms of “bonuses” (and the conditions under which they are awarded) that we offer for cooperative participation; we must find the bonus structure that best supports cooperatives, the bonus structure that helps us cultivate truly civilized cooperative organizers. And a society of civilized cooperative organizers, with public ownership of the means of production and with the working class achieving class victory over the bourgeoisie—this is the essence of socialism.
January 4, 1923.
II
Whenever I wrote about the New Economic Policy, I would quote my 1918 article on state capitalism *. This often gave rise to doubts among some younger comrades. But their doubts were directed primarily toward abstract, political considerations.

* See Collected Works, 5th ed., vol. 36, pp. 283–314. Ed.

They believed that one could not call “state capitalism” a system in which the means of production belong to the working class and in which the working class itself holds state power. Yet they failed to notice that I used the term “state capitalism” first and foremost to establish a historical link between our current position and my earlier polemic against the so‑called Left Communists—and I had already argued at that time that state capitalism would be superior to our contemporary economy. For me, it was important to establish a continuous line of succession between ordinary state capitalism and that extraordinary, even wholly unusual, form of state capitalism I had described when introducing readers to the New Economic Policy. Second, the practical goal was always paramount for me. And the practical goal of our New Economic Policy was to secure concessions; under our circumstances, concessions would undoubtedly represent a pure form of state capitalism. This, then, was the way I viewed discussions of state capitalism.
But there is another aspect of the matter where we may need to invoke state capitalism—or at least compare our situation with it. That is the question of cooperation.
There is no doubt that, in a capitalist state, cooperation constitutes a collective capitalist institution. Nor is there any doubt that, in our current economic reality—where we combine private capitalist enterprises—but only on public land, and only under the control of state power belonging to the working class—with enterprises of a progressively socialist type (where the means of production are owned by the state, where the land on which the enterprise stands is public, and where the enterprise as a whole is publicly owned)—there arises a third category of enterprises that, until now, lacked independent status from a principled standpoint,

namely, cooperative enterprises. Under private capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from capitalist enterprises in the same way that collective enterprises differ from private enterprises. Under state capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from state‑capitalist enterprises in the same way that private enterprises differ, first, and collective enterprises differ, second. Under our existing social order, cooperative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises in that they are collective enterprises—but they do not differ from socialist enterprises, provided that they are founded on land whose means of production are owned by the state, that is, by the working class.
This is a factor that we often fail to fully account for when discussing cooperation. We forget that, thanks to the unique character of our state system, cooperation acquires an altogether exceptional significance in our context. If we set aside concessions—which, incidentally, have not seen much development in our country—then, in our circumstances, cooperation often comes to coincide almost entirely with socialism.
Let me explain. What is so fantastical about the plans of old-time cooperators, starting with Robert Owen? They dreamed of peacefully transforming modern society through socialism—without taking into account the fundamental question of class struggle, of the working class’s conquest of political power, of the overthrow of the ruling class of exploiters. And so we are right to see in this “cooperative” socialism nothing but fantasy, something romantic—even somewhat vulgar—in their visions of how simple cooperative organization of the population could turn class enemies into class collaborators and class war into class peace (the so‑called civil peace).
Undoubtedly, from the standpoint of the central task of our time, we were right—because without the class struggle for political power within the state, socialism cannot be realized.

But look how things have changed now that state power is in the hands of the working class, that the political power of the exploiters has been overthrown, and that all the means of production—except for those that the working state voluntarily grants to the exploiters on a temporary, conditional basis in the form of concessions—are now in the hands of the working class.
Now we are justified in saying that the simple growth of cooperation is, for us, equivalent—save for the aforementioned “small” exception—to the growth of socialism. At the same time, we are compelled to acknowledge a fundamental shift in our entire outlook on socialism. This fundamental shift consists in the fact that, in the past, we placed—and were obliged to place—the center of gravity on political struggle, on revolution, on the conquest of power, and so on. Now, however, the center of gravity is shifting to the point where it is transferred to peaceful, organizational, “cultural” work. I am ready to say that, were it not for international relations and our obligation to fight for our position on the global stage, the center of gravity for us would indeed shift toward cultural endeavors. But if we set that aside and confine ourselves to domestic economic relations, then it is true that the center of gravity of our work now rests squarely on cultural pursuits.
Before us lie two primary tasks that define our era. The first is the task of overhauling our apparatus—a device that is utterly unfit for purpose and that we inherited whole from the previous era; in five years of struggle, we neither had the time nor the capacity to undertake a serious overhaul of this apparatus. Our second task is cultural work aimed at the peasantry. And this cultural work among the peasantry, as an economic objective, is precisely focused on cooperation. If we could achieve complete cooperation, we would already be standing firmly on socialist ground. But this condition of complete cooperation entails such a high degree of cultural sophistication among the peasantry—specifically among the peasantry as a vast mass—that complete cooperation is impossible without a full-fledged cultural revolution.
Our opponents have repeatedly told us that we are embarking on a reckless endeavor to sow socialism

in a country that is not yet sufficiently cultured. But they were mistaken in thinking that we began at the wrong end—as theory (and the pedants among us) would have it—and that our political and social revolution came before that cultural revolution, that cultural upheaval before which we now stand. For us, this cultural revolution alone is sufficient to make us a fully socialist nation—but this cultural revolution presents us with tremendous challenges, challenges that are both deeply cultural in nature (for we are illiterate) and materially rooted (for to become culturally sophisticated, we need a certain level of development in the material means of production, we need a solid material foundation).
January 6, 1923.
First published on May 26 and 27, 1923, in the newspaper Pravda, Nos. 115 and 116. Signed: N. Lenin.

Printed from the secretary’s record (a typewritten copy), verified against the newspaper text.