During the Brest negotiations Trotsky and others, how they were circumvented and so forth. At that time we recognized it necessary that these pages be translated and printed with a short preface by Comrade Kamenev, and if this has not been done until now, it is an example of the helplessness of Soviet power. Then, let us take the following fact. It is known that Comrade Ioffe, our ambassador to the German government, was expelled from Germany on the eve of the German revolution. After this do not venture to predict who will cheat whom. Let us not affirm how many days will separate the conclusion of the first concession agreement from the first major European revolution. And therefore, regarding the agreements, I assert that the comrades are completely wrong. For us this is not at all frightening.

The agreement will state what goods they must have and at what price. We can go along with all sorts of bonds and credit books. If they violate the agreement, its immediate annulment is in our hands. An agreement is a civil transaction. As for the question of what the arbitration should be and who should decide disputes, I have not so far gone into it, but this very minute I shall look through the original draft agreement with the Swedish company. Here it says: disagreements are decided*...

Then they brought in academicians, who will try to bring in lawyers. I recall Bebel's words that lawyers are the most reactionary people and at the same time bourgeois. Of course, we can correct this somehow, but there is nothing frightening about it. If the concessionaires set us such a condition, we can accept it. Once the agreement is concluded precisely, that such and such goods must be supplied and the account book is paid in such and such a way, we can go along with it, and there is nothing frightening in bonds or account books for a socialist republic. Then it was said that point 9 is bad because we divert attention from the international trade union council. Lozovsky was afraid that the Amsterdam people would beat us, but they will beat us on all other counts anyway, and in the end, as always happened, they themselves will be beaten.

Remember how the Mensheviks were going to beat us for making the slightest concessions to the capitalists. When we wanted to overthrow capitalism, they said that we would overthrow it only for a few days; and when we overthrew it for a few

* At this point in the transcript there is a note “[reads]”. The editorial board does not have the corresponding document. Ed.

... years, they are again setting a trap for us. They try to lure their opponent into a place where he will certainly be beaten.
First they called us utopians, and then they suggest we jump headfirst from the fifth floor. We know that we have a great deal of small-scale farming. The small proprietors are our opponents. The petty-bourgeois element is our most dangerous enemy. Commission agents and lessees are a lesser enemy. Bureaucracy is also our enemy, and bureaucratic distortions as well.

Concerning the point Comrade Lozovsky spoke about, I will say the following: listen to him attentively. Here it is said: “The trade unions have no right to demand the application to such workers of Russian wage rates, nor of Russian hiring regulations.” Here they speak of a Russian union, while I am told about an international one.
If the capitalists see the Russian conditions, they say these are communist conditions, absurd, and that Russian trade unions have no right to demand Russian hiring regulations in which something supernatural is “tucked in”; but they have the full right to apply international trade union agreements. And that is sufficient. Nowhere here is it said that strikes are prohibited. Here one must know how not to say everything ahead of time.

As for improving the situation of the Russian worker, Comrade Marshev and Tartakovsky attacked here and said that you won’t manage the workers and won’t make them work, because if you provide for 1/8, then 4/3 will not want to work under worse conditions. Are we really dealing with workers so absurd, uncultured, and undisciplined? If so, then of course we must fall into panic and commit suicide. If a hundred workers are undernourished and we tell them that we can feed twenty, but no more, would they really refuse this? However, so far we have not encountered this. We somehow fed the workers of certain branches of industry, but not all, and still from these enterprises the workers did not all run away, whereas from the rest—all did. Is the Russian worker so corrupted by the mistakes of the Soviet power that he will be unable to figure out that it is better to feed at least twenty than to starve the whole hundred? There is much here that should not be spoken of ahead of time. Why cannot it be arranged so that workers work for the capitalists in turns? The workers would work for, say, six months, receive work clothes, and then

REPORT ON CONCESSIONS AT THE FRACTION OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL COUNCIL OF TRADE UNIONS

provided places for others, so that others could get some food. Of course,
here it is necessary to fight against prejudices.
When concessionaires come to us, we must moderate our trade unions, so that they do not demand excessively.
You know that the usual terms of contracts are short.
In Europe, there are no conditions for long-term contracts. The usual term is 6
months. Thus, the workers can get some food, receive
footwear and clothing, and then leave and give place to others.
Is it absolutely impossible for us to organize things in this way: they
worked for half a year, got some food, received American footwear and
clothing, then make way for others? Of course, this will be difficult.
This requires greater organization and discipline than we have,
but it is not impossible. If over three years of terrible
famine we managed to hold the workers against the invasion of foreign
capital, then will we really not manage here? I am perfectly
aware of the difficulties that will be encountered on this path. And therefore
I say that a concession does not mean the onset of peace between
classes. A concession is a continuation of war between classes.
If previously the war consisted in the fact that I will take you by famine
and you will get nothing, now I say that I want
to give a pair of boots each, but so that the workers work for half a year. And we
will fight so that the workers all get boots. We do not renounce
strikes, everything remains in our hands, if we are only
reasonable and try now to emphasize what can lure
the capitalists to us.
Here they say that it is very frightening that he will come and deceive us,
but I assert that it is not frightening and that to raise
productivity it is desirable that he comes, because
he has a superbly organized rear, excellently equipped
factories, from which we can order necessary parts,
rather than buy on the free market — because on the free
market there is only rubbish. At first-class factories orders are booked for several years
ahead. Even if we paid with our gold, we would still get nothing, while a member of a syndicate
will get everything. And we do not mind paying him extra, just
to get an improvement for at least a small part of the workers and
peasants, because every additional product will go in exchange
for bread for the peasants, meaning it will create a stable relationship between the working
class and the peasantry.
And so, I conclude with a request that the trade unionists from

LENIN'S COLLECTION

...of principled questions, they have given up disputes. All these are empty disputes, all this is scholasticism. It must be discarded. All attention must be directed to those practical conditions of concession agreements from which we, if we are not stupid, will derive benefit for ourselves. Trade unionists and party leaders must here demonstrate their inventiveness and their practical knowledge of conditions, about which we cannot and will not speak in the press, because capitalists watch the Russian press, just as we did not speak during the Brest treaty about what assignments comrade JOFFE received. In practice we will pay attention to those practical methods from which we can derive benefit to improve the situation of workers and peasants. Any such improvement has enormous significance for us. That is what trade unionists should pay attention to. It is necessary that neither friction nor prejudice remain. This is a difficult matter. So far no one wants to conclude concessions with us. Everyone is waiting for us to present impossible demands.

Therefore from our side we must unconditionally direct all efforts to concluding several such agreements. Of course, we will make a number of mistakes. It is a new thing. Until now not a single socialist republic has concluded any concessions with capitalists. But we need the trade unionists to help us. Here there is enormous scope for interpretations and pressures right up to strikes, which remain in our hands.

1 See note 2 on p. 1.N9.

2 Lenin is referring to “The Plan for the Electrification of the R.S.F.S.R. Introduction to the Report to the VIII Congress of Soviets of the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia”. Gostekhizdat. Moscow 1920.

3 D. Ryazanov and A. Shlyapnikov carried out demagogic agitation among trade unionists against concessions. Lenin's speech at the Fraction put an end to the vacillations of some trade union workers on this question. Shlyapnikov and Ryazanov, foreseeing that their demagogic activity would be exposed at this meeting, as indeed happened, immediately after Lenin's speech declared that they did not understand the reasons that prompted Lenin to speak at the Fraction of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, since supposedly there were no principled disagreements on concessions within the Fraction.

4 Lenin's notes for the speeches were made by Lenin on the back of excerpts from the reports of specialists on oil engineering (see p. 142 of this collection).

f t Marshei spoke about the improved supply of £/s workers employed at concession enterprises compared to the rest.

3/ 3.
0 See p. 150 of the present collection.
7 Apparently, Lenin has in mind M. Tomsky and A. Goltsman.