Background: Lenin "How do we organize the Rabkrin. Creation of the People's Front for Russia under Putin! Background: Lenin" How do we organize the Rabkrin How do we reorganize the Rabkrin quotes

This title of Lenin's article, memorable almost from childhood, is quite clear if we understand it like this - "How can we get rid of the services of Comrade S.?" Indeed: “Lenin sharply criticized the work of the People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, who “does not now enjoy a shadow of authority. Everyone knows that there are no institutions worse than those of our Rabkrin, and that with modern conditions there is nothing to ask from this people's commissariat "[" Better less is better"]. Until the middle of 1922, Stalin was at the head of the Rabkrin, and it was clear to the communists who these Leninist words were directed against."
From the book. Vadim Rogovin, "Was there an alternative?".
http://bookfi.org/dl/989847/d3e108

In general, this book is the "History of the Party" for the 1920s. in the form in which we should have studied it in due time.

But the following was news to me:

... in connection with an attempt to lift the ban on the sale of vodka and other high-grade drinks, introduced by the tsarist government after the outbreak of the First World War and maintained after October revolution [In December 1919, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a resolution signed by Lenin "On the prohibition on the territory of the RSFSR of the manufacture and sale of alcohol, strong drinks and alcohol-containing substances that are not related to drinks." This decree allowed the production and sale of only grape wines with a strength of up to 12 degrees. At the beginning of 1921, it was allowed to produce alcoholic beverages with a strength of up to 14 degrees, and in December of the same year - to raise the strength of the produced drinks to 20 degrees and start beer production.]. In 1923, the issue of introducing a state vodka monopoly was submitted to the June plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Upon learning of this, Trotsky sent a letter and a draft resolution on this issue to the members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, which stated that the legalization of the sale of vodka in order to replenish the budget could only have a detrimental effect on the revolution and the party.
Trotsky wrote that "an attempt to transfer the budget to an alcohol basis is an attempt to deceive history." First, such a measure will weaken the dependence of the state budget on successes in the field of economic development. Secondly, an attempt to steal people's money through the sale of alcohol will have a demoralizing effect on the working class and lower the real wages of workers.
…
... At the same time, throughout the struggle with the left opposition, Stalin stubbornly evaded answering the question about the sources of industrialization. His only "contribution" to the solution of this issue was that he proposed as a specific source of investment in the development of industry - an increase in the production of state-owned vodka.
This measure was carried out by the ruling faction in a sharp struggle with Trotsky and his associates, who believed that the issue of the state sale of vodka was of tremendous importance, since it "cuts into the life of the broad masses." Criticizing the "method of gradual, imperceptible introduction of state vodka" as a harmful and unacceptable measure, Trotsky refuted the judgment that this measure is a means of combating moonshine. "One of two things, either we want to have a serious income, that is, by producing expensively, we want to sell even more expensively - then the peasant will prefer moonshine; and if we want to compete with moonshine, then we will have no incentive fiscal motive."
Trotsky demanded that the issue of introducing the state sale of vodka be discussed at a party congress or conference. This proposal was rejected by the majority of the Politburo, after which the state production and sale of vodka was finally legalized by a decree of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of August 25, 1925. Thus began an unprecedented campaign to solder the people.

So this is who the generations of wives and children who suffered from violent-in-drunk husbands/fathers (or just bitter drunkards) should have directed their curses!

Well, about the ratio of the class and its state. apparatus.

[At the 14th Congress] Krupskaya emphasized the need to direct the increased activity of the working class towards "making our state industry socialist to the end" and criticized Molotov and Bukharin for their proposition that the state apparatus is already a broad organization of the working class. Zinoviev argued that the relations that have developed in state enterprises cannot be considered consistently socialist, since wage labor remains there, a strict division into managers and managed, etc. The main argument put forward by Bukharin and other representatives of the majority against this thesis boiled down to the following: that the labor enthusiasm of the workers would be weakened if they were told that state-owned enterprises were not entirely socialist. The ideologues of the ruling faction defending the thesis about the consistently socialist nature of relations developing at state enterprises represented an important step towards the Stalinist thesis about socialism built in the USSR.

(PROPOSAL TO THE XII CONGRESS OF THE PARTY)216

Undoubtedly, the Rabkrin presents an enormous difficulty for us, and that this difficulty has not yet been resolved. I think that those comrades who solve it by denying the usefulness or necessity of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee are wrong. But at the same time, I do not deny that the question of our state apparatus and its improvement seems to be a very difficult, far from solved, and at the same time an extremely urgent question.

Our state apparatus, with the exception of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, is to the greatest extent a relic of the old, least of all seriously changed. It is only slightly touched up on top, and in other respects it is the most typical old of our old state apparatus. And so, in order to look for a way to really update it, we must turn, it seems to me, for experience to our civil war.

How we acted in more dangerous moments civil war?

We concentrated our best party forces in the Red Army; we resorted to mobilizing the best of our workers; we looked for new strength to where the deepest root of our dictatorship lies.

In the same direction, we should, in my opinion, look for the source of the reorganization of the Rabkrin. I propose to our Twelfth Party Congress to adopt

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the next plan for such a reorganization, based on a kind of expansion of our Central Control Commission.

The plenary session of the Central Committee of our Party has already revealed its desire to develop into a sort of supreme Party conference. It meets on average no more than once every two months, and the current work on behalf of the Central Committee is carried out, as you know, by our Politburo, our Orgburo, our Secretariat, etc. I think that we should complete the path we are taking in this way. joined, and finally turn the plenums of the Central Committee into the highest party conferences, convened every two months with the participation of the Central Control Commission. And this Central Control Commission should be connected under the conditions indicated below with the main part of the reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Inspection.

I propose that the congress elect 75 to 100 (all figures, of course, approximate) new members of the Central Control Commission from among the workers and peasants. Those who are elected must be subjected to the same Party scrutiny as ordinary members of the Central Committee, for those who are elected will have to enjoy all the rights of members of the Central Committee.

On the other hand, Rab krin should be reduced to 300-400 employees, especially checked in terms of conscientiousness and in terms of knowledge of our state apparatus, and also passed a special test regarding their familiarity with the basics scientific organization labor in general and, in particular, managerial, clerical, etc.

In my opinion, such a combination of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee with the Central Control Commission will be of benefit to both of these institutions. On the one hand, Rabkrin will gain such high prestige in this way that it will become at least as good as our NKID. On the other hand, our Central Committee, together with the Central Control Commission, will definitively set out on that road of transformation into the highest Party conference, on which it has, in essence, already embarked and along which it must go to the end in order to fulfill its tasks correctly, in two respects: regularity, expediency, systematicity of its organization and work, and in relation to communication with really broad masses through the best of our workers and peasants.

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I foresee one objection, coming either directly or indirectly from those spheres that make our apparatus old, i.e., from those who advocate keeping our apparatus in the same impossibly, obscenely pre-revolutionary form in which it remains to this day (by the way, , we now have a rather rare case in history to fix the deadlines necessary for the production of fundamental social changes, and we now clearly see what can be done in five years and what much longer terms are needed for).

This objection consists in the fact that, as if from the transformation I propose, only chaos will result. Members of the Central Control Commission will wander around all the institutions, not knowing where, why and to whom they should turn, introducing disorganization everywhere, tearing employees away from their current work, etc., etc.

I think that the malicious source of this objection is so obvious that it does not even require an answer. It goes without saying that on the part of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission and on the part of People's Commissar Rabkrin and his collegium (and also, in appropriate cases, on the part of our Secretariat of the Central Committee) it will take more than one year of hard work to properly organize our People's Commissariat and its work together with CCC. The People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, can remain a People's Commissar (and should remain one), like the entire collegium, retaining the leadership of the work of the entire Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, including all members of the Central Control Commission, who will be considered "seconded" to his disposal. The 300-400 employees of the Workers' Committee who remain, according to my plan, will, on the one hand, perform purely secretarial duties to other members of the Workers' Committee and to additional members of the Central Control Commission, and on the other hand, they must be highly qualified, especially checked, especially reliable, with high salaries, completely relieving them of their current, truly unfortunate (not to say worse), position of an official of the Rabkrin.

I am sure that reducing the number of employees to the figure I have indicated will improve the quality many times over.

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workers of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, and the quality of all work, while at the same time giving the people's commissar and members of the board the opportunity to concentrate entirely on the organization of work and on that systematic, steady improvement in its quality, which is such an unconditional necessity for the worker-peasant government and for our Soviet system.

On the other hand, I also think that the People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee will have to work on, partly, merging, partly, coordinating those higher institutions for the organization of labor (the Central Institute of Labor, the Institute for the Scientific Organization of Labor, etc.), of which we now have at least 12 in the republic. On the contrary, here it is necessary to find a reasonable and expedient medium between the merging of all these institutions together and their correct delimitation, provided that each of these institutions is known to be independent.

There is no doubt that no less than Rabkrin will benefit from such a transformation, and our own Central Committee will benefit both in terms of connection with the masses and in terms of the regularity and solidity of its work. Then it will be possible (and should) introduce a more rigorous and responsible procedure for preparing Politburo meetings, which must be attended by a certain number of members of the Central Control Commission - determined either by a certain period of time or by a known plan of organization.

The People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, together with the Presidium of the Central Control Commission, will have to establish the distribution of the work of its members from the point of view of their obligation to attend the Politburo and check all the documents that one way or another go to its consideration, or from the point of view of their obligation to pay their working time theoretical training, the study of the scientific organization of labor, or from the point of view of their obligation to practically participate in the control and improvement of our state apparatus, starting from the highest public institutions and ending with the lowest local, etc.

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I also think that in addition to the political advantage that the members of the Central Committee and the members of the Central Control Commission under such a reform will be many times better informed, better prepared for the meetings of the Politburo (all papers relating to these meetings must be received by all members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission no later than as a day before a meeting of the Politburo, with the exception of cases that absolutely brook no delay, which cases require a special procedure for acquainting the members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission and the procedure for solving them), one will also have to add to the number of gains the fact that in our Central Committee the influence of purely personal and accidental circumstances, and thereby reduce the danger of a split.

Our Central Committee has formed into a strictly centralized and highly authoritative group, but the work of this group has not been placed in conditions corresponding to its authority. The reform I propose should help this, and the members of the Central Control Commission, who are obliged to be present in a certain number at each meeting of the Politburo, must form a close-knit group, which, "regardless of persons," will have to see to it that no one's authority, neither the General Secretary, nor anyone - any of the other members of the Central Committee could not prevent them from making an inquiry, checking documents and, in general, achieving unconditional awareness and the strictest correctness of affairs.

Of course, in our Soviet Republic the social system is based on cooperation between two classes: workers and peasants, to which the "Nepmen", i.e., the bourgeoisie, are now admitted under certain conditions. If serious class differences arise between these classes, then a split will be inevitable, but in our social system there are no necessary grounds for the inevitability of such a split, and the main task of our Central Committee and Central Control Commission, as well as our Party as a whole, is to closely monitor the circumstances from which a split may flow, and forestall them, for in the final analysis the fate of our republic will depend on whether the mass of the peasantry will go with the working class, remaining faithful to its alliance with it, or whether it will give to the "Nepmen", i.e., new bourgeoisie,

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to separate oneself from the workers, to split oneself with them. The more clearly we see this twofold outcome before us, the more clearly all our workers and peasants understand it, the greater the chance that we will be able to avoid a split that would be fatal to the Soviet Republic.

Signature: Η. Lenin

BETTER LESS, YES BETTER

On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation for it, with the concentration of human material in the Workers' Committee modern quality, i.e. not lagging behind the best Western European samples. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too lightly, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that ie bureaucratic culture, or serf culture, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.

And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.

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Things with the state apparatus in our country are so sad, not to say disgusting, that we must first think closely about how to deal with its shortcomings, remembering that these shortcomings are rooted in the past, which, although turned upside down, has not been outlived, has not receded into the stage of bygone culture. It is about culture that I raise the question here, because in these matters only that which has become part of culture, everyday life, and habits must be considered achieved. And in our country, it can be said, the good in the social structure is not thought out to the last degree, not understood, not felt, grasped hastily, not checked, not tested, not confirmed by experience, not fixed, etc. It could not be otherwise, of course , in a revolutionary era and with such a dizzying speed of development that led us in five years from tsarism to the Soviet system.

It is time to come to your senses. We must be imbued with a salutary distrust of the hastily rapid movement forward, of all boasting, etc. We must think about checking those steps forward that we proclaim every hour, take every minute, and then every second we prove their fragility, lack of solidity and incomprehensibility. The worst thing to do here would be to hurry. The most harmful thing would be to rely on the fact that we know at least something, or that we have any significant number of elements for building a really new apparatus, really deserving of the name socialist, Soviet, etc.

No, we have ridiculously few such apparatus and even its elements, and we must remember that to create it one should not spare time and must spend many, many, many years.

What elements do we have to create this apparatus? Only two. First, the workers who are carried away by the struggle for socialism. These elements are not sufficiently enlightened. They would like to give us a better apparatus. But they don't know how to do it. They can't do it. They have developed in themselves such

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development, the culture that is necessary for this. And this requires culture. There is nothing to be done about impudence or onslaught, briskness or energy, or any of the best human qualities in general. Secondly, the elements of knowledge, enlightenment, training, which we have ridiculously little in comparison with all other states.

And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) by diligence, haste, etc.

We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to make demands that are not the same as those made by the bourgeois Western Europe, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.

The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.

In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.

For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.

For this it is necessary that the best elements that exist in our social system, namely, the advanced workers, in the first place, and, secondly, really enlightened elements, for whom you can vouch that they will not take a word for granted, nor words will not be said against conscience - they were not afraid to admit to any

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difficulties and were not afraid of any struggle to achieve a seriously set goal.

For five years now we have been fussing over the improvement of our state apparatus, but this is just fuss, which in five years has only proved its unsuitability, or even its uselessness, or even its harmfulness. Like hustle and bustle, it gave us the appearance of work, while actually littering our institutions and our brains.

Finally, it needs to be different.

We must take it as a rule: it is better to have a smaller number, but higher quality. It is necessary to take it as a rule: it is better in two years, or even in three years, than in a hurry, without any hope of obtaining solid human material.

I know that this rule will be difficult to maintain and apply to our reality. I know that the reverse rule will force its way through a thousand loopholes. I know that gigantic resistance will have to be shown, that perseverance will have to be diabolical, that the work here in the first years will at least be damned thankless; Nevertheless, I am convinced that only by such work will we be able to achieve our goal, and only by achieving this goal will we create a republic truly worthy of the name Soviet, socialist, etc., etc., etc.

Probably, many readers found the figures that I gave as an example in my first article* too insignificant. I am sure that many calculations can be cited to prove the insufficiency of these figures. But I think that we should put one thing above all such and any calculations: interest of a truly exemplary quality.

I believe that the time has finally come for our state apparatus, when we must work on it properly, with all seriousness, and when perhaps the most harmful feature of this work will be

* See this volume, pp. 383 - 388. Ed.

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haste. Therefore, I would strongly caution against increasing these figures. On the contrary, in my opinion, here one should be especially stingy with numbers. Let's speak directly. The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee does not now enjoy a shadow of authority. Everyone knows that there are no institutions worse than those of our Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, and that under present-day conditions there is nothing to ask of this people's commissariat. We must firmly remember this if we really want to set ourselves the goal of developing an institution in a few years, which, firstly, must be exemplary, secondly, must inspire unconditional confidence in everyone and, thirdly, prove to anyone and everyone that we really justified the work of such high institution like CCC. Any general norms for the number of employees, in my opinion, should be expelled immediately and irrevocably. We must select employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection in a very special way and only on the basis of the strictest test. Why, in fact, make up a people's commissariat in which work would be carried out somehow, again without inspiring the slightest confidence in itself, in which the word would enjoy infinitesimal authority? I think that avoiding this is our main task in the kind of restructuring that we now have in mind.

The workers whom we recruit as members of the Central Control Commission must be impeccable as communists, and I think that they still need to be worked on for a long time in order to teach them the methods and tasks of their work. Further, assistants in this work should be a certain number of secretarial staff, from whom it will be necessary to require a triple check before being assigned to the service. Finally, those officials whom we decide, as an exception, to immediately replace the employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, must meet the following conditions:

secondly, they must pass the test of knowledge of our state apparatus;

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thirdly, they must pass the test of knowledge of the foundations of the theory on the question of our state apparatus, of knowledge of the foundations of the science of management, office work, etc.;

fourthly, they must work with the members of the Central Control Commission and with their secretariat so that we can vouch for the work of this entire apparatus as a whole.

I know that these demands imply prohibitive conditions, and I am very inclined to fear that the majority of the "practitioners" in the Workers' and Peasants' Committee will declare these demands unrealizable or will sneer at them contemptuously. But I ask any of the current leaders of the Workers' Committee or of persons who are in touch with him, can he honestly tell me - what is the need in practice for such a people's commissariat as the Workers' and Peasants' Committee? I think this question will help him find a sense of proportion. Either one should not be engaged in one of the reorganizations of which we have had so many, such a hopeless affair as the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, or we must really set ourselves the task of creating, by a slow, difficult, unusual way, not without numerous checks, something really exemplary, capable of inspiring anyone and everyone respect and not only because the ranks and titles require it.

If you do not stock up on patience, if you do not put a few years into this matter, then it is better not to take it at all.

In my opinion, from those institutions that we have already baked up in terms of higher labor institutions and so on, choose a minimum, check out a completely serious setting and continue work only so that it really stands on its own modern science and gave us all her provisions. Then, in a few years, it will not be utopian to hope for an institution that will be able to do its job, namely, systematically, steadily work, enjoying the confidence of the working class, the Russian Communist Party and the entire mass of the population of our republic, to improve our state apparatus.

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Preparatory activities for this could begin now. If the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection agreed to the plan for a real transformation, then he could now begin the preparatory steps in order to work systematically until their full completion, without haste and without refusing to remake what was once done.

Any half-hearted solution here would be harmful to the last degree. Any norms of employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, based on any other considerations, would, in essence, be based on old bureaucratic considerations, on old prejudices, on what has already been condemned, what causes general ridicule, etc.

Basically, the question here is:

Either show now that we have seriously learned something in the matter of state building (it is not a sin to learn something at five years old), or that we are not ripe for this; and then don't get involved.

I think that with the human material that we have, it will not be immodest to assume that we have already learned enough to systematically and anew build at least one people's commissariat. True, this one people's commissariat should determine our entire state apparatus as a whole.

To announce a competition immediately for the compilation of two or more textbooks on the organization of labor in general and on managerial labor specifically. We can use Yermansky's book, which we already have, as a basis, although, in parentheses, he is distinguished by a clear sympathy for Menshevism and is unsuitable for compiling a textbook suitable for Soviet power. Then, one can take as a basis the recent book by Kerzhentsev; Finally, some of the available partial allowances may come in handy.

Send several trained and conscientious persons to Germany or England to collect literature and study this issue. I name England in case sending to America or Canada would be impossible.

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Appoint a commission to draw up the initial program of examinations for a candidate for the employees of the Rabkrin; also - for a candidate member of the Central Control Commission.

These and similar works, of course, will not hinder either the People's Commissar, or the members of the collegium of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, or the Presidium of the Central Control Commission.

In parallel with this, a preparatory commission will have to be appointed to look for candidates for the position of members of the Central Control Commission. I hope that we will now find more than enough candidates for this position, both from among the experienced workers of all departments and from among the students of our Soviet schools. It is hardly correct to exclude one or the other category in advance. It will probably be necessary to prefer the diverse composition of this institution, in which we must look for combinations of many qualities, combinations of unequal virtues, so that here we will have to work on the task of compiling a list of candidates. For example, it would be most undesirable if the new People's Commissariat were composed according to one template, for example, from the type of people of the nature of officials, or with the exception of people of the nature of agitators, or with the exclusion of people whose distinctive property is sociability or the ability to penetrate circles, not especially common for this kind of workers, etc.

I think the best way to express my point is to compare my plan with academic-type institutions. The members of the Central Control Commission will, under the guidance of their presidium, work systematically to review all the papers and documents of the Politburo. At the same time, they will have to properly allocate their time between individual work on checking the record keeping in our institutions, from the smallest and private to the highest state institutions. Finally, the category of their work will include studies in theory, i.e., the theory of organization

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the work to which they intend to devote themselves, and practical exercises under the guidance of either old comrades or teachers of higher institutes of labor organization.

But I think that they will never be able to confine themselves to this kind of academic work. Along with them, they will have to prepare themselves for work that I would not hesitate to call preparation for catching, I won’t say - scammers, but something like that, and inventing special tricks in order to cover up their campaigns, approaches, etc.

If in Western European institutions such proposals would arouse unheard-of indignation, a feeling of moral indignation, etc., then I hope that we have not yet become bureaucratized enough to be capable of this. In our country, NEP has not yet managed to acquire such respect as to be offended at the thought that someone might be caught here. Our Soviet Republic has been so recently built and such a heap of rubbish has been piled up that it is hardly possible to be offended at the thought that among this rubbish it is possible to excavate with the help of some tricks, with the help of reconnaissance, sometimes directed to rather distant sources or in a rather roundabout way. whether it occurs to anyone, and if it does, then you can be sure that we will all laugh heartily at such a person.

Our new Rabkrin, we hope, will leave behind that quality which the French call pruderie, which we can call ridiculous affectation or ridiculous self-importance, and which to the last degree plays into the hands of our entire bureaucracy, both Soviet and Party. In brackets, be it said that we have bureaucracy not only in Soviet institutions, but also in Party ones.

If I wrote above that we should study and study at institutes for the higher organization of labor, etc., then this does not mean at all that I understand this “teaching” in any way in a school way, or that I limit myself to thinking about learning only in a school way.

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I hope that not a single real revolutionary will suspect me of the fact that in this case I refused to understand by "teaching" some half-joking trick, some trick, some trick, or something of that kind. I know that in a dignified and serious Western European state this idea would really evoke horror, and not a single decent official would even agree to allow it to be discussed. But I hope that we have not yet become bureaucratized enough and that we have nothing but fun, the discussion of this idea does not cause.

In fact, why not combine the pleasant with the useful? Why not use some playful or half-joking prank to cover something funny, something harmful, something half funny, half harmful, etc.?

It seems to me that our Rabkrin will gain a lot if it takes these considerations into consideration, and that the list of incidents by means of which our Central Control Commission or its colleagues in the Rabkrin won several of their most brilliant victories will be enriched by many adventures of our future "worker's workers" and "Tsekakists" ” in places that are not quite comprehensible in ceremonial and prim textbooks.

How can Party institutions be combined with Soviet ones? Is there anything unacceptable here?

I am raising this question not on my own behalf, but on behalf of those whom I hinted at above, saying that we have bureaucrats not only in Soviet, but also in Party institutions.

Why, in fact, not to combine both, if this is required by the interest of the case? Hasn't anyone ever noticed that in such a people's commissariat as the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, such a connection is extremely beneficial and has been practiced from the very beginning? Is it not discussed in the Politburo from a party point of view

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many small and large questions about the "moves" on our part in response to the "moves" of the foreign powers, in preventing their, let's say, tricks, so as not to be expressed less decently? Isn't this flexible combination of the Soviet and the Party a source of extraordinary strength in our politics? I think that what has justified itself has become firmly established in our foreign policy and it has already become customary in such a way that there is no doubt in this area, it will be at least as much appropriate (and I think it will be much more appropriate) in relation to our entire state apparatus. But Rab krin is dedicated to our entire state apparatus, and its activities should concern all and sundry, without any exception, state institutions, both local, and central, and commercial, and purely bureaucratic, and educational, and archival, and theatrical, etc. in a word, all without the slightest exception.

Why, then, for an institution with such a broad scope, for which, in addition, an extraordinary flexibility of forms of activity is required - why not allow a kind of merging of the control party institution with the control Soviet one?

I would not see any obstacles in this. Moreover, I think that such a connection is the only guarantee of successful work. I think that all sorts of doubts on this score come out of the dustiest corners of our state apparatus and that they should be answered with only one thing - mockery.

Another doubt: is it convenient to combine educational activity with official activity? It seems to me that it is not only convenient, but also necessary. Generally speaking, we have managed to get infected by Western European statehood, with all the revolutionary attitude towards it, by a whole series of the most harmful and ridiculous prejudices,

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and partly we were deliberately infected with this by our dear bureaucrats, not without intent to speculate that in the troubled waters of such prejudices they will repeatedly succeed in fishing; and they caught fish in this troubled water to such an extent that only the completely blind among us did not see how widely this fishing was practiced.

In the whole field of social, economic and political relations we are "terribly" revolutionary. But in the field of respect for rank, observance of the forms and rituals of paperwork, our "revolutionary" nature is replaced quite often by the most musty routinism. Here one can more than once observe the most interesting phenomenon, how in social life the greatest leap forward is combined with a monstrous timidity before the smallest changes.

This is understandable, because the most daring steps forward lay in a field that has long been the lot of theory, lay in a field that has been cultivated mainly and even almost exclusively theoretically. The Russian person averted his soul from the hateful bureaucratic reality at home behind unusually bold theoretical constructions, and therefore these unusually bold theoretical constructions acquired an unusually one-sided character in our country. We have coexisted side by side with theoretical boldness in general constructions and amazing timidity in relation to some of the most insignificant clerical reforms. Some great world land revolution was developed with a boldness unheard of in other states, and next to it there was not enough imagination for some ten-degree clerical reform; lacked the imagination or lacked the patience to apply to this reform the same general propositions which gave such "brilliant" results when applied to general questions.

And therefore, our present way of life combines to an amazing degree the features of a desperately bold with timidity of thought in the face of the smallest changes.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 401

I think that it has never happened otherwise with any really great revolution because really great revolutions are born out of contradictions between the old, between the development of the old and the most abstract striving for the new, which must already be so new that there is not a single grain of antiquity in it.

And the steeper this revolution, the longer the time will last when a whole series of such contradictions will persist.

The common feature of our way of life is now the following: we have destroyed capitalist industry, we have tried to destroy to the ground medieval institutions, landlordism, and on this basis we have created a small and tiny peasantry, which follows the proletariat out of confidence in the results of its revolutionary work. On this trust, however, it is not easy for us to hold out until the victory of the socialist revolution in the more developed countries, because the small and smallest peasantry, especially under the New Economic Policy, is kept, by economic necessity, at an extremely low level of labor productivity. Yes, and the international situation has caused Russia to be thrown back now, and that, on the whole, the productivity of people's labor in our country is now much lower than before the war. The Western European capitalist powers, partly consciously, partly spontaneously, did everything possible to throw us back, to use the elements of the civil war in Russia to ruin the country as much as possible. This is the exit from imperialist war seemed, of course, to have significant advantages: if we do not overthrow the revolutionary system in Russia, then, in any case, we will impede its development towards socialism - this is approximately how these powers reasoned, and from their point of view they could not reason otherwise. As a result, they received

402 V. I. LENIN

half solution to your problem. They did not overthrow the new system created by the revolution, but they did not give it the opportunity to take immediately such a step forward that would justify the predictions of the socialists, which would enable them to develop productive forces with tremendous speed, to develop all the possibilities that would develop in socialism, to prove to anyone and everyone clearly, with their own eyes, that socialism conceals within itself gigantic forces and that humanity has now passed on to a new stage of development that carries extraordinarily brilliant possibilities.

The system of international relations has now developed in such a way that in Europe one of the states is enslaved by the victorious states - this is Germany. Then, a number of states, and, moreover, the oldest states of the West, found themselves, by virtue of victory, in conditions where they could use this victory to make a number of unimportant concessions to their oppressed classes - concessions that, nevertheless, delay revolutionary movement in them they create some semblance of a “social world”.

At the same time, a number of countries—the East, India, China, etc.—because of the latest imperialist war, have been completely knocked out of their rut. Their development was finally directed along the all-European capitalist scale. They began a pan-European ferment. And it is now clear to the whole world that they have been drawn into a development that cannot but lead to a crisis of all world capitalism.

Thus, at the present moment we are confronted with the question: will we be able to hold out with our petty and minute peasant production, with our ruin, until the Western European capitalist countries complete their development towards socialism? But they complete it differently than we expected before. They complete it not by the uniform “ripening” of socialism in them, but by exploiting some states by others, by exploiting the first of those defeated during the imperialist war.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 403

state connected with the exploitation of the whole East. And the East, on the other hand, finally came into the revolutionary movement precisely because of this first imperialist war and was finally drawn into the general circulation of the world revolutionary movement.

What tactics are prescribed by this state of affairs for our country? Obviously, the following: we must exercise the utmost care to preserve our workers' power, to keep our small and smallest peasantry under its authority and under its leadership. We have the advantage on our side that the whole world is already passing over to such a movement, which should give rise to a world socialist revolution. But on our side is the disadvantage that the imperialists have managed to split the whole world into two camps, and this split is complicated by the fact that it is now difficult for Germany, a country of really advanced cultural capitalist development, to rise to the last level. All the capitalist powers of the so-called West are pecking at it and do not let it rise. And on the other hand, the entire East, with its hundreds of millions of working, exploited population, brought to the last degree of human extremeness, is placed in conditions where its physical and material forces cannot be compared with the physical, material and military forces of any of the much smaller Western European states.

Can we save ourselves from the coming clash with these imperialist states? Do we have any hope that the internal contradictions and conflicts between the prosperous imperialist states of the West and the prosperous imperialist states of the East will give us a second delay, as they did the first time, when the campaign of the Western European counter-revolution aimed at supporting the Russian counter-revolution was thwarted because of contradictions in the camp of the counter-revolutionaries of the West and East, in the camp of the exploiters of the Eastern

404 V. I. LENIN

and Western exploiters, in the camp of Japan and America?

This question, it seems to me, should be answered in such a way that the decision here depends on too many circumstances, and the outcome of the struggle, on the whole, can only be foreseen on the ground that the vast majority of the world's population is ultimately trained and educated to fight by capitalism itself. .

The outcome of the struggle depends, in the final analysis, on the fact that Russia, India, China, etc. constitute the vast majority of the population. Namely, it is this majority of the population that is drawn with extraordinary speed into last years in the struggle for their liberation, so that in this sense there can be no shadow of doubt as to what the final solution of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the final victory of socialism is completely and unconditionally assured.

But we are not interested in this inevitability of the final victory of socialism. We are interested in the tactics that we, the Russian Communist Party, we, the Russian Soviet authority, in order to prevent the Western European counter-revolutionary states from crushing us. In order to ensure our existence until the next military clash between the counter-revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the most civilized states of the world and the orientally backward states, which, however, constitute the majority, this majority must have time to become civilized. We, too, do not have enough civilization to pass directly to socialism, although we have the political prerequisites for this. We should stick to this tactic or adopt the following policy for our salvation.

We must try to build a state in which the workers would retain their leadership over the peasants, the confidence of the peasants in relation to themselves and, with the greatest economy, would drive them out of their communities.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 405

public relations, all traces of any kind of excesses.

We must reduce our state apparatus to the maximum economy. We must banish from it all traces of excesses, of which so much remains in it from tsarist Russia, from its bureaucratic-capitalist apparatus.

Wouldn't this be a realm of peasant narrow-mindedness?

No. If we retain the leadership of the peasantry in the hands of the working class, then we will be able, at the price of the greatest and greatest economic savings in our state, to secure every slightest saving for the development of our large-scale machine industry, for the development of electrification, hydropeat, for the completion of Volkhovstroy, and so on.

This, and this alone, is our hope. Only then will we be able to transfer, figuratively speaking, from one horse to another, namely, from a peasant, peasant, impoverished horse, from an economy horse designed for a ruined peasant country, to a horse that it is looking for and cannot but look for for itself. the proletariat, on the horse of large-scale machine industry, electrification, Volkhovstroy, etc.

That's how I bind in my thoughts overall plan our work, our policy, our tactics, our strategy with the tasks of the reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Committee. That, for me, is the justification for those exceptional concerns, that exceptional attention that we must devote to the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, placing it on an exceptional level, giving it a head with the rights of the Central Committee, etc., etc.

This justification is that only by purifying our apparatus as much as possible, by minimizing everything that is not absolutely necessary in it, will we be able to hold ourselves for sure. And besides, we will be able to maintain ourselves not at the level of a small-peasant country, not at the level of

406 V. I. LENIN

this general narrow-mindedness, but at a level that rises steadily forward and forward towards large-scale machine industry.

These are the lofty tasks I dream of for our Workers' and Peasants' Committee. That's why I plan for him to merge the most authoritative party elite with the "ordinary" people's commissariat.

Signature: Η. Lenin

Published according to the secretary's note (typewritten copy), verified with the text of the newspaper

How did we act in the more dangerous moments of the civil war?

We concentrated our best party forces in the Red Army; we resorted to mobilizing the best of our workers; we looked for new strength to where the deepest root of our dictatorship lies.

In the same direction, we should, in my opinion, look for the source of the reorganization of the Rabkrin. I propose to our Twelfth Party Congress to adopt

the next plan for such a reorganization, based on a kind of expansion of our Central Control Commission.

The plenary session of the Central Committee of our Party has already revealed its desire to develop into a sort of supreme Party conference. It meets on average no more than once every two months, and current work on behalf of the Central Committee is carried out, as you know, by our Politburo, our Organizing Bureau, our Secretariat, and so on. I think that we should complete the path we have thus embarked upon and definitively turn the plenums of the Central Committee into supreme party conferences, convened once every two months with the participation of the Central Control Commission. And this Central Control Commission should be connected under the conditions indicated below with the main part of the reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Inspection.

On the other hand, the Rabkrin should be reduced to 300-400 employees who have been specially tested in terms of conscientiousness and in terms of knowledge of our state apparatus, as well as who have passed a special test regarding their familiarity with the basics of the scientific organization of labor in general and, in particular, managerial, clerical and etc.

In my opinion, such a combination of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee with the Central Control Commission will be of benefit to both of these institutions. On the one hand, Rabkrin will gain such high prestige in this way that it will become at least as good as our NKID. On the other hand, our Central Committee, together with the Central Control Commission, will definitively set out on that road of transformation into the highest Party conference, on which it has, in essence, already embarked and along which it must go to the end in order to fulfill its tasks correctly, in two respects: planning, expediency, systematic his organization and work, and in connection with the truly broad masses through the best of our workers and peasants.

I foresee one objection, coming either directly or indirectly from those spheres that make our apparatus old, i.e., from those who advocate keeping our apparatus in the same impossibly, obscenely pre-revolutionary form in which it remains to this day (by the way, , we have now received a rather rare case in history to set the time limits necessary for the production of fundamental social changes, and we now clearly see that what can be done in five years and for which much longer periods are needed).

I think that the malicious source of this objection is so obvious that it does not even require an answer. It goes without saying that on the part of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission and on the part of People's Commissar Rabkrin and his collegium (and also, in appropriate cases, on the part of our Secretariat of the Central Committee) it will take more than one year of hard work to properly organize our People's Commissariat and its work together with CCC. The People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, can remain (and should remain so) a People's Commissar, like the entire collegium, retaining the leadership of the work of the entire Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, including all members of the Central Control Commission, who will be considered "seconded" to his disposal. The 300-400 employees of the Workers' Committee who remain, according to my plan, will, on the one hand, perform purely secretarial duties to other members of the Workers' Committee and to additional members of the Central Control Commission, and on the other hand, they must be highly qualified, especially checked, especially reliable, with high salaries, completely relieving them of their current, truly unfortunate (not to say worse), position of an official of the Rabkrin.

I am sure that reducing the number of employees to the figure I have indicated will improve the quality many times over.

On the other hand, I also think that the People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee will have to work on, partly, merging, partly, coordinating those higher institutions for the organization of labor (the Central Institute of Labor, the Institute for the Scientific Organization of Labor, etc.), which we now have in the republic is at least 12. Excessive monotony and the resulting desire for merger will be harmful. On the contrary, here it is necessary to find a reasonable and expedient medium between the merging of all these institutions together and their correct delimitation, provided that each of these institutions is known to be independent.

There is no doubt that the Rabkrin and our own Central Committee will benefit from such a transformation no less than the Rabkrin and our own Central Committee, it will benefit both in terms of connection with the masses and in terms of the regularity and solidity of its work. Then it will be possible (and should) introduce a more rigorous and responsible procedure for preparing Politburo meetings, which must be attended by a certain number of members of the Central Control Commission - determined either by a certain period of time or by a known plan of organization.

The People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, together with the Presidium of the Central Control Commission, will have to establish the distribution of the work of its members from the point of view of their obligation to attend the Politburo and check all the documents that one way or another go to its consideration, or from the point of view of their obligation to devote their working time to theoretical training, the study of scientific organization of labor, or from the point of view of their obligation to practically participate in the control and improvement of our state apparatus, starting with the highest state institutions and ending with the lowest local ones, etc.

Our Central Committee has formed into a strictly centralized and highly authoritative group, but the work of this group has not been placed in conditions corresponding to its authority. The reform I propose should help this, and the members of the Central Control Commission, who are obliged to be present in a certain number at each meeting of the Politburo, must form a close-knit group, which, "regardless of persons," will have to see to it that no one's authority, not the general secretary, nor anyone - or from other members of the Central Committee, could not prevent them from making an inquiry, checking documents, and generally achieving unconditional awareness and the strictest correctness of affairs.

Of course, in our Soviet Republic the social system is based on cooperation between two classes: workers and peasants, to which the "Nepmen", that is, the bourgeoisie, are now admitted under certain conditions. If serious class differences arise between these classes, then a split will be inevitable, but in our social system there are no necessary grounds for the inevitability of such a split, and the main task of our Central Committee and Central Control Commission, as well as our Party as a whole, is to closely monitor circumstances from which a split may flow, and forestall them, for in the final analysis the fate of our republic will depend on whether the mass of the peasantry will go with the working class, remaining faithful to its alliance with it, or whether it will give to the "Nepmen", i.e., new bourgeoisie,

Article "How can we reorganize the Rabkrin" directly connected with Lenin's "Letter to the Congress" and develops his ideas. V. I. Lenin began work on the article at the beginning of January 1923; he dictated the plan of the article, and then, on January 9 and 13, the first version of the article entitled "What shall we do with the Workers' Committee?" (see present volume, pp. 442-450). On January 19, 20, 22 and 23, Lenin dictated the second, final version of the article, which he called "How do we reorganize the Rabkrin (Proposal to the XII Party Congress)". A direct continuation and development of the article "How do we reorganize the Rabkrin" was Lenin's article "Better less, but better."

Based on Lenin's instructions, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) developed theses on the reorganization and improvement of the work of the party's central institutions. The Plenum of the Central Committee, held on February 21-24, approved, with a number of amendments, the theses and decided to put the organizational question as a special item on the agenda of the upcoming XII Party Congress. The theses provided for an increase in the number of members of the Central Committee from 27 people elected at the XI Congress of the RCP (b) to 40. The presence of members of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission at the plenums of the Central Committee and the presence of three permanent representatives of the Central Control Commission from the Presidium of the latter at meetings of the Politburo were introduced. It was pointed out that all fundamental questions should be raised for discussion at the plenums of the Central Committee. The Politburo must submit to each plenum of the Central Committee a report on its activities for the past period.

The February plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) recognized the need to expand the composition of the Central Control Commission and establish close organizational links between the leading bodies of state and party control. By the XII Congress of the RCP(b) a draft resolution of the congress on the reorganization of the Rabkrin and the Central Control Commission was developed.

Against Lenin's plan to strengthen the Central The Committee was addressed by Trotsky. He declared that the expansion of the membership of the Central Committee would allegedly deprive it of "the necessary formality and stability" and "threatens to cause extreme damage to the accuracy and correctness of the work of the Central Committee." Moreover, Trotsky suggested creating, in opposition to the Central Committee, a Party Council of members and candidate members of the Central Committee, members of the Central Control Commission and two or three dozen representatives from regions and places, which would also be elected by the Party Congress, give directives to the Central Committee and check its work. The Central Committee resolutely rejected Trotsky's objections to the expansion of the Central Committee, his idea of creating in the party, in fact, a "two-center", fundamentally contrary to the Leninist norms of party life.

The 12th Party Congress adopted a resolution on the organizational question worked out by the Central Committee and a resolution "On the Tasks of the RCT and the Central Control Commission." In accordance with the proposals of V.I. Lenin's congress expanded the composition of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission and created a joint body of the Central Control Commission - the RCT. - 383.

LAST LETTERS AND ARTICLES OF V. I. LENIN 207
DEC 23, 1922 - MARCH 2, 1923

I

LETTER TO THE CONGRESS 208

I would highly recommend that a number of changes be made at this congress in our political system.

In the first place, I put an increase in the number of members of the Central Committee to a few dozen or even a hundred. It seems to me that our Central Committee would be in great danger if the course of events were not entirely favorable for us (and we cannot count on this) - if we did not undertake such a reform.

Then, I am thinking of suggesting to the attention of the congress that the decisions of the State Planning Committee be given a legislative character, on certain conditions, in this respect meeting the needs of Comrade. Trotsky, to a certain extent and on certain conditions.

As regards the first point, i.e., to increase the number of members of the Central Committee, I think that such a thing is necessary both for raising the authority of the Central Committee and for serious work to improve our apparatus, and to prevent conflicts between small parts of the Central Committee from getting too exorbitant importance for all the fate of the party.

I think that our Party has the right to demand 50-100 members of the Central Committee from the working class and can get it from it without excessive exertion of its forces.

344 V. I. LENIN

Such a reform would greatly increase the strength of our Party and make it easier for it to struggle among hostile states, which, in my opinion, can and must become much more acute in the coming years. It seems to me that the stability of our Party would be a thousand times better thanks to such a measure.

Lenin

23.XII. 22
Recorded by M.V.

By the stability of the Central Committee, of which I spoke above, I mean measures against a split, in so far as such measures can be taken at all. For, of course, the White Guard in Russkaya Mysl (I think it was S. S. Oldenburg) was right when, firstly, he bet on their game against Soviet Russia on the split of our Party and when, secondly, he staked for this split on the most serious disagreements in the Party.

Our Party rests on two classes, and therefore its instability is possible and its fall is inevitable if an agreement could not be reached between these two classes. In this case, it is useless to take certain measures, in general, to talk about the stability of our Central Committee. No measures in this case will be able to prevent a split. But I hope that this is too distant a future and too incredible an event to talk about.

I have in mind stability as a guarantee against a split in the near future, and I intend to analyze here a number of considerations of a purely personal nature.

I think that the main ones in the issue of sustainability from this point of view are such members of the Central Committee as Stalin and Trotsky. The relationship between them, in my opinion, is more than half the danger of that split,

LETTER TO CONGRESS 345

which could be avoided and which, in my opinion, should be avoided, among other things, by increasing the number of members of the Central Committee to 50, to 100 people.

Tov. Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power with sufficient caution. On the other hand, com. Trotsky, as his struggle against the Central Committee on the question of the NKPS has already proved, is distinguished not only by his outstanding abilities. Personally, he is perhaps the most capable person in the present Central Committee, but also overly self-confident and overly enthusiastic about the purely administrative side of things.

These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the modern Central Committee are capable of inadvertently leading to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to prevent this, then the split may come unexpectedly.

I will not further characterize the other members of the Central Committee by their personal qualities. Let me only remind you that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev, of course, was not an accident, but that it can just as little be blamed on them personally as non-Bolshevism can be blamed on Trotsky.

Among the young members of the Central Committee, I would like to say a few words about Bukharin and Pyatakov. These, in my opinion, are the most outstanding forces (of the youngest forces), and with regard to them one should bear in mind the following: Bukharin is not only the most valuable and prominent theoretician of the party, he is also legitimately considered the favorite of the whole party, but his theoretical views are very much doubt can be attributed to the completely Marxist, because there is something scholastic in him (he never studied and, I think, never fully understood dialectics).

25.XII. Then Pyatakov is a man of undoubtedly outstanding will and outstanding abilities, but he is too keen on administration and the administrative side of things to be relied upon in a serious political question.

346 V. I. LENIN

Of course, both of these remarks are made by me only for the present time, on the assumption that these two outstanding and dedicated workers will not find an opportunity to replenish their knowledge and change their one-sidedness.

Lenin

25.XII. 22
Recorded by M.V.

ADDENDUM TO THE LETTER OF DECEMBER 24, 1922

Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, which is quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us Communists, becomes intolerable in the position of General Secretary. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to move Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects differs from Comrade. Stalin with only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to comrades, less capriciousness, etc. This circumstance may seem like an insignificant trifle. But I think that from the point of view of preventing a split and from the point of view of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, this is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle that can become decisive.

Lenin

The increase in the number of members of the Central Committee to the number of 50 or even 100 people should serve, in my opinion, a twofold or even threefold purpose: the more members of the Central Committee there are, the more training there will be in Central Committee work and the

LETTER TO CONGRESS 347

there will be less danger of a split from some negligence. The attraction of many workers to the Central Committee will help the workers to improve our apparatus, which is very bad. In our country, it is, in essence, inherited from the old regime, because it was absolutely impossible to remake it in such a short time, especially during war, famine, etc.. Therefore, those "critics" who, with a sneer or with malice, present us with indications of the defects of our apparatus, can be calmly answered that these people do not understand the conditions of the modern revolution at all. It is generally impossible to remake the apparatus sufficiently in five years, especially under the conditions under which the revolution took place in our country. It is enough if in five years we have created new type a state in which the workers are ahead of the peasants against the bourgeoisie, and this, given the hostile international situation, is a gigantic undertaking. But the consciousness of this must in no way hide from us the fact that we have, in essence, taken the old apparatus from the tsar and the bourgeoisie, and that now, with the advent of peace and the provision of the minimum requirement for hunger, all work should be directed to improving the apparatus.

I imagine things in such a way that a few dozen workers, being members of the Central Committee, can better than anyone else to check, improve and re-create our apparatus. The RKP, which initially belonged to this function, turned out to be unable to cope with it and can only be used as an "appendage" or as an assistant, under certain conditions, to these members of the Central Committee. The workers who are members of the Central Committee must, in my opinion, be predominantly not of those workers who have gone through a long Soviet service (in this part of my letter I include the peasants everywhere among the workers), because certain traditions and certain traditions have already been created in these workers. prejudices that it is desirable to combat.

The worker members of the Central Committee must include predominantly workers below the stratum which

348 V. I. LENIN

In the course of five years, he has moved into the ranks of Soviet employees in our country, and those who belong closer to the ranks of ordinary workers and peasants, who, however, do not fall into the category of directly or indirectly exploiters. I think that such workers, being present at all meetings of the Central Committee, at all meetings of the Politburo, reading all the documents of the Central Committee, can form a cadre of devoted supporters of the Soviet system, capable, firstly, of giving stability to the Central Committee itself, and secondly, capable of really working on updating and improving the device.

Lenin

Recorded by L.F.
26.XII. 22

ON GIVING LEGISLATIVE FUNCTIONS TO THE STATE PLAN 209

This idea was put forward by comrade. Trotsky, it seems, for a long time. I opposed it because I thought that in such a case there would be a major discrepancy in the system of our legislative institutions. But after a careful examination of the case, I find that, in essence, there is a sound idea here, namely: the State Planning Commission stands somewhat apart from our legislative institutions, despite the fact that it, as a collection of knowledgeable people, experts, representatives of science and technology, has , in essence, the greatest data for the correct judgment of affairs.

However, we have so far proceeded from the point of view that the State Planning Commission should deliver critically analyzed material to the state, and that state institutions should decide state affairs. I think that in the present situation, when state affairs have become extraordinarily complicated, when one has to decide quite often questions in which the expertise of members of the State Planning Committee is required, with questions in which it is not required, and even more, to decide cases in which some items require Gosplan's expertise, interspersed with items that do not require it, I think that at the present time a step should be taken towards increasing the competence of the State Planning Commission.

I think of this step in such a way that the decisions of the State Planning Committee cannot be overturned by the usual

350 V. I. LENIN

Soviet order, but would demand a special procedure for their resolving, for example, introducing the issue to the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, preparing the issue for resolving according to special instructions, drawing up, on the basis of special rules, memorandums to weigh whether this decision of the State Planning Committee is subject to cancellation, finally , setting special deadlines for resolving the issue of the State Planning Commission, etc.

In this respect, I think, it is possible and should meet Comrade. Trotsky, but not in relation to the chairmanship of the State Planning Commission or a special person from our political leaders, or the chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, etc. It seems to me that here, at present, a personal question is too closely intertwined with a question of principle. I think that the attacks that are now heard on the Chairman of the State Planning Commission, comrade. Krzhizhanovsky, and his deputy, comrade. Pyatakov, and which are directed mutually in such a way that, on the one hand, we hear accusations of excessive softness, lack of independence, of spinelessness, and on the other hand, we hear accusations of excessive tackiness, sergeant majorism, insufficiently solid scientific training, etc., - I think that these attacks express two sides of the question, exaggerating them to the extreme, and that what we really need in the State Planning Commission is a skillful combination of two types of character, of which Pyatakov can be a model for one, and Krzhizhanovsky for the other.

I think that at the head of the State Planning Commission there should be a person who, on the one hand, is scientifically educated, namely, in the technical or agronomic line, with a large, measurable experience for many decades practical work in either engineering or agronomy. I think that such a person should have not so much administrative qualities as broad experience and the ability to attract people to him.

Lenin

27.XII. 22
Recorded by M.V.

ON GIVING LEGISLATIVE FUNCTIONS TO THE STATE PLAN 351

Continuation of the letter on the legislative nature of the decisions of the State Planning Commission.
28.XII. 22

I noticed in some of our comrades, who are capable of influencing the direction of state affairs in a decisive way, an exaggeration of the administrative side, which, of course, is necessary in its place and time, but which should not be confused with the scientific side, with a grasp of broad reality, the ability to attract people, etc.

In any state institution, especially in the State Planning Commission, these two qualities must be combined, and when comrade. Krzhizhanovsky told me that he had attracted Pyatakov to Gosplan and agreed to work with him, while giving my consent to this, on the one hand, I kept certain doubts to myself, on the other, I sometimes hoped that we would get a combination of both types of statesmen here . Whether this hope has been fulfilled, we must now wait and see a little longer by experience, but in principle, I think, there can be no doubt that such a combination of characters and types (people, qualities) is absolutely necessary for the correct functioning of state institutions. I think that the exaggeration of "administration" here is just as harmful as any exaggeration in general. The head of a government agency must have the highest degree the ability to attract people and a sufficiently solid scientific and technical background to test their work. This is like the main one. Without it, the work cannot be right. On the other hand, it is very important that he knows how to administer and has a worthy assistant or assistants in this matter. The combination of these two qualities in one person is unlikely to occur and is unlikely to be necessary.

Lenin

Recorded by L.F.
28.XII. 22

352 V. I. LENIN

Gosplan, apparently, is developing in our country comprehensively into a commission of experts. Such an institution cannot but be headed by a person with extensive experience and a comprehensive scientific education in the field of technology. The administrative force here, in fact, should be auxiliary. A certain independence and independence of the State Planning Commission is indispensable from the point of view of the authority of this scientific institution and is due to one thing, namely, the conscientiousness of its workers and their conscientious desire to carry out our plan for economic and social construction.

This last quality, of course, can now only be encountered as an exception, because the overwhelming majority of scientists, of whom, naturally, the State Planning Commission is composed, are inevitably infected with bourgeois views and bourgeois prejudices. Checking them from this side should be the task of several persons who can form the presidium of the State Planning Committee, who should consist of communists and monitor day by day in the entire course of work the degree of devotion of bourgeois scientists and their rejection of bourgeois prejudices, as well as their gradual transition to the point of view of socialism. This mutual work of such scientific verification, together with the work of pure administration, should constitute the ideal of the leaders of the State Planning Commission in our Republic.

Lenin

Is it rational to divide the work carried out by the State Planning Committee into separate assignments, and, on the contrary, should we not strive to develop a circle of permanent specialists who would be checked

ON GIVING LEGISLATIVE FUNCTIONS TO THE STATE PLAN 353

systematically by the Presidium of the State Planning Commission and could resolve the entire set of issues within its jurisdiction? I think that the latter is more rational and that one should strive to reduce the number of temporary and urgent individual tasks.

Lenin

First published in 1956 in Kommunist magazine No. 9

Printed according to the record of the secretary (typewritten copy)

(TO THE DEPARTMENT ON INCREASING THE NUMBER OF MEMBERS OF THE CC)

With an increase in the number of members of the Central Committee, in my opinion, it should also, and perhaps mainly, study and improve our apparatus, which is no good. For this purpose, we must use the services of highly qualified specialists, and the task of supplying these specialists should be the task of the RCT.

How to combine these experts in verification, who have sufficient knowledge, and these new members of the Central Committee - this problem must be solved in practice.

It seems to me that the WRC (as a result of its development and as a result of our perplexity about its development) resulted in what we are now witnessing, namely, a transitional state from a special people's commissariat to a special function of members of the Central Committee; from an institution that audits everything and everything, to a collection of numerically small but first-class auditors who must be well paid (this is especially necessary in our age of pay and in those conditions when auditors are directly employed by those institutions that pay them better).

If the number of members of the Central Committee is duly increased and they take a course government controlled with the help of such highly qualified specialists and highly authoritative in all branches of the members of the Workers 'and Peasants'

(TO THE DEPARTMENT ON INCREASING THE NUMBER OF MEMBERS OF THE CC) 355

inspections - then, I think, we will successfully solve this problem, which we have not been able to do for so long.

This means that in the end - up to 100 members of the Central Committee and no more than 400-500 of their assistants, auditing on their instructions - members of the RCT.

Lenin

First published in 1956 in Kommunist magazine No. 9

Printed according to the record of the secretary (typewritten copy)

210

It seems that I am greatly to blame before the workers of Russia for not intervening energetically and sharply enough in the notorious question of autonomization, officially called, it seems, the question of the union of Soviet socialist republics.

In the summer when this question arose, I was ill, and then, in the fall, I placed excessive hopes on my recovery and that the October and December plenums would give me the opportunity to intervene in this matter. But, meanwhile, neither the October plenum (on this question) nor the December plenum did I succeed, and thus the question passed me by almost completely.

I only had time to talk with Comrade. Dzerzhinsky, who came from the Caucasus and told me how this issue stands in Georgia. I also managed to exchange a few words with Comrade. Zinoviev and express to him his concerns about this issue. From what Comrade. Dzerzhinsky, who was at the head of the commission sent by the Central Committee to "investigate" the Georgian incident, I could bear only the greatest misgivings. If it came to the point that Ordzhonikidze could go too far to the use of physical violence, as I was informed by comrade. Dzerzhinsky, you can imagine what a swamp we have flown into. Apparently, this whole idea of "autonomization" was fundamentally wrong and untimely.

TO THE QUESTION ABOUT NATIONALITIES OR ABOUT "AUTONOMIZATION" 357

They say that the unity of the apparatus was required. But where did these assurances come from? Is it not from the same Russian apparatus, which, as I already pointed out in one of the previous issues of my diary, was borrowed by us from tsarism and only slightly smeared with the Soviet world *.

Undoubtedly, we should have waited with this measure until we could say that we vouch for our apparatus as for our own. And now we must, in all conscience, say the opposite, that we call our apparatus, which in fact is still completely alien to us and is a bourgeois and tsarist hodgepodge, which can be remade in five years in the absence of help from other countries and with the predominance of "occupations" of the military and there was no way to fight hunger.

Under such conditions, it is very natural that the “freedom to withdraw from the union”, by which we justify ourselves, will turn out to be an empty piece of paper, unable to protect Russian foreigners from the invasion of that truly Russian person, a Great Russian chauvinist, in essence, a scoundrel and a rapist, which is a typical Russian bureaucrat . There is no doubt that an insignificant percentage of Soviet and Sovietized workers will drown in this sea of chauvinistic Great Russian trash like a fly in milk.

They say in defense of this measure that they have allocated people's commissariats directly related to national psychology, national education. But here the question arises, is it possible to single out these people's commissariats completely, and the second question is, have we taken measures with sufficient care to really protect foreigners from truly Russian gibberish? I think that we did not take these measures, although we could and should have taken them.

I think that the haste and administrative passion of Stalin, as well as his bitterness against the notorious "social-nationalism", played a fatal role here. Anger usually plays the worst role in politics.

* See present volume, pp. 349-353. Ed.

358 V. I. LENIN

I am also afraid that Com. Dzerzhinsky, who traveled to the Caucasus to investigate the case of the "crimes" of these "social-nationalists", distinguished himself here, too, only by his truly Russian mood (it is known that Russified foreigners always overdo it in terms of truly Russian mood) and that the impartiality of his entire commission is sufficiently characterized " assault" Ordzhonikidze. I think that no provocation, no even insult can justify this Russian assault, and that Comrade. Dzerzhinsky is irreparably guilty of taking this assault lightly.

Ordzhonikidze was the power in relation to all other citizens in the Caucasus. Ordzhonikidze had no right to the irritability to which he and Dzerzhinsky referred. Ordzhonikidze, on the contrary, was obliged to behave with the restraint with which no ordinary citizen is obliged to behave, and even more so one accused of a "political" crime. But in essence, the social-nationals were citizens accused of political crime, and the whole situation of this accusation could only qualify him in this way.

Here an important fundamental question arises: how to understand internationalism?*

Lenin

30.XII. 22
Recorded by M.V.

TO THE QUESTION ABOUT NATIONALITIES OR ABOUT "AUTONOMIZATION"

(Continuation)

I have already written in my writings on the national question that an abstract formulation of the question of nationalism in general is no good. Need to distinguish

TO THE QUESTION ABOUT NATIONALITIES OR ABOUT "AUTONOMIZATION" 359

the nationalism of the oppressor nation and the nationalism of the oppressed nation, the nationalism of the big nation and the nationalism of the small nation.

In relation to the second nationalism, almost always in historical practice, we, the nationals of a large nation, find ourselves guilty of an infinite amount of violence, and even more than that - we imperceptibly commit an infinite amount of violence and insults - one has only to recall my Volga memories of how we are treated by foreigners, how a Pole is not called anything other than a "Polish", how a Tatar is not ridiculed otherwise than a "prince", a Ukrainian other than a "crest", a Georgian and other Caucasian foreigners - as a "Kapkaz man".

Therefore, internationalism on the part of the oppressor or the so-called "great" nation (although great only in its violence, great only in the way that the bully is great) should consist not only in observing the formal equality of nations, but also in such inequality that would compensate the oppressor nation , a large nation, the inequality that develops in life in fact. Whoever does not understand this, does not understand the truly proletarian attitude to the national question, he remains, in essence, on the petty-bourgeois point of view, and therefore cannot but slide every minute into the bourgeois point of view.

What is important for the proletarian? For the proletarian, it is not only important, but also essential, to ensure him maximum confidence in the proletarian class struggle on the part of foreigners. What is needed for this? This requires more than formal equality. To do this, it is necessary to compensate, in one way or another, by your appeal or your concessions in relation to a foreigner, that distrust, that suspicion, those insults that in the historical past were inflicted on him by the government of a "great-power" nation.

I think that for the Bolsheviks, for the Communists, it is not necessary to explain this further and in detail. And I think that in this case, in relation to the Georgian nation, we have a typical example of where

360 V. I. LENIN

extreme caution, courtesy and compliance are required on our part by a truly proletarian attitude to business. That Georgian who treats this side of the matter with disdain, dismissively hurls accusations of "social-nationalism" (while he himself is a real and true not only "social-nationalist", but also a rude Great-Russian bullshit), that Georgian, in essence, violates the interests of proletarian class solidarity, because nothing delays the development and consolidation of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice, and the "offended" nationals are so sensitive to nothing as to a sense of equality and to the violation of this equality, even if only through negligence , even in the form of a joke, to the violation of this equality by their fellow proletarians. That is why, in this case, it is better to oversalt in the direction of compliance and softness towards national minorities than undersalt. That is why, in this case, the fundamental interest of proletarian solidarity, and consequently also of the proletarian class struggle, requires that we never take a formal attitude to the national question, but always take into account the obligatory difference in the attitude of the proletarian of an oppressed (or small) nation to an oppressing (or big) nation. .

Lenin

Recorded by M.V.
31.XII. 22

What practical measures should be taken in the current situation?

Firstly, the union of socialist republics should be left and strengthened; there can be no doubt about this measure. We need it, just as the world communist proletariat needs it to fight the world bourgeoisie and to protect itself from its intrigues.

TO THE QUESTION ABOUT NATIONALITIES OR ABOUT "AUTONOMIZATION" 361

Secondly, we must leave the union of socialist republics in relation to the diplomatic apparatus. By the way, this apparatus is exceptional in the composition of our state apparatus. We did not allow a single person of any influence from the old tsarist apparatus to enter it. In it, the entire apparatus of any authority was made up of communists. That is why this apparatus has already won (it is safe to say this) the name of a proven communist apparatus, cleansed incomparably, immeasurably more of the old tsarist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois apparatus than the one with which we are forced to subsist in the rest of the people's commissariats.

Thirdly, you need to roughly punish Comrade. Ordzhonikidze (I say this with all the greater regret that I personally belong to the number of his friends and worked with him abroad in exile), as well as to further investigate or investigate again all the materials of the Dzerzhinsky commission with a view to correcting that huge mass of incorrectness and biased judgments that are undoubtedly there are available. Of course, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky should be made politically responsible for this whole truly Great Russian-nationalist campaign.

Fourth, it is necessary to introduce the strictest rules regarding the use of the national language in the other national republics that are part of our union, and check these rules with particular care. There is no doubt that under the pretext of the unity of the railway service, under the pretext of unity of the fiscal, etc., in our modern apparatus, a mass of abuses of a truly Russian nature will penetrate. To combat these abuses, special ingenuity is required, not to mention the special sincerity of those who undertake such a struggle. This will require a detailed code, which can be compiled with any success only by the nationals living in the given republic. Moreover, one should not swear in advance in any way that, as a result of all this work, to return back at the next Congress of Soviets, i.e., to leave the union of Soviet

362 V. I. LENIN

of the socialist republics only in respect of the military and diplomatic, and in all other respects to restore the full independence of individual people's commissariats.

It must be borne in mind that the fragmentation of the people's commissariats and the inconsistency between their work in relation to Moscow and other centers can be paralyzed by sufficient party authority if it is applied with any sufficient circumspection and impartiality; the harm that can result for our state from the absence of united national apparatuses with the Russian apparatus is immeasurably less, infinitely less than the harm that will result not only for us, but for the entire International, for the hundreds of millions of peoples of Asia, which will have to act on historical proscenium in the near future, following us. It would be unforgivable opportunism if, on the eve of this action of the East and at the beginning of its awakening, we undermined our authority among it by even the slightest rudeness and injustice towards our own foreigners. It is one thing to rally against the imperialists of the West who are defending the capitalist world. There can be no doubt about this, and it is needless for me to say that I unconditionally approve of these measures. It is another matter when we ourselves, even in small things, fall into imperialist relations with the oppressed peoples, thereby completely undermining all our principled sincerity, all our principled defense of the struggle against imperialism. And tomorrow in world history it will be just such a day when the awakened peoples oppressed by imperialism finally wake up and when a decisive, long and hard battle for their liberation begins.

Lenin

31.XII. 22
Recorded by M.V.

First published in 1956 in Kommunist magazine No. 9

Printed according to the record of the secretary (typewritten copy)

PAGES FROM THE DIARY 211

The recently published work on the literacy of the population of Russia according to the 1920 census (“Literacy in Russia”, Moscow, 1922, Central Statistical Office, Department of Statistics public education) is a very important phenomenon.

I give below a table of the literacy of the population of Russia for 1897 and 1920, borrowed from this work:

	For 1000 men n. literate in:		For 1000 women n. literate in:		Per 1,000 total population literate in:
	1897	1920	1897	1920	1897	1920
1. European Russia	326	422	136	255	229	330
2. North Caucasus	241	357	56	215	150	281
3. Siberia (Western)	170	307	46	134	108	218
Total	318	409	131	244	223	319

While we were talking about proletarian culture and its relation to bourgeois culture, the facts present us with figures showing that even with bourgeois culture things are very weak in our country. It turned out that, as expected, we are still far behind universal literacy, and even our progress compared to tsarist times(1897) was too slow.

364 V. I. LENIN

This serves as a formidable warning and reproach to those who hovered and hovered in the empyrean "proletarian culture". This shows how much urgent rough work we still have to do in order to reach the level of an ordinary civilized state in Western Europe. This further shows what a lot of work we now have to do in order to really achieve any cultural level on the basis of our proletarian conquests.

We must not confine ourselves to this indisputable, but too theoretical proposition. It is necessary that at the next revision of our quarterly budget we get down to business and practically. Of course, first of all, the expenditures of not Narkompros, but the expenditures of other departments should be reduced, so that the released amounts would be used for the needs of the Narkompros. There is no need to be stingy with an increase in the distribution of bread to teachers in a year like this, when we are relatively well provided with it.

The work that is now being done in the field of public education, generally speaking, cannot be called too narrow. A lot is being done to move the old teachers from their place, to involve them in new tasks, to interest them in the new formulation of questions of pedagogy, to interest them in such questions as the question of religion.

But we are not doing the main thing. We do not care, or are far from being sufficiently concerned, to raise the people's teacher to that height, without which there can be no question of any kind of culture, neither proletarian nor even bourgeois. We must talk about that semi-Asiatic lack of culture, from which we have not yet got out and cannot get out without serious efforts, although we have the opportunity to get out, because nowhere are the masses of the people so interested in real culture as we are; nowhere are the questions of this culture posed so deeply and so consistently as in our country; nowhere, in no country, is state power in the hands of the working class,

PAGES FROM THE DIARY 365

who for the most part perfectly understands his own shortcomings, I will not say cultural, but I will say literacy; nowhere is he ready to make and does not make such sacrifices to improve his situation in this respect, as we do.

We still do too little, immeasurably little, in order to move our entire state budget towards meeting, first of all, the needs of the basic education of the people. Even in the People's Commissariat for Education, we can often find ugly bloated staffs of some Gosizdat without any worries that the government should take care not of the publishing house, but of having someone to read, so that there will be a larger number of people able to read. so that the political scope of the publishing house in the future Russia would be greater. We still devote much more time and effort to technical questions, like the question of publishing, out of the old (bad) habit, than to the general political question of popular literacy.

If we take the Glavprofobr, then here, we are sure, one can find a lot, a lot of superfluous things, inflated by departmental interest, not adapted to the needs of a broad public education. Far from everything in Glavprofobr is justified by a legitimate desire to raise first and give a practical direction to the education of our factory youth. If you look closely at the staff of the Glavprofobra, in them much and much will turn out to be swollen and fictitious from this point of view, subject to closure. In a proletarian-peasant state, much and much more can be saved and must be saved for the development of popular literacy at the cost of closing down all sorts of toys of a semi-lordly type, or institutions, without which we can still and will be able and must do for a long time in the state of popular literacy, which says the statistics.

In our country the popular teacher must be raised to a height at which he has never stood and never stands and cannot stand in bourgeois society.

366 V. I. LENIN

This is a truth that does not require proof. We must move towards this state of affairs by systematic, unswerving, persistent work both on its spiritual uplift and on its comprehensive preparation for its real high rank and, most importantly, most importantly and most importantly - over raising his financial situation.

It is necessary to systematically intensify the work of organizing public teachers in order to turn them from a pillar of the bourgeois system, which they still are in all capitalist countries without exception, to a pillar of the Soviet system, in order to divert the peasantry through them from an alliance with the bourgeoisie, and to draw them to alliance with the proletariat.

I note briefly that systematic trips to the countryside should play a special role for this, which, however, are already being carried out in our country and which should be developed systematically. For such measures as these trips, it is not a pity to give money, which we often throw in vain on the state apparatus, which belongs almost entirely to the old historical era.

I was collecting materials for my failed speech at the Congress of Soviets in December 1922 on the patronage of the workers of urban settlements over the inhabitants of the villages. Some materials about this were delivered to me by comrade. Khodorovsky, and I am putting this topic before my comrades for elaboration now, since I myself did not have time to develop it and make it public through the Congress of Soviets.

Here the main political question is the relation of the city to the countryside, which is of decisive importance for our entire revolution. While the bourgeois state is systematically directing all its efforts towards stupefying the workers of the city, adjusting for this purpose all the literature published at the expense of the state, at the expense of the tsarist parties and at the expense of the bourgeois parties, we can and must use our power to indeed to turn the urban worker into a conductor of communist ideas among the rural proletariat.

I said "communist" and I hasten to make a reservation, afraid of causing a misunderstanding or being too direct.

PAGES FROM THE DIARY 367

prayerfully understood. In no way should this be understood as if we should immediately bring purely and narrowly communist ideas to the countryside. As long as we do not have a material basis for communism in the countryside, as long as it will be, one might say, harmful, it will be, one might say, disastrous for communism.

No. We must begin by establishing communication between the city and the countryside, without any preconceived aim of introducing communism into the countryside. Such a goal cannot be reached now. Such a goal is untimely. Setting such a goal will bring harm to the cause instead of benefit.

But to establish communication between the workers of the city and the workers of the countryside, to establish between them that form of partnership which can be easily created between them—this is our duty, this is one of the basic tasks of the working class in power. To do this, it is necessary to found a number of associations (Party, professional, private) of factory workers, which would set themselves the systematic goal of helping the countryside in its cultural development.

Will it be possible to "assign" all city cells to all village cells, so that each worker cell, "assigned" to the corresponding village cell, systematically takes care of every opportunity, in any case, in order to satisfy this or that cultural need of its cell? Or will it be possible to find other forms of communication? Here I confine myself to posing the question in order to draw the attention of the comrades to it, in order to point out the existing experience of Western Siberia (this experience was pointed out to me by Comrade Khodorovsky), and in order to present this gigantic world-historical cultural task in its entirety.

We do almost nothing for the village beyond our official budget or beyond our official relations. It is true that cultural relations between the city and the countryside take on naturally with us and inevitably take on a different character. The city gave the countryside under capitalism that which corrupted it politically, economically, morally, physically, etc. The city

368 V. I. LENIN

in our country, of course, the opposite is beginning to give the village. But all this is done just by itself, spontaneously, and all this can be strengthened (and then increased a hundredfold) by introducing consciousness, planning and systematicity into this work.

Only then will we begin to move forward (and then we will certainly begin to move a hundred times faster) when we study this question, establish all kinds of associations of workers - avoiding their bureaucratization in every possible way - in order to raise this question, discuss it and turn it into a business.

ABOUT COOPERATION 212

In our country, it seems to me, insufficient attention is paid to cooperation. Hardly everyone understands that now, since the time of the October Revolution, and independently of NEP (on the contrary, in this respect one has to say: it is precisely thanks to NEP), co-operatives have assumed absolutely exceptional significance in our country. There is a lot of fantasy in the dreams of the old cooperators. They are often funny in their fantasticness. But what is their fantasticness? It is that people do not understand the basic, fundamental significance of the political struggle of the working class to overthrow the rule of the exploiters. Now this overthrow has taken place in our country, and now much of what was fantastic, even romantic, even vulgar in the dreams of the old co-operators, is becoming the most unvarnished reality.

In our country, indeed, since the state power is in the hands of the working class, since all the means of production belong to this state power, our task really remains only to co-operate the population. Under the condition of maximum cooperation among the population, the socialism that previously caused legitimate ridicule, a smile, and a dismissive attitude towards itself on the part of people who are justly convinced of the need for class struggle, the struggle for political power, etc., achieves its goal by itself. And so not all comrades give realize what a gigantic, boundless significance is now acquiring

370 V. I. LENIN

for us the cooperation of Russia. In NEP we made a concession to the peasant, as a merchant, to the principle of private trade; it is precisely from this that the gigantic significance of co-operation follows (inversely to what is thought). In essence, under the rule of the NEP, to cooperate sufficiently broadly and deeply among the Russian population is all that we need, because now we have found that degree of combination of private interest, private commercial interest, verification and control of it by the state, the degree of its subordination to common interests, which used to be a stumbling block for many, many socialists. In fact, the power of the state over all major means of production, the power of the state in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with many millions of small and tiny peasants, the provision of leadership for this proletariat in relation to the peasantry, etc. - isn’t that all that it is necessary in order that from cooperation, from cooperation alone, which we previously dismissed as commercial, and which, for a certain reason, we now have the right to treat under NEP in the same way, isn’t this all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of a socialist society, but this is everything necessary and sufficient for this building.

This circumstance is underestimated by many of our practical workers. We look at cooperation with disdain, not understanding what exceptional significance this cooperation has, firstly, from the principle side (ownership of the means of production in the hands of the state), and secondly, from the side of the transition to a new order by simple, easy and affordable for the peasant.

But this, again, is the main thing. It's one thing to fantasize about all sorts of workers' associations for building socialism, it's another thing to learn how to practically build this socialism in such a way that everyone small the peasant could participate in this construction. This one

ABOUT COOPERATION 371

steps we have now reached. And there is no doubt that, having achieved it, we use it prohibitively little.

We went too far in passing to the NEP, not in the sense that we devoted too much space to the principle of free industry and trade, but we went too far in passing to the NEP, in the sense that we forgot to think about cooperation, that we now underestimate cooperation, that we started forget already the gigantic significance of cooperation in the two sides of this significance indicated above.

I intend now to talk to the reader about what can and should be done in practice right now, proceeding from this "cooperative" principle. By what means can and should we immediately begin to develop this "co-operative" principle in such a way that its socialist significance is clear to anyone and everyone?

It is necessary to organize the co-operatives politically in such a way that not only will cooperation in general and always have a certain privilege, but that this privilege will be a purely property privilege (the rate of bank interest, etc.). It is necessary to lend to the co-operatives such state funds, which, if only by a little, but exceeded those funds that we lend to private enterprises, even up to heavy industry, etc.

Each social system arises only with the financial support of a certain class. There is nothing to remind about those hundreds and hundreds of millions of rubles, which cost the birth of "free" capitalism. Now we must realize and put into practice that at the present time the social system which we must maintain above and beyond the usual is a cooperative system. But it must be supported in the true sense of the word, i.e., by this support it is not enough to understand the support of any cooperative turnover; by this support one must understand the support of such a cooperative turnover in which the actual masses of the population actually participate. Giving a bonus to the peasant who participates in the cooperative turnover is an unconditionally correct form, but at the same time check this participation and

372 V. I. LENIN

to check its consciousness and its benign quality - that is the crux of the matter. When a cooperator arrives in the countryside and sets up a cooperative shop there, the population, strictly speaking, does not participate in this at all, but at the same time, guided by its own benefit, it will hasten to try to participate in it.

This case also has another side. We still need to do very little from the point of view of a "civilized" (primarily literate) European in order to force everyone without exception to participate and participate actively, not passively, in cooperative operations. As a matter of fact, we have "only" one thing: to make our population so “civilized” that it understands all the benefits of total participation in cooperation and organizes this participation. "Only" this is. We do not need any other wisdom now in order to pass to socialism. But in order to achieve this "only" a whole revolution is needed, a whole period of cultural development of the entire mass of the people. Therefore, our rule should be: as little sophistication as possible and as little frills as possible. NEP in this respect is progress in that it adapts itself to the level of the most ordinary peasant, that it does not demand anything higher from him. But in order to achieve, through the NEP, participation in the cooperatives of the entire population without exception, this requires a whole historical epoch. We can come to a good end to this era in one or two decades. But still it will be a special historical epoch, and without this historical epoch, without universal literacy, without a sufficient degree of intelligence, without a sufficient degree of accustoming the population to using books, and without the material basis for this, without a certain security, say, from crop failure, hunger, etc. - without this, we will not achieve our goal. The whole point now is to be able to combine that revolutionary scope, that revolutionary enthusiasm, which we have already shown and have shown in sufficient quantity and

ABOUT COOPERATION 373

chali with complete success, to be able to combine it (here I am almost ready to say) with the ability to be an intelligent and competent huckster, which is quite enough for a good cooperator. By the ability to be a huckster, I mean the ability to be a cultured huckster. Let the Russian people or just the peasants who think: if he trades, then he knows how to be a merchant, wind it on his mustache. This is completely untrue. He trades, but from this to the ability to be a cultural huckster is still very far away. He now trades in the Asian way, but in order to be able to be a huckster, one must trade in the European way. A whole era separates him from this.

Finishing: a number of economic, financial and banking privileges - cooperation; this should be the support by our socialist state of the new principle of organizing the population. But this task is only still set in in general terms, because here the whole content of the problem practically remains indeterminate, not described in detail, i.e., we must be able to find that form of "bonuses" (and those conditions for issuing them) that we give for cooperation, that form of bonuses for which we we help cooperation, that form of bonuses in which we reach a civilized cooperator. And the system of civilized co-operators with public ownership of the means of production, with the class victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie - this is the system of socialism.

Whenever I wrote about the New Economic Policy, I quoted my 1918 paper on state capitalism*. This aroused more than once the doubts of some young comrades. But their doubts were directed primarily towards the abstract political.

* See Works, 5th ed., Vol. 36, pp. 283-314. Ed.

374 V. I. LENIN

It seemed to them that one cannot call state capitalism that system in which the means of production belong to the working class and the state power belongs to this working class. However, they did not notice that I used the name "state capitalism": firstly, for the historical connection of our present position with the position in my polemic against the so-called left communists, and also I already then argued that state capitalism would be superior to our modern economy; it was important for me to establish the continuity of ordinary state capitalism with that unusual, even quite unusual, state capitalism that I spoke about when introducing the reader to the new economic policy. Secondly, For me, the practical goal has always been important. And the practical aim of our New Economic Policy was to obtain concessions; concessions would undoubtedly have been, under our conditions, a pure type of state capitalism. This is how the discourse on state capitalism presented itself to me.

But there is another aspect of the matter in which we may need state capitalism, or at least a comparison with it. This is a question of cooperation.

There is no doubt that cooperation in the conditions of a capitalist state is a collective capitalist institution. There is also no doubt that in the conditions of our present economic reality, when we combine private capitalist enterprises - but not otherwise than on public land, and not otherwise than under the control of state power belonging to the working class - with enterprises of a consistently socialist type (and the means of production belong to the state, and the land on which the enterprise stands, and the entire enterprise as a whole), then the question arises of a third type of enterprise, which previously did not have independence from the point of view of fundamental importance,

ABOUT COOPERATION 375

namely: about cooperative enterprises. Under private capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from capitalist enterprises, just as collective enterprises differ from private enterprises. Under state capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from state-capitalist ones, as private enterprises, firstly, and collective ones, secondly. Under our existing system, co-operative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises, like collective enterprises, but they do not differ from socialist enterprises if they are based on land, with the means of production belonging to the state, i.e., to the working class.

This circumstance is not sufficiently taken into account in our country when discussing cooperation. They forget that in our country, thanks to the peculiarities of our political system, co-operation acquires a completely exceptional significance. If we single out concessions in particular, which, by the way, have not received any significant development in our country, then co-operation in our conditions very often completely coincides with socialism.

Let me explain my idea. What is the fantasticness of the plans of the old cooperators, beginning with Robert Owen? That they dreamed of a peaceful transformation by socialism modern society without taking into account such a basic question as the question of the class struggle, the conquest of political power by the working class, the overthrow of the rule of the exploiting class. And therefore we are right in finding in this "cooperative" socialism entirely fantasy, something romantic, even vulgar in dreams about how, by simple cooperation of the population, it is possible to turn class enemies into class collaborators and class war into a class world (the so-called civil world).

Undoubtedly, from the point of view of the main task of modernity, we were right, for without a class struggle for political power in the state, socialism cannot be realized.

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But look how things have changed now, since state power is already in the hands of the working class, once political power The exploiters have been overthrown, and since all the means of production (except those that the workers' state voluntarily gives to the exploiters for a time and conditionally in concession) are in the hands of the working class.

Now we have the right to say that the mere growth of co-operation for us is identical (with the "small" exception mentioned above) with the growth of socialism, and at the same time we are forced to recognize a radical change in our whole point of view on socialism. This fundamental change consists in the fact that earlier we placed and had to place the center of gravity on the political struggle, revolution, the conquest of power, etc. Now, however, the center of gravity is changing to the point that it is transferred to peaceful organizational "cultural" work. I am ready to say that the center of gravity for us is transferred to culture, if not for international relations, not for the obligation to fight for our position on an international scale. But if we leave this aside and confine ourselves to internal economic relations, then in our country the center of gravity of our work really comes down to culture.

Before us are two main tasks that make up the era. This is the task of remaking our apparatus, which is completely useless and which we have taken over entirely from the previous era; we did not have time to seriously remake anything here in five years of struggle and could not have time. Our second task is cultural work for the peasantry. And this cultural work among the peasantry, as an economic goal, pursues precisely cooperation. Under the condition of full co-operation, we would already have both feet on socialist soil. But this condition for complete co-operation includes such a level of culture among the peasantry (namely, the peasantry as a huge mass) that this complete co-operation is impossible without a whole cultural revolution.

Our opponents have repeatedly told us that we are undertaking the reckless business of planting socialism.

ABOUT COOPERATION 377

in not enough cultural country. But they were mistaken in that we started from the wrong end, as expected according to the theory (of all pedants), and that in our country the political and social upheaval turned out to be the forerunner of that cultural upheaval, that cultural revolution, which we still face today. . For us, this cultural revolution is now enough to turn out to be a fully socialist country, but for us this cultural revolution presents incredible difficulties both of a purely cultural nature (for we are illiterate) and of a material nature (for in order to be cultural, a certain development is necessary). material means of production, a known material base is needed).

First published on May 26 and 27, 1923 in the Pravda newspaper, Nos. 115 and 116
Signature: Η. Lenin

Published according to the secretary's note (typewritten copy), verified with the text of the newspaper

ABOUT OUR REVOLUTION

(IN REGARD TO N. SUKHANOV'S NOTES 213 )

These days I leafed through Sukhanov's notes on the revolution. The pedantry of all our petty-bourgeois democrats, as well as of all the heroes of the Second International, is particularly striking. Not to mention the fact that they are extraordinarily cowardly, that even the best of them feed themselves reservations when it comes to the slightest deviation from the German model, not to mention this property of all petty-bourgeois democrats, which they have sufficiently shown throughout the revolution, is striking their slavish imitation of the past.

They all call themselves Marxists, but understand Marxism in an impossible degree of pedantry. What is decisive in Marxism they have completely failed to understand: namely, its revolutionary dialectics. Even Marx's direct instructions that maximum flexibility is required at moments of revolution 214 are absolutely not understood by them, and they do not even notice, for example, Marx's instructions in his correspondence, which, I remember, date back to 1856, when he expressed the hope of uniting peasant war in Germany, which is capable of creating a revolutionary situation, with a working-class movement 215 - even this direct indication they bypass and walk around and around it, like a cat around hot porridge.

In all their behaviour, they reveal themselves as cowardly reformists, afraid of retreating from the bourgeoisie, and even more so of breaking with it, and at the same time

ABOUT OUR REVOLUTION 379

cover up their cowardice with the most reckless phrase-mongering and boasting. But even purely theoretically, what is striking in all of them is their complete inability to understand the following considerations of Marxism: up to now they have seen a definite path for the development of capitalism and bourgeois democracy in Western Europe. And so, they cannot imagine that this path can be considered a model mutatis mutandis *, only with some amendments (completely insignificant from the point of view of the general course of world history).

First- a revolution associated with the first world imperialist war. In such a revolution, new features, or modified ones depending on the war, were to be expressed, because such a war, in such a situation, had never happened before in the world. So far we see that the bourgeoisie richest countries cannot establish "normal" bourgeois relations after this war, and our reformists, petty bourgeois, posing as revolutionaries, considered and still consider normal bourgeois relations to be the limit (you can't go beyond it), moreover, they understand this "norm" in an extremely stereotyped and narrow way.

Second- they are completely alien to any idea that with general pattern developments throughout world history are by no means excluded, but, on the contrary, separate stages of development are assumed, representing the originality of either the form or the order of this development. It doesn’t even occur to them, for example, that Russia, standing on the border of civilized countries and countries for the first time finally drawn into civilization by this war, countries of the entire East, countries outside Europe, that Russia therefore could and should have shown some peculiarities that lie, of course, along the general line of world development, but distinguishing its revolution from all previous Western European countries and introducing some partial innovations in the transition to the countries of the East.

* - with corresponding changes. Ed.

380 V. I. LENIN

For example, their argument is endlessly stereotyped, which they learned by heart during the development of Western European Social Democracy, and which consists in the fact that we have not matured to socialism, that we do not have, as various "learned" gentlemen of them put it, objective economic prerequisites for socialism. And it never occurs to anyone to ask themselves: could not the people, faced with a revolutionary situation such as that which took shape in the first imperialist war, could not, under the influence of the hopelessness of their situation, rush into such a struggle that at least some chances opened up to him to conquer not quite ordinary conditions for the further growth of civilization?

"Russia has not reached such a height of development of the productive forces at which socialism is possible." With this position, all the heroes of the Second International, including, of course, Sukhanov, rush about, truly, as with a hand-written sack. They chew this indisputable proposition in a thousand ways, and it seems to them that it is decisive for the evaluation of our revolution.

Well, what if the uniqueness of the situation has placed Russia, firstly, in an imperialist world war, in which all the least influential Western European countries are involved, has put its development on the verge of the revolutions of the East that are beginning and have already partially begun, in such conditions when we could carry out precisely that alliance of the "peasant war" with the workers' movement, about which, as one of the possible prospects, such a "Marxist" as Marx wrote in 1856 in relation to Prussia?

What if the complete hopelessness of the situation, thereby multiplying the strength of the workers and peasants tenfold, opened up to us the possibility of a different transition to the creation of the basic premises of civilization than in all the other Western European states? Has this changed common line development of world history? Did this change the basic correlations of the main classes in

ABOUT OUR REVOLUTION 381

every state that is drawn and drawn into the general course of world history?

If a certain level of culture is required for the creation of socialism (although no one can say exactly what this particular "level of culture" is, for it is different in each of the Western European states), then why should we not start at first by conquering by revolutionary means the prerequisites for this certain level, a after already, on the basis of worker-peasant power and the Soviet system, to move to catch up with other peoples.

To create socialism, you say, civility is required. Very well. Well, why couldn't we first create such preconditions for civilization in our own country, as the expulsion of the landowners and the expulsion of the Russian capitalists, and only then begin to move towards socialism? In what books have you read that such modifications of the usual historical order are unacceptable or impossible?

I remember Napoleon wrote: "On s" engage et puis ... on voit ". In a free Russian translation, this means:" First you need to get involved in a serious battle, and then you'll see. "So we got involved first in October 1917 into a serious battle, and there they already saw such details of development (from the point of view of world history, these are undoubtedly details), such as Brest Peace or NEP, etc. And at the present time there is no longer any doubt that in the main we have won.

Our Sukhanovs, not to mention the Social-Democrats standing to the right of them, never dream that otherwise revolutions cannot be made at all. Our European philistines never even dream that further revolutions in the countries of the East, immeasurably richer in population and immeasurably more diverse in social conditions, will undoubtedly present them with more originality than the Russian revolution.

382 V. I. LENIN

Needless to say, the textbook written according to Kautsky was a very useful thing for its time. But it is time to give up the idea that this textbook provided for all forms of development of further world history. Those who think so, it would be timely to declare simply fools.

Published according to the secretary's note (typewritten copy), verified with the text of the newspaper

HOW WE REORGANIZE THE RABKRIN

(PROPOSAL TO THE XII CONGRESS OF THE PARTY) 216

How did we act in the more dangerous moments of the civil war?

We concentrated our best party forces in the Red Army; we resorted to mobilizing the best of our workers; we looked for new strength to where the deepest root of our dictatorship lies.

In the same direction, we should, in my opinion, look for the source of the reorganization of the Rabkrin. I propose to our Twelfth Party Congress to adopt

384 V. I. LENIN

the next plan for such a reorganization, based on a kind of expansion of our Central Control Commission.

In my opinion, such a combination of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee with the Central Control Commission will be of benefit to both of these institutions. On the one hand, Rabkrin will gain such high prestige in this way that it will become at least as good as our NKID. On the other hand, our Central Committee, together with the Central Control Commission, will definitively set out on that road of transformation into the highest Party conference, on which it has, in essence, already embarked and along which it must go to the end in order to fulfill its tasks correctly, in two respects: planned, expedient and systematic in its organization and work, and in connection with the truly broad masses through the best of our workers and peasants.

HOW WE REORGANIZE RABKRIN 385

I foresee one objection, coming either directly or indirectly from those spheres that make our apparatus old, i.e., from those who advocate keeping our apparatus in the same impossibly, obscenely pre-revolutionary form in which it remains to this day (by the way, , we have now received a rather rare case in history to set the time limits necessary for the production of fundamental social changes, and we now clearly see that what can be done in five years and for which much longer periods are needed).

I am sure that reducing the number of employees to the figure I have indicated will improve the quality many times over.

386 V. I. LENIN

On the other hand, I also think that the People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee will have to work on, partly, merging, partly, coordinating those higher institutions for the organization of labor (the Central Institute of Labor, the Institute for the Scientific Organization of Labor, etc.), which we now have in the republic is not less than 12. Excessive monotony and the resulting desire for merger will be harmful. On the contrary, here it is necessary to find a reasonable and expedient medium between the merging of all these institutions together and their correct delimitation, provided that each of these institutions is known to be independent.

The People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, together with the Presidium of the Central Control Commission, will have to establish the distribution of the work of its members from the point of view of their obligation to attend the Politburo and check all the documents that one way or another go to its consideration, or from the point of view of their obligation to devote their working time to theoretical training, the study of scientific organization of labor, or from the point of view of their obligation to practically participate in the control and improvement of our state apparatus, starting with the highest state institutions and ending with the lowest local ones, etc.

HOW WE REORGANIZE RABKRIN 387

388 V. I. LENIN

Published according to the secretary's note (typewritten copy), verified with the text of the newspaper

BETTER LESS, YES BETTER

On the question of improving our state apparatus, the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, in my opinion, should not chase numbers and not rush. So far we have had so little time to think and take care of the quality of our state apparatus, that it would be legitimate to concern ourselves with especially serious preparation of it, with the concentration in the Workers' Committee of human material of really modern quality, i.e., not lagging behind the best Western European models. Of course, for a socialist republic this condition is too modest. But the first five years did fill our heads with mistrust and skepticism. We involuntarily tend to be imbued with this quality in relation to those who talk too much and too lightly, for example, about "proletarian" culture: we would have to start with a real bourgeois culture, we would have to do without the especially terry types of cultures of the pre-bourgeois order to begin with, that ie bureaucratic culture, or serf culture, etc. In matters of culture, haste and sweeping are the most harmful. This is something that many of our young writers and communists ought to have wound up well on their mustaches.

And now, on the question of the state apparatus, we must now draw the conclusion from previous experience that it would be better to slow down.

390 V. I. LENIN

No, we have ridiculously few such apparatus and even its elements, and we must remember that to create it one should not spare time and must spend many, many, many years.

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And here we must not forget that we are still too inclined to compensate for this knowledge (or imagine that it can be compensated) by diligence, haste, etc.

We must by all means set ourselves the task of renewing our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study and then check that science among us does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase ( and this, there is nothing to hide a sin, happens especially often with us), so that science really enters into flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way. In a word, we need to present not the demands that bourgeois Western Europe makes, but those that are worthy and decent to present to a country that sets itself the task of developing into a socialist country.

The conclusion from what has been said is that we must make the Rabkrin, as a tool for improving our apparatus, a truly exemplary institution.

In order for it to reach the required height, you need to adhere to the rule: try on seven times, cut once.

For this, it is necessary that the really best that is in our social system, with the greatest caution, deliberation, awareness, be applied to the creation of a new people's commissariat.

392 V. I. LENIN

difficulties and were not afraid of any struggle to achieve a seriously set goal.

Finally, it needs to be different.

I believe that the time has finally come for our state apparatus, when we must work on it properly, with all seriousness, and when perhaps the most harmful feature of this work will be

* See this volume, pp. 383 - 388. Ed.

BETTER LESS. YES BETTER 393

haste. Therefore, I would strongly caution against increasing these figures. On the contrary, in my opinion, here one should be especially stingy with numbers. Let's speak directly. The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Committee does not now enjoy a shadow of authority. Everyone knows that there are no institutions worse than those of our Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, and that under present-day conditions there is nothing to ask of this people's commissariat. We must firmly remember this if we really want to set ourselves the goal of developing an institution in a few years, which, firstly, must be exemplary, secondly, must inspire unconditional confidence in everyone and, thirdly, prove to anyone and everyone that we really justified the work of such a lofty institution as the Central Control Commission. Any general norms for the number of employees, in my opinion, should be expelled immediately and irrevocably. We must select employees of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection in a very special way and only on the basis of the strictest test. Why, in fact, make up a people's commissariat in which work would be carried out somehow, again without inspiring the slightest confidence in itself, in which the word would enjoy infinitesimal authority? I think that avoiding this is our main task in the kind of restructuring that we now have in mind.

secondly, they must pass the test of knowledge of our state apparatus;

394 V. I. LENIN

thirdly, they must pass the test of knowledge of the foundations of the theory on the question of our state apparatus, of knowledge of the foundations of the science of management, office work, etc.;

fourthly, they must work with the members of the Central Control Commission and with their secretariat so that we can vouch for the work of this entire apparatus as a whole.

If you do not stock up on patience, if you do not put a few years into this matter, then it is better not to take it at all.

In my opinion, from those institutions that we have already baked up in terms of higher institutions of labor and so on, choose a minimum, test a completely serious formulation and continue work only so that it really stands at the height of modern science and gives us all its support. Then, in a few years, it will not be utopian to hope for an institution that will be able to do its job, namely, systematically, steadily work, enjoying the confidence of the working class, the Russian Communist Party and the entire mass of the population of our republic, to improve our state apparatus.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 395

Basically, the question here is:

Send several trained and conscientious persons to Germany or England to collect literature and study this issue. I name England in case sending to America or Canada would be impossible.

396 V. I. LENIN

Appoint a commission to draw up the initial program of examinations for a candidate for the employees of the Rabkrin; also - for a candidate member of the Central Control Commission.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 397

the work to which they intend to devote themselves, and practical exercises under the guidance of either old comrades or teachers of higher institutes of labor organization.

398 V. I. LENIN

In fact, why not combine the pleasant with the useful? Why not use some playful or half-joking prank to cover something funny, something harmful, something half funny, half harmful, etc.?

How can Party institutions be combined with Soviet ones? Is there anything unacceptable here?

I am raising this question not on my own behalf, but on behalf of those whom I hinted at above, saying that we have bureaucrats not only in Soviet, but also in Party institutions.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 399

many small and large questions about the "moves" on our part in response to the "moves" of the foreign powers, in preventing their, let's say, tricks, so as not to be expressed less decently? Isn't this flexible combination of the Soviet and the Party a source of extraordinary strength in our politics? I think that what has justified itself, established itself in our foreign policy and has already become a custom in such a way that there is no doubt in this area, will be at least as much appropriate (and I think it will be much more appropriate ) in relation to our entire state apparatus. But Rabkrin is devoted to our entire state apparatus, and its activities should concern all and sundry, without any exception, state institutions, both local, and central, and commercial, and purely bureaucratic, and educational, and archival, and theatrical, etc. in a word, all without the slightest exception.

400 V. I. LENIN

And therefore, our present way of life combines to an amazing degree the features of a desperately bold with timidity of thought in the face of the smallest changes.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 401

I think that it has never happened otherwise in any really great revolution, because really great revolutions are born out of contradictions between the old, between the development of the old and the most abstract striving for the new, which should already be so new that not a single grain of antiquity in he was not.

And the steeper this revolution, the longer the time will last when a whole series of such contradictions will persist.

The common feature of our way of life is now the following: we have destroyed capitalist industry, we have tried to destroy to the ground medieval institutions, landlordism, and on this basis we have created a small and tiny peasantry, which follows the proletariat out of confidence in the results of its revolutionary work. On this trust, however, it is not easy for us to hold out until the victory of the socialist revolution in the more developed countries, because the small and smallest peasantry, especially under the New Economic Policy, is kept, by economic necessity, at an extremely low level of labor productivity. Yes, and the international situation has caused Russia to be thrown back now, and that, on the whole, the productivity of people's labor in our country is now much lower than before the war. The Western European capitalist powers, partly consciously, partly spontaneously, did everything possible to throw us back, to use the elements of the civil war in Russia to ruin the country as much as possible. It was precisely such a way out of the imperialist war that, of course, seemed to have significant advantages: if we do not overthrow the revolutionary system in Russia, then, in any case, we will hinder its development towards socialism, - approximately, these powers reasoned, and from their point of view they could not reason otherwise. As a result, they received

402 V. I. LENIN

The system of international relations has now developed in such a way that in Europe one of the states is enslaved by the victorious states - this is Germany. Then, a number of states, and, moreover, the oldest states of the West, found themselves, by virtue of victory, in conditions where they can use this victory to make a number of insignificant concessions to their oppressed classes - concessions that, nevertheless, delay the revolutionary movement in them and create some semblance of a "social world".

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 403

What tactics are prescribed by this state of affairs for our country? Obviously, the following: we must exercise the utmost care to preserve our workers' power, to keep our small and smallest peasantry under its authority and under its leadership. It is a plus on our side that the whole world is already passing over to a movement which must give rise to a world socialist revolution. But on our side is the disadvantage that the imperialists have managed to split the whole world into two camps, and this split is complicated by the fact that it is now difficult for Germany, a country of really advanced cultural capitalist development, to rise to the last level. All the capitalist powers of the so-called West are pecking at it and do not let it rise. And on the other hand, the entire East, with its hundreds of millions of working, exploited population, brought to the last degree of human extremeness, is placed in conditions where its physical and material forces cannot be compared with the physical, material and military forces of any of the much smaller Western European states.

404 V. I. LENIN

and Western exploiters, in the camp of Japan and America?

The outcome of the struggle depends, in the final analysis, on the fact that Russia, India, China, etc. constitute the vast majority of the population. And it is precisely this majority of the population that has been drawn with extraordinary rapidity in recent years into the struggle for its liberation, so that in this sense there can be no shadow of doubt as to what the final solution of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the final victory of socialism is completely and unconditionally assured.

But we are not interested in this inevitability of the final victory of socialism. We are interested in the tactics that we, the Russian Communist Party, we, the Russian Soviet power, must adhere to in order to prevent the Western European counter-revolutionary states from crushing us. In order to ensure our existence until the next military clash between the counter-revolutionary imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the most civilized states of the world and the orientally backward states, which, however, constitute the majority, this majority must have time to become civilized. We, too, do not have enough civilization to pass directly to socialism, although we have the political prerequisites for this. We should stick to this tactic or adopt the following policy for our salvation.

BETTER LESS YES BETTER 405

public relations, all traces of any kind of excesses.

We must reduce our state apparatus to the maximum economy. We must expel from it all traces of excesses, of which so much remains from tsarist Russia, from its bureaucratic-capitalist apparatus.

Wouldn't this be a realm of peasant narrow-mindedness?

This is how I link in my thoughts the general plan of our work, our policy, our tactics, our strategy, with the tasks of the reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Committee. That, for me, is the justification for those exceptional concerns, that exceptional attention that we must devote to the Workers' and Peasants' Committee, placing it on an exceptional level, giving it a head with the rights of the Central Committee, etc., etc.

While the opposition has not crystallized ideas, I will write my own. Of course, no one will read them now, it’s just that in 3 years I’ll stick my nose into this post and I will be pleased.) This brief retelling of the dream is only my opinion, which does not contain any calls for a change of power.

In short, what does Russia need now? The answer is: Russia needs a CULTURE OF COMPETITION. This competition will start

when the elite dares to share their power and give part of it to the courts, part to the parliament, and (you will laugh) the media, will give them independence and freedom. Culture will appear after some time, as it appeared in business, when they realized that competing by killing rivals is somehow not ice. So in politics, competition will first be wild, yes, an example is Ukraine.

By the way, political competition can be “cultivated” regardless of the regime. Learn to negotiate with each other now.

And now about when the leadership will share its power? Never! To realize that part of the power belongs to them and to take it for themselves is the task of the BRANCH of power itself. The courts must realize their dependence, the parliament itself must be indignant at its subordinate role, the media must be indignant at their lured essence. Each branch of these theoretical authorities, by the way, has its own vertical and its own top, from where reform can proceed. Remember, you said that the revolution in Russia is possible only from above? So, what kind of conditional Zorkin can easily arrange it, a revolution in the sense of reforms in his department, which will entail cardinal changes in the country. And why, then, should civil society put pressure on the president and the government, and pin hopes for change only with them?

Freedom, as you know, is not given, but taken?) Right? Here, EVERY branch of government can and should take freedom for itself: parliament, court, and (you will laugh) the media. Moreover, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, they formally have this freedom. I simply strongly advise the leadership of these branches to observe our Constitution!

All the modern troubles of Russia, such as corruption, are just a consequence of the lack of a real separation of powers. The system is based on community, like they gathered the “right” guys and said: “Let's work harmoniously and well? One decision will be supported by the parliament and the court and the media.” Of course, theoretically it is faster and easier, but there is a minus: the system does not check its decisions for correctness, is not balanced and rapidly degrades due to this ease of operation.

So, we have come to the main key in our life, to the main question.

How to compete?

1. Eliminate the very possibility of competitors. (at this stage we are now).
2. If there are competitors, they can be eliminated by force. (For example: the 90s in business. In politics, this stage is just on the way).
3. You can compete according to civilized general rules. The outsider has a chance to start over. Conditions for all are equal. There is a certain cultural set of rules, the violation of which entails public censure and loss of reputation.

When will we come to the third stage, even if in business there is noticeable degradation to the second level? In fact, business has not yet reached a culture of competition, arbitration courts are inundated with lawsuits, the reputation, honor and dignity of an entrepreneur is still an unattainable thing in Russia. The administrative resource came into vogue as new method power competition.

A person competes in his life constantly and from birth. Parents seek to help him in this, "enter" the child in the institute, help him hang out from the army, even pick up a spouse, get him a job. But, you see, only when the person himself starts to compete successfully, he achieves something. ALL our life consists of continuous competition, and of course we do everything to make it easier for ourselves, we are happy to give a bribe instead of solving a difficult task, we are happy to accept the help of our parents.

And now (sharply) again about Puten, why do we blame him for competing in this way? He, like a normal person, chooses the easiest road, and our task is to become this road. Who are you, a grass that you can step on, or a taiga pine? Everything depends on civil society, be a forest, who forbids you? The rules of competition can be established by everyone, it is necessary to communicate and negotiate. Realize it.

The key to Russia's problems is competition, how we compete, by what methods, in what ways.
Think about my dream at your leisure)