Written: Written before November 13, 1922
Published:
First published on January 21, 1926 in Pravda No. 17.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
pages 585-587.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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• README
1. Not a reporter, but only a brief introduction to the debate (illness, etc.).[3]
2. The theme: has NEP been tested by experience? (The experience) for or against?
3. The question of “state capitalism” was touched on already in 1918.
4. Quotation from pamphlet.[4] Seite5.
[BOX: “State capitalism would be progress.” ]
5. Quotation: “5 elements” of the economy of Russia.
6. Quotation: which element predominates?[5]
7. What is the plan or idea or essence of NEP?
(α) Retention of the land in the hands of the state;
(β) the same for all commanding heights in the sphere
of means of production (transport, etc.);
(γ) freedom of trade in the sphere of petty production;
(δ) state capitalism in the sense of attracting private
capital (both concessions and mixed companies).
8. The result follows: in 1918 retreat was assured.
9. We have been alone for 5 years; there is as yet no revolution in any other countries; war and hunger. Shall we perish?
10. To retreat a little. We retreated. Results?
11. Spring of 1921[1] —to autumn of 1922. What results?
12. The ruble. Its stabilisation
< 3 months 1921
> 5 months 1922
We are getting back on our feet alone, without help.
(Quadrillion? Yes, but it won’t take long to strike
out.)
13. The peasantry? The tax in kind (successful collection; hundreds of millions).
14. Light industry? General revival.
15. Heavy industry?
Very grave situation.
A turn for the better 1921–22, but very slight.
(Revenue of the State Bank: 20 mln. in gold, possibility
of helping.)
16. Summing up: this means success is possible, there
is in fact success.
A system which is not arbitrary, not
muddled, practically tested.
We are getting back on our feet alone,
without outside help.
17. The difficulties are very great and will continue to
be for another few years.
Mass of stupidities. Yes. Untrodden path.
No help, on the contrary.
An alien machinery.
Our stupidities 2x2=5.
“Their” stupidities 2x2=a tallow candle.
1) Kolchak
2) Peace of
Versailles.
}}
18. Therefore
the prospects are excellent.
And will be even better if both
we use the next five-year period mainly
for study
and the Communist International,
since the resolution on organisational structure of
the parties (1921) has not been carried
out.[6]
Prospects
...will be even better.
The title:
| “on the organisational structure of the Communist Parties” || “on methods and content of their work ” Organisatorischer Aufbau der kommunistischen Parteien, Methoden und Inhalt ihrer Arbeit.
Speech at Comintern on Nov. 13, 1922
[1] The MS. erroneously says 1911.—Ed.
[2] The plan for Lenin’s report “Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution”, which he read in German at the morning sitting of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern on November 13, 1922 (see present edition, Vol. 33, pp. 418–32).
[3] Lenin was named the chief rapporteur in the list of speakers on the question of “Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution”, but in view of his prolonged illness (from May 26 to October 2, 1922), he was unable to give a big report on the whole subject, which is why he intended to make a short introductory speech to the debate on one aspect of the subject, namely, the question of NEP.
[4] A reference to the quotation from Lenin’s article “‘Left-Wing’ Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality” (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 334–35). He must have taken it from the pamphlet The Main Task of Our Day; “Left-Wing” Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality (published by the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Red Army Deputies, 1918, p. 16). A copy of the pamphlet, with the underlined passages mentioned by Lenin in the plan of his report and in the report at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, is now at the Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.
[5] See present edition, Vol. 27, p. 336.
[6] A reference to the resolution “On the Organisational Structure of the Communist Parties, and on the Methods and Content of Their Activities”, = adopted by the Third Congress of the Comintern in 1921. For Lenin’s detailed statement on the resolution, see present edition, Vol. 33, pp. 430–32.
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