How to Organize Competition

Lenin’s article on mass competition which aimed at improving labor productivity. It was written on December 24-27, 1917, and first published in Pravda issue No.17 on January 20, 1929. It was published on Vol. 26 of the first edition and Vol. 33 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

After the Russian proletariat seized power, the exploiting class who was overthrown launched an offensive attack against the Soviet government militarily and politically. At the same time, the exploiting class also used money to organize sabotage activities to wreck the economy. Lenin wrote this article to promote the smooth development of the economy and improvement of labor productivity and work efficiency.

Lenin analyzed the preconditions and significance of the competition: the Soviet carried out a series of socialist transformation activities, such as confiscation of the land, the introduction of workers’ control and the nationalization of the banks. By doing so, forced labor was replaced by labor for their own, which was the greatest change in human history and was also the premise of competition. Competition was an excellent form to engage the masses in socialist construction and to mobilize the initiative and creativity of workers. Lenin also clarified the importance of organizing workers to participate in management of and control over production and distribution: (1) The accounting and control of labor and product distribution was the essence of socialist transformation and is also the main economic task; (2) It was a necessary step in the transition to socialism and a guarantee to fight against the enemy, end all exploitation and poverty, and achieve socialist victory. (3) Competition should exist in the accounting and control of the distribution of labor and products so as to select people with organizing talents to participate in the management of the whole state.

Lenin attached great importance to the practice of building a socialist society by workers and peasants, opposed rigid formulas and various rigid practices prescribed from above, calling for a spirit of creativity in practice, creating and testing a million ways and methods of calculation and supervision, as the best means of fighting against the enemy, in order to purge the Russian land of all vermin and save Russia and promote the socialist cause.