The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government

An important work in which Lenin discusses the guidelines, tasks and the program for the construction of socialism. Written in April 1918 and published in Pravda, issue No. 83, April 28,1918 and in the supplement to All-Russian Central Executive Committee News, issue No. 85. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 34 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

The Bolshevik Party skillfully used revolutionary compromise tactic so as to sign the “Brest Peace Treaty” with Germany and its allies, which enabled Soviet Russia to withdraw from the World War I as early as possible and to secure a brief breath of peace for the consolidation of Soviet state power and the concentration of efforts on the restoration of the national economy. Lenin dictated the first draft of the article "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government" between March 23-28, 1918 (the original text had no title, the title was added by the Russian editor). Lenin argued that the current main task was the building of the socialist economic foundation. However, different opinions had emerged in the Party, with Bukharin and colleagues as representatives. They had published “Outline on Current Situation” in the Communist issue No.1 (a journal of a small group of left communists) on April 20, 1918. Entrusted by the congress of the Party’s Central Committee, Lenin made a draft entitled as the “Outline of the Current Tasks of the Soviet Government”. On April 26, 1918, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (B) discussed and unanimously approved this Outline. Lenin refuted the criticisms by the left wing of the Social Revolutionary Party which argued that the Soviets compromised and reconciled with the bourgeoisie. He systematically explained the questions, new tasks and measures of the Soviets during transition period.

(1) First of all, Lenin clarified the international environment facing the Soviet Republic and the basic tasks of the socialist revolution: we must use the respite brought by the peace treaty to heal the wounds of the war and develop the economy. Russian socialist revolution was different from bourgeois revolution in that it creatively established a social organization system with planned production and distribution. Therefore, after the seizure of power and the suppression on the resistance of the exploiters was basically realized, the third urgent task of the socialist revolution, namely, organizing the administration of Russia, became the main and central task. This was the most difficult but result-yielding task. Only by completing this task could Russia be transitioned to socialism and become a socialist republic. (2) The general slogan for the current task is: keep regular and honest accounts of money, manage economically, do not be lazy, do not steal, observe the strictest labor discipline. (3) The struggle against the bourgeoisie has reached a new phase, that is, the establishment of a socialist economic foundation, which has created conditions under which the bourgeoisie could neither exist nor emerge. Among them, the decisive thing was the organization of the strictest and country-wide accounting and control of production and distribution of goods. We should require the Soviets to shift the center of gravity of economic and political work from the direct expropriation of the expropriators to the organization of accounting and control in enterprises. Therefore, it was necessary to attract bourgeois experts with various academic, technical and practical work experiences to participate in the socialist construction with high salaries and give full play to their guiding role. Through learning and utilizing bourgeois experts, we would train proletarian experts with the best labor discipline and advanced labor skills to move toward higher productivity and accelerate the transition to socialism on the basis of what capitalism has already achieved. (4) Lenin stated that the nation-wide accounting and control was an extremely great struggle of global significance and a socialist self-conscious struggle against bourgeois anarchism and spontaneity. (5) Lenin put achieving productivity higher than that of the capitalist society at the top task. Its conditions and specific measures were: to develop productivity with new technologies and to ensure the material foundation of large industries; to improve the cultural and educational level of the people; to strengthen discipline, skills, efficiency and labor intensity of the workers, and to improve labor organization; make use of all the progressive and valuable scientific and technological achievements of capitalism, including its latest achievement Taylorism. Lenin stressed that the realization of socialism depended on the combination of the Soviets and Soviet administration with the latest advances of capitalism. (6) Organizing socialist competitions was an important way to improve labor productivity. Competition in the economy among each production and consumption commune was more important than competition in the politics. The competition methods included reporting and the public release. Newspapers should become the tools of socialist construction. On the one hand, we should introduce the achievements of model communes in detail, analyze the reasons for their success and their management methods, give full play to the exemplary role and influence of model communes, and make them teachers and promoters of backward communes. On the other hand, those communes that stubbornly maintained the “capitalist tradition”, that is, anarchy, indolence, disorder and speculation, should be put on the “blacklist”. (7) During the transition from capitalism to socialism, we must implement the dictatorship of the proletariat. Firstly, we must use violence to ruthlessly suppress the resistance of exploiters and defeat and eradicate capitalism. Secondly, we must end the extremely unstable and chaotic social state caused by the civil war. To crack down on all criminal acts of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie, we must not rely solely on propaganda and competition, but must also rely on coercion. In socialist construction, the democratic spirit of the masses should be combined with the iron discipline at work. (8) Lenin clarified the socialist nature and characteristics of the Soviet democracy system, that is, proletarian democracy. Firstly, voters were exploited working people, excluding the bourgeoisie. Secondly, all bureaucratic procedures and restrictions in the election have been abolished, the people themselves could decide the procedure and date of the election, and they had full freedom to recall the elected. Thirdly, a vanguard of workers, the best mass organization of the big industrial proletariat, has been established to lead the masses to study and participate in the economy, social management and political life. This democracy was a higher level of democracy different from the bourgeois one. It was a transition to socialist democracy and to the conditions that could the state to begin to die out.

In this article, Lenin is the first to propose that the fundamental task of the proletariat after seizing power is economic construction and higher labor productivity than capitalism. He emphasizes the need to make use of the achievements of capitalism. This article is a classic document on socialist construction.