The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments

Lenin’s political report to “The Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education Departments”. It was written on October 17, 1921 and was published in Bulletin No. 2 of the Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education Departments in October 1921. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 42 of the second revised edition of the Complete Works of Lenin.

The formulation of the New Economic Policy meant that the Soviet Russia has undergone a sharp change in the theoretical and practical issues of the transition to socialism, and it required the whole Party and the masses to adjust and unify their ideological understanding in order to fully implement the New Economic Policy. Therefore, on October 17-22, 1921, the Second Congress of the Russian Political Education Departments was held, and its main task was to approve the work plan of 1922 and formulate the ways and methods of mass agitation under the New Economic Policy. Lenin was elected honorary president of the Congress and made the report at the Congress. According to the economic reality and the evolution of the economic policy facing Russia, he repeatedly demonstrated the necessity of making further changes to the New Economic Policy and the task of the Russian Congress of Political Education Departments. The main points are as follows: (1) The New Economic Policy is an important step to correct mistakes in time and start a strategic retreat. Although “wartime communism” was an economic policy born out of the necessities of wartime situation, the idea of direct transition to communism, regardless of the objective conditions, was wrong and resulted in serious failures and consequences in practice. It showed that the economic policy determined by the leading group of Bolsheviks was out of touch with the whole Party member masses, which not only conflicted with the previous discussion that there must be a long and complex transition from capitalism to socialism, but also hindered the improvement of the productivity, which is the main reason for the serious economic and political crisis that erupted in the spring of 1921.

Lenin stressed that to avoid any defeat in building the Soviet Republics, a strategic retreat must be implemented in terms of Party and government’s program and policies. Lenin said: The New Economic Policy means substituting a tax for the requisitioning of food; it means reverting to capitalism to a considerable extent—to what extent we do not know. (2) In the process of the transition from the New Economic Policy to socialism, there is a fierce struggle between the socialist economic components and the capitalist economic components and the questions of “Who will win? The Capitalist or the Soviet Power?” is a matter of time. In order to win this struggle, the power of the proletariat must re-organize itself as soon as possible, develop the productivity of small farmers and restore agriculture. At the same time, proper control should be implemented upon the capitalists so as to bring capitalism into orbit of the state capitalism and better serve the country. On this basis, the Soviet Republic will survive by uniting the workers and peasants and rely on their consciousness and organization to defeat the capitalist forces with extensive international ties. Therefore, the implementation of grain tax policy (tax-in-kind) and concessions to peasants was a correct decision to rely on and unite with farmers, in order to recover and develop industry, improve people’s livelihood, consolidate the Soviet power and build socialism. (3) The political task of the Political Education Departments was “to properly describe and explain the New Economic Policy, the major political change that occurred in the world arena to the broad masses of Party members and to the masses of people, and educate them to have a profound understanding of production and distribution under the communist party leadership, in Russia which has suffered heavy economic losses and which was in dire poverty”. “We should make them realize that the New Economic Policy allows capitalism to recover and develop to a certain extent, which will help us in building socialism, and make them realize that for the masses this is in fact, working for their interests and which means that they are using their own strength to consolidate the country of workers and peasants”. The other most urgent task of the Political Education Departments was to fight against and defeat the three enemies among the party members: the communist conceit, illiteracy, and bribery. An illiterate person stands outside politics, and without basic level of knowledge beyond illiteracy, there can be no politics; without that there are rumours, gossip, fairy-tales and prejudices, but not politics. To be able to outline our political tasks to the people, to be able to say to the masses what things we must strive for, we must understand that a higher cultural level of the masses is what is required. This higher level we must achieve, otherwise it will be impossible really to solve our problems. We must not only abolish illiteracy and the bribery which persists on the soil of illiteracy, but we must get the people really to accept our propaganda, accept our guidance and understands our pamphlets, so that the result may be an improvement in the national economy.

On the basis of ideas which were included in his “On Grain Tax”, this work of Lenin further expounded the main differences between the New Economic Policy and the War Communism policy practiced before it, and the experience and lessons that should be learned from the past mistakes. It deepened the understanding of the party members and cadres on the necessity and the correctness of implementing the New Economic Policy and provided ideas and methods for the Russian Congress of Political Education Departments to correctly implement this major policy task under the guidance of law.