Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B)

Lenin’s report to the Eleventh Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B). It was written on March 27th, 1922, and was published in No. 1 “Bulletin of the Eleventh Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B)” on March 28, 1922. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 43 of the second edition of the Complete Works of Lenin.

The Eleventh Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B) was held in Moscow from March 27 to April 2, 1922; its mission was to summarize the first year of implementing the New Economic Policy and formulate plans for continuing to build socialism. Lenin delivered an opening speech and made a concluding speech of the political report of the Central Committee, which was the last Party Congress he attended. In the report, Lenin pointed out that the Russian Revolution, as an inalienable achievement, has been recorded in the history of breaking away from capitalism, a historic turning point in the world. The task now is to build the foundation of the socialist economy, which has not yet been achieved. He asked the main attention of the whole party to shift from the Genoa conference to the main political issue in Russia, namely, the New Economic Policy. Lenin summarized three practical experiences and lessons from the implementation of the New Economic Policy in the previous year and formulated the policy guidelines and working ideas for the economic construction in the new year:

(1) The importance of the New Economic Policy lies in that it can test whether the Soviet regime has really combined the new socialist economy with the peasant economy. The implementation of New Economic Policy is the only way to build socialist economy and establish the foundation of socialist economy in the countryside where the small and individual economy of farmers is dominant.

To combine the new economy with the peasant economy, it is necessary to prove to the peasants through action that the communists are actually helping them to get rid of bankruptcy, poverty and starvation. It is not only the basic, decisive and overwhelming task of the New Economic Policy and the basis of all policies, but also an examination to determine the fate of the New Economic Policy and the Russian communist regime. The main lesson of the implementation of the New Economic Policy in the past year is that the progress in this area is slow, and the combination with the peasant economy has not been achieved. (2) The key to the New Economic Policy is to check the economic management level of the communists through competition between state-owned enterprises and capitalist enterprises. Lenin pointed out that all the essence and urgent task of the New Economic Policy was that the communists must learn to use the commercial methods, that is, the capitalist methods to help the workers and the peasants, meet their needs and help them move forward. This was a decisive competition and struggle between the capitalist path and the socialist path. (3) The supplementary lessons learned was the problem leading the state capitalism policy of the New Economic Policy. The key to all the lessons learned in the last year since the implementation of the New Economic Policy was the improper arrangement of leading management personnel, because the Party members who were in the past responsible for the outstanding work of the revolution were now assigned to lead the industry and commerce that they knew nothing about, due to their lack of necessary management talents, they were led or fooled by bad elements, opportunist elements and private capitalists. Rather than leading the work, they were being led. Lenin asked the Party members in charge not to separate themselves from the masses in their work, learn the skills of management from scratch, correctly arrange their personnel and work, avoid minor conflicts, and make rational use of and promote state capitalism.

Lenin argued that the main lesson of the New Economic Policy in the past year was that there was no actual inspection of its implementation. He asserted that the work of the Party in 1922 should win the competition and fierce struggle against capitalism on the premise that there is no armed interference, financial crisis is not too serious and political mistakes are not made. The key to all the work is to redeploy forces and select the proper talents needed, and to check the actual implementation from three aspects, whether we have really achieved the integration with the peasant economy, whether we can win the competition with private capitalism, and whether we can learn to manage and control state capitalism. This is also what the people attach great importance to.

Lenin also discussed the problems existing in state organs and their reform measures. He argued that there was an abnormal relationship between the party and the Soviet organs and the high-level Soviet institutions. He proposed that the relationship between the people’s committees and the Political Bureau and the Central Committee should be straightened out, so that the Political Bureau and the Central Committee could be freed from trivial matters, and that the practice of looking for the Political Bureau and the Central Committee for any specific small matter should be stopped. To this end, Lenin proposed that we must expand and give full play to the autonomy and functions of regional economic conferences; enhance the prestige of the people’s committees, strengthen their responsible attitude towards their work, change the nature of the work of the people’s committees, and seize the whole key and essential thing of the current political situation, that is, to shift the focus to the selection of talents and the inspection of actual implementation.