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 On the activities of Lenin in 1917-1922

DIGEST OF ARTICLES, MOSCOW 1958

Kh.G. Beriketov

THE STRUGGLE OF V. I. LENIN FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF THE LEADING ROLE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY IN THE INITIAL PERIOD OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
(1921 - March 1922)

The great experience of building socialism in the USSR and the people's democracies irrefutably proves the correctness of the main conclusion of Marxism-Leninism that the working class can liberate itself and all working people from the yoke of capitalism and build a socialist society only if it establishes and strengthens its dictatorship, the leading and guiding force of which is the Communist Party, armed with advanced theory, expressing the vital interests of the people and inextricably linked with them.

“By educating a workers’ party,” wrote V. I. Lenin on the eve of the October Socialist Revolution, “Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of taking power and leading the entire people to socialism, directing and organizing a new system, being a teacher, leader, leader of all working and exploited in organization of their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie” 1 .

Created and nurtured by Lenin, the Communist Party of our country in its more than half a century of history has proved in practice that it is a powerful weapon for the revolutionary transformation of society, a true leader and organizer of the building of communism.

The transformative role of the party's political, organizational and educational activities is revealed with particular clarity during periods of sharp turns in the struggle to build socialism and communism.

One such turn in the development of our country was the transition of the Soviet state from civil war to peaceful economic construction. The implementation of this transition demanded from the Communist Party an enormous effort of all its forces, the solution of large and extremely complex tasks of strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and restoring the country's productive forces destroyed by the war.

The solution of these tasks was impossible without the further strengthening of the party itself and the enhancement of its leading role in all areas of socialist construction.

The leading and guiding role of the Communist Party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat is manifested primarily in the fact that, as the vanguard of the working class, it determines the policy of the socialist state, the content and direction of the activities of all organs of state power and public organizations. Thus, the policy of the Communist Party is the vital basis for the development of socialist society.

During the years of the civil war and foreign military intervention, the working class and the working masses of the peasantry were able to defend and defend the gains of the socialist revolution due to the fact that the policy of war communism carried out by the Communist Party ensured the mobilization of all the country's resources to defeat the enemy, contributed to the strengthening of the military-political alliance of the working class and the peasantry in the struggle against landlords and capitalists. However, with the transition to peaceful economic construction, the policy of war communism no longer corresponded to the new conditions and tasks. Life itself brought every day more and more confirmation that war communism has outlived itself economically and politically.

The Soviet country was moving to peaceful labor in the conditions of deep post-war economic devastation. By the end of the civil war, large-scale industry produced products 7 times less than before the war. In the difficult winter of 1920-1921, the situation in industry became even more aggravated - one after another, important enterprises stopped in Moscow, Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Donbass, in the Urals and in other industrial centers. Transport was paralyzed, and it became more and more difficult to establish economic ties between the various economic regions of the country. The sown area in 1920 was reduced by almost half compared to pre-war. The productivity of cultivated areas has significantly decreased. There was a decline in the peasant economy.

The discontent of the middle peasantry arose on the basis of economic ruin and the implementation of food distribution. The rural bourgeoisie tried to use this discontent to break the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism, organizing anti-Soviet uprisings for this purpose. The counter-revolution sought to oppose the working masses to the Communist Party and liquidate Soviet power, using the slogans of petty-bourgeois democracy. The Kronstadt rebellion, raised by the Western imperialists and the remnants of the defeated bands of monarchists, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, was one of the links in the chain of atrocities of the counter-revolution.

The intensification of the petty-bourgeois element threatened to overwhelm the working class, which had been significantly weakened by the war, economic ruin, hunger, cold, disease and other hardships, which fell upon it most of all.

Thus, the economic and political situation of the country showed that the working class and the working peasantry faced a real danger of losing the gains of the socialist revolution that they had achieved and defended at the cost of the greatest sacrifices and trials. This could only be prevented by an immediate change in the economic policy of the Soviet state, the implementation of a policy that would correspond to the new post-war conditions and tasks of socialist construction. These problems could only be resolved by raising and strengthening the leading role of the Communist Party. Therefore, all the power of the theoretical and organizational genius of V. I. Lenin was concentrated at that time on the solution of this main task.

One of V. I. Lenin’s greatest services to the Communist Party, the Soviet people and the entire international communist and workers’ movement consists in revealing the objective laws of socialist construction, in developing and profoundly substantiating the party’s policy during the transitional period and the methods of its leading activity.

In developing theoretically and putting into practice the main measures that would ensure the implementation of a sharp and sharp turn in economic policy, and preparing the party for this turn, Lenin proceeded primarily from a scientific analysis of the relationship between the working class and the peasantry, for, as he emphasized, the correct definition of "the relationship between classes 2 , without which there is no Marxism , without which the Party cannot exercise correct political leadership of the working class and the masses of the peasantry. Consequently, a correct assessment of the state of class relations was the most important prerequisite for the development of an appropriate policy to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat and increase the leading role of the party in the new historical conditions.

Lenin taught the party to constantly remember that the question of the relationship between the working class and the peasantry in the country was the fundamental question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the fundamental problem of the revolution. The working class, Lenin pointed out, as the vanguard of all working people, in exercising its dictatorship, will not be able to achieve its goals without a firm alliance with the working masses of the peasantry. Emphasizing this, Lenin wrote: "The highest principle of the dictatorship is the maintenance of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, so that it can retain its leading role and state power . "

The question of ways to strengthen the alliance of the working class and the working peasantry on a new economic basis was repeatedly discussed in February and early March 1921 at meetings of the Politburo and plenums of the Central Committee of the party, held under the leadership of V. I. Lenin. On February 8, V. I. Lenin wrote the famous “Preliminary Draft Theses on the Peasants”, which gave guidance to the commission assigned by the Central Committee to prepare a draft decision of the 10th Party Congress on replacing the surplus appropriation with a food tax.

The 10th Party Congress, which opened on March 8, 1921, guided by Lenin's instructions, decided to switch to the New Economic Policy, which determined the only correct way to build socialism. This historic decision made it possible for the Communist Party to solve important tasks of socialist construction in the conditions of the transition from war communism to the new economic policy.

Allowing freedom of trade and trade, while maintaining all commanding heights in the hands of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the new economic policy gave the peasantry the necessary incentive to develop the productive forces of agriculture, which was of decisive importance for laying an economic foundation for the alliance of workers and peasants and for restoring large-scale industry - material bases of socialism.

The adoption of the New Economic Policy, designed for an entire historical period, was of the greatest importance for our Party and was a vivid manifestation of its leading role in the conditions of peaceful socialist construction.

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V. I. Lenin substantiated that in order to strengthen its leading role, the Communist Party must also resolve the most important questions of inner-party life and leadership of the working class and other working masses. He showed that the party cannot strengthen its leading role without ensuring the unity of its own ranks, this tried and true means of increasing its political and organizational leadership. Lenin at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) emphasized the particular importance of the unity of the party in the peculiar conditions of Soviet Russia, in which the overwhelming majority of the population was made up of petty-bourgeois peasant masses.

Only the class solidarity of the proletariat gave it the opportunity to resist the petty-bourgeois elements and lead the peasantry, transferring it to the path of building socialism.

This solidarity is achieved wholly by preserving and strengthening the unity of the ranks of the conscious vanguard of the proletariat—its Communist Party.

V. I. Lenin showed that unity in the party can be ensured only on the basis of high principles in theory, practice and the conduct of party policy. Not blunting the party's policy and adapting it to opportunism, but a policy of principle sustained to the end, ensuring the unity of the political, theoretical and organizational foundations of the party on the basis of Marxism, and an uncompromising struggle against opportunism could ensure the necessary unity of the party.

In the struggle to strengthen the unity of its ranks, the party gave a resolute rebuff to all factionalists who spoke both during the period of the trade union discussion and at the Tenth Party Congress with special anti-party platforms, which denied the decisive role of the leading role of the Communist Party, its methods and means of drawing the working people into socialist construction, and consequently the possibility of building socialism in our country.

V. I. Lenin subjected to annihilating criticism all opportunist groups and elements in the ranks of the party. In a fierce struggle against opportunism, he rallied all the healthy forces of the Party, which stood unshakably on the positions of Marxism in theory and tactics. At his suggestion, the 10th Party Congress adopted decisions aimed at strengthening the unity of the Party's ranks.

In the resolution “On the Unity of the Party”, the 10th Congress drew “the attention of all members of the Party to the fact that the unity and cohesion of its ranks, ensuring complete trust among the members of the Party and really friendly work, really embodying the unity of the will of the vanguard of the proletariat, is especially necessary at the present moment, when a number of circumstances intensify the vacillation among the petty-bourgeois population of the country. The decision says that the congress orders “immediately disbanding all, without exception, groups formed on one platform or another, and instructs all organizations to strictly monitor the prevention of any factional actions. Failure to comply with this decision of the congress should lead to unconditional and immediate expulsion from the party.

In a special resolution of the Tenth Congress, the "workers' opposition" was characterized as an anarcho-syndicalist deviation in the party, and its demands were declared "fundamentally wrong theoretically, being a complete break with Marxism and communism", in connection with which the congress decided to consider "the propaganda of these ideas incompatible with belonging to the Russian Communist Party” 4 .

V. I. Lenin believed that the party could not achieve iron unity and could not act as a single, cohesive vanguard of the working class without the same responsibility of both the rank-and-file and leading party leaders for the preservation of the monolithic unity of the party ranks. At Lenin's suggestion, the 10th Congress, in the resolution "On the Unity of the Party," adopted a special paragraph 7, which established strict discipline and responsibility for all members of the Party for violating the unity of its ranks.

In making such decisions, the party at the same time declared that the strengthening of the unity of its ranks must be achieved not only by establishing prohibitive measures against oppositions and deviations, but also by organizing broad and highly ideological political work in the party, helping to raise the political level of the communists and exposing the theoretical inconsistency and political harm of platforms and views of opposition groups. In direct connection with this are the decisions of the Tenth Congress on questions of strengthening ideological work in the Party, expanding the network of Soviet Party schools and circles for political education.

V. I. Lenin, in his report at the Tenth Congress on the unity of the party and the anarcho-syndicalist deviation, pointed out the inadmissibility of mixing political struggle with discussions on theoretical questions. "It is one thing," said V. I. Lenin at the Tenth Congress, "a theoretical discussion; another thing is the political line of the party, the political struggle . " The exchange of opinions on theoretical issues contributes to the development of theoretical thought and the generalization of practical experience. It must proceed within the framework of the party spirit and program provisions, on the basis of the revolutionary theory of Marxism, and meet the interests of the party, strengthen the unity of the ranks and enhance its leading role.

Thus, Lenin demanded the unconditional unity of the ranks of the party in the main and fundamental - in revolutionary theory, the implementation of the policy of the party, in the implementation of the programmatic tasks of the political struggle. At the same time, "any business proposals should be considered with the greatest attention and tested in practical work" 6 .

The 10th Congress, in its resolution on the unity of the Party, emphasized that in the face of serious trials, great difficulties, in making a sharp historical turn, it must unite its ranks even more closely, thereby ensuring unity of action and an unshakable will to achieve the set goal.

The defeat of the factional groups was a vivid expression of the party's rallying around the historical tasks put forward by Lenin, a demonstration of the party's readiness for a selfless struggle for the triumph of socialism.

One of the most important measures to strengthen the unity of the ranks of the Party and ensure the implementation of its policy was the purge of the Party. It flowed from Lenin's teaching on the organizational foundations of the Communist Party. Lenin taught that a party is strengthened by purging its ranks of opportunists, careerists, and alien elements. It is strong not by the number of its members, but above all by its qualitative composition, namely by the proletarian composition, firmly standing on the positions of Marxism.

The opportunists who had not disarmed remained in the Party even after the Tenth Congress. Members of the former "workers' opposition" - Shlyapnikov, Medvedev, Kollontai, Myasnikov continued to carry out subversive work against the unity of the party. The splitters tried to create for themselves a support in the party from unstable, alien elements, former Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had penetrated into the ranks of the party. The gross violation by the oppositionists of the resolutions of the 10th Congress on the unity of the Party and their sabotage of the policy pursued by the Party confirmed the correctness of the resolution of the 10th Congress on the need to purge the ranks of the Party.

On May 31, 1921, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Party discussed the issue of carrying out a purge and instructed the Secretariat of the Central Committee to prepare practical proposals on this issue, to instruct Party organizations to be very careful when admitting them in order to prevent half-Menshevik and half-SR elements from entering the Party .

The Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b), in their resolution of June 25, 1921, determined that all members of the party were to be purged, but special attention should be paid to people from other parties and the old bureaucracy, to Soviet employees. The main spearhead of the party purge was directed against such non-proletarian elements, since it was from their side that the danger of ideological vacillation and violation of party unity threatened the party most of all. To carry out the purge of the party, a Central Inspection Commission was created, as well as local commissions.

At the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, the Central Committee decided that the purge should be carried out by politically mature communists with experience in party work, who know better the norms of party life and the requirements for party members. The Central Committee introduced to the provincial and district inspection commissions old communists, hardened in the political struggle of the party, as well as rank and file members of the party from cadre workers. So, for example, eight people were sent from the Ivanovo-Voznesensk provincial party organization as chairmen of local inspection commissions to Penza, Simbirsk and other provincial organizations, 13 people were sent from Moscow to other provincial organizations, and 16 people from Petrograd.

The decision of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b) on carrying out a purge was met by the party organizations with a full understanding of the importance of its significance. With an understanding of their great responsibility, they began an organized cleansing on the ground.

Party meetings were convened, at which questions about the goals, tasks and procedure for carrying out the purge were discussed. Questions about the purge of the Party were also discussed everywhere and at workers' meetings. Thus, for example, in Orekhovo-Zuevsky uyezd, Moscow province, workers' meetings were held at 12 enterprises 8 . At the meetings it was explained that the Party was openly and fearlessly conducting the strictest examination of its ranks before its own class with the aim of further strengthening unity, drawing closer to the working masses, and more firmly and successfully fulfilling the role of the political leader of the working class and all working people.

V. I. Lenin closely followed the course of the purge. He pointed out to commissions and party organizations that expulsion from the party was the highest measure of party punishment and called for it to be applied with all caution and only when it was thoroughly considered and proved that it was necessary in the interests of the party. At the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, the Moscow Provincial Commission discussed for the second time the question of the expulsion of one of the party members in the cell of the People's Commissariat for Education. As it was established, he was expelled from the party without sufficient clarification of all the necessary data, on the basis of slander by subordinates who planned to remove him from the apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Education for exacting work. As a result of Lenin's intervention and a secondary check, the decision to expel an employee of the People's Commissariat for Education from the party was canceled and he was reinstated in the ranks of party members.9 .

An important role was played by V. I. Lenin's article "On the purge of the party", published in the newspaper "Pravda" on September 21, 1921. In it, Lenin noted that the purge had developed into serious and gigantic work for the entire party. It was one of the important means of enhancing the leading role of the party.

The purge, Lenin wrote, would make the party much stronger than it was before, the vanguard of the class, more firmly connected to it and more capable of leading it to victory amid a host of difficulties and dangers. He pointed out that the purge would achieve its main goal if elements clinging to it from mercenary motives, mazuriks, bureaucratized officials, who put their own well-being and the serene course of their personal lives above the interests of the party and the working class, are removed from the party. Lenin once again drew attention to the fact that the spearhead of the purge should be directed against the former Mensheviks, who from 1903 fought against Bolshevism, eventually switched to armed struggle and, having suffered a severe defeat in it, began to adapt to the ruling party. “Every opportunist,” wrote Lenin, — is distinguished by adaptability (but not all adaptability is opportunism), and the Mensheviks, as opportunists, adapt themselves, so to speak, “out of principle” to the current prevailing among the workers, repaint themselves in a protective color, like a hare becomes white in winter. This peculiarity of the Mensheviks must be known and must be taken into account. And to take it into account means to clear the party to about ninety-nine hundredths of the total number of Mensheviks who joined the RCP after 1918, that is, when the victory of the Bolsheviks began to become at first probable, then indubitable.10 .

Along with this, V. I. Lenin showed the greatest concern for those advanced workers and the most politically mature peasants who, during the period of the purge and after it, aspired to join the ranks of the party. When discussing at a meeting of the Politburo of the PC RCP (b) on June 25, 1921, the issue of carrying out a purge, V.I. and peasants. The Central Committee decided not to close access to the party for workers, peasants and Red Army soldiers for the period of the purge.

V. I. Lenin drew attention to the existing cases of a simplified approach to the purge, which meant a reduction in requirements, and the transformation of the purge in some places into a formal procedure. This wrong attitude was manifested in the giving of recommendations by individual members of the party, undergoing a purge of the communists. On September 15, 1921, V. I. Lenin wrote to the secretariat of the Central Committee: “I hear from all sides that recommendations (on the matter of purges of the party) are being given right and left out of courtesy.

I propose that the circular of the Central Committee be published (by agreement and signed by the Central Control Commission and the Verification Commission).

(Text of the draft circular):

“Recommendations are only allowed to be given to those who have personally observed the work of the recommended person for at least a year, worked with him in one or another party organization.”

Lenin" 11 .

According to the decision of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated July 18, 1921, simultaneously with the purge, a re-registration of all communists began in order to replace the existing party cards with new ones after the end of the purge .

As a result of the purge and other measures, the working core increased, the proletarian social base of the party was strengthened, and its leading role in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat increased.

By carrying out the course outlined by the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), the party achieved a serious ideological and organizational consolidation of its ranks, and increased prestige and influence among the masses.

The purge was one of the most important measures taken under the leadership of V. I. Lenin to strengthen the leading role of the Communist Party.

Lenin urged the party not to confine itself to the results achieved during the period of the purge, but to continue the struggle for the purity of its ranks. He pointed out that the party could not consider its inner life in isolation from the environment, from the class struggle. The class struggle within the country during the transition to NEP was acute. A great danger was the influence of a hostile ideology. Therefore, Lenin demanded the introduction of stricter requirements for those joining the party, protecting it from unstable elements, the influx of Nepmen and their agents. In a letter to members of the Politburo on December 19, 1921, on the opening day of the XI Conference of the RCP (b), he proposed to establish by the decision of the party conference "more stringent conditions for admission to party membership" 13, to increase the candidate's experience, to approach the determination of the social status of applicants more differentiated. On March 24 and 26, 1922, he sent letters to the Central Committee, in which he insisted on submitting a proposal to the XI Party Congress on raising the requirements for admission to the party.

Lenin's propositions on the organizational principles of the Communist Party, his instructions on the fundamental importance of the question of membership in the Party, remain unshakable and obligatory for the Communist and Workers' Parties of all countries even at the present time.

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VI Lenin, in the struggle to strengthen the leading role of the party, attached great importance to the development of organizational principles and the improvement of the methods of party leadership. First of all, it was necessary to abandon the excessive centralism and certain restrictions on the democratic principles of party life that existed during the civil war.

V. I. Lenin substantiated that the party must move to a more consistent application of the principle of democratic centralism in its internal life and in exercising political leadership of the mass organizations of the working class and peasantry. This transition was one of the most important factors in the rise in the new historical conditions of the ideological and organizational level of Party work and the enhancement of the leading role of the Party. The principle of democratic centralism meant, as V. I. Lenin defined, that “all officials, all leading collegiums, all party institutions are elected, accountable, replaceable” 14 .

A striking expression of democratic centralism is the collective method of party leadership, carried out in all organs of the party. The strength of political leadership and the wisdom of the Party find their expression in collective work, in the joint elaboration of Party decisions. The Communist Party is the collective leader of the working class, the mind, honor and conscience of our era - such is the definition of V. I. Lenin.

The Communist Party arose and grew stronger under the leadership of Lenin, in a principled struggle against the idealization of the personality cult, exclusive rights for individual members of the party. V. I. Lenin enjoyed unlimited confidence in the party, the love of workers and working peasants. He regarded this trust as confirmation of the need to wholeheartedly serve the cause of communism and therefore worked with even greater energy, not sparing himself and devoting all his strength to the good of the working people.

V. I. Lenin resolutely rebelled against any honors, condemned all attempts to introduce servility into the party like Chekhov's wedding generals. He refused the title of a member of the Academic Council of the Socialist Academy, believing that in fact he would not be able to take a personal part in the work of the council 15 . When the Moscow Committee of the Party held a jubilee meeting in connection with the 50th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin, he opposed the delivery of eulogies and warned the party against ostentation in work, pointing out that for it and its leaders, arrogance, arrogance are the greatest danger .

V. I. Lenin always believed that the governing bodies should function in such a way as to ensure the implementation of the political line worked out and adopted by the party. They are obliged to explain to the masses the decisions of the congresses, to instruct the Party organizations, to inform the Communists, and to constantly keep in touch with the Party masses. Lenin attached great importance to the work of the Central Committee of the Party. He sought to ensure that all issues of political and organizational leadership were resolved only by the collective method of discussing them in the Central Committee - at meetings of the Politburo and at regular plenums of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Lenin considered the Central Committee of the RCP (b) as a permanent body of collective leadership,16 .

Emphasizing the enormous trust placed in the party by the working masses, as well as the trust of party members in their Central Committee, Lenin considered that election to the Central Committee "is a manifestation of the highest trust, more than which there can be in the party" 17 .

In carrying out the policy worked out by the party, he attached decisive importance to the personal composition of the leading party bodies.

At the same time, he sought to ensure the election to the Central Committee not only of the appropriate personal composition, but also to expand the number of its members for better implementation of the democratic principle of party leadership. At the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, the Tenth Party Congress elected 25 members to the Central Committee, increasing it by 6 members against the previous composition. The composition of candidates for membership of the Central Committee was also increased from 12 to 15 people. The Party Congress formed the Central Control Commission (CCC), which was entrusted with the task of fighting for the implementation of the decisions of the Congress on the unity of the Party ranks, for the observance of Party discipline and against the penetration of bureaucracy and careerism into the Party. The congress elected 7 members to the Central Control Commission.

V. I. Lenin believed that the joint work of an unprecedentedly large collegium of the central party leadership, consisting of 47 people, could ensure the preservation of the unity of the ranks of the party, which is the most important issue in intra-party life and the main condition for the party to exercise its organizing and leading role.

Attaching great importance to the organization of collegial work in the party, he strictly adhered to the principle of collective and comprehensive consideration of issues before making decisions on them. VT. I. Lenin is the organizer and leader of the party, a brilliant thinker. He saw the farthest, but never demanded a decision, the meaning of which was not yet clear to the majority of the members of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). He patiently and persistently prepared the members of the Central Committee for the adoption of the necessary resolution.

He believed that the collective method of making decisions would guarantee the party against one-sidedness, which could harm the party's policy and its practical activities.

Lenin never separated the collective method in party leadership from personal responsibility. He required that in joint work, each member of the governing body should have certain responsibilities and be responsible for them. This best ensures the practical implementation of the adopted decision and is the most important condition for the actual implementation of the collective leadership of the party organ.

Lenin's instructions formed the basis for the decisions of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) on questions of party building. The party moved from the excessive centralism exercised during the war to a more consistent implementation of intra-party democracy, as well as to strengthening the methods of education and persuasion in the leadership of mass organizations.

V. I. Lenin considered one of the main conditions for enhancing the vanguard role of the party in the period of peaceful socialist construction is the strengthening of its inseparable ties with the many millions of the working class and other working strata of the population.

Summarizing the experience of the party's leading activity during the first years of the dictatorship of the proletariat, V. I. Lenin emphasized the decisive importance of its closest connection with the masses, which is the vital foundation of the party. “... What keeps the discipline of the revolutionary party of the proletariat? how is it checked? what is supported? First, Lenin points out, the consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and its devotion to the revolution, its endurance, self-sacrifice, heroism. Secondly, by its ability to connect, to draw closer, to a certain extent, if you like, to merge with the broadest mass of working people, primarily the proletarian, but also with the non-proletarian working masses. Thirdly, the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided that18 .

The Communist Party, generalizing the experience of the historical activity of the popular masses, not only teaches the masses, but also learns from them. It enriches its theory with practical experience, and taking into account it, the party develops strategy and tactics, determines its further political line. The combination of the theory of scientific communism with the practical experience of the working class, of the working masses, contains the irresistible strength of the Communist Party.

Socialist construction, which is the highest manifestation of people's creativity, gives rise to and brings to life numerous forms of organization of the popular masses, through which the party of the working class maintains contact with all sections of the working people. Their activities unite, activate and direct the Communist Party, the vanguard that absorbed the revolutionary energy of the working class, towards a common goal. Lenin defined the mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, pointing out that it is impossible to implement dictatorship without several "drives" from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class and from it to the mass of working people.

The political leadership of the Communist Party is the lifeblood of these mass organizations, the guarantee that they will successfully serve the one common goal of building socialism and communism.

V. I. Lenin led the activities of the Central Committee in restructuring the work of mass organizations in accordance with the new historical situation and the set basic tasks of socialist construction.

On the question of the activities of the Soviets, V. I. Lenin declared that virtually all the work of the Party goes through the Soviets. They directly carry out the dictatorship of the proletariat, being the largest mass organization of workers and peasants. The Party, in the conditions of implementing the policy of peaceful socialist construction, influenced the peasant masses through local Soviets, strengthening them with representatives of the working class, communists, and activating the activity of rural, volost, district Soviets, which are closest to the working peasants. In this matter, the Party's decisions on Soviet construction played an important role, which put forward practical tasks and determined the methods of work of the Soviets under the conditions of the New Economic Policy, correctly combining the educational, economic, organizational and administrative functions of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

V. I. Lenin developed and substantiated the most important problems of Soviet construction. In the "Order of the Council of People's Commissars and the STO" in May 1921, in the directives of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) Narkompros, drawn up by Lenin, in his appeals to the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee and the compilers of the draft Soviet legislation, concern was shown for the all-round strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Soviet state apparatus as an instrument building socialism. The holding of re-elections of Soviets also contributed to the solution of these problems. After the re-elections, sections arose under the Soviets, in which numerous activists from the working masses were involved.

Along with the Soviets, the trade unions are also an important mechanism for the dictatorship of the proletariat; in 1921 they had up to 7 million members in their ranks. V. I. Lenin substantiated the role and tasks of the trade unions in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat as an amateur, most all-encompassing mass organization of the working class, as a school of communism and socialist management of the many millions of working masses. Through the trade unions, the party exercised its leadership even among the most backward sections of the working class. After the December Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in 1921, Lenin developed detailed theses of the Central Committee on the role and tasks of the trade unions in the conditions of the new economic policy. The theses outlined the basic principles of the relationship between the trade unions and economic bodies, the mass organization of the working class and the administration.

With the help of youth unions, the party carried out the education of the younger generation in the spirit of communism.

V. I. Lenin, in his speech at the Third Congress of the Communist Youth Union, put forward the program task set by the Communist Party for youth organizations. The subsequent organizational and political strengthening of the Komsomol turned it into a large mass organization for the education of working and peasant youth, numbering up to 415 thousand members in 1921, into an active conductor of the party line among the youth. The 10th Congress of the RCP (b) pointed to the need to strengthen the party leadership of the Komsomol, and established that all party members under the age of 20 should be members of the Komsomol and take an active part in its work.

In addition to the above organizations, cooperation is also an important mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With its help, the Party exercises its leadership of the working masses of the peasantry. Therefore, V. I. Lenin at the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) expressed confidence that consumer cooperation could become the most important means of re-educating the peasant masses, of organizing the influence of the working class on the petty-bourgeois sections of the working people in the countryside, one of the connecting links of the party with the peasant masses.

In the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the vital basis of all mass organizations of working people is the exercise of the leading role of the party, which, as Lenin pointed out, "corrects everything, appoints and builds according to one principle, so that the communist elements associated with the proletariat can imbue this proletariat with their spirit, subjugate it, free him from that bourgeois deceit which we have been trying to get rid of for so long .

Lenin headed the leadership of the Central Committee of the party for the restructuring of the work of party organizations, the state apparatus, mass organizations of the working class and peasantry.

The rise in the activity of the mass organizations of the working people showed the strengthening of the Party's ties with the masses and the growing importance of the Party's political leadership.

* * *

Lenin believed that after the political course had been worked out and adopted and the appropriate explanatory work had been carried out, all the organizational activities of the party, state bodies, and public organizations should be directed towards the achievement of the intended goal. Lenin pointed to the interdependence of decision-making and its implementation, demanded that issues be discussed jointly and establish personal responsibility for the implementation of decisions made.

As a serious shortcoming in the work of party, Soviet organizations during the transition to a new economic policy, Lenin considered the inability to discuss issues in a businesslike manner. “Rally, but govern without the slightest hesitation, govern more firmly than the capitalist ruled before you. Otherwise you won't defeat him,” 20 Lenin taught the communists and workers.

As a dangerous phenomenon capable of disorienting the party, the working masses, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin pointed to arrogance, complacency, hope for drift, everything that he called swagger, which is characteristic of people who have ceased to fight, deceived by past merits. “Communist swagger,” wrote V. I. Lenin, “means that a person, being a member of the Communist Party and not yet being purged from there, imagines that he can solve all his tasks by communist decrees” 21 .

Lenin sought to ensure that the Party's explanatory work among the masses was of a concrete nature, arising from the tasks of the New Economic Policy. It consisted in achieving not only the assimilation of the essence, purpose and methods of pursuing a new economic policy by all party organizations and communists, but also an understanding by the working masses, the main sections of the peasantry and their support for the new economic policy of the party as the only correct one for the country's exit from all difficulties and for building socialism.

V. I. Lenin pointed out that such an exertion of all forces was required from the Party in order to implement the New Economic Policy. which hasn't happened yet. Starting to write the pamphlet "On the Food Tax", Lenin briefly formulated the demand that was presented to the party, to all communists. At the end of March-beginning of April 1921, he wrote: “The most sober assessment of evil and difficulties.

Selflessness in the struggle” 22 .

In the unfolding work of the party to explain the course of the NEP in party organizations, among the workers and peasants, the works of V. I. Lenin, his speeches to the communists, the non-party masses, played an important role.

In his speeches, V. I. Lenin emphasized in particular the question of the danger to the cause of communism that the admission of private capital into economic construction poses. He thoroughly explained to Party organizations and workers that the mere temporary admission of private capital in industry, trade, the presence of small-scale peasant farming did not pose a danger if the working class retained large-scale industry, transport, the existence of a firm dictatorship of the proletariat, while maintaining state ownership of land and nationalized banking. He believed that under these conditions, the working class would be able to use the temporary admission of private capital in the interests of strengthening the economic and political positions of socialism, primarily for the restoration and development of large-scale industry,

V. I. Lenin pointed out that the admission of capitalist elements should be within certain limits, “everything in moderation and on certain conditions. What is this measure? Experience will show . "

The implementation of the New Economic Policy demanded from the party the greatest restraint and prudence, the most profound analysis of practical experience, so as not to bring the admission of private capital to a serious threat to the dictatorship of the proletariat, but at the same time use it in the interests of socialism.

V. I. Lenin believed that the new economic policy ensures the involvement in active socialist construction of all the peoples of the Soviet country, despite the fact that many of them were then still at a very low level of socio-economic development. Attention and great concern for the backward in the past, and especially the oppressed peoples, is imbued with the letter of V. I. Lenin dated April 14, 1921 “To Comrade Communists of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Dagestan, the Mountain Republic”. In it, Lenin stressed that the strengthening of Soviet power would create a pattern of national peace in the outlying areas, where pre-existing national enmity divided the forces of the working people. He put forward the immediate task for the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. “Immediately try to improve the situation of the peasants and begin large-scale work on electrification and irrigation.24 .

The task was to strengthen the leading role of the Party among the backward peoples by carrying out specific national economic measures in the border regions.

V. I. Lenin believed that one of the forms of manifestation of the leading role of the Communist Party is the selection and placement of leading cadres in all levels of party, state, economic bodies and in voluntary mass organizations of workers. The presence in all areas of party, state and economic development of people capable of actually carrying out the policy of the party, of providing leadership in the assigned area of ​​work, Lenin considered as the most important condition for success in the struggle for socialism. In accordance with this, he set before the Party the task of solving the problem of cadres not in general, but specifically, by selecting leaders on the basis of their business and political suitability.25 . Lenin proposed to establish in the apparatus of the Central Committee a personal account of the leading cadres of the party, dividing their composition according to their specialty and their positions. He gave directive instructions to the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Party on how to carry out the selection and promotion of cadres .

The new economic policy required the strengthening of local party, Soviet, economic and trade union organizations with the appropriate workers. The party took into account that politics is carried out by people and through people. Therefore, the strengthening of the decisive sectors of economic construction by worthy and capable workers was of great importance. V. I. Lenin wrote that “all workers, party and Soviet, must direct all their efforts, all their attention to create, call forth a great initiative of the places - provinces; even more counties; even more volosts and villages; - in the matter of economic construction, precisely from the point of view of immediately, even if by "small" means, on a small scale, the peasant economy, assistance to it in the development of small-scale, neighboring industry" 27 .

After the adoption of the New Economic Policy, after the Party had firmly determined the methods of socialist construction, the practical work of local organizations became of decisive importance for the actual fulfillment of the Party's vanguard role among the masses.

The Central Committee of the RCP (b) provided great assistance to local organizations with personnel, sending communists demobilized from the Red Army to work there, transferring workers from large industrial regions. By a decision of the Central Committee of June 2, 1921, the Moscow party organization was asked to select 500 communists for mobilization for work in other provinces 28 . The task of mobilizing the Communists was given to the Petrograd Committee of the Party and a number of other Party organizations in the industrial regions.

The Party organizations of the industrial regions, on the instructions of the Party, sent hundreds, thousands of communists and activist workers to the agricultural provinces.

Party organizations in the localities carried out a tremendous amount of work to explain the New Economic Policy and restructure their work.

Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Petrograd, Tula provincial party organizations, county, district party organizations and cells in the Moscow and Yekaterinburg provinces, as before, were in the forefront of our party. They were the closest support of the Central Committee in developing gigantic work to implement the party line.

After the 10th Congress of the RCP (b), the party bodies of provincial and district organizations were strengthened. The composition of the secretariat of the Moscow Committee 29 was strengthened . Fresh forces, hardened in the struggle against difficulties, the most mature communists, were nominated to the composition of the party committees. The activity of party cells intensified, their work was saturated with practical tasks for carrying out the NEP.

However, there were still difficulties in carrying out the NEP, which stemmed mainly from the fact that not all communists in the localities had assimilated the essence of the New Economic Policy.

The Tenth Conference of the RCP(b), held May 26-28, 1921, played an important role in further elucidating the essence of the New Economic Policy.

V. I. Lenin’s report on the tax in kind and the decision of the conference confirmed the correctness of the Party’s course of further strengthening the alliance between the working class and the peasantry as a decisive condition for eliminating economic disruption and building socialism on the basis of an economic bond between socialist industry and small-scale peasant farming. V. I. Lenin, on behalf of the party, declared at the conference that the new economic policy was introduced "in earnest and for a long time." The conference demanded that the local Party organizations proceed from this line and proceed more resolutely to the implementation of certain tasks of the New Economic Policy.

An additional clarification at the Tenth Party Conference on the essence and tasks of the New Economic Policy was of great importance. It was necessary to solve urgent practical problems, to collect grain and raw materials for the tax in kind and procure through cooperation, to use the state grain fund in a purely rational way to support large-scale industry, the decisive enterprises of the textile industry, and transport.

In the struggle against difficulties, Lenin pointed out, it is impossible to lose the political perspective, the goal for which the Party was fighting the difficulties—the prospect of socialism. At the conference, Lenin called on the party to overcome the difficulties associated with the transition to a tax in kind, and pointed out the decisive importance of the successful implementation of the tasks of economic construction for the victory of socialism and the fulfillment of the international duty of the RCP (b) to the international communist movement.

He put forward at the conference a number of practical tasks of the party's political and organizational work:

Party organizations must intensify their work to expose the hostile agitation of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who tried to portray the NEP as a reorientation of the RCP (b) towards the peasantry and to repulse the hostile agitation directed against the alliance of the working class with the peasantry.

To be vigilant against the intrigues of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were clandestinely agitating for the rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat in view of the temporary weakening of the class solidarity of the working class due to the disruption in large-scale industry.

V. I. Lenin urged the party to achieve greater concreteness in its work. Fewer meetings, congresses, declaratively expressing their approval of the policy of the party, and more practical work, closer to economic questions. “In the bourgeois system, the business was handled by the owners, and not by state bodies, but in our country the economic business is our common business. This is the most interesting policy for us,” 30 Lenin said.

Lenin emphasized in his speeches that “maximum attention should be shifted at congresses not to the study of general theses and programs of meetings, but to the study of practical experiments, examples of satisfactory and more than satisfactory, and pulling up to these rare, but available, backward and average places. that prevail" 31 . This is how V. I. Lenin characterized the methods and tasks of economic management in the initial period of the development of peaceful socialist construction.

The conference approved the plan of work of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which provided for the resolution of a number of pressing party organizational tasks. In accordance with this, the work of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was reorganized, about which V. I. Lenin wrote then: “The apparatus of the Central Committee must be strengthened and brought closer to the places ... we just need business executives (from the Central Committee) instructed" 32 . The Central Committee instructed local party organizations, introduced a system of periodic reports of provincial committees at meetings of the Orgburo.

As a result of a significant increase in the level of organizational work of the Central Committee, party organizations have significantly improved the content of internal party work, and began to analyze in more detail the state of their internal life.

Summarizing the experience of carrying out the NEP, Lenin drew a number of important conclusions. In the second half of 1921, he raised and considered the question of barter, showing that it resulted in buying and selling. Allowing the free development of small-peasant economy also economically required the assumption of freedom of purchase and sale, freedom of market relations of peasant economy. Such is the nature of small-scale production.

This inextricable link between the production and sale of products in small-scale peasant farming, V. I. Lenin had in mind even when developing a new economic policy on the eve of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b). He took into account not only the fact that the state immediately after the transition to the NEP did not have a huge mass of commodities to pay in kind with the peasants for food, but also the economic features of the private economy, which could not rise in the absence of sufficient freedom to dispose of the surplus intended for sale.

Therefore, Lenin, at the VII Moscow Provincial Party Conference on October 29, 1921, in his report on the New Economic Policy, pointed to trade as the most important key position in the economic connection between the city and the countryside during the period of the struggle for socialism. Trade acquired decisive importance in all economic life. The one who had the advantage in trade could influence the course of the economic development of the village. But this was not the only meaning of trade. It also consisted in the fact that the state used trade as the most important source of accumulation of income for investment in socialist industry, the development of which, in the final analysis, was the main goal of the Party's economic task.

The question of the main link in the chain of economic construction was put forward by Lenin in his work The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power. In 1918, the main thing was the establishment of control and accounting. “At the moment,” wrote Lenin in 1921, “such a link is the revival of internal trade, with its correct state regulation (direction). Trade is that "link" in the historical chain of events, in the transitional forms of our socialist construction in 1921-1922, "to which we, the proletarian state power, we, the leading Communist Party, must seize with all our might." If we “grab” this link firmly enough now, we will certainly possess the whole chain in the near future. Otherwise, we will not be able to master the whole chain, we will not be able to create the foundation of socialist socio-economic relations ..

Therefore, V. I. Lenin put forward the slogan to learn to trade, demanding from the communists, workers of Soviet organs, business executives to master this most important link, to win this most important economic position for the construction of socialism. The Party incited its cadres into the cooperatives. Trade banks were created in the country, measures were taken to strengthen the monetary system, and the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade was organized. These measures played an important role in keeping wholesale trade in the hands of state and cooperative bodies and the subsequent ousting of the private trader from retail trade.

The Soviet Republic, overcoming enormous difficulties, achieved definite results by the end of 1921.

The peasant masses became convinced of the correctness of the New Economic Policy, that the Communist Party, through its policy, expressed the striving of the working class to fight jointly with the working peasantry for the cause of socialism. However, until the material and technical conditions were prepared for this and the peasantry had not yet matured the consciousness of the need to move to the implementation of socialist transformations in the small-peasant economy, the working class, led by the RCP (b), made a number of concessions to the peasantry and provided him with assistance that enabled the working the peasantry to run their own economy. The peasantry agreed with the measures of state regulation of agriculture. The tasks set by the government for autumn sowing in the country have been fulfilled. Despite crop failure and famine in 1921 in a number of provinces, the peasants handed over 121 million poods of grain to the state under the tax in kind. With the satisfaction of the basic economic demands of the peasants, the discontent of the working masses of the countryside, which had taken place before the transition to the New Economic Policy, was eliminated, and banditry came to naught.

A lot of work has been done to reorganize management in industry in accordance with the New Economic Policy. On July 20, 1921, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) reorganized the management of state industry on the basis of the Leninist principle of democratic management of the socialist economy .

On the basis of the application of the principle of cost accounting, to which state industry began to pass, the productivity of enterprises rose steadily. Enterprises that had been idle since 1920 or since the beginning of 1921 began to function. In October 1921, 457 plants and factories operated in Moscow, against 316 in July of the same year, including such important industrial enterprises as Trekhgornaya Manufactory, Hammer and Sickle, Red Proletarian, Electrosila No. 3 (“ Dynamo") and others.

The workers of the Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya province, under the leadership of the provincial party organization, united by factory and plant party cells, selflessly increased the pace of production of textile goods. Over the last 3 months of 1921, the number of operating looms at the factories of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk trust increased from 3-4 thousand to 8.2 thousand. The workers of Petrograd, Yekaterinburg and other provinces gained similar successes in the fight against ruin.

The results of 1921 testified to the correctly chosen path of enhancing and strengthening the leading role of the Communist Party in all fields in the struggle to overcome economic disruption and create the economic foundations of socialism.

The first year of the New Economic Policy was par excellence a period of making a number of tactical concessions on the part of the working class to the middle peasantry.

V. I. Lenin daily closely followed the implementation of this most difficult stage, drew the most important conclusions, tirelessly called on the party, the working class to even greater solidarity1 in these difficult conditions. He determined in time the line of retreat and the beginning of the regrouping of the party's forces for the transition to the offensive of socialism against the capitalist elements.

Lenin considered that the moment when the retreat was stopped was the satisfaction of the demand of the middle peasantry regarding their existence as small-scale producers, freely disposing of the surplus of their production after the payment of the tax in kind. Lenin showed that as a result of the first year of the NEP, the middle peasantry was satisfied. This was confirmed by the fulfillment of the autumn sowing plan outlined by the government, the successful collection of tax in kind in the presence of crop failure and famine, and the elimination of kulak banditry.

The elimination of the discontent of the middle strata of the countryside contributed to the consolidation of the working class, the establishment of industrial production, primarily in the fuel and textile industries.

The retreat culminated in the strengthening of the dictatorship of the working class, on the basis of economic agreements with the peasantry, while retaining in the hands of the working class the decisive means of production, land, and banking.

The main goal pursued by the retreat was achieved in a short period of intense struggle. Lenin's proposal to stop the retreat was accepted by the XI Congress of the RCP (b).

The Communist Party came out victorious at this stage of the most difficult struggle. This was a clear confirmation of the increase and strengthening of its leadership and organizing role.

V. I. Lenin substantiated the most important problems of the next stage of the new economic policy. They consisted in seeking a further advance in agriculture within the limits of the concessions made to the peasantry, in accumulating funds for heavy industry, and in carrying on the restoration of the national economy in accordance with the tasks of socialist construction. Lenin considered trade to be the main link in the chain of these national economic tasks. He set before the Party the task of raising the economic role of the Soviet state in trade, of strengthening the leading role of the working class in relation to the peasantry through an economic bond between state industry and peasant economy.

In order to solve the economic and political tasks of the next stage of the new economic policy, Lenin considered it necessary to further raise the ideological and organizational level of the leadership of the Communist Party. It was necessary to regroup the forces of the Party and, above all, to redeploy its cadres in the decisive sectors of socialist construction, to consistently verify the implementation of the decisions of the Party in all its organs, as well as the state, and to increase the responsibility of cadres for the assigned area of ​​work.

The Party has moved on to concentrating its main cadres on economic construction. Many leading figures of the state and the party were sent to the most important sectors of economic development. The chairman of the Cheka, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, at the beginning of the New Economic Policy, also headed the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Railways. Many military cadres of the party were transferred to economic construction. Advanced workers were promoted to work in the economic administration. With this, the first steps were taken in cultivating numerous cadres of a new type - the business executive of the Leninist temper.

The decision of the XI Congress of the RCP (b) on the issue of strengthening the party in connection with the results of the purge was based on Lenin's instructions on the need to further improve the qualitative composition of the party, the consistent implementation of the principle of democratic centralism, as well as the ideological and political education of the communists. The congress decided to make some changes to the Rules of the RCP (b) and instructed the next party conference to resolve this issue.

VI Lenin, in his report and concluding speech at the congress, expressed complete confidence that the party would cope with the immediate tasks of pursuing the New Economic Policy on the basis of further strengthening its ties with the masses of the people. The task of leading the public organizations of the working people was to ensure that the Party put forward political slogans for the people in time and lead the masses tirelessly and consistently along the path of accomplishing the tasks of building socialism. The congress adopted, in full accordance with Lenin's instructions, a decision to further raise the leadership of the party by the trade unions and the Komsomol.

The resolutions of the Congress on questions of the ideological and political work of the Party fully reflect Lenin's instructions on bringing the forms and methods of educational work among the working masses closer to the practice of socialist construction. The task was to move from explaining current issues, from excessive enthusiasm for meetings to more systematic and thorough agitation and propaganda on specific tasks of economic construction, to broad propaganda of the prospects of socialism.

VI Lenin again drew the Party's attention to the need for further struggle for the unity of its ranks. In the conditions of the most acute class struggle in the country, in the presence of a capitalist encirclement, the problem of the unity of the party ranks could not be removed. The monolithic unity of the Party on the basis of a united struggle for the implementation of a single Party policy remained, as before, the decisive means for ensuring the Party's leading role in building socialism. VI Lenin pointed out at the congress that the party would lead the country to socialism if no serious mistakes were made. The task was not to deviate from the scientifically substantiated, practice-tested New Economic Policy, but to implement it steadily, ensuring even closer rallying of the ranks of the party in the struggle for its further implementation.

In the light of the tasks of further strengthening the unity of the ranks of the party, the congress discussed the behavior of the "Group of 22", which consisted of supporters of the disbanded "Workers' Opposition".

Despite the decisions of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), the former leaders of the "workers' opposition" retained their factional group and continued to carry out subversive work against party unity and party policy. They appealed to the Comintern with a slanderous statement against the party. The Comintern condemned their behavior as disorganizing and referred the issue to the Central Committee for further decision. RCP (b). The Central Committee analyzed this case and revealed its anti-Party essence in a letter to the provincial organizations. The disorganization activities of Shlyapnikov, Medvedev and their group were resolutely condemned in the party organizations.

The 11th Party Congress heard the results of an investigation carried out by a specially appointed commission in the case of the "Group of 22". Shlyapnikov, Medvedev and Kollontai were warned by the congress about their possible exclusion from the party if they continued their splitting activities, and two members of this group were expelled from the party, one as a Menshevik who had not disarmed, the other as a class-alien element.

Attempts to push the party away from the correct political line were made not only by former leaders of the "workers' opposition". Preobrazhensky also tried to impose on the party a solution that would limit the economic interest of the middle peasant toiler in the development of his economy. The attempt of the Trotskyite Preobrazhensky Congress gave a worthy rebuff, pointing out the need to support the middle peasant as a central figure in the rise of agriculture. The congress gave a resolute rebuff to Larin, who in essence stood on the position of the "Smenovekhists" and interpreted the concessions made to the peasantry, the economic agreement between the working class and the peasantry, as surrendering positions to capitalism. All this was a reflection in the inner-party life of the fierce class struggle that took place in the country and abroad.

Related to this is Lenin's warning at the 11th Congress of the RCP(b) about the decisive importance for the party of consistently and unswervingly carrying out its political line and strengthening its leading role in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under these conditions, V. I. Lenin considered it necessary to unload the Central Committee of the RCP (b) from the petty current issues of economic and Soviet work, to transfer their decision to the appropriate bodies, and to focus the main attention of the leading party bodies on the implementation of the most important thing that determines everything else - on leadership the implementation of the Party's policy by all organs of Soviet power, economic and public organizations.

Lenin's proposal to further enhance the organizing and leading role of the Party Central Committee in carrying out the Party's policy was unanimously adopted by the congress.

The 11th Congress of the RCP(b) occupies an outstanding place in the history of our Party. It was held with the participation and under the leadership of V. I. Lenin. The congress summed up the first important results of the gigantic work of the Party in eliminating economic and political difficulties. He approved the political line pursued by the Central Committee of the RCP (b) under the leadership of Lenin. Lenin's instructions at the Eleventh Congress, which was the last congress with the participation of V. I. Lenin, ensured our Party the greatest victories of world-historical significance.

The most important results of the first year of the New Economic Policy were clear evidence of the increased leading role of the Communist Party in the fate of the working masses, in the fate of socialist construction.

* * *

Thus, the increase and strengthening of the leading role of the Communist Party in the new historical conditions of socialist construction took place on all fundamental questions of the life of the country and the activity of the Party. In the area of ​​class relations, the unresolved issues have been settled in an alliance between the working class and the peasantry. In the field of economic construction, a transition was made to measures that would create a solid basis for raising the productive forces of state industry and building the economic foundation of socialism. In inner-party life, further strengthening of the unity of the ranks of the party was achieved, the strengthening of its working social base, a transition was made to a more consistent implementation of the principle of democratic centralism, and the principle of the collective method in party work was strengthened. With regard to the political leadership of the masses, the Party switched to the policy of developing in the mass organizations the democratic principle of their activity, which ensures the fulfillment by them of their main, educational task, and on this basis strengthened its ties with the masses. In revealing and substantiating these problems, in organizing the leading activities of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) for the practical implementation of the tasks arising from the abrupt change in the policy of the party, is one of the greatest merits of V. I. Lenin.

V. I. Lenin revealed the patterns of political and economic struggle in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat, substantiated the policy of peaceful socialist construction and methods for implementing the transformative role of the Communist Party. In this way, he fully and clearly expressed the urgent practical needs of the party and socialist construction. In NEP, the Marxist-Leninist theory of the transitional period from capitalism to socialism found its most complete and profound embodiment. Therefore, the main problems of NEP are not a purely national Russian phenomenon. They are of international importance and fundamentally obligatory for all countries that have embarked on the path of building socialism.

V. I. Lenin enriched the doctrine of the organizational foundations of the Communist Party in the new historical situation of peaceful socialist construction. He highly raised the importance of consistent implementation of the principle of democratic centralism, the collective method of party leadership and ensuring the iron unity of the party ranks. He showed that without these conditions the Party cannot pursue the policy of building socialism and communism, exercise its leading role in relation to the working class and all working people, and strengthen the community of the working class and the peasantry.

Lenin's ideas about the ways and methods of socialist construction were embodied in the policy of the Party and in its practical activities. The Communist Party, under the leadership of the Central Committee, headed and directed by Lenin, even during Lenin's lifetime took the first major steps to eliminate the economic and political difficulties in the country, carrying out peaceful socialist construction. The working people of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of the Communist Party, traversed in solid ranks the difficult path from economic ruin, famine, and cultural backwardness to socialism. In a short historical period, our Motherland has become a powerful state, taking second place in the world in terms of industrial development. Today our country is further developing its industrial might at a high rate unprecedented in any capitalist country and is advancing along the road to communism.

Under the current conditions of the gradual transition to communism in our country, the leading and inspiring role of the Communist Party in all spheres of Soviet society and the activities of the Soviet state has grown immeasurably. Therefore, the further strengthening of the iron unity of the ranks of the CPSU on the basis of the decisions of the XX Party Congress, the June and November Plenums of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1957 is of particular importance and decisive importance not only for the USSR, but also for the entire international communist movement, which demonstrated the solidarity and unity of its ranks at the Moscow Conference communist and workers' parties in November 1957.

Notes :

1 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 25, p. 376.

2 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, p. 229.

3 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, p. 466.

4 See "CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions...", Part I, pp. 527-528, 529, 530, 532.

205

5 V. I. Lenin Soch., vol. 32, p. 228

6 “CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions Part I, p. 529

7 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1619, l. four.

8 Archive of the Institute of Party History of the MK CPSU, f. 3, op. 2, d. 30, l. 90

9 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, dd. 7986 and 7987.

10 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, pp. 19-20.

11 Proletarian Revolution No. 1, 1939, p. 34.

12 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1619, l. 79.

13 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 113.

14 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 11, p. 396.

15 "Lenin's collection" ХХХГV, p. 432.

16 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 31, p. 30

17 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, p. 236.

18 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 31, p. 8.

19 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 31, p. 342.

20 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 48.

21 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 54

22 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, p. 306.

23 "Lenin's collection" IV, pp. 376-377.

24 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, p. 297

25 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, d. 2155, l. 1.

26 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 2, d. 22771, ll. 1-2.

27 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, p. 331.

28 Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1619, l. 24.

29 Archive of the Institute of Party History of the Moscow Committee of the CPSU, f. 3, op. 11, d. 23, l. 49.

30 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 32, pp. 406-407.

31 Ibid., p. 394.

32 "Leninsky collection" XX, p. 331.

33 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 33, p. 89.

34 TsGAOR, f. 3429, op. 2, d. 205-a, ll. 146-147.