Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - About the Co-operative Societies (1924).pdf/7

 passive but also active participation. In fact, we "only"" need to make our population so „civilised" that it realises all the advantages of personal participation in the co-operatives and consummates this participation. „Only" so much. We need no other sophistry now in order to make the transition to Socialism. But in order to realise this "only" a complete change, an entire stage in the cultural development of the whole mass of the people is necessary. Our rule must therefore be: as little philosophising as possible, as little foolery as possible. The new economic policy is in this connection insofar a step forward as it is adapted to the level of the average peasant and does not demand from him anything higher. An entire historical epoch is necessary to move the entire population, each and everyone, through the new economical policy to participation in the co-operatives. We can cover this epoch in one or two decades. But nonetheless it will be a special historical epoch, and without this historical epoch, without having everyone able to read and write, without a certain circumspection, without educating the population to a certain degree to the use of books, and without having created the necessary material fundaments, without a certain security against, let us say, crop failure and famine—without all this we cannot attain our goal. Everything now depends upon our ability to supplement the revolutionary élan and enthusiasm we have often enough displayed with—I would like to say—with the ability of judicous and experienced dealers, which is fully sufficient for a good co-operator. This should be taken to heart by those Russians or simple peasants who think that when they once do some trading, they have proven their ability as merchants. That is entirely wrong. They are doing business but that is very far indeed from being able to say that they are cultured merchants. They are now trading in an Asiatic manner; they must know how to trade as Europeans. They are still an entire epoch from the latter goal.

I conclude—a number of economic, financial and banking privileges for the co-operatives, that must represent the support of the new principle of organisation by our Socialist state. But the problem is thus only roughly sketched out, for the whole content of this problem has not been described here in detail; i. e., we must find the form of "premium" (and the conditions of its grant) with which we can satisfactorily assist the co-operatives, the form of premium offer which will aid us to educate civilised co-operative members. And the order of civilised co-operators in connection with the common ownership of the means of production based upon the class victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie—is the order of Socialism.

As long as I wrote upon the new economic policy I continually referred to my article on state capitalism written in 1919. This has not infrequently given rise to doubt among some of our younger comrades, but their doubts were primarily of an abstract, political nature.

They thought that a system in which the means of production and the state power belong to the working class cannot be called a state capitalistic system. They do not notice that I employed the term "state capitalism" firstly in order to establish the historical connection of our present position with that in my polemic against the so-called "Left"