Delivered: 25 November, 1920 or earlier.
First Published: Pravda No. 269, November 30, 1920; Published according to the Pravda text
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 31, page 429
Translated: Julius Katzer
Transcription\HTML Markup:
David Walters &
R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
(Comrade Lenin, who was met with a storm of applause from all present, spoke on the first item on the agenda-the international and domestic situation of the Republic and the immediate tasks of the working class.) Comrade Lenin indicated the causes that have prevented world imperial-ism from carrying out its plan to crush the proletarian republic, causes stemming in the main from the decay of the capitalist system and the development of the revolution-ary movement among the workers of all lands. The language used by our Red Army is the one that is most convincing and comprehensible to the plunderers and robbers, and they have now been forced to talk to us about trade. However, the Red Army’s victory will not be complete or lasting unless we cope with the next task, which is more formidable and gigantic, that of rehabilitating industry and improving the national economy.
Lenin touched on the question of electrification, without which the renascence of the country is impossible. After dealing with the question of the invitation of foreign capital and the granting of concessions, the speaker went on to the part played by the printing and publishing industry in the national economy as a whole, and concluded by expressing the confidence that the workers and peasants of Russia will show a splendid example of victory on the peace front, just as they have done so often on the war fronts. (Prolonged applause.)
[1] This Conference was bald in the Hall of Columns, the House of Trade Unions, on November 25, 1920, and was attended by more than 2,000 delegates. Lenin delivered a report cm the interna-tional and domestic position of the Soviet Republic and the immediate tasks of the working class.