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Lenin foresaw that success in socialist construction in Russia would serve as a model and example for the victorious proletariat in other countries. He said: "If Russia becomes covered with a dense network of electric power stations and powerful technical installations, our communist economic development will become a model for a future socialist Europe and Asia."

Trotsky, Rykov and their supporters tried to frustrate the plan for the electrification of the country, but Lenin and Stalin thwarted all their efforts to do so. In a letter he wrote to Lenin in March 1921, Stalin subjected the arguments of Trotsky and Rykov to withering criticism and at the same time paid high tribute to the plan drawn up by the Goelro. "It is a skilfully drafted outline of a single economic plan, without ironical quotation marks," he wrote. "It is the only Marxist attempt made in our times to place under the Soviet superstructure of economically backward a really practical and, under present conditions, the only possible, technical-industrial basis."

With the cessation of the civil war and the transition to peaceful economic construction the Party was confronted with the task of laying down a new line on all questions affecting the economic life of the country. The Central Committee of the Party clearly realized that the system of what was known as War Communism had now become obsolete. The need for the surplus grain appropriation system had passed away and it was necessary to create opportunities for the peasants freely to dispose of their stocks of grain left over after paying their taxes. This would stimulate the revival of agriculture and trade, help to revive industry, improve the food supplies of the towns and create a new economic basis for the alliance between the workers and the peasants.

Lenin was of the opinion that the severe wounds inflicted upon the economy of the country by the imperialist war, and civil war and foreign intervention could be healed, and that its foundations could be reconstructed on socialist lines, only if the working class and the trade unions widely co-operated in this task. He strongly urged the necessity of making the workers and peasants understand that it was impossible to live in the old way, that the old economic conditions of existence had to be changed, and that production had to be carried on in accordance with a great economic plan. He put into the forefront the task of conducting extensive explanatory and educational work. It was necessary, he said, to create "a broad and firm basis of conviction for the new production tasks."

At this crucial moment, at the turning point from war to peaceful economic construction, the Trotskyites launched and attack against the Party. Trotsky advocated a policy of immediately converting the trade unions into state organizations, of "shaking up" the trade unions, as he called it, and of regimenting and bullying the masses. The sole object of this policy was to rouse the workers against the Party and to split the working class. This would have been fatal for the proletarian dictatorship. Trotsky's attack was followed up by attacks by other anti-Party groups, such as the Anarcho-Syndicalist "Workers' Opposition," led by Shlyapnikov, the "Democratic Centralists" led by Rykov, and the "Left Communists" led by Bukharin. It was they who forced upon the Party what was known as the "trade union discussion" concerning the function of the trade unions under the proletarian dictatorship.

Lenin hurled himself upon these enemies of the Party and disrupters of Party unity with his characteristic determination and relentlessness. He regarded the campaign launched by the Trotskyites and the other anti-Party groups as an attack upon the dictatorship of the proletariat and as an attempt to break the alliance between the working class and the peasantry.

He immediately replied to the politically harmful and dangerous platform proposed by the Trotskyites in a speech he delivered at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Party in November 1920; and on December 30 he spoke on the functions of the trade unions at a meeting of the Bolshevik delegates to the Eighth Congress of Soviets and leading trade union officials. He showed that the Trotskyites were confusing the trade unions with military organizations. He denounced their attempts to draw a contrast between the trade unions and the Party and revealed how dangerous the Trotskyite and other anti-Party platforms were for the proletarian dictatorship. He directed his main blow at the Trotskyites as the principal anti-Party group.

In January 1921, he attacked the opposition groups in an article entitled "The Party Crisis" and in a pamphlet entitled Once Again On the Trade Unions, in which he expounded and amplified the Marxist view of the functions of the trade unions under the proletarian dictatorship and showed that they served as a reservoir of state power, as a school of unity and solidarity, a school of administration and management of industry, and as a school of Communism. He exposed the anti-Marxist theoretical and political fallacies of Trotsky, Bukharin and Shlyapnikov on the trade union question and showed that they were substituting eclectics for dialectics. He called upon the Party to give a strong rebuff to all the anti-Party groups.

The great service that Lenin rendered in the course of this union discussion was that he revealed the true significance of the conflict within the Party. He showed that all the anti-Party groups were actually contending against the leading role played by the Party, against the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, and against the proletarian dictatorship. In this struggle Lenin received the loyal backing of Stalin, and together they repelled the attacks of the opponents of Leninism on the unity of the Party.

In March 1921, the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party was held. The preparations for the congress and the congress itself were directed by Lenin. He was the reporter on the main questions on the agenda, such as the political activities of the Central Committee, the tax in kind, Party unity, and the Anarcho-Syndicalist deviation. He also drafted the main resolutions for the congress.

This congress took place in one of the most critical periods of the revolution. In February and March the country was in the throes of an acute food, fuel and transport crisis. Discontent grew among the peasantry. A week before the congress opened the Kronstadt mutiny broke out—this was another attempt on the part of the counter-revolutionaries to overthrow the Soviet regime. The Bolshevik Party had only just hone through a fierce internal conflict.

But under Lenin's direction the congress marked a turning point in the task of cementing the unity of the Party of the working class and of working out the New Economic Policy.

In his report and speeches on Party unity Lenin severely criticized the anti-Marxist views of all the anti-Party groups. He showed that they were merely unprincipled politicians, and that their ideas were akin to those of the petty-bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. He said that the main lesson to be drawn from the discussion was that factionalism must be combated with the utmost severity and the unity of the Party maintained at all cost. This lesson had to be learnt by and must become a law for every member of the Party. As the history of all revolutions showed, the slightest relaxation of the unity of the Party—the vanguard of the proletariat—would facilitate the restoration of the power and property of the capitalists and landlords. With amazing penetration he exposed the new tactics of the class enemies who were banking on a conflict within the Communist Party and on utilizing in their interests the activities of every opposition group. As was stated in the resolution drawn up by Lenin on this question: "These enemies, having become convinced that the chances of a counter-revolution openly conducted under the flag of the Whiteguards were hopeless, are exerting all efforts to take advantage of the disagreements within the Russian Communist Party to promote the counter-revolution in one way or another by transferring power to political groups which on the surface appear to recognize the Soviet regime most."

On Lenin's motion the congress adopted a resolution entitled "On Party Unity" which was an exceptionally important factor in the defeat of the anti-Party groups and in reinforcing the unity of the Bolshevik Party.

The congress adopted another resolution proposed by Lenin which was closely connected with the resolution "On Party Unity." This was entitled "The Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation In Our Party." In this resolution the congress condemned the Workers' Opposition, declaring that the propaganda of its Anarcho-Syndicalist ideas was incompatible with membership of the Communist Party and calling upon the Party to combat this deviation.

Lenin took determined measures to strengthen the General Staff of the revolution, viz., the Central Committee of the Party. The Congress elected to this body firm and tried Bolsheviks like Lenin, Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kalinin, Dzerzhinsky, Orjonikidze, Frunze and Kuibyshev.

By inflicting defeat upon the opposition Lenin cemented the unity of the Party and prepared it for fresh battles against its enemies and for fresh efforts to overcome difficulties. In this way he ensured the success of the Party's sharp turn in its economic policy.

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Lenin,_a_Biography_Prepared_by_the_Marx-Engels-Lenin_Institute#XII