Lenin on the devastation and poverty caused by communism in the early years of the USSR

Dear readers,

EKIP presents to your attention a modern Bulgarian translation of "New Economic Policy" - a speech by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, delivered before the second All-Russian Congress of Political Educators in the USSR in 1921 - a text from which we can learn a lot about the true nature of the communist socio-economic system and the catastrophic consequences that its implementation in the USSR led to in the first years of the union's existence. We believe that this is an extremely relevant speech today, especially on today's date - exactly 73 years since the occupation of the September 9th coup.

On September 9, 1944, Bulgaria was occupied by the troops of the Third Ukrainian Front of the Red Army. This illegitimate aggression brought with it the ideology of a dark, totalitarian regime, forever changing the history of our country. The fake referendum, organized in 1946 by the Bulgarian Communist Party with the help of the bayonets of the Soviet troops - when the new map of Europe had already been drawn and the Iron Curtain had been lowered - founded the so-called People's Republic of Bulgaria and formalized the new power in our country. Leaving aside the historical facts about the forcibly imposed regime, justifications for its imposition are still found in the public sphere, emphasizing the "high ideal" and the "faith of the people in a better life" through communism.

Indeed, many people have shared this ideal, seeing in it only the veneer of a progressive new order. But the core of this ideal is woven from lies, hypocrisy, corruption, and a love of death.

There is no better way to reveal the nature of this regime than to publish a commentary on it using the words of the founder of the Soviet Union - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In the speech that we offer to your attention, you will read in his own words how the economic program of communism inevitably leads to catastrophe, you will read that the only way to impose this regime is through violence. This speech, entitled "New Economic Program", was delivered on October 17, 1921 and aims to present, as the title indicates, the "new" economic measures that the USSR at that time needed to take, not just to achieve economic and technological progress, but to survive.

Based on the experience gained during the first few years of the existence of the USSR, Lenin concluded that a direct transition to a communist socio-economic system was impossible. And therefore, it was necessary to return at least some elements of the "old regime" of capitalist rule. This was of course presented as a temporary "strategic retreat" from the ultimate goal, but the fact that Lenin himself practically recognized the impossibility of communism and the need for at least some degree of free market trade in the USSR economy, simply for it to survive, is probably the most striking evidence of the complete impossibility and absurdity of the Marxist (anti)utopia.

And yet, the illusion of the attainability of this utopia will be maintained for at least another decades by Lenin's successors, not only in the USSR, but later in the entire Eastern Bloc, and later in other countries around the world. How many lives from how many different nations have been sacrificed in the name of this sick fantasy under the repression of the various communist regimes around the world? Let us today, on this yet another anniversary of the bloody communist coup in 1944, honor the Bulgarian victims of communism and remember what its ugly face is directly from the mouth of one of its main ideologists and architects.

Among other things, in this speech you will read about the immense ignorance of the Russian people, even that of the "party communists", as well as the tendency of this regime to corrupt and degenerate into bureaucracy of a terrifying order - so much so that this becomes a problem that Lenin himself wants to address. You will read about the hypocrisy of the regime, which inevitably has to rely on theft in order to maintain its existence. This is precisely the reason for the failure of communism and all similar regimes - when people's freedom is violated, nothing can make them work not only for the "common good", but also for their own. In the end, only a wasteland remains.

You can read the full translation of the speech here:
"New Economic Policy"

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