Moscow, 1969, 520 p. Circulation of 17,600 copies. Price 3 rubles 24 kopecks.

In 1917, while thinking about the development of the revolution and the program of socialist transformations, V. I. Lenin recalled the well-known aphorism:" Revolutions are the locomotives of history", but immediately attributed it to: "Accelerate the locomotive and keep it on the tracks" 1 . On the eve of the first Soviet New Year, this problem was only visible in all its complexity. In its entirety, it emerged three years later, when, having defeated the political and military resistance of the overthrown classes, supported by all the might of international imperialism, the revolution entered the channel of "normal" organic development, when the extraordinary issues of the civil war were replaced by the tasks of restoring the destroyed productive forces, establishing a new type of relations in the economy, and eliminating the cultural backwardness of the people...

V. I. Lenin made an outstanding contribution to the solution of all these questions. With his direct participation and influence, the theoretical foundations and practical aspects of the Communist Party's policy were formulated. This is well shown in the book of the senior researcher of the Institute of History of the USSR of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Doctor of Historical Sciences E. B. Genkina.

First of all, the reader's attention is drawn to the strict logic of the research. The first part of the paper deals mainly with aspects of V. I. Lenin's state activity related to the theoretical understanding and elaboration of specific ways of socialist construction; the second and third parts are devoted to the analysis of Lenin's methods of implementing the program of building socialism developed by the party and the characteristics of the main features of Lenin's school of state activity. Such a sequence of consideration of the problem is quite logical: in the first place is the choice of the path, in the second-the art of leading the masses along this path.

E. B. Genkina based on a painstaking study of the works of V. I. Lenin gives a detailed description of the policy of "war communism", shows how the Communist Party and directly V. I. Lenin worked out the correct, only expedient course of the new economic policy. The facts presented in the book convincingly testify to the genius ability of V. I. Lenin to "hear" the deep currents of life, to his wisdom as a politician and theorist. In an extraordinarily complex situation, many particular, or rather derivative, questions of the new course of party and state policy were resolved, for example, on the admission of trade as an instrument of the socialist economy. Here, the author notes, there was much that was unclear, and here the old theoretical idea of the dying out of trade, of the supposedly irreconcilable contradiction between the market and a planned socialist economy, had a stronger influence on the political line. V. I. Lenin's political foresight, his ability to overcome all sorts of dogmas, and his truly brilliant ability to highlight the main thing in the apparent chaos of life played a huge role in solving these issues. In the acute theoretical struggle of the early 1920s, the only correct line of economic policy was developed, aimed at strengthening the economic bond between the city and the countryside, the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, and at using commodity-money relations in the interests of socialist construction. V. I. Lenin's critical attitude to past experience, his irreconcilable hostility to self-deception, to the desire to see life not as it really is, but as it is "supposed" to be according to certain ideas, constitute the most important element of Lenin's theoretical and political legacy. All the more important is the book's statement of the problem of criticism and self-criticism as an indispensable condition for the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of the Communist Party's turn towards a new economic policy. The author cites numerous statements of V. I. Lenin, which testify to his ability to analyze with merciless frankness the difficulties, failures, and mistakes in implementing the program of the socialist revolution, because "illusions and self-deceptions are terrible, and the fear of the truth is fatal." 2 The development of a new course of economic policy required the corresponding-

1 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, p. 189.

2 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 44, p. 487.

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the necessary restructuring of the management apparatus of the economy and the country in general, changes in the methods of state leadership. V. I. Lenin approached the solution of this problem as a serious political event. An example of this approach is his relentless concern for developing the correct principles for the formation and operation of the State Planning Committee. V. I. Lenin sternly warned against numerous attempts to find solutions to complex issues of building a new society only through re-organization. He proceeded from the fact that the expediency of all perestroika is justified by the only criterion - whether they correspond to the new course of economic policy.

It is well known how much time, effort, and attention V. I. Lenin devoted to the practical implementation of the principles of NEP. E. B. Genkina covers this aspect of his activity in detail. The book suggests that during this period there was a thorough, but rapid, or rather sporadic, development of many of the key activities of the new deal. For example ,the "Order of the Council of People's Commissars on implementing the principles of the new Economic Policy" of August 9, 1921, which summed up all the new party guidelines in the field of industry, was developed and adopted within a little over two months.

E. B. Genkin bases every conclusion and position of his research on a wide range of sources. It is difficult to name such a document about the activities of V. I. Lenin in the first years of the NEP, which would remain out of the author's field of view. At the same time, another necessary element of research - the historiographical aspect - is reflected in the book much less. Each of the problems raised by the author (the assessment of "war communism", the significance of the Eighth Congress of Soviets, the development of plans for economic construction, the introduction of food taxes, the use of state capitalist forms in industry, etc.) was the subject of research by various authors and numerous discussions. it is conducted in a strictly positive way. Such an approach, when the reader remains in the dark about the ways of forming certain ideas that have developed in historical science, certainly impoverishes the research.

The book addresses those aspects of Lenin's activity that are somehow connected with the development and implementation of a new economic policy. Unfortunately, not all of these questions have found their place in the book. In particular, the problems of the cultural revolution are considered very little, practically only from the point of view of V. I. Lenin's leadership of the People's Commissariat of Education. Meanwhile, the ideas of the cultural revolution are closely linked to the development of a course for building the material and economic foundations of socialism, and only because of their narrow understanding is the coverage of the problems of the cultural revolution usually left to historians of cultural construction. It is enough to recall Lenin's thesis about the need to learn "to be a cultural merchant","to trade in the European way" 3, to understand how closely Vladimir Ilyich connected the problems of economics and culture.

Every newly published work on V. I. Lenin raises new problems that are still waiting to be solved. Among them is the question of the implementation of Lenin's instructions in the practice of socialist construction, of the direct organizational activity of the party leader and the head of the Soviet state. Comprehensive coverage of this problem requires additional search for documents and mobilization of new sources. Several informative and vividly written sections of the book are devoted to the analysis of the style and methods of state leadership of V. I. Lenin. However, the author mainly relies on the materials of the SNK, SRT and individual People's commissariats. The study of this question can be deepened if we study more fully the contribution of V. I. Lenin to improving the style of work of the lower levels of the state apparatus, to improving the composition of cadres of employees of both People's commissariats and Soviets, sovnarkhozy, syndicate boards, trusts.

In general, the monograph of E. B. Genkina, summing up her many years of scientific research, enriches our understanding of the theoretical and practical organizational activities of V. I. Lenin.

3 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 45, p. 373.

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