ABSTRACT
Just before the X Congress of the Party in early 1921, Lenin declared that socialism could be built in Russia only on one of two conditions: if there was an international socialist revolution, or if there was a compromise with the peasant majority within the country. However, Lenin now pushed it through, and thereby inaugurated the "New Economic Policy"-although the actual phrase seems to have been first used in May, without capitals or quotation marks, and with them only several months later. The essence of the "New Economic Policy" which he adopted soon afterwards was acceptance of a compromise with the peasantry. In 1919 Stalin had become commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, whose job was to combat corruption and inefficiency in all branches of the government. Stalin forcefully invoked the shade of the not-yet-dead Lenin, and the Party opposition outside the Politburo was effectively trampled down.
