ABSTRACT
By 1920 Lenin's illusions about the possibility of Russia entering "at a bound" into the realm of Socialism were finally dispelled. He saw that a country whose "vast extent might contain dozens of large civilized States" was "in a half-wild or even savage condition", and in a state of "misery and illiteracy"; nothing was to be seen there that could recall, even remotely, an era of Socialism, whether already realized or under way of realization. From 1929 onwards, the Soviet Press reported the news that individual farmers, repudiating their petty-bourgeois instincts, were rallying to the banner of Socialism. In 1930 this conversion to Marxism was said to have assumed a wholesale character and to be noisily winning the whole country. Socialism can be built only on the basis of a vigorous impulsion of the productive forces, of an abundance of goods and products, of an easy existence for the workers, and of a powerful rise of general culture.
