**Source:** Lenin Miscellany XL, p. 77
**Date:** 1921-03-24

4.

Instructions for implementing the present resolution and for establishing reporting procedures shall be issued within a two-week period by the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment in agreement with the People's Commissariat of Finance and the People's Commissariat of Workers' and Peasants' Inspection.

Chairman of the Council of
People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin) *

Moscow, Kremlin
March 23, 1921

*Published from a typewritten copy signed by V. I. Lenin*

[1921, between March 24 and May 5]

This will not do.

It is necessary to add: only to libraries to distribute.

Definition of "libraries."

Control.

Confiscations etc.
to work out¹

Lenin

¹ In the "Directives of the Central Committee to Communists—Workers of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment," published on February 5, 1921 in the newspaper *Pravda*, Lenin wrote of the extremely unsatisfactory organization of the distribution of "newspapers, brochures, journals and books to libraries and reading rooms... As a result, newspapers and books are seized by thin layers of Soviet officials and reach workers and peasants in disproportionately small quantities" (*Complete Collected Works*, vol. 42, p. 321). Organically linking the question of the distribution of printed matter with the enlightenment and literacy of the people, Lenin called for reorganizing this matter so that newspapers and books would be distributed free of charge only to libraries and reading rooms for the purpose of serving the masses of workers, soldiers and peasants (see ibid., p. 330).

* The document also bears the signatures of the Manager of the Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars N. P. Gorbunov and the secretary L. A. Fotieva.

# TELEGRAM TO SIMFEROPOL
[1921, March 24]

Simferopol

To: Crimean Revolutionary Committee, copy to Crimean Council of the National Economy, copy to Finance Department, copy to Crimean Labor, copy to Crimean Food Committee, copy to Crimean Cheka, copy to Special Department, copy to Crimean Statistical Bureau.

Re: No. 1149. I propose that all measures be taken to accelerate the conduct of a professional-demographic agricultural census and the enumeration of industrial enterprises. The census is necessary for the workers' and peasants' government. The census data shall be placed at the foundation of Soviet construction. Eliminate in revolutionary order all obstacles encountered. Provide the Crimean Statistical Bureau with personnel, premises, food supplies, and cash from the thirty-million credit opened to you for the census, with paper in the quantity of two hundred poods, with printeries for the urgent printing of instruction forms, with office supplies, and organize transportation. All Soviet institutions and organizations must actively come to the aid of the Crimean Statistical Bureau and its agents. Work out with the Crimean Statistical Bureau a plan for creating the conditions for the successful processing of census materials in accordance with the directives of the Central Statistical Administration. Not a single day's delay in a matter of enormous state importance. Crimea must be surveyed and surveyed within the timeframe established by the work plan.

I remind you that the workers' and peasants' government demands of you the concentration of energy on this matter. Sternly punish those who hinder the conducting of the census, and remember that the workers' and peasants' government will first and foremost hold you responsible for lack of energy in carrying out the census and for its poor execution. Report to the Central Statistical Administration, beginning from April 1, weekly for a report to me on the progress of work.¹

March 24

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin *

*Published from a typewritten copy signed by V. I. Lenin*

¹ On April 22, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the conduct in August 1920 of a demographic-professional census of the population and an agricultural census with a brief enumeration of industrial enterprises.

* There is also the signature of the Manager of the Central Statistical Administration P. I. Popov.