V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v53; en:CW/CW45;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

AND AN INSTRUCTION TO THE SECRETARY

Very Urgent

22. VIII. 21.

Comrade Smilga!

It seems to me that one of the major mistakes in the Donets Basin, i.e., in the whole work of restoring the Donets Basin, is the lack of proper coordination in local work—industrial, agricultural and trading.

It appears there have been some frictions, on the one hand, between Pyatakov and Rukhimovich, and, on the other, between Pyatakov and the local trade unions.

I consider it extremely important that you should not confine yourself to purely industrial questions relating only to the coal industry, but that you should pay attention to the need to eliminate the above-mentioned frictions.

It is essential to secure at all costs that the Gubernia Economic Conference of the Donets Gubernia should work very intensively and in full harmony.

Special measures must be taken to ensure that both Pyatakov and his entire apparatus direct their efforts to promoting local agriculture and to commodity exchange with the peasants, and also with foreign countries via Taganrog. In particular, attention should be paid to measures for promoting local agriculture by introducing irrigation through the use of the locks on the Donets River.

Such a plan, which promises to be very practical, has been put forward in the State Planning Commission.

Generally speaking, it is extremely wrong for the Board of the Coal Industry to regard itself as unconnected with the agriculture of the Donets Gubernia.

I am sure that if the forces of the labour army available in the Donets Gubernia, as well as all the forces of the local miners and the Board of the Coal Industry, were thrown into joint work with the workers of the Donets Gubernia, it would be possible to achieve not only a speedier collection of the tax in kind, but also the acquisition of undoubtedly larger quantities of food through commodity exchange, properly organised, both commodity exchange for salt and commodity exchange of grain for coal.

I shall expect from you: first, a telegram with a brief report that you have received this letter and will do everything possible in the direction indicated; second, a detailed communication about the constitution and the work of the Gubernia Economic Conference of the Donets Gubernia after your arrival.

As regards the coal-cutters about which Pyatakov wrote, I have an exact and detailed opinion of experts that in the Donets Basin, for a number of reasons, they cannot put into operation even the coal-cutters already available there, and that the purchase of new coal-cutters is entirely irrational, for these machines would be condemned to stand idle.

I request you to make a thorough study of this question with the help of real experts who are fully conversant with the matter.

Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Send the letter to Bakhmut—Gubernia Executive Committee, for delivery to the authorised representative of the Council of Labour and Defence, Smilga, who is to be in Bakhmut from August 27, 1921, to September 5. Send via the War Department by specially urgent courier, against personal receipt. If Smilga is not yet in Bakhmut, deliver through the Gubernia Executive Committee.

Get in touch with Stalin by telephone to see if he will be sending a letter to Rukhimovich. Give Stalin a copy of this letter to read, and if he has a letter for Rukhimovich, send them together not later than tomorrow.