V. I.

Lenin

445

To:   N. N. KRESTINSKY

Copy to Comrade Preobrazhensky

17.X.1921

Comrade Krestinsky:

I should like to know your opinion about whether or not it is time to make these two kinds of calculations:

first, a plan (a quite rough and general plan, by way of the first approximation) for restoring our currency. Say:
under such-and-such conditions, over a period of so many
years, it would be possible by consistently applying such-and-such measures to achieve so-and-so.

Do you (and the finance commission) believe that such a calculation is possible or that even an approximate
calculation of this kind is premature and impossible for the time being ?

Second, is it possible to convert our expenditure budget
into gold and compare it ( on the main heads—and perhaps
by departments and regions, gubernias, capitals, etc., as
far as possible) with pre-war figures?

We should make a start, and as soon as possible, on a reform, through such or similar calculation, of our quite
neglected and irrelevantly, spontaneously, and irregularly
inflated budget.

I request you to let me have your opinion on this matter
and—if you have no special objections—to raise it in the
finance commission.

With communist greetings, Lenin