# LETTER TO L. B. KAMENEV
Source: PSS vol 44

To grant powers to the Gubekosso? That would mean “duplicating” the already flawed Foreign Trade Department with even worse foreign trade officials—90% of whom would be bought off by capitalists.
The alternative conclusion is this: abandon the game of issuing decrees (there was a necessary phase in which decrees served as a vital tool of propaganda; they were indispensable for the success of the revolution—and that phase has passed).
There is not the slightest trust to be placed either in decrees or in institutions. All that matters is to scrutinize actual practice and to discipline those who drag their feet.
Only intelligent people should concern themselves with these matters; as for everything else, we should simply… put the rest in their place.
I would propose that the Presidium of the VTsIK immediately adopt the following resolution:
In light of the outrageous delays plaguing the purchase of food at the rate of soviet rubles in the deal concerning [such-and-such], we order the Gospolitupr—let’s give them a good scare!—to track down those responsible for the bureaucratic delays and sentence to six hours in prison anyone working at the Mosgubekosso, and to thirty-six hours in prison anyone working at the Foreign Trade Department (of course, excluding members of the VTsIK—after all, we have almost parliamentary immunity).
Then let the press take up the task of ridiculing both groups and spitting on them. For the real shame lies in the fact that the people of Moscow—right there in Moscow!—failed to learn how to combat bureaucratic red tape. For that, we must mete out harsh punishment.
They “failed” to send a simple telegram:
“Urgent, highly advantageous deal. We demand a response from the Foreign Trade Department within three hours. A copy to Molotov for the Central Committee, to Tsurupa for the Sovnarkom, and to Egnukidze for the VTsIK.”
No response within three hours? Then send another four-line complaint over the phone.
And yet these idiots wander around for two whole weeks, talking endlessly! For such behavior, they ought to be locked away in prison—not granted exemptions. Let us punish the people of Moscow for their foolishness with six hours in a vermin-infested cell; and let us punish the Foreign Trade officials for their stupidity—and add “central accountability”—with thirty-six hours in a vermin-infested cell.
This is the only way we can truly teach them a lesson. Otherwise, neither local nor central officials will ever learn their lesson. We cannot afford to trade freely—such freedom would spell ruin for Russia.
We can and will learn to apply the same system of rewards and punishments to our bureaucrats: for each successful transaction, you receive a certain percentage—say, a fraction of a percent—but if you fail to deliver, you face prison.
And we must replace the personnel at the NKVT. The same goes for our state trading enterprises, where “at the helm” sit sanctimonious members of the VTsIK and “famous” communists—men and women who are led by the nose by shrewd businessmen.
Order the NKFin: either you will manage, through the State Bank, to drive these sanctimonious communists out of the state trading enterprises (I will withhold credit; I will refer them to the courts for late payments, for negligence, and the like), or else your entire NKFin and the State Bank will amount to nothing but empty talk and a game of paper promises.
We must overhaul the work of both the Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence—I have already written to Tsurupa and drafted the corresponding directive—and of the Politburo as well; otherwise, ruin is inevitable.
I earnestly request that this be read in secret by the members of the Politburo, including Molotov, and that each member return it to me with just two words of comment at most.
Yours, Lenin
First published in 1959, in Lenin Collection XXXVI

Printed from manuscript
* See this volume, pp. 369–370. Ed.
LETTER TO V. M. MOLOTOV FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE POLITBURO OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(b)
March 3, 1922
To Comrade Molotov, for the members of the Politburo. Copies to: Comrades Pyatakov and Sokolnikov.
I am sending you the minutes of the meeting on the financing of industry, convened at the behest of Deputy Chairman of the Sovnarkom, Comrade Tsurupa, on March 3rd of this year.
I ask you to circulate these minutes to all members of the Politburo and to urgently place the question of industrial financing before the Politburo.
Call upon Comrades Pyatakov and Sokolnikov to serve as rapporteurs.
Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars
First published in 1959, in Lenin Collection XXXVI

Printed from typed copy
432
MEMORANDUM TO THE MEMBERS OF THE POLITBURO OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(b)
To the Members of the Politburo
Sokolnikov is shooting blanks. What guarantees do we have that they won’t cart off all the valuable assets? None whatsoever.
Now they’re stealing—yes, they are—but let us instead learn how to catch them in the act of theft, rather than making things easier for wealthy foreigners.
5/III.
Lenin
Written on March 5, 1922
First published in 1959, in Lenin Collection XXXVI

Printed from manuscript
433