V. I.

Lenin

April 30, 1919

Comrade Zinoviev, Talking with Comrade Yemelyanov, I was particularly
struck by the fact that such best and most reliable
Petrograd workers are wasting themselves on technical work
like road transport.

This is unforgivable! For technical work we can hire and
take ninth-rate men and strangers, i.e., those whose honesty
is not known. But men like Yemelyanov should be sent into the countryside, into the administration , into
management, into the uyezd executive committees, where honest
men are few and far between, where the need for honest men is desperate.

Could we form a sponsoring group of workers in Petrograd,
consisting of Comrade Yemelyanov and 5 or 10 of his friends, to select 300–600 Petrograd workers, with the most
solid references from the Party and the trade unions, for
dispatch, singly or in pairs, to uyezd executive committees
throughout Russia?

I should support this plan in every possible way. All such men (too old to go to the front) should be taken off
technical work and posts where they can be replaced , and
transferred to administrative work in the countryside.
Without a group of such absolutely reliable and experienced
Petrograd workers we shall not be able to bring about any
big improvement in the villages.

Greetings, Lenin