To Comrade Tomsky with a request to introduce it to the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and to the communist fraction of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions

Dear comrades! I am forwarding to you a report on the amazing red tape, negligence, bureaucracy, and ineptitude displayed in a most important practical matter.

I have never doubted that there is still a great deal of bureaucracy in our commissariats, in all of them.

But I did not expect that there is no less bureaucracy in the trade unions.

This is a very great disgrace. I earnestly request that all these documents be read in the communist fraction of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and that practical measures be worked out to combat bureaucracy, red tape, idleness, and ineptitude.

I request that you do not refuse to inform me of the results.

Comrade Melnichansky himself called me about these 10,000 metalworkers. I raised an uproar before the People’s Commissariat of Railways, and now Comrade Melnichansky has put me in a galosh...

With communist greetings

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

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First published on 22 January

1925 in the newspaper “Trud” No. 18

Printed from the manuscript