V. I.

Lenin

737

To:   A. I. RYKOV AND I. I. RADCHENKO

28. X. 1920

1) Comrade Rykov (or, if he has not yet recovered,
Comrade Milyutin)

2) and Comrade I. I. Radchenko, Chief Peat Committee

Copies to:

3) R. E. Klasson (to be found through
Radchenko)

4) Krzhizhanovsky, Chairman of the State
Commission for the Electrification of Russia

5) Sklyansky (§ 4) and Trotsky

6) Lezhava and Lomonosov

7) the Cinema Department

8) Sosnovsky

9) Shatunovsky (Chief Transport Commission).

On 27. X. 1920, a film before a large Party audience showed the working of a new hydraulic pump (of
engineer R. E. Klasson) which mechanises the extraction
of peat, as compared with the old method.

In this connection, an exchange of opinions took place between engineer Klasson, Comrades Radchenko and
Morozov—representatives of the Chief Peat Committee, Comrade
Shatunovsky (from the Chief Transport Commission), and myself.

This exchange of opinions revealed that the heads of the Chief Peat Committee fully agree with the inventor
on the great importance of this invention. In all the work
for restoring the national economy of the R.S.F.S.R. and
for the country’s electrification, mechanisation of peat extraction makes it possible to go ahead immeasurably more
rapidly and firmly and on a broader front. It is therefore
essential immediately to take a number of measures on a national scale to develop this work.

Please discuss this question immediately and give me without delay your comments (corrections, additions,
counter-plans, and so on) on the following proposals arising from
yesterday’s preliminary exchange of opinions.

1. To regard work on applying the hydraulic method of
peat extraction as of prime state importance and therefore
especially urgent. To pass a decision to this effect through
the Council of People’s Commissars on Saturday, 30/X.

2. To instruct all chief committees (and other bodies),
on whose support the successful work of the Commission (or
committee?) for Hydraulic Peat Extraction (under the Chief
Peat Committee) mainly depends, to delegate their representatives (preferably Communists or, in any case, people
known to be conscientious and particularly energetic ) to take
a permanent part in this commission. To make them responsible, in particular,
for the speediest fulfilment, without any procrastination, of the orders and requests of this
commission. To give the Council of People’s Commissars the
names and addresses of these representatives.

3. The same in regard to some of the most important
factories involved. List of these factories to be drawn up.

4. To instruct the Naval Department to have its own
representative on the commission, one fully acquainted with
the stocks of materials and technical facilities of this
department.

5. To issue Red Army rations to the group of people on
whose work the rapid and complete success of the matter
directly depends, increasing at the same time their remuneration so as to enable them to devote themselves wholly
and completely to their work. To instruct the
Commission for Hydraulic Peat Extraction to send immediately
to the People’s Commissariat for Food and the All-Russia
Central Council of Trade Unions a list (exact) of these
people, indicating standards of remuneration, bonuses , etc.

6. To discuss immediately with the People’s
Commissariat for Foreign Trade what orders should be placed at
once with Swedish and German factories (perhaps engaging there one or several prominent chemists) so that by the
summer of 1921 we can receive what is necessary for the
speediest and widest application of the hydraulic method. In
particular, to make use of Comrade Lomonosov who is due
to leave for Sweden and Germany within the next few days.

7. To instruct the Cinema Department (of the People’s
Commissariat for Education?) to arrange for the film of
the hydraulic method to be shown on a wide scale ( particularly in Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Moscow and
peat-extraction localities ) with the simultaneous reading,
without fail, of a brief and popular leaflet (ask Comrade
Sosnovsky to edit it) explaining the gigantic importance of
mechanising peat extraction and of electrification.

8. I fix the first report of the Commission for the Hydraulic Method of Peat Extraction to the Council of People’s
Commissars for 30. X.
1920. [1]

V. Ulyanov (Lenin )
Chairman, C.P.C.

P.S. Comrade Rykov, should not the question be raised of using more of the materials and technical facilities of the
Naval Department for the needs of the production of the
means of production? Why should we want new battleships and the like? Aren’t they out of place just now? Shatunovsky (take notice of him, he is a devoted and valuable
man; a worker , studied mathematics abroad) says (according
to Sosnovsky) that in the Naval Department Trotsky discovered something like a million poods of first-grade steel (for
battleships) and took it for the Chief Transport Commission.
Check this, think it over, perhaps we shall put it before
the Council of Defence or the Council of People’s
Commissars.

Yours, Lenin