V. I.

Lenin

74

To:   COMRADES I. M. GUBKIN, A. I. TSEVCHINSKY, I. N. STRIZHOV AND N. N. SMIRNOV [1]

23. II.1921

In view of the reports sent in to the Central Oil
Administration on the question of the flooding of oil wells and the
consequent threat of disaster, please let me have today, if
possible, any material you may have at hand (books, magazines, reports, etc.) on foreign laws or local regulations
penalising oil industrialists for leaving wells uncovered,
failing to provide cementation, its faulty application, etc.

Let me have either the laws themselves, or, if these are
not immediately available, references to the corresponding books or magazine articles or handbooks, so that I
could get them from the library.

Please reply by telephone today.

Lenin

Chairman, C.P.C.

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Notes:
[1]
Written in connection with the fact that on February 19, 1921,

L. B. Krasin submitted a report to Lenin entitled “Concessions for the Working of Oil in Baku and Grozny, and the Attitude to This Question of the Central Oil Administration”. For details see this volume, Documents 95, 104, 105 and 112, and also present edition, Vol. 32, pp. 134–35.