[March 24, 1921]
. . . The moment being experienced by the communist revolution is undoubtedly difficult...
. . . To save the revolution, extraordinary, heroic measures are needed, but at the same time, reasonable ones as well. The implementation of these measures must also be reasonable, in order to gain time as much as possible...
. . . after all, the peasant, with his psychology, needs to know one thing: how much he must give from his harvest, how much he needs to sow in order to receive, at his full disposal, a sufficient amount of grain, in his opinion, for his "commercial" transactions for the independent supply of the farm with everything necessary.
And having cleverly used this inherent "commercial streak" of his, it will be easy to pump out all the surpluses above the established tax in the same "commercial" way...

84 I)