V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v52; en:CW/CW45;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

30. V. 1921

Comrade Sklyansky:

Re the Economic Utilisation of the Army.

This must not be forgotten for a single moment.

We must think out, prepare and work out a systematic plan for such utilisation and carry it out unswervingly.

Two aspects of this question are particularly important:

1) current, most urgent economic jobs (protection and extraction of salt; fuel work, etc.);

2) work for the implementation of the general state economic plan for a number of years.

The electrification plan, designed (for the first stage of the work) for 10 years, requires 370
million working days. Per year this gives per man in the army (37 : 1.6) = 24 working days, i.e., two days a month.

Of course, conditions of army billeting, transport to places of work, etc., etc., will create
a host of difficulties, but all the same the army can and must (with the aid of universal military training) render tremendous assistance to the electrification cause. The army must be tied to this great cause—ideologically, organisationally and economically—and work on it systematically.

I request you to raise this question in the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, after reading this letter. I would be glad to hear the views of the members of the R.M.C.R. or to have at least brief comments from them on this question.335

Chairman, Council of Labour and Defence,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)