V. I.

Lenin

197

To:   M. I. FRUMKIN

5/VI.

Comrade Frumkin:

I blame both the People’s Commissariat for Foreign
Trade (what a scandal!) and you for this absurd affair with
the fund for the South-Eastern Economic
Council. [1] You did nothing but whimper, although you should have
brought your precise proposals to the C.L.D. back in April:
1) such-and-such a calendar programme for the shipment
of gold; 2) such-and-such for wool, etc.

What you did, however, was to whimper from April to
June.

We now have to complete what has not been done.

A calendar programme of detailed measures, which is elaborated with the greatest precision, must be placed
before the C.L.D. by Wednesday (I can appoint the commission tomorrow, 6/VI—it can be appointed by
agreement between the People’s Commissars).

Make arrangements about this with Khinchuk (he seems to know something about trade. No one at the People’s
Commissariat for Food does).

Write me at once whether you can pledge now to get things going and what exactly.

Will you manage to arrange efficient trade with
Constantinople? Or will you run into another
Ancona? [2] into speculators, swindlers (and bankrupts: there are hordes
of them in Constantinople), and merely bring shame upon
yourself and the entire “commodity-exchange operation” of the South-Eastern Economic Council?

The South-Eastern Economic Council must display more initiative, but also shoulder more responsibility.

( If you are not going there again, get Beloborodov or
Kaganovich on the direct line and tell them everything I have written you about ; it’s time you got things going and
showed something for your effort.)

Let the South-Eastern Economic Council stop whimpering and start making timely business proposals to the C.L.D.
and taking care not to be late with supervising their fulfilment. [3]

Awaiting your letter.

With communist greetings, Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
On March 23, 1921, the C.L.D., in accordance with M. I.
Frumkin’s report “On the Supply of the Northern Caucasus with Raw
Materials and Money”, put the duty on the People’s
Commissariat for Foreign Trade and the Supreme Economic Council to
submit their opinion on this question to the Narrow C.P.C. On
March 24, the latter made it obligatory upon the People’s
Commissariat for Foreign Trade to place at the disposal of the

Commissariat’s agent in the south-east, not later than April 15, 10
million gold rubles worth of currency, valuables and raw materials
for the purchase, on foreign markets in the south, of the goods
required for commodity exchange in the Northern Caucasus. It
turned out at the end of April that the People’s Commissariat
for Foreign Trade had failed to carry out the C.L.D.
assignment.

On June 3, after repeated discussions of the matter in the C.L.D.
and the C.P.C., the C.L.D. authorised a commission, consisting
of L. M. Khinchuk, D. I. Kursky and V. A. Smolyaninov, to
inquire into the failure to fulfil the C.L.D. decision of March 24
and immediately to lake the necessary measures to ensure the
commodity exchange operations in the south-east. Having heard
the commission’s report, the C.L.D. recognised, on June 8, the
need to increase the commodity fund for the south-east, and
instructed the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade to submit
a report on execution of the decision by ail departments.

[2]
A reference to the inquiry into the case of an agreement
concluded with the owners of the cargo on board the Italian ship Ancona .
This agreement was concluded without the sanction of the People’s
Commissariat for Foreign Trade, and M. I. Frumkin, in his
capacity as the Deputy People’s Commissar, was empowered to annul
it, but had failed to do so. As a result, goods of inferior quality
were received, and Frumkin was given a reprimand.

[3]
In a reply letter of June 7, 1921, M. I. Frumkin explained that
the P.C.F.T. had failed to carry out the C.P.C. decision of March 24,
1921, on a commodity-exchange fund for the south-east, because
L. B. Krasin and A. M. Lezhava had been unwilling to give
the South-Eastern Territorial Economic Council the opportunity of trading independently with foreign markets. Frumkin
said that contrary to Moscow’s instructions, the Economic Council
had concentrated an export fund valued at 2.5 million gold rubles
and had concluded an agreement with the French “Optorg” for
the purchase of goods for the south-east o;i the Constantinople
market (see Note 187). On Frumkin’s letter Lenin wrote: “ To the archives . NB. Important” (Central Party Archives of the
Institute of Marxism Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee).