I am very much afraid that under the NKVD this will become a bureaucratic institution that does not enjoy the confidence of the population. Why not try to take those same resources and personnel that the NKVD has and transfer them instead to the People's Commissariat of Hotels, where this will be a publicly accessible reference institution? It is fundamentally incorrect in the NKVD. It is fundamentally necessary in the People's Commissariat of Hotels.

I request that this be reconsidered once more, and in case of disagreement, that it be brought before the Large Council of People's Commissars.406

11/VI. Lenin

Written June 11, 1921

First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI

Printed from the manuscript