V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v20
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

NOTES ON A REPORT
ON THE FORMATION
OF AN EXPORT FUND
[June 23, 1921]

The formation of an export fund
There is no need to prove that the most important task in foreign trade is: the formation of an export fund. This task must immediately be placed on a plane of practical realisation...
...All the same, products and raw materials of animal husbandry, raw materials, furs and hides, fibrous substances, medicinal plants, resin and other forest products, handicraft articles, various waste products, etc., will have to be obtained to a considerable extent not through state apparatuses, but through the cooperatives and artels, if we want to create a solid export fund...
...In the past, in all corners of Russia, a whole stratum of small and medium buyers-up of raw materials and handicraft articles had formed. The revolution swept them away, destroyed them, threw them out of Russia... The decrees on the trades and handicraft industry are already arousing in them a desire for “their own business”. If the state quickly proceeds along the path of giving these enterprising people definite orders for the collection of raw materials, their semi-manufacture and handicraft finishing, they will quickly form small groups, bring out their former savings and in a short time spread their tenacious network-apparatuses for collecting everything that can be utilised and sold...
...It is only necessary to impress upon all these gentry that for everything they collect and hand over to the state organs they will be paid the real wholesale price. Of course, these people’s profit will go into their own pockets at the expense of the peasant and the trades producer. But at present the state need not be particularly embarrassed by this. I think that enlisting these former, and now co-operating, buyers-up for the collection of all kinds of raw materials is absolutely inevitable and necessary, and, in my opinion, this is the most reliable apparatus for the formation of an export fund...
...By what apparatus are these operations to be carried out? (The detection and acceptance of goods. Ed.) Experience has shown that entrusting all these operations to the apparatuses of the economic organs has led to deplorable results. Therefore, for the detection of goods and for their acceptance, it is necessary to select a staff of our own agents who will be permanently employed. The best way to assemble this staff and adapt them to the work is to organise local, chiefly export, organs in the gubernias and regions that are of most interest to us. If we succeed in interesting the export workers materially in one form or another, the creation of such organs and staffs of agents will be a simple matter and will not take much time.

June 23, 1921]
Comrade Rykunov!
I have read
your letter and agree with almost everything absolutely.
It is extremely important regarding the enlistment of traders.
I am sending it on to the members of the C.C.
Press harder.
Greetings! Lenin.