V. I.

Lenin

304

To:   V. A. SMOLYANINOV AND C.L.D. MEMBERS [1]

Urgent

Comrade Smolyaninov

Please read my letter on the back of this and get it through
the C.L.D. (with a Gosplan opinion) with the utmost speed, in two to four days.

5/8.

Lenin

N.B. :

To get it through fast do the following:

1) Make 2–3 copies. Send one right away to
Krzhizhanovsky, asking him for an opinion by Tuesday ;

2) Circulate to C.L.D. members at once, and see to it
that they read it fast, making their remarks on their copies
right away;

3) Ask the C.L.D. members by telephone whether they
agree to hand in the preliminary project to a commission—
Krasin + Avanesov + Bogdanov (or someone specially authorised by him).

Lenin

I consider the plan correct and subject to immediate approval. Perhaps it may be desirable to have some further
specifications and additions, such as:

1) let them have the circulating capital in gold , but
only from our export earnings for 1921, charging the group
in question to expedite the realisation of this export;

2) specify with greater precision the “leased” area for the
given group, taking mostly, or even exclusively, the very
far north (this is more convenient for us, because it will
spare us the need to send food over there; it is more convenient politically, because the preferential terms for the
workers—up to 50 kopeks in gold !!—will cause less envy
and fewer collisions among the other workers);

3) give more precise definitions of the group’s obligations :
fulfil no less than a given programme (both in production
and in export in 1922 and especially 1923);

4) bind the “group” to try to abide by the interests of electrification (buy more foreign equipment for the
electric-power stations, make use of saw-dust, etc.)—the interests
of Russia’s fuel supply (fuel branch-lines; increased supplies of fuel and firewood to Moscow, etc. );

5) let the group have what it asks in the sphere of
financial and material independence.

5/VIII. 1921.

Lenin