To the People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs

Comrade Dovgalevsky!

I draw your serious attention—again and again—to the outrages with my telephone from the village of Gorki.

Today, August 6, Saturday—Kharkov to Moscow comes through excellently, or so I am told. On my end: they cannot hear me (though I hear Moscow) and the line is interrupted dozens of times.

The people you send keep tinkering, installing some sort of special devices to no purpose whatsoever. Either these people are complete fools, or they are very clever saboteurs.

It is clear that the personnel is worthless, or you do not know how to assign supervisors, or you do not know how to free the personnel from excessive work and organize things so that the personnel serve me decently.

When will we get a telephone for 30-40 versts, comparable to the Petersburg and Kharkov ones that work for 600-750 versts?

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin

Written August 6, 1921

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIII

Printed from the manuscript