Comrades Frumkin, Avanesov and Stalin

I have read your draft decree on salt. I am surprised by the huge number of clauses which, in my opinion, are already contained in existing legislation, are an unnecessary repetition, and do not fall within the competence of the Council of Labour and Defence. If I am not mistaken, the only new and practically useful clause is the prohibition of bonuses in salt. In my opinion, the draft needs to be precisely collated with the existing laws of the People's Commissariat of Justice and revised. I would advise that the prohibition of bonuses in salt be immediately enacted as a separate decision through the Council of Labour and Defence. But, in my opinion, the most important thing is what is absent from the draft, namely a series of immediate practical measures for stricter state control over salt and for the maximum reduction of all and any issues of salt to workers, employees, urban inhabitants and the entire population in general. This latter measure must be implemented at least for the current autumn and the beginning of winter on the most stringent scale, for otherwise we will not obtain grain from the peasants in exchange for salt.

Lenin

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Written on 17 August 1921

First published in 1933
in Lenin Miscellany XXIII

Printed from the typewritten copy