V. I.

Lenin

353

MARKINGS ON G. O. GRAFTIO’S LETTER AND ASSIGNMENTS TO N. P. GORBUNOV

... If you have the time, you will find out (from the statement.— Ed. ) about the incredible conditions of the

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bureaucratic irresponsible confusion, and frequently of what looks like deliberate resistance , in which we have to carry on the
building of the Volkhov hydroelectric power installation, inaugurated by you through Comrade Smidovich three years ago.

... It pains me very much to waste your valuable time, but I have decided to do so only because of my strong
conviction

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NB
that the Volkhov installation must be completed as soon as possible at all costs.

Urgent

Comrade Gorbunov :

Will you undertake this business (or pass it to
Smolyaninov by agreement with him).

The statement and report by the chief engineer of the
Volkhov site, Comrade Graftio (of 25/8), expose both crime
(red tape) and a number of mistakes by the S.E.C. or the
Petrograd Soviet of Deputies, or the C.L.D. , or all these
establishments together.

Therefore I suggest that you:

(1) at once instruct the People’s Commissariat for
Justice, on my behalf, to investigate the red tape and to bring
the guilty to trial . Introduce at the C.L.D. within a week.

(2) Call a conference (S.E.C. + Petrograd Soviet + State
Planning Commission inviting other departments concerned)
to work out, within a week, a draft C.L.D. decision on measures to accelerate the works and arrange them
properly [1] (perhaps, on the model of the flax trust, giving Graftio
more powers?).

V. Ulyanov (Lenin )

Chairman, C.P.C.

Inform me of execution.

Lenin

2/IX.

---
Notes:
[1]
By a decision on September 10, 1921, the C.L.D. qualified the
Volkhov project as a “top priority construction project”. All
departments were instructed to give top priority to indents from the Volkhov project. The progress of construction was repeatedly
discussed by the All-Russia C.E.C. See also this volume,