Letter to N. P. Gorbunov on the Organization of Work of the Business Administration of Sovnarkom and the Council of Labor and Defense
Письмо Н. П. Горбунову о постановке работы управления делами СНК и СТО
Date: 1921-09-03
Source: ru:LS/v8
Translated by: AI (Claude)

September 3, [1921]

Comrade Gorbunov!

I have just signed mandates for the chairman and members of the Extraordinary Commission on Export under the Council of Labor and Defense (to Rykunov, Pyatigorsky, Valaev and Ilya Spiridonovich Ermakov). I instruct you to familiarize yourself with the composition of this Commission and with the regulations on it, then systematically familiarize yourself with the progress of its work, with its reports, and inform me.

I take this opportunity to point out to you the need for proper distribution of work between you and Smolyaninov (and Boris Volin, if we manage to involve him) and the proper organization of all the work of the Business Administration of Sovnarkom and the Council of Labor and Defense.

Functions must be precisely distributed between you and Smolyaninov. Each must "maintain supervision" over specific matters (electric plows; Gidrotorf; collective supply; tariffs, etc., etc.).

For each matter, both "old" and newly arising, all papers and all references must be systematically collected together, so that what is required can always be easily found.

Besides distributing between you the affairs of the "economic front," now the most important front, it is also necessary to distribute (or take everything upon yourself) the non-economic People's Commissariats, "following" their work through reports of provincial and district economic councils and otherwise.

For each "matter" it is necessary from time to time (once a week, once a month or two months, depending on the nature and importance of the matter – and then suddenly) to conduct verification of actual implementation. This is the most important and most necessary thing. Note the results of each verification.

I think that when there are three of you (you + Smolyaninov + B. Volin or someone else, if it doesn't work out with Volin), this will be sufficient (with a small number of clerical assistants) for conducting all work – of course, on condition of absolute accuracy on the one hand, and on the other hand, on condition of transferring everything that can and should be transferred to "Economic Life," to Gosplan, and to other appropriate institutions. For reading district reports, it will be necessary to attract a number of other persons with mandatory signature of the reader on a sheet attached to each report: we will attract both writers and some party members from among the oldest and some "specialists." When the number of incoming reports increases, you will compile a list of "those assisting in reading reports" and establish a strict order for returning what has been read.

Make a typewritten copy of this letter and send it to me together with your answer about the plan for distributing and conducting all the work of the Business Administration of Sovnarkom and the Council of Labor and Defense.

In particular, special attention must be paid to Gidrotorf both in connection with orders already placed abroad for peat pumps for the 1922 season, and in connection with the recent communication from R. E. Klasson about his solution to the dewatering problem.

Then I instruct you to investigate the matter of the idleness of the Swedish factory "Nitwes and Holm" ("Economic Life" No. 194, p. 4). "They were slow to formalize" an order for water turbines!! Of which we have a terrible shortage!! This is the height of outrage and shamelessness!

Be sure to find the guilty parties so that we can rot these scoundrels in prison.

Establish precise personal responsibility for the work of this factory and orders to it.

In general, establishing precise personal responsibility is the most important matter of the Business Administration of Sovnarkom and the Council of Labor and Defense. This I will demand most strictly of all. If it proves necessary, immediately involve the People's Commissariat of Justice and the Revolutionary Tribunal or an "expert" from them.

One more matter. The Scientific-Technical Department of the Supreme Council of National Economy, it seems, has completely fallen asleep. It is necessary either to wake it up or properly advance the matter of dispersing these scholarly idlers and necessarily establish precisely who will be responsible for acquainting us with European and American technology properly, on time, practically, not in a bureaucratic manner. In particular, Moscow must have one copy each of all the most important machines of the latest type – to study and to teach. (Two engineers told me that in America they make roads with a machine that turns a country road into a highway solely by the force of its pressure; how important this would be for our roadless semi-savage country!)

It is necessary to ensure that the Scientific-Technical Department of the Supreme Council of National Economy and its numerous foreign idlers stop idling or that we replace them with others.

Chairman of Sovnarkom V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

[Note: The Extraordinary Commission on Export under the Council of Labor and Defense was formed on August 10, 1921 to assist the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade in the matter of forming and concentrating in its hands the export fund. The Commission consisted of representatives: of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, Supreme Council of National Economy, and People's Commissariat of Food.

M. V. Rykunov – chairman of the Extraordinary Commission on Export. His deputy in the Commission was a representative from Workers' and Peasants' Inspection – G. D. Krasinsky.
D. V. Pyatigorsky – representative from the Supreme Council of National Economy.
A. A. Valaev – representative from the People's Commissariat of Food.
I. S. Ermakov – representative from the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission.

B. M. Volin (b. 1886) – journalist, worked at "Pravda," was editor of "Workers' Moscow," now deputy head of the press department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Lenin knew him as an energetic worker (chairman of the provincial executive committee); his transfer to work in Sovnarkom did not take place.

R. E. Klasson (1868-1926) – one of the oldest participants in the workers' movement in Russia (participated in the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class); engineer, specialist in peat affairs.]