V. I.

Lenin

Comrade Kiselyov, Chairman of the Narrow Council
Copies to Comrades Bogdanov, Unshlikht, Avanesov and Kursky

I draw your attention to the note by Mikhels in Izvestia No. 203 of
Sept. 13. [1]

The author writes that since 1918, 2.5 million poods of most valuable metal cargoes have been lying in store,
almost in a swamp, unregistered and unguarded, and are being pilfered and ruined.

I ask you urgently to check up if that is true.

If it is, take all the necessary steps immediately to register, preserve, etc., this property, and to bring those
guilty most strictly to book.

Give me a detailed written report, pointing out the names
and posts of the persons guilty of this scandal, and make
a communication to the Council of Labour and Defence.

I ask you to do all this with the utmost urgency.

V. Ulyanov (Lenin )
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars

---
Notes:
[1]
V. A. Mikhels —journalist who wrote the item “Destitute
Billionaires”, pointing to the crying disorder at the warehouses in
Lizino station of the Moscow-Kazan Railway, where 2.5 million
poods of metal, costly machines, equipment and tools had not
been inventoried and were lying in the open.

Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council P. A. Bogdanov
sent Lenin (in reply to his letter of September 15) a report from
the chief of the State Warehouse Administration under the
Supreme Economic Council, I. K. Yezhov, who complained of a
shortage of warehouse space, multiplicity of authority, and a struggle
for warehouse space between various departments. For Lenin’s reply
to Yezhov’s report, see present edition, Vol. 35, pp.523–24.