V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v8;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

The beginning of 1921 was marked by a severe fuel crisis, which caused interruptions in the work of transport and industry.
To combat the crisis an extraordinary group of five was appointed, headed by V. A. Avanesov, and thanks to their persistent efforts the crisis was liquidated by the end of March. After the spring three-week period (May-June) sufficient stocks of firewood had been accumulated at the railways to tide them over until the beginning of the winter timber season.
In September, however, the Chief Fuel Administration (Glavtop), which was then headed by I. T. Smilga, sounded the alarm about the shortage of firewood stocks at the railways and planned a new three-week period. At a meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars V. A. Avanesov protested against this, pointing out that it was inexpedient to arrange such a three-week period during the season of bad roads. Nevertheless, the Council of People’s Commissars approved the proposal to hold the three-week period.
V. A. Avanesov’s closest assistant in his work on fuel was D. G. Loninov, head of the Fuel Section of the Technical and Industrial Department of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection.
After the Council of People’s Commissars had rejected the protest of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection against the three-week period, Avanesov submitted to J. V. Stalin Loninov’s report on the fuel situation. J. V. Stalin became interested in this report and suggested that D. G. Loninov should draw up for him, within a few hours, a “brief questionnaire of 2-3 pages”.
This questionnaire—or “preliminary report”, as it is called here—was submitted by J. V. Stalin to Lenin, who reacted to it in the letter printed below.

20.
23138
CONCERNING THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORKERS’ AND PEASANTS’ INSPECTION, THEIR UNDERSTANDING AND THEIR FULFILMENT

The task of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection is not only and not even so much to “catch” and “expose” (that is the job of the courts, with which the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection is closely connected but with which it is by no means identical) as to be able to correct.
Timely and skilful correction—that is the main task of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection.
To be able to correct one must, firstly, study and learn the conduct of affairs in this or that institution, enterprise, department, etc.; and, secondly, make the necessary practical changes in good time and put them into effect.

CONCERNING THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORKERS’ AND PEASANTS’ INSPECTION
In the conduct of affairs by different and heterogeneous enterprises, institutions, departments, etc., there is much that is similar and similar in fundamentals. The task of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection is to train, from the experience of business-like inspection, a group of leading, experienced, knowledgeable people who would be able to formulate questions (with a skilful and correct formulation of questions the very formulation predetermines the success of the [inspection] audit and makes correction possible), to direct the audit and inspection, to verify correction, etc.
The organisation of accounting, for example, is a fundamental matter in all departments and institutions of the most diverse kinds.
The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must know it, study it, be able to check in the shortest possible time (by sending a man for half an hour, for an hour to the appropriate office) whether accounting is organised, whether it is properly organised, what shortcomings there are in its organisation, how to correct them, etc.
The methods of organising accounting, the methods of penalising shortcomings, the methods of “catching” deception, the methods of verifying actual fulfilment must be studied, collated and summarised in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must have a list of institutions, departments and gubernias that have organised tolerable accounting; even if there is only one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand, that does not matter, provided we systematically and unswervingly wage a persistent and unrelenting war to extend the area of application of the good model. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must have a calendar chart showing the progress of this war, our successes and defeats in this war.
Acquaintance with the preliminary draft of a report on the work of the fuel bodies and on the growth of the autumn (fuel) crisis of 1921 convinces me that the fundamentals of the matter are not properly organised in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. This draft report contains neither a study of the matter nor an approach to correction.
For example, the three-week period (of 1921) is compared with 1920. Bare totals are taken.
The comparison is incorrect, because account is taken neither of (1) the difference in food supplies (the spring of 1921 and the whole of the first half of 1921 were under special conditions owing to the change-over to the tax in kind), nor of (2) the crop failure of 1921.
Danishevsky 1) points out: the gubernias not affected by the crop failure fulfilled the three-week programme in 1921 to the extent of over 40 per cent; the gubernias affected by the crop failure showed a huge deficit in the fulfilment of assignments.
There is no study whatever in the report.
The shortcomings of accounting in the Chief Timber Committee (Glavleskom) are, apparently, correctly indicated in the preliminary report of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. Danishevsky also admits this. It has been proved. Accounting is bad.
But it is precisely in this fundamental question that the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must not confine itself in its preliminary report to the “thesis”: “accounting is bad, there is no accounting”. And what have you done, [good sirs] comrades of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, to improve its organisation?
[Avanesov, Deputy People’s Commissar, who personally participated]
Many prominent workers of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection personally participated in the winter and spring of 1921 in a mass of conferences and commissions on the fuel crisis. It was precisely in the spring [and summer] of 1921 (apparently in March 1921) that the change of management in the Chief Timber Committee took place. In March 1921, therefore, the Chief Timber Committee should have organised its accounting anew.
Danishevsky did this. But he did it unsatisfactorily. His accounting is bad. Danishevsky is undoubtedly to blame. But to find the culprit in the person of the head is only a very small part of the job.
Did the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection fulfil its task and its duty? Did it correctly understand its task? That is the main question. And this question must be answered in the negative.
Knowing the critical state of the fuel supply, knowing that firewood is the main thing, knowing that accounting under the old Chief Timber Committee (Lomov 2)) was bad, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection should have given its formal advice in writing in March 1921:
organise accounting in such and such a way.
In April 1921 it should have checked how the new management (Danishevsky)
had organised accounting and again given its formal advice in writing: correct it in such and such a way, otherwise things will not go.
In May 1921 it should have checked again, and so on every month,

CONCERNING THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORKERS’ AND PEASANTS’ INSPECTION
until accounting was organised tolerably.
It was precisely [Avanesov should have instructed the appropriate inspector (preferably one person, not a department)] in the spring of 1921 that the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection should have appointed such and such an inspector (preferably one person, not a “department”, although in practice there is probably a whole “department” in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection in charge of the audit or inspection of timber or fuel affairs in general) to watch over the accounting of the Chief Timber Committee, to study it, to report monthly to [Avanesov] such and such a member of the board or to submit summaries (in such and such gubernias tolerable accounting; list of them; in such and such none at all, etc. Measures? To the C.C., R.C.P.? To the All-Russia C.E.C.? Results of measures?).
Danishevsky is to blame for the bad organisation of accounting.
The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, i.e., the particular responsible inspector or auditor, whose name I do not know, is to blame for not fulfilling his duty, beginning with March 1921.
The practical, business-like, non-bureaucratic question is:
how to improve the accounting of the Chief Timber Committee?
Not finding an answer to this (most important) question in the preliminary report of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, which should have given this answer, I look for the answer myself, but I may easily make a mistake, because I have not studied the matter. My proposals, which I shall be glad to change if better ones are given me, are:
1) introduce accounting (once every two weeks) not by post, as at present, but by telegraph;
2) for this purpose work out a kind of “code”: 7-9 figures and letters, so that a few lines give the total (cubic sazhens of timber cut; hauled; grain and fodder received and issued, etc.);
3) give Danishevsky the right, either by legislation, to arrest persons for failure to submit reports on time, or (if this is impossible, if for some reason it cannot be done) apply to the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee with a request to arrest persons for failure to submit reports; issue the appropriate directive through the C.C., R.C.P.; verify fulfilment;
4) methods of checking on the spot, personally, directly, whether it is being fulfilled; how; what are the difficulties?
Danishevsky says that he has introduced travelling controllers throughout Russia, who have already visited all gubernias, have reached the lower bodies, are tightening things up, and have tightened up many gubernias.
Is this true? Is Danishevsky not being misled by his officials?
It is very probable that he is.
And the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection? It should study this and know it.
There is not a word about this in the preliminary report. When were the travelling controllers introduced? How many are there? What is their standard? What are the results of their work? How to improve matters if they are unsatisfactory?
That is the crux of the matter, and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection inspector has precisely avoided this crux.
I repeat, the question of the organisation of accounting is a fundamental question. It has not been studied by the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection has not fulfilled—and, apparently, has not even understood—its task: to watch over the organisation of accounting, to strive for and achieve its improvement. Through the All-Russia C.E.C., through the C.C., R.C.P., through all channels the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must be able to “bring” the matter before the highest, both Party and Soviet, bodies, and achieve improvements in the organisation of accounting.
I have dwelt in detail on the most important (and simplest) question: the organisation of accounting, but there are also important and more difficult questions, for example, the organisation of contract work (verification of fulfilment; accounting, etc.), and so forth.
One particularly interesting question is touched upon in the preliminary report, but only touched upon, not advanced in a business-like way. The author of the preliminary report writes: “the responsible heads are overburdened with work to the point of exhaustion, while the technical apparatuses of the subordinate bodies (the Chief Coal Committee, the Chief Timber Committee, etc., subordinate to the Chief Fuel Administration, are mentioned) are full of inactive employees.”
I am sure that this is a valuable and absolutely correct observation and that it applies not only to the Chief Fuel Administration but to all, or 99 per cent, of institutions and departments.
This evil exists everywhere.
The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection should have submitted a formal written proposal in March, when the (new) organisation was being set up, or, at the latest, in April, when it was set up:
correct it in such and such a way.
This was not done.
How should this evil be corrected?
I do not even know approximately. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must know, because its job is to study this, to compare different departments, to submit various practical proposals, to test them in practice, etc.

CONCERNING THE PROBLEMS OF THE WORKERS’ AND PEASANTS’ INSPECTION
When I say “Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection”, I have in mind primarily the author of this preliminary report. But it is clear to me that this applies not only to this author.
We must select a few, at least two or three (that many can certainly be found), absolutely conscientious, intelligent and experienced workers in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection and set them to work out a sensible plan of work for the inspectors, to begin with, at least, work on the organisation of accounting. It is better to take a little, but to carry it through to the end.
The author of the preliminary report touches upon a [multitude] host of subjects, but they are not studied, they are hastily thrown together, and there is no sense in them at all.
It is a game of “parliamentary reports”.
What is needed is practical correction.
The lack of study is evident, for example, from question 52(39): to single out only the model mines.
That is precisely the conclusion reached by the C.L.D. commission (Smilga and Ramzin 3)) after visiting the Donbas in September 1921. That is precisely the conclusion of the State Planning Commission.
Why do I know about the work of the State Planning Commission and the Smilga commission, while the special inspector who has taken up the report on the Chief Fuel Administration does not know it?
The organisation of the work is wrong.
As a practical conclusion I propose:
1) to single out at least the question of the organisation of accounting and carry it through to the end;
2) to entrust it to certain persons, and inform me of their names;
3) to inform me of the name of the inspector who has been entrusted with the Chief Timber Committee affair.
Lenin 4).
September 27, 1921.

1) K. Kh. Danishevsky (born 1884)—was head of the Chief Timber Committee from 1921 to 1924. Now chairman of the Board of the Timber Export Corporation.
2) G. I. Lomov-Oppokov (born 1888)—was head of the Chief Timber Committee from its foundation until March 1921. Now chairman of the Board of the Donets Coal Trust. Member of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.).
3) This refers to the C.L.D. commission sent in July 1921 to Baku, Grozny and the Donbas to settle questions connected with raising productivity and regulating the supply of workers in the Baku and Grozny oilfields and the Donets coal basin, and also to ensure the shipment of oil products from Baku via the Caspian Sea and the Volga and the transfer of oil products from Grozny to Novorossiisk. The commission consisted of I. T. Smilga (chairman), I. I. Radchenko (Chief Fuel Administration), Ramzin (State Planning Commission) and representatives of a number of departments.
4) In reply to this letter of Lenin’s, J. V. Stalin wrote him the following note—“Reply on the Inspection”:
“Comrade Lenin,
1) It is possible that your charges against the author of the ‘preliminary’ report are premature, for the actual report has not yet been submitted to you. I have already told you that the ‘preliminary’ report was drawn up for purposes of orientation, and the list of questions to facilitate your preliminary check, or, as it is now the fashion to say, to ‘interest’ you in the question. However, I am prepared to admit a priori that our poor inspection will still tend to slip into the easy old path of ‘catching’ (it will continue to do so until we strengthen it with Communists, until we provide its leading workers with material security).
2) I think that in our conditions inspection has, among other things, another purpose: to be a barometer that indicates stormy or fine weather. If in the given case the inspection correctly foretells a storm and, consequently, gives a warning, even if only on one question, that is no small thing for such a feeble organism as the inspection.
3) A couple of engineers who are investigating the fuel institutions receive together less than a messenger in the Northern Timber Trust. The other day I was compelled to give them a few hundred thousand rubles each, despite the protest of Avanesov, who referred to some ‘regulations’ on rates of pay which had long ago been ‘exceeded’ tenfold by all the institutions under inspection.
4) The author of the ‘preliminary’ report is Loninov (Communist), head of the Fuel Section of the Technical and Industrial Department of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection.
5) I shall keep your notes.
J. Stalin.
September 27.
P.S. Loninov told me the day before yesterday that he would append to his report a draft of concrete measures for improving the apparatus of the fuel institutions.
J. St.”