V. I.

Lenin

438

To:   N. P. GORBUNOV

13.X.1921

Comrade Gorbunov:

1) The pamphlet must be returned to the author (after
making a note of its title and the author’s place of work). [1]

2) Try to find out in which libraries the book is
available.

3) Write to engineer N. S. Vetchinkin, asking him
whether he could write an article on this question for
Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn or Izvestia .

Write a small pamphlet with the addition of conclusions
from the latest (1914–1921) foreign literature.

4) Propose that the S.E.C. Presidium should establish:

( a) the keeping of a correct inventory of our road-building machinery, by agreement with the War Department; ( b) persons responsible for the inventory and use of these
machines (perhaps, these responsible persons should be at the S.E.C.’s Public Works Committee? ); ( c) discuss whether or not a small number of tractors
should be assigned to this work to carry it on regularly.

V. Ulyanov (Lenin )

Chairman, C.P.C.

---
Notes:
[1]
A reference to a pamphlet by V. D. Batyushkov and N. S.
Vetchinkin, Tverdiye gruntoviye dorogi (Hard-Cover Roads). The
register of Lenin’s assignments to the C.P.C. and C.L.D. contains
the following entry dated September 23, 1921: “Collect information about American machines for the fast laying of highways.
Vladimir Ilyich heard about these machines from Comrade
Bogdanov. Establish: =

1) How many machines do we have, where and
how arc they working? =

2) What is the price of such machines
abroad? 3) How far have they been improved? Get this thing
going. Fulfilled October 3” ( Istorichesky Arkhiv No. 5, 1961,
p. 42).