25.
9604

*LETTER TO P. A. BOGDANOV ON THE RED TAPE
IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FOWLER PLOUGHS.
23. XII. [192]1.

Comrade Bogdanov!

I consider all your arguments concerning the matter of Fowler ploughs to be fundamentally and in principle incorrect. True, your incorrectness is not as unseemly (I apologize for the strong expression) as Osinsky's, who has outright transformed himself into a defender of the worst bureaucratism, but even so things are not going well on your part either.

One must not fear the court (our court is proletarian) and public scrutiny, but rather drag the red tape before the court of public scrutiny: only in this way shall we seriously cure this disease.

Your argument: exclusively good, devoted, valued workers.

Let us suppose this is true, that you have no "departmental enthusiasm."

What follows from this?

Only this: that the court, if it agrees with you on this (and you will probably, since you firmly believe in this, present a series of most serious witnesses to prove it), will deliver a verdict:

*guilty of failing to prevent red tape and lack of proper
administration, taking into account the exceptional devotion to Soviet power, fully proved by a series of
witnesses, the outstanding conscientiousness and zeal, likewise fully proved, taking into account the general
defects of the Supreme Council of the National Economy apparatus, related in part to changes in the presidium,
etc....... to free from any punishment in the confidence
that the defendants will take this seriously, as will the
entire presidium of the Supreme Council of the National
Economy.*

What, if such an approximately worded verdict is delivered, can you deny its utility? its social significance, a thousand times greater than the secret-party-apparatchik-idiotic burying of a filthy matter concerning filthy red tape without public scrutiny?

You are fundamentally dead wrong. We do not know how to conduct open trials for filthy red tape: for this all of us and the Commissariat of Justice ought to be hanged on stinking ropes. And I have not yet lost hope that we shall one day be hanged for this justly.

If you think that in the RSFSR there cannot be found one intelligent prosecutor and three intelligent judges, truly intelligent ones (not hasty, not corrupt, not phrase-mongers), then I accuse you further of pessimism regarding Soviet power. A copy of this letter (together with your letter) I am sending to comrade Kursky with a special request that he read it and distribute it more widely among jurists and that he specifically, on his, Kursky's, responsibility, consider it incumbent to appoint for this trial an intelligent prosecutor without fail and intelligent judges. And that Kursky personally answer (1) for the maximum acceleration of the trial and (2) for the submission to me of a stenographic report of this trial (to determine: is our weak Commissariat of Justice finally beginning to learn how to set up and conduct open cases concerning red tape). It is time to begin learning.

I do not understand why an intelligent prosecutor cannot tear to shreds before everyone, mock and disgrace the "Bogdanov" and "Osinsky" defense of bureaucratic red tape and at the same time lodge the accusation reasonably, correctly, in proper measure?

Why is a verdict of approximately the following type not possible:

*Attaching exceptional significance to public trial in matters of red tape, we are handing down on this oc
casion the mildest sentence in view of the exceptionally
rare conscientiousness of the accused, warning at the same time that henceforth we shall punish for red tape
even the holiest of holy but incompetent simpletons (the court will perhaps express itself more politely), for
we, the RSFSR, need not holiness but ability to conduct
affairs.*

*And therefore, if we are freeing Lomov¹) and Styunkel²)
for their "holiness" on this occasion from punishment, then Unksov³) (I believe that is correct?), who was
obliged to provide reports to the Bureau every hundred
[days] and did not fulfill this, [shall receive] a week
under arrest; — and Ilyin⁴) (the director of the former
Ilyin plant?) and the entire factory committee of this plant and the entire board of the corresponding trade
union and the entire composition of the Communist cell of such a plant or such plants we declare guilty of red
tape, incompetence, connivance with bureaucratism and declare a strict reprimand and public censure, with the
warning that only on this first occasion do we punish so mildly, and henceforth we shall imprison this trade
union and Communist rabble (the court will perhaps ex press itself more gently) in prison without mercy.*

With communist greetings,

V. Ulyanov (Lenin).

1) M. A. Lomov — was a member of the collegium of the Metal Department of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.
2) B. E. Stynkel — was a member of the collegium of the Metal Department of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.
3) D. I. Unksov — headed the Department of Motor Culture of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and was chairman of the extraordinary commission for the manufacture of auto-ploughs of the Fowler system.
4) Ilyin — manager of the metal plant of the TASA (former Ilyin's), the former owner of this plant. The plant received part of the order for the manufacture of Fowler ploughs.