V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v53; en:CW/CW42;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

I propose to cut down the programme so as to leave (pending an extension of facilities) only the most essential work. This should include:

1. Monthly summaries of the distribution of food by the state.

The forms for obtaining the data should be drawn up jointly with the People’s Commissariat for Food, approximately as follows:

a) number of recipients of bread (to begin with, it would perhaps be safer to confine ourselves to bread, if we have not the strength to add data on all other products issued, both food and non-food)

according to ¼ lb.

½ lb.

¾ lb.

1 lb., etc.

b) their categories by trade, occupation, etc.

c) total: total number of recipients and total amount of bread issued.

Data for Moscow and Petrograd are most urgent; then for the Moscow and Petrograd gubernias, the most important industrial gubernias (Ivanovo-Voznesensk, the Donets Basin, Baku, the Urals, etc.) and, finally, the other gubernias.

2. Monthly summaries of enterprises being transferred to collective supply.

While they are few, keep all under observation (as proposed in your memorandum, p. 2, § 1). Later, when they become very numerous, investigate in detail one-fifth or one-tenth by the sampling method.

Briefly—all enterprises on collective supply.

The reporting of these enterprises you have made too comprehensive (p. 2 at the end, § 2). It can and should be made briefer, only the most important items.

3. Current industrial statistics for monthly summaries should be cut down, giving first place, as absolutely essential, to the determination of the quantity of goods produced, and of the most important goods at that.

These data are absolutely essential every month.

The rest are not absolutely essential and should be worked up less urgently, according to the facilities and means of the C.S.O.

4. Production, distribution and consumption of fuel.

Absolutely essential every month in totals. The programme should be drawn up jointly with the Chief Fuel Administration, with the least possible change in the forms now in use.

5. Monthly summaries of commodity exchange (People’s Commissariat for Food and the Central Union of Consumers’ Societies) in the briefest form: for such-and-such a quantity of bread such-and-such a quantity of such-and-such products were issued, by uyezds.

6. The work of Soviet institutions is, of course, difficult to record, as you point out in Appendix No. 1, § IV. But difficulty does not mean impossibility. If not every month, then once every two or three months, summaries are absolutely essential, at least to begin with, of “personnel on the staff” as compared with pre-war or with the staffs of other departments, other gubernias, etc., with a rational division of all employees into categories (responsible executives; purely clerical personnel; menials—an approximate list of some categories).

Comparison of the largest and smallest staffs by gubernias, etc., Moscow and Petrograd in the first place.

The decisions of the last Congress of Soviets absolutely oblige the C.S.O. to undertake a statistical study of the work of our Soviet institutions, the number of employees, etc.170

7. Selection for study of a small number of typical enterprises (factories, state farms) and institutions: (a) the best, exemplary; (b) average; and (c) the worst.

Cut out everything else except these 7 sections.

Please let me have your opinion both on the substance and on the time-limit for drawing up the programme of work.

Chairman, Council of Labour and Defence,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)