In my opinion, on the budget question, do not go in for “reconstruction”: leave nine-tenths of it to Gosplan and reduce the whole thing to practical, cautious amendments. Otherwise you will be carried away by “reconstruction”; you will not, anyway, be able immediately to build up a tolerably satisfactory budget now, and we shall perish because of the collapse of the monetary system, having dispersed our attention on tasks which cannot be carried out at present.

Trade is now the hub of everything, primarily internal trade, then foreign; on the basis of trade, and in connection with it, the restoration of the rouble.

All attention to this. To approach this practically is the main, most important, fundamental thing.

The development of trade, the organisation of the Trade Department of the State Bank so that it does not drowse but pushes all trade forward—that is the main thing.

I am mortally afraid that you, who now actually have to conduct the most important People’s Commissariat, will be carried away by reconstructions, reorganisations, a theoretical line (you have a weakness in this respect)—instead of practice, practice and practice: boosting trade, increasing and collecting taxes, restoring the rouble. Upon my word, I am mortally afraid: do not succumb to this weakness, otherwise we shall crash. Push Krasnoshchekov: he seems to be a practical man.

With communist greetings,
Lenin

Written on 22 January 1922.
First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI.
Printed from the manuscript.