V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v44;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

LETTER TO L. B. KAMENEV
March 3, 1922

Comrade Kamenev,

I have been thinking for quite a while about our conversation (with you, Stalin and Zinoviev) concerning the Foreign Trade Commissariat and the line of Krasin and Sokolnikov.

My conclusion is that Krasin is absolutely right. We cannot now retreat further from the monopoly of foreign trade than Lezhava proposed and is proposing in his theses. Otherwise the foreigners will buy up and export everything of value.

Sokolnikov is making a gigantic mistake both here and in all his work, which will certainly ruin us if the Central Committee does not correct his line in time and secure the actual implementation of the corrected line. This mistake is abstractness, infatuation with a scheme (which Sokolnikov, as a talented journalist and a politician given to infatuation, has always been guilty of). Example: Sokolnikov proposes a draft decree on the import of foodstuffs from abroad into Russia. And in passing, the decree says: "guarantees" are to be provided separately (i.e., guarantees that the valuables exported from Russia ostensibly in exchange for foodstuffs will actually and entirely go for foodstuffs).

This is sheer childishness!

The whole crux of the matter lies in the guarantees, and Sokolnikov "puts off" the very crux, getting away with a phrase or a pious wish.

What real guarantees can there be?

Pledge?

Just think what this means:

1) I want to buy 100,000 rubles' worth of gold for foodstuffs abroad. I deposit this sum in the State Bank as a pledge?
Then the red tape (if we do not "teach" the Foreign Trade Commissariat and Co. to drop red tape) remains as before.

Further. Where are the "guarantees" that, when transferring 100,000 gold rubles abroad, I am not fictitiously transferring 20,000 gold rubles out of them? Verification of prices? By whom? How? A bureaucratic utopia!

Sokolnikov's draft has proved that our dear, talented and most valuable Comrade Sokolnikov understands nothing about the practice of trade. And he will ruin us if we give him his head.

It is a very great mistake to think that the New Economic Policy has put an end to terror. We shall yet revert to terror, and to economic terror.

The foreigners are already buying up our officials with bribes and "exporting the remnants of Russia". And they will export them.

The monopoly is a polite warning: my dear fellows, the moment will come when I shall hang you for this.

The foreigners, knowing that the Bolsheviks are not joking, take this seriously.

Therefore:

1) On no account undermine the monopoly of foreign trade;

2) Adopt Lezhava's theses tomorrow;

3) Publish immediately (we have lost an awful lot of time) a firm, cold, fierce statement in the name of the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee to the effect that we shall retreat no further in economics and that those who attempt to deceive us (or to circumvent the monopoly, etc.) will encounter terror; do not use this word, but "hint subtly and politely" at it.

If this is not done through the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, it can be done otherwise (my letter? that would be worse), but it must be done quickly. Then, an example for you.

The Moscow Gubernia Economic Conference proposes to buy canned goods (or food in general) for Soviet rubles. They negotiate with the Foreign Trade Commissariat for two weeks. It is opposed.

The deal falls through.

Conclusion?

LETTER TO L. B. KAMENEV

Give rights to the Gubernia Economic Conference? That would mean "duplicating" a bad Foreign Trade Commissariat with bad foreign trade officials, 90 per cent of whom the capitalists will buy.

Another conclusion: drop the game of decrees (there was a necessary period of propaganda by decrees; that was needed for the success of the revolution. That is past).

Not a shadow of trust either in decrees or in institutions. Only verify practice and teach them a lesson for red tape.

That is all that intelligent people should be engaged in. And for the rest, put... the rest in prison.

I would propose: instruct the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee to immediately adopt the following decision:

In view of the disgraceful red tape in the deal (such-and-such) for the purchase of food for Soviet rubles, order the Political Administration of the State (must frighten them!) to find the persons guilty of red tape and put those working in the Moscow Gubernia Economic Conference in prison for 6 hours and those working in the Foreign Trade Commissariat for 36 hours (of course, excepting members of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee: we have almost parliamentary immunity, you know).

Then instruct the press to ridicule both lots and cover them with abuse. For the disgrace lies precisely in the fact that the Muscovites (in Moscow!) did not know how to fight red tape. For that they should be beaten with a stick.

They "did not know how" to send telephone messages:

"Profitable urgent deal. Demand reply from Foreign Trade Commissariat within 3 hours. Copy to Molotov for the Central Committee, to Tsyurupa and Yenukidze for the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russia Central Executive Committee."

No reply within 3 hours? The same 4 lines of complaint by telephone.

But the idiots go and talk for two weeks! For that they should rot in prison, and not be made exceptions. The Muscovites for stupidity—6 hours in the bug-house. The Foreign Trade Commissariat officials for stupidity plus "central responsibility"—36 hours in the bug-house.

That, and only that, is the way to teach them. Otherwise the Soviet officials, both local and central, will never learn. We cannot trade freely: that would mean the ruin of Russia.

We can and shall learn to put our bureaucrats on a commission basis: such-and-such a percentage (fraction of a per cent) of the deal for you, and for not doing it—prison.

And change the personnel in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade. The same applies to our state trusts, which are "headed" by holy members of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and "famous" Communists who are led by the nose by businessmen.

Order the People's Commissariat for Finance: either you, through the State Bank, manage to oust these holy Communists from the state trusts (refuse credit; bring to court for delay, for lack of business efficiency, etc.) or else your entire People's Commissariat for Finance and State Bank are good for nothing, mere talk and playing with papers.

That is how the work of the Council of People's Commissars, the Council of Labour and Defence (I have already written to Tsyurupa and drawn up a draft of the appropriate directive), and the Political Bureau must be reorganised; otherwise ruin is inevitable.

I earnestly request that this be read in secret to the members of the Political Bureau and to Molotov and returned to me with each one's comment, if only in a couple of words.

Yours,
Lenin