V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v54; en:CW/CW45;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

AND AN ASSIGNMENT TO V. A. SMOLYANINOV*

17. V. 1922

To the People’s Commissar for Education

I am receiving a number of reports that the high cost of books, given our “enthusiasms” and exaggerations of the New Economic Policy, is depriving the people of useful books.

It seems to me that it would be necessary to establish some rule or pass a law
of approximately the following kind: to set aside certain sums from local taxes, which
should be remitted to the centre to form a fund, out of which several thousand copies

(say, Skvortsov: “Electrification” and the like) are to be purchased for distribution to all district libraries.

I ask you to discuss this and communicate your conclusion to me. 423

Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars, V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Comrade Smolyaninov, for Comrades Lunacharsky, Pokrovsky, Rykov, and Tsyurupa*