V. I. Lenin

To the Society for

Technical Aid for Soviet Russia [1]

October 20, 1922

Dear Comrades, Extremely favourable information has appeared in our press about the work
of members of your Society at the state farms in Kirsanov Uyezd, Tambov
Gubernia, and at Mitino Station, Odessa Gubernia, and also about the work of
the group of miners in the Donets Basin.

In spite of the enormous difficulties, and particularly in view of the
devastation caused by the Civil War, you have achieved successes that must
be regarded as outstanding.

I hasten to express to you my profound gratitude and to ask you to
publish this in your Society’s journal, and, if possible, in the
general press in the United States.

I am sending a recommendation to the Presidium of the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee that it should recognise the most successful farms as
model farms, and render them the special and extraordinary assistance
necessary for the successful promotion of their work.

Once again on behalf of our Republic I express to you our profound
gratitude, and ask you to bear in mind that the work you are doing to
cultivate land with the aid of tractors is particularly timely and important
for us.

It gives me particular satisfaction to be able to congrat-ulate you on
your proposal to organise 200 agricultural communes.

Lenin,

Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars

Endnotes

[1] The Society
for Technical Aid for Soviet Russia was organised by Russian migrs
in New York in May 1919. Similar societies sprang up elsewhere in the
’U.S.A. and also in Canada. These so-cieties were founded with the
active participation of Americans and Canadians. Their purpose was to help
Soviet Russia restore her economy by sending skilled workers and technicians
from the U.S.A. and Canada.

The work of the societies for Technical Aid for Soviet
Russia and of Friends of Soviet Russia (in the United States) was evaluated
by Lenin as a striking manifestation of proletarian internationalism and
fraternal solidarity among working people. Lenin’s letter was
translated into English and printed in December 1922 in the magazine Soviet
Russia, which was published in New York by Russian workers’
organisations in the U.S.A.