(LETTERS TO J. V. STALIN)

Comrade Stalin (For now only as a private consultation, with a request to consult with other members of the Central Committee 180)

I am sending you a summary statement on the question of the ship-repair programme. It must be decided as quickly as possible, I think even today. Yesterday I had a detailed talk with Sklyansky and was somewhat shaken, but the expenditure of 10 million is so monstrously large that I nevertheless cannot but propose the following:

Approve the completion of the cruiser "Nakhimov", then reduce by one-third the remaining large vessels (destroyers, battleships, etc.) and instruct the department to cut all other expenditures accordingly. I think that on the whole we could then achieve 7 million, and it would be far more correct to increase expenditure on schools from the remainder. I enclose the strictly secret summary statement and then the results of the work of Pyatakov's commission 181, which, according to Comrade Sklyansky, has already cut nearly 16 million.

I think that the fleet in its present dimensions, although it is a "little fleet", as Comrade Sklyansky rightly remarks, is nevertheless an exorbitant luxury for us. The cruiser "Nakhimov" must be completed, because we shall sell it at a profit; as for the rest, I am convinced that our

naval specialists are still excessively carried away. We do not need a fleet, but an increase in expenditure on schools is desperately needed 182.

Lenin

Dictated by telephone on November 25, 1922, at 11 a.m.

First published in 1959

in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI

Printed from the secretary's record (typewritten copy)

Comrade Stalin

With regard to the accusation that I am cutting the ship-repair programme "by eye" 183, I must explain the following:

The entire scale of the ship-repair programme must be co-ordinated (and this, of course, only specialists are able to do) with the size of the fleet which we decide, for political and economic reasons, to maintain. I have been fully convinced that the cruiser "Nakhimov" must be among our fleet, because at worst we must have the opportunity to sell it at a profit. Further, our ship-repair programme includes a whole series of destroyers, some battleships, then submarines, etc. The total number of these vessels seems to me excessive, unjustified by the conditions of our naval strength in general, and beyond the capacity of our budget. To what extent precisely this part of the vessels can be reduced, I do not know, and I think that Pyatakov's and Sokolnikov's commission also had no opportunity to determine this on the basis of rational, economic and, especially, political considerations.

One thing is beyond doubt for me: the total sum of 10 million is beyond our capacity. Therefore I propose to fix that sum at 7 million, obliging the military specialists to calculate what total number of destroyers, battleships, submarines and other vessels will be obtained with such