V. I.

Lenin

805

To:   L. D. TROTSKY

Comrade Trotsky
Copy to Frumkin and Stomonyakov

Comrade Trotsky:

I have received your comments on Krestinsky’s letter and Avanesov’s
plans. [2] I think that you and I are in maximum agreement, and I believe that the State Planning
Commission question, as presented in this case, rules out
(or postpones) any discussion on whether the State
Planning Commission needs to have any administrative rights. [3]

At any rate, it is my request that at the forthcoming plenum you should undertake the defence of our common
standpoint on the unquestionable need to maintain and consolidate the foreign trade monopoly. Since the
preceding plenum passed a decision in this respect which runs
entirely counter to the foreign trade monopoly, and since
there can be no concessions on this matter, I believe, as
I say in my letter to Frumkin and
Stomonyakov, [1] that in the event of our defeat on this question we must refer the
question to a Party Congress. This will require a brief
exposition of our differences before the Party group of the forthcoming Congress of
Soviets. [4] If I have time, I shall write this, and I would be very glad if you did the same.
Hesitation on this question is doing us unprecedented harm, and the negative arguments boil down entirely to
accusations of shortcomings in the apparatus. But our apparatus is everywhere imperfect, and to abandon the
monopoly because of an imperfect apparatus would be throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Lenin

13/XII–22