projects of Kaminsky \[sic!] are "basically acceptable". And Krasin
has a lot of things to do besides communist pamphlets!

LETTER TO A. P. SEREBROVSKY ON OIL CONCESSIONS

scheni \[sic!] land, etc. We pump water (with oil) and do not use
this water for irrigation, which would yield gigantic harvests
of hay, rice, cotton? We do not use the "nord" for windmills?
But most importantly, of course, food, irrigation. Is it possible to develop the oil industry without developing irrigation and agriculture
around Baku? Is anyone thinking and working on this properly? What about the English irrigation plan?

With communist greetings, Lenin.

1 Kaminsky G. N. worked in Baku. He was the secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party.

- The issue of concessions has been repeatedly raised in the Council of People's Commissars and the Central
Committee. The Tenth Congress of the RCP, based on the report by L. B. Kamenev "The Soviet Republic in a Capitalist Encirclement," adopted a
resolution that recognized, in the part concerning concessions, the following: "One of the
forms of foreign capital participation practically applicable under the given conditions
in the development of the natural resources of the Soviet Republic are concessions,
under which the concessionaire receives remuneration in a certain share
of the product extracted at the enterprises leased under the concession.
The objects of concessions can be those sectors of the national economy,
the development of which clearly raises the level of development of the productive
forces of Russia and which, at the same time, cannot be served at the moment, in
the near future, by the Soviet Republic's own forces, such as: forestry, mining and oil industries, electrification of Russia, etc.
In particular, part of the Grozny and
Baku fields may be the objects of concessions, provided that the Soviet
Azerbaijani authorities agree to this.

Being essentially a known form of economic agreement between a socialist republic and capitalist countries that are more developed in industrial
terms, concessions must at the same time serve as a powerful means of developing the productive forces
of the Soviet Republic and strengthening the foundations of socialist
economy laid in it.

Based on these provisions:
1. The Congress approves the policy of the Soviet government aimed at establishing normal trade relations between the Soviet Republic and
other countries through the conclusion of trade treaties and agreements.
2. The Congress approves the decrees of the Council of People's Commissars of November 21, 1920 on the general economic and legal conditions of concessions.
3. The Congress points out that the protection of the economic and political independence of all territories of the Soviet Republic, as well as the protection
of the labor of citizens of the RSFSR at concessionary enterprises, must constitute the basic conditions of any agreements with capitalist
states or groups."