we decided to organize self-help, on cooperative principles, in solidarity with the Don-Kuban, Volga, and Crimean colonists, with the involvement of foreign commercial and industrial Firms in this cooperative
to supply the agricultural population with agricultural equipment
and everything our country is now poor in, goods, seeds, etc.
For this, we ask you to allow us:
1) To establish direct contact with foreign Firms to purchase foreign goods in order to organize broad self-help and thereby contribute to the restoration of agricultural life.
2) To make purchases abroad, receive foreign goods,
carry out barter transactions within the limits established by law,
carry out all these actions directly without the active intervention
of any government organizations.
To Smolyaninov:
I ask to expedite the matter.
To ensure that the petitioners receive a quick and clear answer, not absolutely
negative.
Lenin.
1 On July 23, Lenin received notification from the People's Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs about the conditions accepted for postal parcels by the English and Soviet postal departments. The exchange of parcels was delayed due to the lack of postal, passenger, and steamboat communication between the RSFSR and England. The issue of regular exchange of parcels depended on the convention with Latvia and Estonia, the final text of which had not yet been adopted by the countries concerned. The note to Smolyaninov was written by Lenin as a resolution on a letter from the People's Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs.
8 In a statement, the authorized representatives of the Union of South Russian Colonists, Theodor Klepfer and Yakov Fell, describing the difficult situation of the colonists' agriculture due to the drought, asked Lenin to allow the purchase of essential goods abroad.
I. TRADE
OPERATIONS