# NOTES ON THE TELEGRAM OF V. M. SVERDLOV

Source: PSS vol. 51

AND A MEMORANDUM TO GLAVUGOL'

... In the course of four months since the mines were abandoned by the whites, not only has nothing been done to increase coal reserves in the open and underground workings, but owing to the inexperience of the managers, the reserves, which constitute the principal sources of extraction, will be completely exhausted within the next one or two months; moreover, I consider it impossible to reduce underground work to the required productive capacity of 1,500 thousand [poods] per month. Likewise, nothing has been done even for the most primitive equipment of the open workings, the arrangement of housing for workers, the supply of the latter with necessary clothing, as well as fodder for horses, all of which can be accomplished here without particular difficulty. The technical and administrative personnel of the Chelyabinsk district until recently consisted of three young Urals foremen with very little experience, and only by order of the Uralo-Siberian commission on the 20th of this December was engineer Yakovlev, sent by the People's Commissariat of Railways, assigned to them. Proceeding to the facts, I note: coal concealed in the overburden totals 3,000 thousand poods. ... the district administration has drawn up estimates for uncovering in the coming year by means of overburden removal 25 million poods of coal, for which it will be necessary to remove 135 thousand cubic sazhens of rock, or daily 900 cubic sazhens; the execution of such work will require excavators with a capacity of 150 cubic sazhens per day, with brigades and engineers well acquainted with the organization of excavation. There are on site 4 excavators with a total capacity of 450 cubic sazhens per day; there is a need for 1 more engineer-builder, 1 coal mining engineer...

NB To Glavugol': I request you return this to me w i t h a r e p o r t on what has been done to provide assistance from here.

Lenin

Written 4 January 1920

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIV

Printed from the manuscript