Letter to Alexander Yemshanov, March 29, 1921

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At the top Lenin wrote: “Type out in three copies, let me sign, and send out.”—Ed.

P.C.R.

The People’s Commissar for Railways

29.III.1921

Comrade Yemshanov:

Please let me know who at the P.C.R. is in charge of the allocation of tank cars (for oil) throughout the network and the carriage of oil along the railways.

1) Who is responsible for this?

2) What has the People’s Commissariat done precisely in fulfilment of the CLD decision on this matter (15 or 17.XII.1920)?

3) Who adopted and when—and also who cancelled and when—the order attaching oil tank cars to the various railway lines?

4) How are the tank cars distributed throughout the network at this moment?

If what you say in the last column of the first table (“actually available” on what date?) of your “reference-report” (a paper without any date) (received on 29.III) is correct, how do you explain that there are (183+161+22+88+9+ 493+1,405+194=) 2,555 tank cars on 8 railway lines, although these lines have no “filling targets”?

5) Could I have fuller data on the availability and operation of tank cars, with the railway lines under three heads and totals for the three groups:

(a) (1) railway lines carrying oil from the Volga

(b) (2) ” ” ” ” from the Caucasus (Grozny and Baku)

(c) (3) railway lines not carrying oil?

6) Why is the speed of the petroleum trains taken at 6 versts an hour? Are there any technical obstacles (which exactly) for reaching the maximum speed (say, of the military trains)? What was our pre-war speed? What is our minimum and maximum speed in actual fact for 1920?

Please let me know which of the foregoing data you can give me right away, and which at the earliest possible date (when exactly?)?

With communist greetings,

Lenin