Letter to Alexei Rykov, September 25, 1922

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25/IX.

Comrade Rykov:

I think it is absolutely necessary to carry out a one-day census of all officials and employees of the city of Moscow. We had one, but too long ago.

To do this at the minimum expense (only on paper, and even this can be obtained partly from the general stock of the Central Statistical Board), put an obligation on all those who are on the payroll of the Soviet government and the trusts to submit information on personal cards themselves (in accordance with a short programme which the Central Statistical Board must work out within a week, together with the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, the State Planning Commission, etc.). No one is to be paid any salary until this is properly done.

Then we shall get this quickly (fines for delays and unsatisfactory performance).

Our apparatus is such an abomination that it has to be radically repaired. This cannot be done without a census. And the Central Statistical Board deserves being taken to task for its academism: there they are sitting and writing their “tomes”, giving not a thought to the vital problems.

Reply or pass the reply on to Comrade Smolyaninov.

Yours,

Lenin

Mobilisation should he applied, if necessary, but under a special law. All the employees of the Central Statistical Board should be mobilised and a certain percentage of the others as well.[1]

  1. ↑ On September 29, 1922, the CLD approved the programme for a one-day census of Soviet government employees, employees of syndicates, trusts and other state establishments and trade unions in Moscow, which had been worked out at a conference of representatives of the People’s Commissariat for Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, the Central Statistical Board and the State Planning Commission. On October 3, the CPC, having approved the programme and the census procedure, assigned its implementation to the Central Statistical Board of the RSFSR H was held in mid-October 1922. The results were used by Lenin in his speech at the Fourth Session of the Ninth All-Russia CEC on October 31, 1922 (see present edition, Vol. 33, p. 394). Lenin also mentions the census in his “Outline of Speech at the Tenth All-Russia Congress of Soviets” (see present edition, Vol. 36, pp. 588–89).