Letter to Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, July 2, 1321

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In the first part of the letter Lenin made remarks on the first variant of G. M. Krzhizhanovsky’s article “To Our Critics”, written in reply to Y. Larin’s article in Pravda on June 9, 1921, which was entitled “The Mysteries of Soviet Industry”, and which criticised the work of the State Planning Commission (Gosplan). Krzhizhanovsky wrote to Lenin: “On the spur of the, moment, I sketched out an article ‘To Our Critics’, but then found it too flippant and decided to shelve it. If you have a moment to spare for light reading, run your eye over it...” (Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CPSU Central Committee). Krzhizhanovsky subsequently rewrote his article (see Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Edition, Vol. 53, Document 298).

The second part of the letter (from the words: “But for a report in the CLD”) contains Lenin’s proposals for Krzhizhanovsky’s report at the CLD on Gosplan’s work. The report was heard on July 8, 1921.

2/VII.

G. M.:

It hasn’t come out.

Here is the general impression of the “first reading”:

Page 1: “many” see an “obvious” deviation...

(why admit that the rebuke comes from “many”? This sets the wrong tone and is a “move” ... in favour of the enemies).

Page 2: “the overall reorganisation of the People’s Commissariats, which is inevitably connected”...

(“inevitably”? There is nothing inevitable because there is NO overall reorganisation taking place at all. It turns out that the author refers the reader to the “overall” which does not exist),

Page 3: emphasis on the principal element, concentration on the large enterprises, etc...

“But a little thought will show that it is impossible to do this piecemeal” ... “piecemeal-ism”.

(Untenable. Piece-by-piece is the only possible way. The start should be modest, with one case.)

Page 4: ... Extremes are intolerable

(indisputable, but academic)

Osadchy at the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade (already named twice)

“Gosplan members (Osadchy alone?) find themselves doing the spade-work continuously”...

35 –1==34

Page 5: ... Fuel ... Larin (why quote him without giving a single figure? Encouraging the enemy! One should either say nothing about him, discussing one’s own work in words other than Larin’s, with one’s own facts, or attack him. Any other tactic==sure defeat).

Page 6: “a group of workers to combat the famine has been hastily set up”

(? that is not the business of Gosplan at all!)

Page 7: !

Page 8: instructions of CLD Chairman

(? Which? the reader does not know)

Supreme Council for Transportation + Special Transport Commission

People’s Commissariat for Railways ... “will perhaps not fail to make itself felt” (the italicised words are also in favour of the enemies). Neopikhanov...

(what has he done anyway? Not a single clear word.

There is not a single example. How did he help?

Economised? Discovered an error? Helped to avoid it? how precisely?)

8--9: ... “Assignments”...

Everyone is so fed up with assignments that the less said of them the better. Everyone has a host of assignments.

General, universal, all-encompassing assignments which are clearly not going to be fulfilled.

This has been a partial or even a total failure. It is better to say nothing in the press for the time being. But for a report in the CLD

(α) bring out clearly something that has been actually achieved, even if it is only three or four small but precise and factual examples, a thing that has been achieved instead of assignments, something that has been concretely implemented instead of the general and the projected.

What has Ramzin done in Petrograd?

“ “ Neopikhanov in Moscow?

Strumilin

Popov

and others.

(β) Has the work been allocated to the individual members?

When?

To how many of the 35?

(γ) Of the ten commissions of the People’s Commissariats, relations are correct with one (? fuel).

How is this expressed?

What are the real achievements in the plan for the second half of 1921?

Fuel economies?

Conclusion: carry forward the merger with the 10, overcome the inertness of the 9 which are doing nothing?

(δ) Prepare plan for the second half of 1921?

People’s Commissariat for Agriculture (crop?) Central Statistical Board?

Current section

Supreme Economic Council

That is how, I think, the material should be roughly arranged for a report in the CLD

The general arid consolidated plan will apparently be ready not earlier than the autumn of 1921, and it cannot be given until the crop is estimated.

Let that be so. (But the crop is one thing, and the quantity of tax collected and grain obtained is another. You will know this quantity in 1922, post factum.)

This means that we shall still have to proceed from the estimated minimum figures.

The partial plans have been drawn up (fuel?); half completed (People’s Commissariat for Railways?). I suppose here we can give something factual.

A quarter completed? The number of mouths? (this is the business of the Central Statistical Board and not of Gosplan, Everyone will he heaping their own work on Gosplan. It must not let them do it).

But the main thing still is: immediately, right away, “piece by piece” eliminate all the obviously irrational, all that clearly contradicts the slate economic plan. (close down such-and-such establishments in such a branch...

close down or half-close down such-and-such railways ... build such-and-such fuel lines...

designate the tract of forest which, according to Ramzin, will yield more than any Algemba, and give a plan: how it should be felled, cut and transported....

Of 1,000 good factories start 10 by a given date, 50, by another, etc., going all the way up to 100 or even 200).

Yours,

Lenin