Letter to Grigori Sokolnikov, February 11, 1922

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11.II.1922

Copy to Comrade A. D. Tsyurupa

Comrade Sokolnikov:

1) Gorbunov has told you about Belov. We have the best references about Belov both on the Party side and on the commercial side. I feel that unless we give support to our “own” businessmen of this caliber, we shall be doing nothing but talk and talk. Those guilty of delays and red tape (at the State Bank) must be punished. Otherwise there will be no results. (Gorbunov has the references.)

2) The foreign trade theses have been pickled. A long, long time ago, I gave this two or three days.

Such delays should not be allowed to go unpunished.

3) Has any thought been given to the ways and means of bringing to book members of trust boards for incorrect accounting and for operating business at a loss ? I wonder if our People’s Commissariat for Justice is asleep? This calls for a number of model trials with the application of the fiercest chastisement. It looks as though the P.C.J. has failed to realise that the New Economic Policy demands new modes of the greater infliction of fiercer penalties.

4) In Smolensk Gubernia private capital is said to have beaten the co-operative?, and driven them to closure.

What about prosecutions for illegal trade?

What about taxes on private trade? etc., etc.

The Soviet, bureaucrats have also missed all this?

Who at your place is responsible for this? Perhaps, we should set up commissions

1) from the People’s Commissariat for

Finance

2) ” ” People’s Commissariat for

Justice measures

3) anyone else

}} for supervision and reprisals for incorrect trade, etc,?

With communist greetings,

Lenin