Written: Written at the end of July– beginning of August 1918
Published:
First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXI.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1975,
Moscow,
Volume 44,
pages 120c-121a.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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• README
Comrade Larin,
It is necessary to write a short pamphlet (30–40 small-sized pages) on the composition and activities of the Supreme Economic Council.
This is of extreme importance both for Europe and for the peasants.
Describe clearly and simply, giving facts:
(α) the participation of workers’ organisations,
(β) the communist (Marxist), not syndicalist, nature of the structure (i.e., of the new socialist system, order),
(γ) subjection (i.e., smashing the resistance) of the capitalists,
(δ) the successes achieved in practice (we have taken stock of all textiles: figures), 5-10 of the best examples, etc.
(ε) What still remains to be done?
(ζ) The new role of the trade unions:
(αα) their growth,
(ββ) their membership at the present time,
(γγ) their role: they run production.
(η) The number of nationalised enterprises, etc.[1]
[1] Later, in reply to an inquiry from Lydia Fotieva about this letter of Lenin’s, Larin informed her: “The letter from Vladimir Ilyich which you sent (concerning the drafting of a pamphlet about the Supreme Economic Council) was never received by me. Perhaps it relates to the time when (in 1918) I was sent to Berlin to conduct negotiations with the Germans, and was to be handed to me on my return. At any rate, soon after returning I received a letter from Vladimir Ilyich on a similar subject, only broader in content—to write about the Soviet Republic in general, not merely about the Supreme Economic Council (the letter has not been found.—Ed.), so as to acquaint people abroad and our own population with what had been achieved in one year. To this end, Vladimir Ilyich later wrote an order to all government departments to give me all the information I needed (see Lenin Miscellany XXI, p. 139.—Ed.). But the material sent in by the departments was far from satisfactory and we had to abandon the thought of compiling such a factual report of the government for the first year of our rule, the idea of which had apparently dismissed from Vladimir Ilyich’s mind the proposal for a pamphlet about the Supreme Economic Council alone.”
Connected with Lenin’s instructions mentioned by Larin in his letter to Fotieva is the decision drafted by Lenin and adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars on August 29, 1918, calling for written reports to be submitted by the People’s Commissariats on their work since October 25 (November 7), 1917, and Lenin’s letter to the People’s Commissars on this question (see present edition, Vol. 36, p. 493; Vol. 35, Document 168).
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