V. I.   Lenin

566

To:   A. I. RYKOV

Written: Written on March 28, 1920
Published: First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1975, Moscow, Volume 44, pages 363^c-364^a.
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 Archive” as your source. • README

Comrade Rykov

The seizure of 15 million poods of petrol in Grozny^[1] compels us to adopt a number of urgent and important measures, such as: 

1. Especially strict safeguarding of petrol.
Military measures. Special responsibility of army men.

2. Calculation: how much we need (maximum).
The remainder—abroad for locomotives.

3. Collection of lorries (from everywhere, particularly from the army) and their repair for transporting grain to the railway stations.

4. Mobilisation of lorries and drivers for this purpose.

5. Transport of petrol to central depots.

Perhaps you will call a conference (of people from the Commissariat for Food and the military department) on this question and submit a proposal from the conference to the Council of Defence?

Please do this urgently.

Lenin

28/III.

Notes

[1] The town of Grozny was liberated by the Red Army on March 25, 1920, at the same time as the town of Maikop. The oil wells were intact and in full working order.