145. To A. M. LEZHAVA

Written in April, before the 28th, 1921 · First published in 1942 in Lenin Miscellany XXXIV. Printed from the original. · page 136

Comrade Lezhava:

Georgia is of exceptional importance as a cover for Russia’s foreign trade. This is convenient also for Italy, and Germany, and America.

1) Find a brainy fellow to be sent there on behalf of the People’ s Commissariat for Foreign Trade. Do it as fast as you can!

2) Have a more detailed talk about this with Stalin. Do this today.

3) Drop me a couple of lines on the results.

We need a plan (and a fund) for foreign trade via Batum.

You have no foreign trade plan. You are allowing a lot of waste and letting others do the same. I am going to fight you.

Here’s your line: not a kopek more for foodstuffs or for fuel in 1921. Draw up a plan on this line, and do not succumb to “pressures” or “influences”.

Lenin