189. To A. M. LEZHAVA AND A. I. RYKOV[1]
Comrades Lezhava and Rykov
There must be something wrong over here (and at the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade).
After all there must be an entry: what has been -7 requested? when? by whom? who approved the order?
It looks as if there is no record. This is total chaos. Time is running short.
There is an urgent need of the excavators.
Why have they not been ordered in Germany?
in America?
in Sweden?
Whom does Reine represent?[2]
Lenin
Notes
[1] In the left-hand margin Lenin wrote: “[the question of -4 excavators].”—Ed.
[2] At the Central Party Archives there is a note from A. M. Lezhava to Lenin saying that the purchase of excavators abroad had been assigned to L. B. Krasin, but that it was not known what he had done. The note added that engineer T. Y. Reine, who had been sent abroad by the Mining Council, was authorised to make independent purchases for his department.