300. TELEPHONE MESSAGE TO L. B. KRASIN

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIII. Printed from a typewritten copy. · page 242

Comrade Krasin

I have received a copy of your letter to Dzerzhinsky concerning shipbuilding. I agree with you that we should not now build seagoing steamships. I believe that military considerations indicate the same thing. It is undoubtedly necessary to intensify the construction of tankers for the oil fleet, especially in the Caspian Sea and on the Volga. I ask you to:

1) request an official Gosplan opinion on this matter;

2) ratify a precise decision at an official conference of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade and the People’s Commissariat for Railways, and, if there is any other department concerned, include it as well.

Lenin