422. To A. S. KISELYOV
Comrade Kiselyov, Chairman of the Narrow C.P.C.
I wrote you concerning A. P. Smirnov’s memo[1] that I resolutely object to any waste of potatoes on making alcohol, and said that alcohol could and should be made of peat.
It now turns out that the problem of distilling alcohol from peat has not yet been finally solved. The method has not been verified on an industrial scale and is economically unclear (there is no precisely verified calculation and no data to draw it up precisely). That is why it is still too early to speak of the mass production of alcohol from peat.
Take all measures to accelerate in every way the starting of the experimental plant to make alcohol from peat— the former Givartovsky yeast plant in Moscow.
I strongly object to Smirnov’s proposal that we should pay the peasants in alcohol for their potatoes. If Smirnov insists, let him take the matter to the C.C.
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars
Notes
[1] See V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Edition, Vol. 53, Document 295.—Ed.