V. I.   Lenin

515

To:   THE ECONOMIC COMMISSION OF THE C.P.C.

Published: First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 45, pages 384^c-385^a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
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

L. B. Kamenev
Copy to Comrade Khinchuk

Yesterday the C.P.C. referred to your commission the question of an agreement with Steinberg.^[1] In Izvestia   today, Gorsky has estimated that Steinberg will make 194,000 million Soviet rubles on 100,000 kilograms of saccharin (this will cost him 600,000 rubles a kilogram, i.e., all the 100,000 kilograms will cost him 60,000 million = 60 milliard; this means the percentage of profit 194 : 60== 323 per cent).

If Gorsky’s estimate is right, this is a vast profit. I think the R.S.F.S.R. has a share of super-profits, reckoning superprofits as over and above 250 per cent?

Perhaps we could 

(1) drive a bargain so as to have a special share of the super-profits, reckoning super-profits at 100 or 200 per cent?

(2) secure by special arrangement the possibility to train our own men (especially in Centrosoyuz) in the methods and organisation of trade?

(3) specifically assure ourselves of the possibility of cancelling the agreement earlier, as soon as we fools have learned enough from the clever people.

I think that after driving a hard bargain and checking everything over and over again, we should conclude the agreement, because fools must pay a high price for being taught.

Let’s have your opinion.

Lenin
Chairman, C.L.D.

Notes

[1] On November 21, 1921, the S.E.C. submitted for the C.P.C.’s approval “Concession agreement for the collection and trade in hides and skins with P. B. Steinberg”. See also this volume, Documents 485 and 589.