Strictly secret

To all members of the CC

I believe that after the exchange of opinions through correspondence between Comrade Trotsky and myself, certain conclusions can be drawn that may facilitate the work of CC members in resolving the question of our regulatory organs.

1) Where should the task of regulation be concentrated -- in Gosplan or in the STO, reorganized along the lines set forth in my letter of January 17? I proposed the STO for this purpose, composed of deputy chairmen, plus the People's Commissar of Finance, plus the chairman of the VSNKh, plus the chairman of Gosplan. The reasons: a) the STO would be dominated by deputy chairmen, who by virtue of their position (and not by virtue of their personal qualities) are non-departmental, and non-departmentalism is the first condition necessary for coordinating the work of individual commissariats from a non-departmental, all-state point of view; b) supervision of the work of the commissariats would be distributed among the deputy chairmen, so the deputies would have the most direct familiarity with the activities of the commissariats, and such familiarity on the part of non-departmental people is the first condition necessary for proper direction from the center from the standpoint of a planned economy.

In reasoning thus, I proceeded not from Comrade Trotsky's letters written "two years ago," when Gosplan was only coming into being and the Finance Committee and the deputies did not yet exist, but from the practice of these organs.

What has this practice shown us?

It has shown, first, that Gosplan, consisting mainly of specialists, did not advance in its development beyond the role of a subsidiary organ of the STO, preparing materials for the STO and elaborating its assignments. Does it follow from this that Gosplan, which is a commission of the STO, which in turn is a commission of the Council of People's Commissars, should be turned into a practically directing organ of our commissariats, implementing its recommendations without the mandatory sanction of the STO? No, it does not follow.

It has shown, second, that the present STO, composed in its majority of departmental representatives, has not mastered the task of regulation, since the departmental representatives naturally pull in different directions, and this circumstance precludes the possibility of regulation from an all-state point of view.

It has shown, third, that owing to the weakness of the STO in the area of regulation, direction has in practice passed into the hands of the Finance Committee -- which was not envisaged by Soviet legislation -- consisting of three deputy chairmen and the People's Commissar of Finance.

Hence the conclusion: either legalize the Finance Committee and abolish the STO, or abolish the Finance Committee and make the STO the sole directing organ for the planned economy, transforming it from an interdepartmental conciliatory commission of the Council of People's Commissars into a supradepartmental directing commission.

I have already said in my previous letters that I consider the latter arrangement to be the only expedient one at the present time.

I have found no serious objections to such an arrangement in Comrade Trotsky's letters, just as I have found no convincing arguments there in favor of transforming Gosplan into a directing organ.

2) Comrade Trotsky is wrong in asserting that the rights and duties of the deputy chairmen are unclear (see Comrade Trotsky's letter of 20/I). The deputies help the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars rectify the shortcomings of the commissariats and coordinate the work of the latter from the standpoint of a planned economy. They are the chairman's assistants. The rights and duties of the deputies are clear. If the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Comrade Lenin, in his letter of last autumn finds it necessary to have four deputies (Rykov, Kamenev, Trotsky, Tsyurupa), then this cannot be disregarded. Moreover, the practice of the deputies shows that one or two deputies, given the fatigue and exhaustion of our leading workers, cannot manage. The point is not to chair meetings of the Council of People's Commissars and the STO, but above all to be abreast of the current work of the commissariats.

3) A Ukrainian deputy is needed not as a commissar for Ukraine, for then we would have to have a commissar for Byelorussia, a commissar for Transcaucasia, a commissar for the RSFSR, and so on, which is, of course, unacceptable. A Ukrainian deputy is needed in the Union Council of People's Commissars as a deputy with equal standing with the other deputies, a genuine deputy. Whom would this deputy deputize for? -- asks Comrade Trotsky. Obviously, the chairman of the Union Council of People's Commissars. No one else. Why could not a Ukrainian be one of the deputies of the Union chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, supervising the activities of the union commissariats, say, for external relations (the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs plus the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade)?

4) I referred in my previous letter to Comrade Lenin's proposal to appoint Comrade Trotsky as deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, having in mind Comrade Trotsky's incorrect assertion that such a proposal was (allegedly) never discussed in the Politburo. The Politburo minutes of 14/IX show that it was discussed in the Politburo and was adopted after Comrade Trotsky categorically refused the deputyship in the telephone vote of Politburo members. Comrade Trotsky had these minutes in his hands as early as September of last year, and if he found the Politburo's conduct to be incorrect, he could, of course, in the course of more than four months, have appealed it at the plenum or demanded a new discussion, which, however, for some reason he did not do. Stalin is evidently not at fault here.

5) As for appeals to the past and the needless unearthing of old documents, it is clear to everyone that Comrade Trotsky is shifting the blame from the guilty to the innocent. One need only look at the old documents attached to his latest letter, which he is circulating among CC members for what seems like the third time, to be convinced of this.

6) I think it would be advisable to move from words to action and place the questions raised in the correspondence on the Politburo agenda in the coming days.

January 24, 1923

Member of the CC

I. Stalin

Sakharov V.A. "The Political Testament" of Lenin: Historical Reality and Political Myths. Pp. 669-671.

RGASPI. F. 5. Op. 2. D. 276. L. 2-5.