September 26, 1928

Anastas!

Received your letter. However well the grain procurement may go, it will not remove from the agenda the fundamentals of our difficulties — it may heal (and it will heal, I think, this year) the wounds, but it will not cure the disease, so long as the technique of agriculture, the yields of our fields, and the organization of agriculture on a new basis have not been moved from dead center. Many thought that the lifting of extraordinary measures and the raising of grain prices constituted the basis for eliminating the difficulties. Vain hopes of empty liberals among the Bolsheviks! As for healing the wounds, I think there will be no grain crisis this year and we will be able to end the procurement year "even," with a small surplus. This is too little for us, far too little. But it is still better than a procurement crisis.

As for Stomonyakov, Molotov has not yet written anything. If things do not work out with Paris, I have no objection to his appointment as your deputy.

We will talk about Uglanov when I arrive in Moscow. He has turned out, unfortunately, to be a hopeless muddler on both political and organizational questions. A pity, a great pity.

I shake your hand.

Yours,

Stalin.

September 26.

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Source: Pribytkov V.V. The Apparatus. P. 108.