Kaganovich, Molotov.

First. I have read the latest conversation with Lancaster. Lancaster's schemes are unacceptable. We can agree to the partial satisfaction of the claims of a private bank only on condition that we receive a large loan. This is our fundamental premise. Without such a combination, an agreement is out of the question. Therefore we must stand firmly on the basis of our scheme proposed to Lancaster on June 27. In the last resort, we can agree to increase our orders in America to 30 percent of the loan, and in the event of recognition of the USSR, to 35 percent.

Second. The center of the decisions at the conference of secretaries must be the organization of grain procurement with the mandatory fulfillment of the plan at 100 percent. The main blow must be directed against the Ukrainian demoralizers. Kaganovich should go to the Ukrainian conference as CC secretary and Molotov as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

Third. Instruct the People's Commissariat of Agriculture or Gosplan to issue an official statement or interview to the effect that the harvest prospects are good and the harvest will be better than last year's. This will have an effect on Lancaster.

Stalin.

Source: Stalin i Kaganovich. Perepiska. 1931-1936 gg. [Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936], p. 205.

RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, ll. 129-130.

NOTE

In June 1932 the well-known American banker W. Lancaster, director of the National City Bank of New York, arrived in Moscow and spent six weeks in the USSR. His bank held a significant part of the debt securities of the tsarist government, on which the Bolsheviks had refused to pay.

In 1932, after consultations in the State Department, the bank apparently developed serious hopes of receiving part of the money, tying this question to an agreement on recognition of the USSR by the United States. Kaganovich wrote Stalin on 28 June 1932: "Yesterday Mezhlauk had a conversation with Lancaster... in view of the importance of the details I decided to send you a detailed record, and we proposed to Mezhlauk that he delay the answer until the 2nd-3rd. From everything it is clear that he [Lancaster] came for reconnaissance, although a serious one. He directly and frankly links satisfaction of the bank's interests with recognition. We did not decide the question, but it seems to us that his proposals are unacceptable...."