Written: Written on September 6, 1913
Published:
First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVIII.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1975,
Moscow,
Volume 44,
page 146a.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Comrade Sereda,
I’m very sorry you did not drop in. You should not have listened to the “overzealous” doctors.[2]
Why aren’t things working out in Yelets Uyezd? This worries me very much, and still more your “side-stepping” on this question. Clearly, things do not work out. From 19 volosts with Poor Peasants’ Committees, not one clear, precise report!
Not one σ,[1] how many trucks, in what period of time ?!!
In not one single volost (though there should be in 19) have 3-5 intelligent workers from Petrograd (with 15–50 assistants from Moscow) been brought in. Nowhere are there any indications that work is proceeding apace!
What is wrong? Please do reply. Appoint correspondents for me in each volost, give them this letter of mine, and let them all reply to me.
Regards,
Yours,
Lenin
[2] Lenin wrote this letter when he was ill after being seriously wounded on August 30, 1918, by the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist, Fanny Kaplan.
In spite of the doctors’ orders, only a few days after being wounded, Lenin began to occupy himself with affairs of state. On September 16 the doctors allowed him to resume work. From September 23 to mid-October Lenin was recuperating at Gorki near Moscow.
The letter mentions the harvesting of grain in Yelets Uyezd, Orel Gubernia. On this subject see also this volume, Document 182.
The original bears the date “7.IX.1918”. But in the files of the Council of People’s Commissars there is a copy of this letter on which in an unknown hand is written the date “6/IX” and the time of dispatch “21.10 hours” (Ts. G.A.O.R., USSR). Moreover, on the night of September 6, Tsyurupa informed Zinoviev in Petrograd: “today Vladimir llyich... wrote a letter” ( Petrogradskaya Pravda No. 194, September 7, 1918). This gives grounds for assuming that the letter was written on September 6, 1918.
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