Written: Written in August, prior to 21, 1920
Published:
First published in 1965 in Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1975,
Moscow,
Volume 44,
page 423a.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Tell Chicherin,
1) In my opinion, Kamenev is right: we must send our reply through him (and in the negative).
2) Negotiations with Vanderlip to be begun through Krasin, exact terms to be ascertained without summoning Vanderlip here.[1]
[1] In a telegram to People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin on July 30, 1920, M. M. Litvinov, plenipotentiary abroad of the R.S.F.S.R. Council of People’s Commissars, reported the arrival in Copenhagen of the American industrialist Vanderlip, who wanted to obtain a concession to exploit oil, coal, and the fisheries of Primorye Region and Kamchatka.
In the Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C., C.P.S.U., there is a note written by Lenin on Chicherin’s letter dated August 21, 1920, in which Lenin agrees to Vanderlip visiting Moscow.
Vanderlip arrived in Moscow on September 17, 1920, to negotiate an agreement for the concessions. On the same day Chicherin wrote to Lenin suggesting that negotiations with Vanderlip be started at once and setting out his views on the subject. Lenin wrote on this letter: “Comrade Chicherin, I am wholly in favour of negotiations. Hasten them. Think over what more should be done for directives to Krasnoshchokov.” = (Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51, p. 448.)
An inter-departmental commission of representatives of the Supreme Economic Council, the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade, was set up to conduct the negotiations. In agreeing to offer a concession to Vanderlip’s syndicate, the Soviet Government aimed not only at establishing mutually profitable co-operation with American business circles, but also at normalising relations between Soviet Russia and the U.S.A. In a letter to the Vanderlip syndicate on November 1, 1920, Chicherin pointed out: “ Independently of the signing of a concession agreement, the Government of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic assumes that the agreement will come into force only on the resumption of normal de facto relations between the Government of Russia and the Government of the U.S.A., and on condition that such relations will be established before July 1, 1921.” = However, this condition was not fulfilled, hence the concession agreement with Vanderlip was not finalised and did not come into effect.
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