Written: Written on July 10, 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 401b.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Kamenev and Chicherin
Comrade Kamenev’s plan is utterly incorrect.[1] Our business with Britain is purely commercial. Chicherin is not right. We should send to Britain only a “tradesman”; if they ask 2 1/4 kopeks, beat them down to 1 3/4 kopeks.
Exposures here are harmful. This is not 1918. We have the Comintern for that. All Kamenev’s arguments— arguments against his going.
10/VII.
P.S. For the time being we shall appoint Krasin, Vorovsky and another 2–3 assistants.[2]
[1] This refers to Kamenev’s letter of July 9, 1920, concerning the nature of the Anglo-Russian talks, in which he wrote that political negotiations should be conducted “on the broadest agitational lines” recounting “widely and publicly the whole history of the intervention, including Kolchak, Denikin, Poland, Wrangel, Lithuania, Estonia, etc., etc., and touching on and raising all the questions of Eastern policy from Turkey to China”. = In his postscript to this letter Chicherin supported Kamenev, who in turn again put forward the proposal—“without breaking off the negotiations, and in a mild tone, to present to Lloyd George the history of British plundering on a world scale”. = When Lenin read the letter, he wrote on it: = “I disagree in principle. 10/VII. Lenin.” (Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51, p. 438.)
Lenin’s letter was a reply to these proposals.
[2] N. N. Krestinsky, Secretary of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.), informed Lenin on July 11, 1920, that Chicherin was insisting that Kamenev and not Krasin should head the Soviet delegation that was being sent to Great Britain. Lenin wrote on Krestinsky’s letter: “I agree to Kamenev as chairman, Krasin—deputy chairman.” (Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51, p. 438).
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