Written: Written on January 21, 1921
Published:
First published in Izvestia No. 31, February 8, 1927.
Printed from the typewritten text signed by V. I. Lenin.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1976],
Moscow,
Volume 35,
pages 471-472.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Bakury Volost Organisation of the R.C.P.,
Bakury Volost, Serdobsk Uyezd, Saratov Gubernia
Copy to the Saratov Gubernia Party Committee
and the Gubernia Executive Committee
Dear Comrades,
The secretary of your organisation, Comrade Turunen, has informed me in writing that, at the request of the peasants, you have passed a decision to bring to my knowledge through him the counter-revolutionary activities of certain food-supply workers in your volost who are ill-treating poor peasants, robbing them for personal gain, encouraging illicit distilling, getting drunk, raping women, provoking attacks on Soviet power, etc. You ask me to take steps from here in Moscow to put an end to these counter-revolutionary actions. But to fight on the spot, with all your strength against counter-revolution is one of the most important tasks of local Party organisations, including yours. Your bounden duty is, by getting into touch with the Uyezd Party Committee, and—if that does not help—with the Gubernia Party Committee, to secure the arrest and prosecution before the Revolutionary Tribunal of counter-revolutionaries and scoundrels like those about whom you are reporting.
What have you done in this direction?
In the second part of his letter, Comrade Turunen sets out your view that Soviet power, in order to overcome economic break-down, must for some time lean on the peasantry as it would on a crutch. This is quite true. This has been said in our Party Programme, and in the resolutions of Party Congresses. At the last, Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, the question of reviving agriculture was considered in detail and very carefully, and the Congress adopted important practical decisions, which you will have to apply on the spot, as directed by the Gubernia authorities.
These decisions have been published in the newspapers. In addition, Comrade Turunen will bring you some supplementary material which he will have received at the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, where he was sent on my recommendation.
With communist greetings,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars
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