V. I.   Lenin

245

To:   N. A. SEMASHKO^[1]

Written: Written on July 12, 1921
Published: First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 45, pages 208^b-209^a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
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Semashko, my pretty one!

Don’t fret, sweetheart! We shall leave the Quakers to you, to you alone. You mustn’t be jealous of Kuskova.

Today’s directive to the Politbureau: Kuskova must be strictly rendered harmless. You are in the “communist cell” and will have to be on your toes, keeping a strict watch over this.

We shall get Kuskova to give us her name, her signature and a couple of carloads from those who sympathise with her (and others of her stripe). Not a thing more.

It is really not very hard to do this.

Notes

[1] Written at a sitting of the Politbureau of the R.C.P.(B.) C.C. on July 12, 1921, in connection with the discussion of the question of an All-Russia Famine Relief Committee. N. A. Semashko objected to the establishment of the committee, saying that the Mensheviks and the S.R.s could use it for hostile activity against the Soviet power. To prevent this, the Politbureau approved a plan to set up a communist group in the Committee and decided to bring into its Presidium only a limited number of bourgeois “public figures”.