Dictated: Dictated by phone
Published:
First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI.
Printed from the text in Lydia Fotieva’s hand.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1976,
Moscow,
Volume 45,
pages 442b-443a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Comrade Tsyurupa:
Having looked into the whole situation and the doctor’s written orders, which you had shown me,[1] etc., I most insistently request you to take the following into consideration.
I shall be unable to return before three or, perhaps, four weeks. This is the most difficult period, and C.C. members cannot set aside other business so as to take a most direct part in C.P.C. and C.L.D. work. The doctor gave you permission to work for 8 hours. I absolutely insist that over the next four weeks you confine yourself to 4 hours of work a day, and besides take a complete rest on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. The rest of the time should be spent on a sanatorium regimen, for which purpose I expect to find a room in Sokolniki for you and your wife, so that you may have your usual sick-nurse, good, food, etc. I am quite sure that otherwise you will not be able to stand the four weeks of work, and that is something we need very badly because of the political situation. Of these four hours, you must spend 2 hours a day in attending the C.P.C. and C.L.D. meetings, which we shall hold twice a week, the other two hours being devoted exclusively to the signing of minutes and the necessary minimum of conversation in person and by phone. If things are arranged this way, our apparatus will not be weakened in any way within these four weeks. You will be getting intensive help on the technical side from Gorbunov and Smolyaninov, and on the political side, from Kamenev and Stalin, and I have already made arrangements with all of them. Once again I ask you to accept this plan and to carry it out punctiliously, because it is absolutely Utopian to hope to protect your flat against an influx of friends from the Commissariat for Food, etc.
Please send your reply through Fotieva as soon as possible.[2]
21/I.22.
[1] A reference to the daily regimen established for A. D. Tsyurupa by his doctor.
[2] The same day, A. D. Tsyurupa replied to Lenin, thanking him for his care. He wrote that he was feeling better, and promised to carry out the doctor’s orders. He also said that he preferred to remain in the accustomed environment of his home where he had the necessary care, and promised “to go to Kashira or the Chaika country house for two or three days”.
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