Dictated: Dictated by phone
Published:
First published in 1965 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 54.
Printed from a typewritten copy verified with a text in Lydia Fotieva’s hand.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1976,
Moscow,
Volume 45,
page 457a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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January 31, 1922
Top secret
Comrade Zinoviev
I received only today your letter in reply to my application sent in many days ago about withdrawing my report.[1] You are entirely to blame for this incredible red tape. I find it ridiculous to read that you cannot see your way to agreeing to the withdrawal of my report on the economic situation. Unfortunately, my illness cannot accord with this. Unless you prepare another rapporteur in good time, the blame will fall entirely on you. I have not received any reply to my proposal to let Pyatakov give this report, although I made this proposal to Kamenev and you many days ago.[2] I began writing an article on this subject, but I now see that I can in no way guarantee its completion in time.[4] You are certainly right about the Mensheviks that the reply must he absolutely negative. I think that you, too, are at fault on this point with unwarranted indulgence. For instance, it was decided not to release Rozhkov. But he has been released without any Politbureau decision.[5] I think that nothing but harm will come of such a policy.
[1] See Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Edition, Vol. 54, Document 232 (1, 2).—Ed.
[2] Ibid., Document 232 (3).—Ed.
[3] On January 31, 1922, Lenin received G. Y. Zinoviev’s reply to his letter of January 26 (see Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Edition, Vol. 54, Document 232). Zinoviev wrote that the Executive Committee of the Comintern, not expecting Lenin to deliver a speech on the question of a united front, wanted to have an article by him on this subject. As for his speech on the question of NEP and its initial results, it was considered highly important by the Executive Committee of the Comintern in view of the fact that the Second and the Two-and-a-Half Internationals were distorting the meaning of NEP and agitating against the Communists. See this volume, Document 617.
[4] Lenin did not write a special article on NEP or the country’s economic position. He dealt with these questions in the first part of his article “Notes of a Publicist”, which remained unfinished (see present edition, Vol. 33, pp. 204–07).
[5] Prof. N. A. Rozhkov was arrested in February 1921 as a member of the Petrograd Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. (Mensheviks). At his interrogation he said that while he shared the Menshevik view of the Soviet power’s inevitable debacle, he did not wish to take part in the political struggle and intended to withdraw from the Menshevik Party. In this connection, the Petrograd Gubernia Cheka suggested his release. On May 31, 1921, the Politbureau of the R.C.P.(B.) C.C. decided not to release him.
Rozhkov was later released under a decision of the Presidium of the All-Russia Cheka. See also this volume, Documents 801 and 802.
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