V. I. L E N I N
90
He has lost his spectacles and paid 15,000 rubles for
the
trash! Could you help him to get good spectacles?
I earnestly request you to help and ask your secretary
to let me know whether you have managed to do so.
Yours,
Lenin
First published in part
on January 3 0 , 1 9 2 4
in Leningradskaya Pravda No. 2 3
Published in full
Printed from the original
on January 2 1 , 1 9 2 5
in Izvestia No. 1 7
77
TO A. D. TSYURUPA
Comrade Tsyurupa:
Your figures show the stocks on 1.II to be 40.3 food&
5.4 groats=45.7.
69
The probable figure for 1.III is about 4 8.
By 1.IV, probably,
not less than 50.
From 1.IV to 1.IX is five months. 50 : 5=10.
This rough estimate shows that for Russia, for the
R.S.F.S.R. (without the Ukraine), it is quite possible to
abolish the surplus-requisition from 15.III or 1.IV, and
try out the new regime until 1.IX or 15.VIII.
What do you think?
Written in February 1 9 2 1
First published in 1 9 4 5
Printed from the original
in Lenin Miscellany XXXV
78
TO N. OSINSKY
1.III.1921
Comrade Osinsky:
Yesterday I saw Ivan Afanasyevich Chekunov. It turned
out that he had already been to see me in 1919 on the ques-
tion of a congress of toiling peasants. Now he says: it is
better to start with regional ones.
91
TO N. OSINSKY. MARCH 1, 1921
He sympathises with the Communists, but will not join
the Party, because he goes to church and is a Christian
(he says he rejects the ritual but is a believer).
He has been improving his farm. He has toured Nizhni-
Novgorod and Simbirsk gubernias. He says the peasants have
lost confidence in the Soviet power. I asked him whether
we could right things with a tax? He thinks we could. In
his own uyezd, he has succeeded, with the help of the
workers, to substitute a good Soviet authority for the
bad
one.
That is the kind of people we must
do our utmost to hold
on to, in order to restore the confidence of the peasant mass.
This is the main political task and one which brooks no
delay. My earnest request: see that the “apparatus” stand-
point does not run away with you, and do not worry too
much over it. Devote more attention to the political
attitude towards the peasantry.
I think we must “capture” Chekunov immediately, i.e.,
involve him in our activity. How are we to do this? This
needs thinking about. Perhaps we should set up right away
(rather start) a “toiling peasant council” or a “non-Party
peasant council” (perhaps, the latter name is more guarded
for keeping out those whom Chekunov calls the “hissers”,
i.e., the downright kulaks and enemies of the Soviet power).
Chekunov should be appointed right away as the authorised
representative of the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture
to organise (or prepare) such an institution. He should be
urgently sent to Simbirsk Gubernia (we need an adviser
and a mediator from a gubernia with surplus grain, better
two mediators) and be given this assignment: to bring us
over here from Simbirsk Gubernia (where he knows various
people) a non-Party Russian peasant, a man advanced in
years and a farmer, who favours the toiling peasants and
the workers, and is not a “hisser”. Another one must also
be found. Three would be best: Chekunov&the man from
Simbirsk&another from a gubernia not growing grain. This
trio of “old men” (it would be good for all of them to be
both non-Party men
and Christians) we will at once turn
either into non-voting members of the collegium, or into
the nucleus of a “non-Party peasant council”, or a similar
corporation.
V. I. L E N I N
92
This must be done speedily, at once (he intends to leave
the day after tomorrow).
Strike while the iron’s hot. Let me have your reply.
With communist greetings,
Lenin
First published in 1 9 4 5
Printed from the original
in Lenin Miscellany XXXV
79
TO L. D. TROTSKY
Comrade Trotsky:
I am sending this for your information.
70
These are very
interesting things. I think the Ukrainian Communists are
wrong. The conclusion to be drawn from the facts is not
against a tax, but for intensified military measures for the
total annihilation of Makhno, etc.
Lenin
Written on March 3 , 1 9 2 1
First published in 1 9 3 2
Printed from
in Lenin Miscellany XX
a typewritten copy
80
TO THE NARROW C.P.C.
I think we should allow greater quantities to be trans-
ported.
71
Your fear of speculation is excessive.
Will it be so bad if they exchange individually for grain?
The peasants will obtain footwear and clothing. What we
should fear is mass speculation, and we cannot allow spec-
ulation on a professional basis. But we should not hamper
but encourage importation into poverty-stricken Russia.
Please review.
3/III.1921.
Lenin
First published in 1 9 3 2
Printed from the original
in Lenin Miscellany XX