V. I.

Lenin

Comrade Molotov, Noulens is insolent to a degree. On the back of this sheet I propose a
draft decision. If there is no agreement on this among us I demand that the
whole Politbureau be convened tomorrow; I shall come down then. There can
be no question of yielding here.

Lenin

4/IX.

I propose this text of a Politbureau decision:

“ Chicherin shall be instructed to draw up in reply to
Noulens a sharply worded note of refusal in the form of a proclamation
against the bourgeoisie and imperialism with special emphasis on the counter-revolutionary role of Noulens himself, with
special mention of the cynically insolent nature of the proposal, before
any agreement is reached, to send a commission of spies under the name of a
commission of experts, specially ridiculing the idea of sending the
commission question forms regarding winter crops by 4.IX., which we have
already done ourselves on time, and specially ridiculing the 7 points and
declaring that we shall either have dealings with governments a la Germany,
or with persons—not those of the Noulens type, of course—on the basis
of previous and clearly defined agreements. Special stress is to be laid on
the fact that we cannot for a moment believe in the desire to help on the
part of Messrs. Noulens in view of such an approach to the matter as theirs . [1]

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Notes:
[1]
Under the pretence of rendering relief to the famine-stricken areas in
Russia the imperialists organised an “International Com-mission” headed
by Noulens, the former French Ambassador to Russia and one of the chief
organisers of counter-revolutionary plots and military intervention against
Soviet Russia. The com-mission was made up of former French, , nglish, and
Belgian diplo-mats and big foreign owners of enterprises that had been
nation-alised in Russia. On September 4, 1921, the Noulens Commission sent
a telegram to. the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs demanding that
thirty experts be admitted into Soviet Russia for on-the-spot
investigations under a special programme pro-viding for the collection of
information of an intelligence nature.

On September 6 the Politbureau approved, with slight amendments, the text of a Note to Noulens drafted in accordance with
Lenin’s proposals. The answering Note of the Commissariat for Foreign
Affairs, published in Izvestia on September 8, stated that “Mr. Noulens’
Commission, in lieu of relief for the famine- stricken areas, planned to
collect information on the internal position of Soviet Russia ... and this
was to be done under the guidance of people who had already engaged in such
a study with the undisguised aim of engineering revolts and facilitating
the advance of foreign armies on the territory of theU.S.S.R.”
(U.S.S.R. Foreign Policy Documents, Vol. IV, Moscow, 1960). The Soviet
Government emphatically refused to permit entry of the Noulens Commission
into the Soviet Republic.