V. I.

Lenin

539

To:   V. M. MOLOTOV AND ALL MEMBERS OF THE POLITBUREAU OF THE R.C.P.(B.) C.C.

5.XII.1921

Comrade Molotov:

Orlov (the author of an excellent book about the food supply work of the People’s Commissariat for Food) has
addressed an unusual request to the C.C.

I am in favour .

Tsyurupa (who knows Orlov personally ; I know him by his book ) is also in favour .

We must poll the Politbureau members.

If they do not object , we must cable Krestinsky: “C.C.
approved Orlov’s plans about his book.” [1]

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]

N. A. Orlov, author of the book Prodovolstvennaya rabota sovetskoi vlasti (The Soviet Power’s Food Supply Work) (1918), was
in charge of the economic department of the journal Novy Mir ,
which was published by the Soviet embassy in Berlin. Orlov
requested permission to write a book, Economic History of Soviet Russia (Research Essay ), and to publish it abroad under a
penname in several foreign languages. He believed it was better to
have the book written not from an openly communist standpoint,
but in the tone of an objectively minded non-Party researcher,
taking a favourable view of the Soviet power. For, argued
Orlov, writing in “a clearly apologetic vein ... fails to produce
the desired impression” (Central Party Archives of the Institute
of Marxism-Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee).

Lenin’s proposal was adopted by the Politbureau of the
R.C.P.(B.) Central Committee on December 7, 1921.