LETTER TO V.V. KURAEV, E.B. BOSH, A.E. MINKIN

August 11, 1918

August 11, 1918

To Penza

Comrades Kurayev, Bosh, Minkin, and other Penza Communists

Comrades! The uprising of the five volosts of the kulaks must be suppressed ruthlessly. This is required by the interests of the entire revolution, for now everywhere there is a "final decisive battle" with the kulaks. An example must be set.

1) Hang (definitely hang, so that the people can see) no fewer than 100 known kulaks, rich men, and bloodsuckers.

2) Publish their names.

3) Confiscate all their grain.

4) Appoint hostages—according to the telegram of yesterday.1

Do this so that for hundreds of versts around, the people will see, tremble, know, and shout: they are strangling and will strangle the bloodsucking kulaks.

Telegraph receipt and execution.2

Yours, Lenin.

P.S. Find firmer people.

Fund 2, op. 1, file 6898—autograph.

1 The reference is to the peasant uprising, which began on August 5, 1918, due to dissatisfaction with the Soviet government's food policy. It encompassed the most food-secure volosts of the Penza and neighboring Morshansk districts of the Penza province (a total of 8 volosts). (See: Chronicle of the Penza Regional Organization of the CPSU. 1884-1937. Saratov, 1988, p. 58). On August 9 and 10, V.I. Lenin received telegrams from the chairman of the Penza Gubernia Committee of the RCP(B) E.B. Bosh and the chairman of the Council of Gubernia Commissioners V.V. Kurayev, informing him of the uprising. In response, Lenin sent telegrams with instructions on how to suppress it (see: V.I. Lenin. Biographical Chronicle. Vol. 6. Moscow, 1975, pp. 41, 46, 51, and 55; Lenin, V.I. Collected Works, Vol. 50, pp. 143-144, 148, 149, and 156). The published letter repeats these instructions in a more severe and pointed form. The content of the letter was partially recounted in Bosh's memoirs (Meetings and Conversations with Vladimir Ilyich (1915-1918) // Proletarian Revolution, 1924, No. 3 (26), p. 169).

2 This refers to a direct wire note to Penza, addressed to the chairman of the gubernia executive committee A.E. Minkin (copies to E.B. Bosh and V.V. Kurayev), signed by V.I. Lenin, A.D. Tsiurupa, and E.M. Skliansky, transmitted on August 11, 1918, at 00:10. The draft was written by Tsiurupa on August 10 (see: Lenin Collection XVIII, p. 203).

3 The uprising was quelled on August 12, 1918. Local authorities managed to do this primarily through agitation with limited use of military force. The participants in the murder of five food army soldiers and three members of the village council of Kuchki, Penza district, and the organizers of the rebellion (13 people) were arrested and executed.