I received your document No. 24962 with the extract from the Presidium resolution of 7.X.

I am compelled in all conscience to say that this resolution is so politically illiterate and so stupid that it is nauseating. "...The Presidium is forced to absolve itself of responsibility..." That is how capricious young ladies behave, not adult politicians. You will not absolve yourselves of responsibility; you will only increase it threefold.

If the Commissariat of People's Enlightenment does not answer you and does not fulfill its duty toward you, then you are obliged to lodge a complaint with documents. You are not children, after all, so as not to understand this.

When did you lodge a complaint? Where is the copy? Where are the documents and evidence?

And in my opinion, the entire Presidium and Vinogradova ought to be locked in jail for a week for inactivity.

If the Commissariat of People's Enlightenment "does not issue busts" (when did you demand them? from whom? copy and document? when did you appeal?), you should have fought for your rights. But to "absolve yourselves of responsibility"—that is the manner of capricious young ladies and foolish Russian intellectuals.

Forgive me for my frank expression of opinion and accept communist greetings from one who hopes that you will be taught a lesson by imprisonment for the inactivity of the authorities, and from one deeply outraged with you

Lenin

12. X. 1918.

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXI

Printed from the manuscript