V. I.

Lenin

263

TELEGRAM TO THE YELATMA UYEZD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE [1]

18. II. 1919

Uyezd Executive Committee
Yelatma

Mikhail Mitrofanovich Fedoseyev of Azeyevo complains that you have nationalised his printing-press, refusing on
February 6, reference No. 455, both repayment for the printing-press and compensation for removing from work
his two girl apprentices and the woman binder. Report immediately whether these facts are true, whether it is
true that the printing-press is standing idle at Sasovo in a
shed. Please discuss whether Fedoseyev can be put to typographical work or allowed to set up an association of
workers and conduct controlled management of his former
printing-press in full subordination to the
Soviet. [2]

Lenin
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars

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Notes:
[1]
Lenin’s telegram followed a letter from M. M. Fedoseyev from
the village of Azeyevo, Yelatma Uyezd, Tambov Gubernia.
Fedoseyev stated that in October 1918 his printing-press in the town
of Yelatma was nationalised and now stood “in a shed, rusting
away and idle”, at a time when the uyezd town of Yelatma was
without a printing-press and orders were being sent to towns in
other uyezds. Fedoseyev wrote that he was “not a bourgeois”, that
for 27 years he had worked as a clerk, secretary, teacher, and
book-keeper; that after buying on credit an old, broken-down
printing-press, he had put it in order and had himself worked in
the print-shop as proofreader and compositor.

On Fedoseyev’s letter Lenin wrote the words: “Wired 18.11”,
“ file away for handy reference”.

[2]
In reply to Lenin’s telegram, P. Gorbunov, Chairman of the
Yelatma Uyezd Executive Committee, reported the same day that
the E.C. intended to merge Fedoseyev’s printing-press with
another nationalised local printing-press (of Meshcheryakov), where
both Fedoseyev and Meshcheryakov, as specialists, would be
allowed to work.