V. I.

Lenin

273

To:   LYDIA FOTIEVA [1]

1

Decrees cannot be bypassed : the mere proposal invites prosecution.

An exception, though, can be put through the Central Executive Committee , and I advise doing this.

2

One must know the law: I do not remember through whom exceptions go .

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Notes:
[1]
Lydia Fotieva, secretary of the C.P.C., asked Lenin to take on
for work in the C.P.C. Secretariat a woman recommended by the
Staff Bureau of the C.P.C.’s Managing Department. V. D.
Bonch-Bruyevich, head of the C.P.C.’s Managing Department, objected
to the appointment on the grounds that it contravened the decree
forbidding relatives to work together in the same Soviet
institutions (the candidate had a sister working in the C.P.C.). Fotieva
wrote to Lenin that the woman recommended “is a very valuable
worker and it would be in our interests to take her on.... Could
not the decree be bypassed?”