V. I.

Lenin

401

To:   G. V. CHICHERIN [1]

Comrade Chicherin, I have received your note and the radio message. I don’t
think it is worth while taking this seriously and hastening
to reply. Let us rather wait and have the laugh on them.
Today we shall give it to the press as a joke , with a directive to the editors to ridicule it thoroughly (hinting: are
they not going by the news from Budapest?) and call the
Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries all the names they deserve. We shall talk it over again when I arrive.

Yours, Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
Lenin, who was resting at Gorki on August 3 and 4, 1919,
apparently wrote this note in connection with the fact that at the end
of July and beginning of August 1919 strong rumours were current
in the West-European press, and were also spread by the Russian
Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, about an imminent
replacement of the Soviet Government in Russia by a coalition
government (with the participation of Mensheviks and Socialist–
Revolutionaries). =

Pravda on August 6 and Izvestia on August 8 published articles ridiculing these rumours, which reflected the
imperialists’ hopes for the overthrow of Soviet rule in Russia with
the aid of social traitors, as had occurred in Hungary.