V. I.

Lenin

582

TELEGRAM TO F. Y. KON [1]

Felix Kon
Kiev
Copy to Rakovsky
Kharkov

Regarding Vinnichenko we agree in principle. Reach agreement with Rakovsky on
details. [2] Report briefly on the military situation and prospects.

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
Transmitted by direct line.— Ed.

[2]
In the manuscript of the telegram, the word “details” has been
crossed out and the words “the form of Vinnichenko’s co–
operation in government activities” have been written in an unknown
hand.

In the spring of 1920, V. K. Vinnichenko, who was then living as an emigrant in Vienna, declared that he was breaking
his connections with the Ukrainian Mensheviks and accepting the
platform of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Vinnichenko requested the Government of the R.S.F.S.R. to allow him to come
to the Ukraine and to give him an opportunity of actively
participating in the struggle against the White Poles and Wrangel, as
well as in building the Soviet Ukraine.

In view of the fact that Vinnichenko and other nationalist
leaders had the backing of a considerable number of Ukrainian
émigrés, and in order to win away from them elements belonging
to the working people who had been misled, it was decided to
draw Vinnichenko into Soviet work. The question was discussed
several times in the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) and the C.C., C.P.(B.)U.

On September 6, 1920, by a decision of the Politbureau of
the C.C., C.P.(B.)U. Vinnichenko was admitted to membership
of the Ukrainian Communist Party and appointed Deputy
Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and People’s
Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian S.S.R. On the same
day the Politbureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) passed the following
decision regarding Vinnichenko: “The Politbureau takes note of
Comrade Vinnichenko’s variable moods and therefore, while not
objecting to his immediate admission into the Party, the
Political Bureau proposes that he should not be given any post, and