V. I.

Lenin

POSTSCRIPT TO A RADIO MESSAGE OF MAY 6, 1920 [1]

Entirely supporting this statement, and the radio message of March 16, 1920, sent by Comrade Milyutin, I
request that instructions be given that any delegation from
foreign workers coming to Russia should, without fail, sign a statement that the content of these radio messages
and my present postscript for the information of the workers
abroad has been brought to their knowledge . The foreign
workers must know the truth, that in settling here they
are accepting privation.

May 6, 1920

Lenin
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars

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Notes:
[1]
In connection with the mass applications by German workers,
technicians and engineers to settle in Soviet Russia and work
there, the Soviet Government broadcast an announcement on
March 16, 1920, that special delegations should be sent put to
find out about living conditions for the settlers. In an additional
broadcast on May 6, 1920, it once again stressed the need to
make a study beforehand of the economic conditions of life in
Soviet Russia, since foreign workers who settled in Russia would
receive no more wages than Russian workers.

Copies of these broadcasts with a note by Lenin were sent by
deputy chairman of the Supreme Economic Council Milyutin to
the People’s Commissariat for Labour, the People’s Commissariat
for Foreign Affairs, the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade
and members of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council
as a brief for negotiations. Contracts were valid only when the
pledge specified by Lenin was signed.

However, because the talks conducted by these agencies on
the resettlement of German workers were slow, Lenin had to write
another note to Milyutin (see p. 524).