Note by V.I.Lenin to L.B.Kamenev

...the questions1*are not ready at all, the debates are chaotic, there will be no use, I think that all this is incorrigible and we will have to suffer with our ears and brains.

Note by L.B.Kamenev to V.I.Lenin

Complicate yourself with this thought: questions of this order will always be unprepared until there is a person in the center who is constantly and systematically acquainted with the matter. Stalin is only an expert. I put - if it will not be an offense to Stalin - my candidacy. The confusion here creates in a few weeks an obnoxious mess in the field.

Note by V.I. Lenin to L.B. Kamenev

More than once I have already "embarrassed myself" (to put it in Bashkirian) with this "thought".

The NKNats2* can't you: shouldn't a commission be set up? Or shouldn't you be made a member of the NKNats collegium?

Note by L.B. Kamenev to V.I. Lenin

It would be necessary to organize a Federal Council, which would monitor the correct implementation of decisions in Bashkiria, Turkestan, Ukraine and the North Caucasus (if we get there) and would do it systematically, not in a hasty manner, as the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars do now; it would collect materials (newspapers, reports, workers, etc.).

Note by V.I. Lenin to L.B. Kamenev

Yes, something like that is necessary. Through the People's Commissariat?

The main thing is that there are no good forces.

A note from L.B. Kamenev to V.I. Lenin.

[where? who? 3*]

The People's Commissariat should do it. He has nothing else to do. It is necessary to put a "man" there, to instruct him, to raise him up in general. - This is for the future Politburo.

Lenin's note to the last word of L.B. Kamenev's note.

Yes

L.B.Kamenev's note to V.I.Lenin

In some commission, I think "on simplification" it was decided: to make the Collegium of the People's Commissariat narrow (following the example of others; all equally cannot be included in it), but to create a council of representatives of all nationalities under the NKNats. I agree to be its chairman. It (the council) can be made a working institution. But being a member of the board will not work with the current paralysis of the entire NKNats.

Note by V.I. Lenin to L.D. Trotsky

In my opinion, it is necessary to make Kamenev both a member of the Collegium of the NKNats and the chairman of the Council.

[Otherwise we'll be in chaos and won't get out. Wouldn't it be better if we had someone else?  ]

Note from L.D. Trotsky to V.I. Lenin.

I don't mind. Trotsky.

Note by V.I.Lenin to L.B.Kamenev.

You are to be appointed both a member of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities and Chairman of the "Council of Nationalities "2 and to be given two assistants:

Enukidze+ ?(+ with Vladimirskogo's advisory vote)

{two "nationalists", {tactful, knowledgeable}

Published - Lenin's Collection XXXIX, p. 228 (Lenin's third note).

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 24402, 24403, 24404 - autographs.

1* The beginning of the note has not survived.

2* NKNats - People's Commissar for Nationalities

3* Lenin's note

1The correspondence took place at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) on May 15, 1920. The issue of the reorganization of the People's Commissariat and the establishment of relations with Bashkiria was discussed; it was decided: "To instruct the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to hold at the 1st meeting the issues of the reorganization of the People's Commissariat and the determination of relations with the Bashkir Republic" (RCCHIDNI, f. 17, op. 3, 78, l. 5). At the meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on May 19, 1920, resolutions on the relations between the Bashkir Soviet Republic and the RSFSR and on the reorganization and immediate tasks of the People's Commissariat for National Affairs were approved (see: Decrees of Soviet Power. Vol. VIII, pp. 220-222).

2 The third paragraph of the decree on the reorganization of the People's Commissariat (see above) states: "At the head of the People's Commissariat is placed the Council of Nationalities, made up of representatives of the above-mentioned representations", and the fourth paragraph establishes that the People's Commissar of the People's Commissariat is placed at the head of the Council, its chairman, and the Collegium of the People's Commissariat is also included in the Council (see: ibid., p. 222).

Stalin was retained as People's Commissar for National Affairs, thus becoming the Chairman of the Council of Nationalities.