NOTES ON A LETTER TO THE KASHIN PEASANTS
November 12, 1920
To Comrade Lenin,
Dear Comrade,
The Board of the Cooperative hereby announces that on November 14th, the inauguration of electric lighting will take place in the village of Kashino. We most humbly request your presence to share in the joy we feel at the sight of electric light illuminating the peasant homes—light that, under tsarist rule, peasants had never dared to dream of. Your presence would be most welcome.
Schedule of the Celebration:
1) Reception of guests from 7:00 a.m. at the home of Brothers Z. and K. Pashkin.
2) At 4:00 p.m., a rally featuring a band of musicians and the singing of “The Internationale.”
3) At 6:00 p.m., a festive dinner.
4) At 8:00 p.m., a youth ballet performance by the village’s young people, accompanied by a string orchestra.
Chairman of the Board: D. Rodionov
Members of the Festival Organizing Committee: S. Kurkov
O. Korobkov
*
At the invitation of the peasants, on November 14, 1920, V. I. Lenin, together with N. K. Krupskaya, attended the opening of an electric power station—installed through the efforts of the local agricultural cooperative—in the village of Kashino, Yaropol’skaya Volost, Volokolamsky Uyezd, Moscow Governorate. V. I. Lenin delivered a speech at the rally and engaged in conversation with the peasants.
In his report to the Eighth Congress of Soviets, held on December 22,

V. I. Lenin stated: “Not long ago, I had the opportunity to attend a peasant festival in a remote area of Moscow Governorate, in Volokolamsky Uyezd, where the peasants now have access to electric lighting. A rally was held in the street, and one of the peasants stepped forward to deliver a speech in which he hailed this new development in peasant life. He said that we, the peasants, had lived in darkness—and now, suddenly, light has come to us, ‘unnatural light that will dispel our peasant darkness.’ To be honest, these words did not surprise me. Of course, for the non‑party peasant masses, electric light is ‘unnatural’; but what is truly unnatural is that for hundreds, even thousands of years, peasants and workers were able to live in such darkness, in poverty, oppressed by landowners and capitalists. One cannot simply leap out of that darkness overnight. Yet what we must strive to achieve in the present moment is that every electric power station we build should truly become a pillar of enlightenment—should, so to speak, engage in the ‘electrical education’ of the masses” (Works, Volume XXVI, p. 47).
From
Volokolamsk, take the highway via Shchekino and Putyatino; from there, turn right off the highway for about 1½ versts
Kashino*.