[28 March 1921]

Comrade Trotsky!

Look through this (it's interesting) and return it to me. I shall speak with Kharkov today about it.

But isn't it rather amusing about the concessions? The "patriotism" of both Baku and the Donbass—to hand over the Donbass (and Kryvyi Rih) to concessionaires is utterly necessary. Your opinion?¹

¹ The date was marked by Lenin later in pencil: "28–29 III 1921." Apparently a meeting took place on the 28th, about which Lenin wrote to A. Rykov (see the preceding note) and at which L. Trotsky was present. At the session of the Council of People's Commissars on 29 March, as is evident from the protocol, he was not present.

² A letter from G. Pyatakov dated 22 March has been preserved in the Institute archives (arch. No. 6451), in which he requested Lenin's assistance in sending S. I. Syrtsov on party work to the Donbass, which the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine opposed, on the grounds that Syrtsov was a Trotskyist. At the end of the letter Pyatakov touched on the question of concessions and argued against granting them in the Donbass. It is possible that Lenin transmitted this letter to Trotsky.

³ On the reverse of Lenin's note Trotsky replied that: "There is no basis for making an exception regarding concessions for the Donbass."