V. I.

Lenin

128

To:   V. M. MOLOTOV

Comrade Molotov:

I have just learned from Rykov that the professors (of
Moscow Higher Technical College) do not yet know about (yesterday’s)
decision. [1]

This is outrageous, and monstrously late. I shall raise
the question of the C.C. apparatus in the Politbureau.
We can’t have that sort of thing , no indeed.

The draft statement by Lunacharsky was ready yesterday. [2] It should have been made public the same day.

You must give orders at once for everything to be done,
and to check up whether it has been.

You must verify and spur things on.

Delay is intolerable.

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
A reference to the decision of the Politbureau of the R.C.P.(B.)
Central Committee of April 14, 1921, about the state of affairs
in the Moscow Higher Technical College. The Politbureau reversed
the decision to the effect that the college board was to be
appointed by the Central Administration for Vocational Training,
and suggested that the People’s Commissariat for Education
submit for consideration by the R.C.P.(B.) Central Committee
a draft statute for institutions of higher learning and a new
composition of the board, and also a draft directive on the role and
relationships of the communist cells, the non-Party students,
the faculty and the People’s Commissariat for Education. The
Politbureau also asked the People’s Commissariat for Education
to issue a condemnation of the college lecturers who had
suspended classes.

[2]
A reference to the communication from the People’s
Commissariat for Education on the state of affairs at the Moscow Higher
Technical College, which was published in Pravda on April 19,
1921, and was signed by the People’s Commissar for Education
A. V. Lunacharsky and Secretary of the R.C.P.(B.) Central
Committee V. M. Molotov. A reprimand was issued to the members
of the faculty who had suspended classes, and it was pointed out
to them that such methods of protest were inadmissible. At the
same time, the communist cells at the college and at all
institutions of higher learning were invited to establish relations with
the faculty and non-Party students promoting normal academic
life in their institutions and the development of science in Soviet
Russia.