**Source:** Lenin Miscellany XL, p. 84
**Date:** 1921-05-27

[The Lepeshinskys] Borisovny, old Bolsheviks who themselves are too embarrassed to ask for help. And we must support them and assist them.

Please let me know what was able to be done to help them.

With communist greetings, Lenin

1 M. I. Frumkin—party member since 1898. From 1918 to March 1922—member of the collegium and then deputy People's Commissar of Food; during this time—plenipotentiary of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in the North Caucasus. From April 1922—deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Trade of the RSFSR.

G. K. Ordzhonikidze—outstanding state and party figure. Party member since 1903. In 1920-1921—one of the organizers of the struggle for Soviet power in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. In 1921-1926—chairman of the Caucasian Bureau of the CC, then—first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the party and in other responsible posts, member of the CC of the RCP(b).

2 P. N. Lepeshinskii—party member since 1898, at this time—collaborator of Istpart.

On the history of the publication of this note Lepeshinskii writes in his memoirs (see Memoirs of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Moscow, 1984, vol. 2, p. 65).

# LETTER TO BERNHARD REICHENBACH 1

[1921, May 16]

Dear Comrade Reichenbach!

Just now, on 16/V, at 1½ o'clock, I received and read your letter. I am extremely sorry that I absolutely could not find the time to speak with you. Unfortunately, in recent weeks I have been so overworked that I could hardly promise to meet with anyone and was forced to postpone urgent work, even the reading of the most important German documents.

Please forgive me: I am still in such a situation that I am completely unable to firmly promise a meeting in the nearest days. If it is absolutely necessary,—why not make brief proposals in writing?

Once again I ask your forgiveness.

With communist greetings, Lenin

Published from a facsimile published in: "Osteuropa," 1970, No. 4, Stuttgart
Translation from the German

1 The published letter is Lenin's reply to a request from B. Reichenbach, delegate of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany to the ECCI, transmitted through L. A. Fotieva, secretary of the Council of People's Commissars, for a meeting to discuss problems of the German workers' movement. The meeting took place several days later. The representative of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (CWPG) in the Executive Committee of the Comintern was able to personally present to Lenin the situation that had developed at that time within the German workers' movement, as well as the special position of his party on such questions as the attitude toward reformist trade unions and bourgeois parliaments. As Reichenbach later recalled, Lenin told him about the necessity of overcoming disagreements between the Communist Party of Germany and the Communist Workers' Party of Germany and the desirability of uniting both parties on the basis of the "21 conditions" adopted by the II Congress of the Comintern. Lenin also emphasized the urgent necessity of proletarian revolutionaries' participation in the work of reformist trade unions and bourgeois parliaments.

Reichenbach's memoirs present the content of his conversation with Lenin and other facts connected with Comintern affairs extremely one-sidedly. Nevertheless, for all their tendentiousness, the memoirs shed additional light on the acute struggle in which Lenin forged the principled foundations of the strategy and tactics of the world communist movement. This was a struggle not only against right opportunism and centrism, but also against left doctrinairism and sectarianism.

# LETTER TO I. S. UNSHLIKHT 1

[1921, May 27]

To Comrade Unshlikht in the Cheka

Immediately assign the most responsible comrade for the following:

1) To verify why the decree of the Council of Labor and Defense of May 6 regarding the immediate dispatch of manufactured goods to Ukraine for commodity exchange has still not been carried out in the Chief Textile Administration and the People's Commissariat of Food, despite the decree of the Commission and the fulfillment of all formalities including the issuance of orders and so forth.

2) Establish in detail who is responsible for the absence of containers at the former Prokhorov factory for packing the manufactured goods being dispatched and for the failure to take appropriate measures to produce them.

3) Specially oversee the dispatch of manufactured goods from the Prokhorov factory to Ukraine.

4) Once all circumstances have been clarified, bring the responsible persons to account.