V. I.

Lenin

352

To:   G. V. CHICHERIN [1]

This Skobelev should be “ cut down to size ”. Noulens’s
appointment is a piece of impudence.

1/IX.

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
Written on a telegram from J. A. Berzin addressed to G. V.
Chicherin, saying that M. I. Skobelev, who had started negotiations with the French Government as a representative of the
All-Russia Famine Relief Committee, was requesting powers from
the Soviet Government as well.

Below is the reference to the appointment of Joseph Noulens,
one-time French Ambassador to Russia (1917–18), one of the
organisers of counter-revolutionary plots against the Soviet power
and of foreign armed intervention, to the Chairmanship of the
International Relief Commission. The commission (Britain, France,
Italy and Belgium) was set up by a decision of the Allied Supreme
Council and was in fact, a cover for implementing anti-Soviet
plans.