V. I.

Lenin

383

To:   A. A. JOFFE

13.IX.1921

Comrade Joffe:

You will find that today’s Politbureau decision (which
I enclose) largely meets your dispatch of
9/IX. [2]

Please be so kind as to send me a written report with more details.

In addition, as a personal request, to enable me to sort things out in this matter , I ask you to devote special
attention (in your report or in a special annex to your
report) to the question of protection of native interests
against “Russian” (Great-Russian or colonialist)
exaggerations.

What is the attitude of the natives to Safarov? Facts ,
facts and more facts.

Who are the natives themselves (Safarov’s supporters)?
Names? Record? Prestige? (Facts, facts....)

Will they he able to stand up for themselves? Is that sure? Even against such a subtle and firm and stubborn
man as Tomsky?

How many of them are there?

“ The Union of the Poor” (set up by Safarov?)—its composition? importance? strength? role? Is it true that the
natives were “ forcibly ” stratified?

Cotton? Its future? Is it true that Safarov is ruining the cotton? Facts, facts.

The fronts in Ferghana? The Basmachi? Their attitude to the Tomsky and the Safarov “line”? Facts and exact
decisions by Turkestan C.E.C. concerning the Basmachi?
The facts on what and when Tomsky and Safarov or their supporters differed in this question ? (Extracts from relevant
decisions, to show exactly when and on what precisely the formal differences occurred.)

There are some differences on this question inside the C.C.

More exact information is highly important.

I personally very much suspect “Tomsky’s line” (perhaps
it would be more correct to say Peters’s line? or Pravdin’s
line? etc. ) of engaging in Great-Russian chauvinism, or, to
put it more correctly, in deviating in that direction.

It is terribly important for all our
Weltpolitik [1] to win the confidence of the natives; to win it over again and
again; to prove that we are not imperialists, that we shall
not tolerate any deviation in that direction.

This is a world-wide question, and that is no exaggeration.

There you must be especially strict.

It will have an effect on India and the East; it is no joke, it calls for exceptional caution.

With communist greetings, Lenin