V. I.

Lenin

454

To:   J. V. STALIN

Comrade Stalin:

Have a look at this, please, and if possible, inquire from
some of the old Party men, Armenians, perhaps. I knew
Lalayants from the 1890s on as a Marxist and then a
Bolshevik. He is undoubtedly a loyal revolutionary, who must be used despite our political differences . [1]

20/X.

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
This was written on Y. I. Vishnyak’s letter to Lenin of
September 10, 1921, about I. Kh. Lalayants.

By political differences Lenin meant the following passage in
Vishnyak’s letter: “After the liberation of Irkutsk, Comrade
Lalayants tried to understand what was taking place in Soviet
Russia at the time, and to analyse the R.C.P.’s tactics. He often used
to quote to me that part of your report on the agrarian question
at the Stockholm Congress, in which you pointed out that a social
revolution in the West was the only guarantee against any
restoration after the victory of the revolution in Russia. Our state
of isolation, the discrepancy between our political strength and
the economic foundation, and a number of other questions to
which he has not yet found an answer, prevent him from joining
the R.C.P.” (Central Party Archives of the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee).

On Vishnyak’s letter is also J. V. Stalin’s reply: “I, too, favour
summoning Lalayants for work in Moscow ” ( Lenin Miscellany XXXV , p. 278).

I. Kh. Lalayants was summoned to Moscow and worked at
the People’s Commissariat for Education.