TO BELA KUN. DECEMBER 29, 1921

Comrade Bela Kun!

I am sending you the text of the telegram I have just dispatched to Rakovsky.

I am very much afraid that Chicherin is making a mistake in his note to the French government. I think it would be useful for you to write a short article on this subject in a Hungarian newspaper, and then to have it reprinted (with appropriate changes) in a German newspaper. It is important to explain: 1) what the Treaty of Versailles is, 2) what the so-called “Russian” debts and the claims of private individuals are, 3) the significance of the negotiations between the Soviet government and Urquhart, and the connection of these negotiations with the conversation between Rathenau and Stinnes and the French ambassador in Berlin, 4) what Article 116 of the Treaty of Versailles says 177.

27/XII – 21 Lenin

Dictated over the telephone

Printed for the first time,

from a typewritten copy