MEMORANDUM TO V. M. MOLOTOV
15/XII [1921]
Comrade Molotov! I request that this be circulated to all members of the Politburo.
This fellow is the most foolish of the “Smenovekh” adherents.
I fear he will do more harm than good—and we would be better off postponing any engagement with him until Krestinsky’s arrival.
Lenin
1 N. II. Krestinsky was, at this time, the representative of the RSFSR in Germany.
The memorandum from V. I. Lenin was written on a letter from Krestinsky, dispatched from Berlin on December 10, 1921. Krestinsky reported that V. I. Lvov had parted ways with the “Smenovekh” and had traveled from Paris to Berlin. “He states that, in terms of his political and social outlook, he regards himself as a Bolshevik—though he remains a deeply religious man.” Beginning with the word “Bolshevik,” and continuing to the end of the sentence, Lenin twice emphasized the phrase “deeply religious,” placing a “ha-ha” above the words. Further on, Krestinsky wrote that Lvov would like to return to Russia, first and foremost in order to propagate among “intellectual and lay circles” that had not undergone the same evolution as he had—seeking their recognition and support for the Soviet regime. (The words enclosed in quotation marks were underlined by Lenin.) Secondly, Krestinsky noted, Lvov wished to “work in some area of Soviet endeavor—be it even in the realm of strengthening freedom of conscience and achieving the complete separation of church and state.” Lenin underscored these words in the margins and appended a question mark.
At the end of his letter, Krestinsky asked whether Lvov was needed in Russia.
The “Smenovekh” were a group of intellectuals within the White Guard emigration, who published the weekly journal “Smena Vekh” in Paris from October 1921 to March 1922. The social foundation of Smenovekhism lay in the resurgence of capitalist elements within the Soviet Republic, triggered by the introduction of the New Economic Policy. Having come to realize the utter futility of attempting to overthrow the Soviet government through foreign military intervention, the Smenovekhists advocated cooperation with the Soviet authorities, hoping to bring about a bourgeois reformation of the Soviet state.
While some Smenovekhists expressed a willingness to cooperate honestly with the Soviet authorities and to contribute to the country’s economic revival, the majority of them later adopted openly counterrevolutionary positions.