Date: 1922-01-31
Source: ru:PSS/v54

Source: PSS, Volume 54

Top Secret

To Comrade Zinoviev

I only received your letter today, in response to the request I sent many days ago to withdraw my report*. The entire blame for this utterly untenable delay rests squarely with you. It amuses me to read that you simply cannot bring yourself to agree to the withdrawal of my report on the economic situation. Unfortunately, my illness is not going to accommodate such delays. If you fail to appoint another rapporteur in a timely manner, then the responsibility—

* See this volume, Document 232 (1, 2). Ed.

To I. S. Unshlicht, January 31, 1922

will rest entirely with you. I have yet to receive a reply to my proposal that Pyatakov deliver this report, even though I conveyed this suggestion to Kamenev and to you many days ago*. I had begun drafting an article on this very topic, but I now realize that under no circumstances can I guarantee its timely completion—254. As for the Mensheviks, you are absolutely right that we must respond with an unequivocally negative stance. I believe that, on this point as well, you bear some responsibility for indulging them unduly. For example, it was decided that Rozhkov should not be released.

Yet he was set free without any decision whatsoever from the Politburo—255. I am convinced that beyond the harm caused by such a policy, nothing else will come of it.

Lenin

Dictated over the telephone

First published,

based on a typewritten copy,

verified against the manuscript

written in the hand of L. A. Fotieva

To I. S. Unshlicht

January 31st.

To Comrade Unshlicht

There is no way I can serve on the Politburo—256. My condition has worsened.

I believe there is no longer any need for me to remain in the Party leadership.

The matter now hinges solely on purely technical measures aimed at ensuring that our courts intensify—and accelerate—their repressive actions against the Mensheviks.

Both the courts and the Sovnarkom, or the All‑Russian Central Executive Committee.

With comradely greetings, Lenin

based on the typewritten text

from the recollections of I. S. Unshlicht

* See this volume, Document 232 (3). Ed.