To Comrade Stalin (for the Political Bureau)

April 15

I have just received the book Materialy p0 istorii franko russkikh otnosheni za 1910-1914 gody. [1]

This massive tome of 733 pages has been published with that disgraceful,
truly Soviet slovenliness which ought to be punished by imprisonment. The
price is not indicated. The responsible person or persons are not
named. There is no index!! The simple list of names has been compiled
carelessly. And so on.

I suggest that:

(1) Hanecki and Karakhan he given two days in which to find all the
persons responsible for this publication, (2) hold up the sale of the book, (3) write a notice to be inserted in the book to indicate what is missing, (4) and draw up an intelligible index; in short, that by Thursday they
should submit a brief report to the Central Committee on all these
monstrosities—the defects in the publication, and on the ways of
correcting them.

Lenin

P.S. M. N. Pokrovsky is named in the “Preface”—which is
unsigned!! He has worked on compiling the material but it is obvious that he
is not responsible for the publication, for the way the book has been put
out.

Endnotes

[1] This book
(Documents on the History of Franco-Russian Relations for 1910-14)
was published by the Peop1e’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in 1922;
Changes were made in it on the basis of suggestions from Lenin.