Tov. Stalin! Or Comrade Kamenev!

(letter for both)

Radek is in a hurry; snatches the papers from Karakhan's hands. This is not the way to do it. The time is getting hot. I advise you to appoint roughly a twosome (roughly Kamenev and Trotsky) and, without their common consent, forbid anything diplomatic to be done in the intervals between Politbureaus.

With Germany it is now necessary to be "wise as a serpent." Not a word unnecessary. Do not "tease" in vain either France or England. Not to threaten in vain (like the 27th of Augustusta, the editorial of Pravda)2. Ten and a hundred times to think first about each word.

Reply to the note of August 27 with a well-considered noteZ, offering business aid (concessions, state farms, etc.) and not a word calling for not executing the Versal Treaty.

With communist] privet.

Lenin.

P.S. The closer the collapse, the more careful!!!1*

Nota Bene. Shall we transfer more submarines to the Caspian Sea for the defense of Baku? 2*

NB NB

P.S. England's provocation to push France against us is quite possible.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 26000 - autograph.

1* Further V.I.Lenin wrote: "See page turnover".

2* The paragraph is written by V.I.Lenin on the back of page 1 with the note: "panticle 1 turn".

On August 127, 1922, from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m., Lenin met with L.B. Kamenev, during which Lenin asked him to send extracts on an unspecified subject. Kamenev sent them on August 29 with his note: "Dear Vladimir Ilyich. I am sending you the promised extracts. Upon use I would like to receive them back. 29/VIII. L.Kamenev. P.S. I absolutely agree with your letter about the Germans: Radek pulled the wrong string and pulled it roughly. L.K." (RCCHIDNI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 23257). On August 30 Lenin had Stalin in Gorki.

Thus, the published letter can be dated August 28, 1922.

2V.I.Lenin mentions an advanced article in "Pravda" No. 192 of August 27, 1922 under the title "Against the Versailles yoke". The article calls on the people of Germany not to fulfill the Treaty of Versailles.

3The article refers to the report of the German Charge d'Affaires in the RSFSR Radowitz on August 26, 1922 about the catastrophic situation of the German economy, the sharp decline in the value of the German mark, which created impossible conditions of existence for the people of the country. Deputy People's Commissar L.M.Karakhan on August 27 appealed to G.V.Chicherin, who was in Berlin, with a request to assess the situation in Germany. Chicherin met with German Reich Chancellor K.Wirth, and informed Moscow that the appeal was sent to a number of countries in order to friendly their governments and peoples to Germany. On September 1, Wirth informed Chicherin that the crisis had lost its urgency (see: Documents of Foreign Policy of the USSR. Vol. V, pp. 564-565, 755).