V. I.

Lenin

807

LETTER TO J. V. STALIN FOR MEMBERS OF THE R.C.P.(B.) C.C.

I am now through with putting my business in order, and am in a position to leave without
worry. [1] I have also come to an arrangement with Trotsky to stand up for
my views of the foreign trade monopoly. There is only one
thing that is worrying me extremely—it is that I am unable
to speak at the Congress of
Soviets. [2] On Tuesday, I shall have the doctors in to see me and we shall discuss whether there is any chance at all of my doing so. I would regard
my missing it as a great inconvenience, to put it no stronger. I have had the outline of my speech written several
days ago. [3] I propose, therefore, without suspending preparations by some other speaker in my place, to keep open
until Wednesday the possibility that I will perhaps personally make a speech, much shorter than the usual one,
say, lasting 45 minutes. Such a speech would in no way prevent a substitute (whomsoever you would authorise for
that purpose) from making a speech, but I think it would
be useful both in the political and in the personal sense,
because it would remove any cause for great agitation.
Please have this in mind, and if the opening of the congress
should be further delayed, inform me in good time through
my
secretary. [4]

Lenin

15.XII.1922

I am resolutely opposed to any delay on the question of the foreign trade monopoly. If the idea should arise,
for whatever reason (including the proposition that my participation in the question is desirable), to postpone it
until the next plenum, I should most resolutely object to
this, because I am sure that Trotsky will be able to stand
up for my views just as well as I myself. That is the first
thing. The second is that your statement and Zinoviev’s
and, according to rumour, Kamenev’s as well, confirm that some members of the C.C. have already altered their
earlier opinion; third, and most important: any further
hesitation on this highly important question is absolutely
intolerable and will tend to frustrate any work.

Lenin

15.XII.22

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Notes:
[1]
A reference to Lenin’s removal to Gorki, as ordered by his
doctors in view of a deterioration in the state of his health.

[2]
A reference to the Tenth All-Russia Congress of Soviets.

[3]
For the plan of Lenin’s speech at the Tenth All-Russia Congress
of Soviets see present edition, Vol. 36, pp. 588–89. Preparing for
the speech long before the congress, as far back as November 1922,
Lenin began to collect the necessary material: he asked for books
and newspaper cuttings, read the report of V. P. Milyutin,
Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, on the state of
trade, finance and industry, and wrote a letter to I. I.
Khodorovsky asking him for information about the assistance given to each
other by urban and rural cells of the Party. Judging by the plan, he intended to deal with a number of questions which he later
analysed in his last articles.

[4]
Lenin’s health took a turn for the worse and he was unable to
participate in the Tenth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. On the
night of December 16, Nadezhda Krupskaya asked the secretary
on duty “to inform Stalin, on behalf of Vladimir Ilyich, that