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Dear Comrade Trotsky:

It is my earnest request that you should undertake the
defence of the Georgian case in the Party C.C. This case
is now under “persecution” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky,
and I cannot rely on their impartiality. Quite to the
contrary. I would feel at ease if you agreed to undertake its
defence. If you should refuse to do so for any reason,
return the whole case to me. I shall consider it a sign that
you do not
accept.[3]

With best comradely greetings

Lenin[1]




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Notes





[1]

A separate sheet, appended to the present letter, contains this
note by a secretary: “Comrade Trotsky: To the letter
communicated to you by phone, Vladimir Ilyich asked to add for your information
that Comrade Kamenev is going to Georgia on Wednesday, and wants
to know whether you wish to send anything there yourself. March
5, 23.”—Ed.



[2]

The letter is connected with the “Georgian question”.

After the October (1922) Plenum of the R.C.P.(B.) Central
Committee, there was a sharpening of the conflict between the
Transcaucasian Territorial Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) and the
Mdivani group (see Note 723). Having met with resistance from
the Georgian Communists, the Central Committee of the
Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, on which the Mdivani group
had a majority, resigned on October 22 on the plea of its
differences with the Transcaucasian Territorial Committee. Mdivani’s
supporters lodged a complaint with the R.C.P.(B.) Central
Committee. On November 25, 1922, the Politbureau adopted a
decision to send a commission to Georgia, with F. E. Dzerzhinsky
at its head, to examine urgently the statements by members of
the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party who had



resigned, and to work out measures to establish tranquility in
the Georgian Communist Party.

Lenin was highly anxious over the “Georgian question”. On
December 12, Dzerzhinsky reported to Lenin the results of his
trip. Lenin was dissatisfied with the work of the commission,
believing that it had taken a biased approach to the conflict, and
had failed to note the grave errors made by G. K. Orjonikidze.
Lenin connected the “Georgian question” with the general
question of establishing the U.S.S.R., expressing alarm over whether
the principles of proletarian internationalism would be
consistently implemented in the unification of the Republics. In his
letter, “The Question of Nationalities, or ‘Autonomisation’”,
he censured Orjonikidze’s action and the connivance at it on the
part of the Dzerzhinsky Commission, and of Stalin. Lenin placed
the political responsibility for the whole affair chiefly on Stalin,
who was the C.C. Secretary General, with reference to his grave
mistakes in unifying the Republics (see present edition, Vol. 36,
pp. 605–11).

Lenin, far from supporting, in fact criticised the
fundamentally erroneous stand of Mdivani and his supporters on various
aspects of the Transcaucasian Federation and the formation of
the U.S.S.R. (see this volume, Document 777); but considering
that at the time the main danger lay in dominant-nation
chauvinism, and that the task of fighting the latter was to be shouldered
mainly by the Communists of the formerly dominant nation,
Lenin concentrated attention on the mistakes made by Stalin,
Dzerzhinsky and Orjonikidze on the “Georgian question”. He
pointed out that in this matter, especially when, in connection
with the unification of the Republics, there was need for
“particular circumspection, tact and tractability”, and that “in this case
it is better to overdo the tractability and mildness in treating
the national minorities than to underdo them”. That is the
context in which to view Lenin’s words about his being “on the side
of the ‘offended’ in the ‘Georgian conflict’” (see this volume,
Document 814, and also Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Edition,
Vol. 45, p. 486).

Lenin’s letter to Trotsky was written in connection with the
forthcoming discussion of the “Georgian question” at a Plenum
of the R.C.P.(B.) Central Committee.

[3]

This letter was read to Trotsky the same day on the phone by
Maria Volodicheva, assistant secretary of the C.L.D. and the
C.P.C. On the plea of ill health, Trotsky said he could not
undertake such an obligation.




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