Dear Ivan Ivanovich!

I have read your article on specialists.509

I disagree. On 2 points.

First, at the beginning (third column from the start): "The proletarian dictatorship will collapse if, firstly, ...* (this is correct) and, secondly, if these specialists are not our own specialists, the kind who see their task in consolidating and developing the dictatorship of the proletariat."

The underlined part is incorrect. We will not obtain such specialists for a long time, until bourgeois specialists disappear, until petty-bourgeois specialists disappear, until all specialists become communists.

Meanwhile, the proletarian dictatorship ought not to collapse at all. A lesser condition suffices: namely the first one. The second does not ruin us. It is sufficient to "have at one's disposal."

* V. I. Lenin has in mind the following text: "firstly, it will not have at its disposal good specialists of the most diverse categories." — Ed.