V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v52;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

1. III. 1921

Comrade Osinsky!

I saw Ivan Afanasyevich Chekunov yesterday. It appears he came to see me in 1919 on the question of a congress of working peasants. Now he says: it would be better to begin with regional congresses.

He is sympathetic to the Communists, but does not join the Party because he goes to church, he is a Christian (he rejects the rites, he says, but is a believer).

He is improving his farm. He has travelled through the Nizhni-Novgorod and Simbirsk gubernias. The peasants, he says, have lost

confidence in the Soviet government. Can it be restored by the tax? I ask. He thinks it can. In his own uyezd, with the help of the workers, he succeeded in replacing a bad Soviet government with a good one.

We must hold on to such people with all our might in order to restore the confidence of the mass of peasants. That is the f u n d a m e n t a l political task, and one that brooks no delay. I earnestly request you: do not be carried away too much by the “apparatus” point of view, do not get too excited about it. Pay more attention to the political attitude towards the peasantry.

In my opinion, it is necessary to “capture” Chekunov at once, i.e., draw him into our work. How is this to be done? We must think it over. Perhaps we should at once set up (or rather, start setting up) a “Council of the Working Peasantry”, or a “Council of Non-Party Peasants” (the latter name is perhaps safer, to keep out those whom Chekunov calls

“the hissers”, i.e., the outright kulaks and enemies of the Soviet government). At once appoint Chekunov as a representative of the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture to organise (or prepare) an institution of this kind.

At once instruct him to make a hurried trip to Simbirsk Gubernia (we need an adviser and intermediary from a gubernia with a grain surplus, better two intermediaries) and give him the assignment: bring back here from Simbirsk Gubernia (he has acquaintances there) a non-party peasant, elderly, Russian, a tiller of the soil, a supporter of the working peasants and workers, not a “hisser”. Find another one as well. Better a trio: Chekunov + a Simbirsk man + another from a non-grain gubernia. This trio of “old men” (it would be very good if all were non-party and Christians) we shall at once turn either into members of a board with a consultative vote, or into the nucleus of a “Council of Non-Party Peasants”, or into some similar corporation.

This must be done quickly, at once (he wants to leave the day after tomorrow).

Strike while the iron is hot. Let me have your reply.

With Communist greetings, Lenin

N. N. KRESTINSKY. MARCH 2, 1921

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First published in 1945

in Lenin Miscellany XXXV

Printed from the manuscript