Written: Written on August 9, 1918
Published:
First published in 1924 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolutsia No. 3 (26).
Sent from Moscow to Penza.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
page 489.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README
To the Gubernia Executive Committee, Penza
A copy for Yevgenia Bogdanovna Bosch
Your telegram
received.[1] Essential to organise a
reinforced guard of selected and reliable people, to carry out
a campaign of ruthless mass terror against the kulaks,
priests and whiteguards; suspects to be shut up in a
detention camp outside the city. Get the office
working.[2]
Telegraph fulfilment.
Lenin
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars
[1] A reference to the report of the chairman of the Penza Gubernia Party Committee, Yevgenia Bosch, on the state of affairs in the gubernia.
On August 5, 1918, a kulak revolt broke out in Kuchkino Volost, of Penza Uyezd, and soon spread to neighbouring volosts. By means of deceit and coercion, the kulaks managed to recruit many middle and even poor peasants. It was stamped out in Penza Uyezd on August 8, but the situation in the gubernia remained tense. A Left S.R. revolt started in the uyezd centre of Chembar on the night of August 18. The Penza leaders did not take sufficiently vigorous action to suppress the counter-revolutionary revolts. Lenin sent several telegrams to Penza demanding resolute measures in fighting the kulaks.
[2] A reference to the Board for the Issue of State Papers which printed banknotes and stamps. It was evacuated from Petrograd to Penza.
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