Written: August 11, 1918
Source: From the Library of Congress
exhibit Revelations
from the Russian Archives: Collectivization
and Industrialization: “Hanging order”, p. 1
& p. 2.
Translated: Prof. Richard B. Day, of the University
of Toronto Mississauga (2008)
Transcription & Markup: Kevin Goins (2008)
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2008). 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.
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Russian
Federated
Soviet Republic
..................
Chairman of the Council
Of People’s Commissars
From Moscow, the Kremlin.
11-VIII-08
To Penza
To Comrades Kuraev, Bosh, Minkin and other Penza communists.
Comrades! The uprising by the five kulak volosts must be mercilessly suppressed. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, for we are now facing everywhere the “final decisive battle” with the kulaks. We need to set an example.
1. You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the people see) no fewer
than 100 of the
notorious kulaks, the rich and the bloodsuckers.
2. Publish their names.
3. Take all their grain from them.
4. Appoint the hostages — in accordance with yesterday’s telegram.
This needs to be done in such a way that the people for hundreds of versts around will see, tremble, know and shout: they are throttling and will throttle the bloodsucking kulaks.
Telegraph us concerning receipt and implementation.
Yours, Lenin.
PS. Find tougher people.
RTsKhIDNI, F.2, Op. 1, d. 6898. L. 1-1 ob.
[Note: In the top right corner of the document there is a three-word hand-written note that is not legible—Trans.]
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