Dictated: Dictated by phone on January 3, 1922
Published:
First published in 1965 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 54.
Printed from a typewritten copy.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1976,
Moscow,
Volume 45,
page 426a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
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• README
I think it would be useful to appoint an inquiry, but we should not disavow Bogdanov’s move, let us consider; first, let all Politbureau members have a text of Bogdanov’s letter; second, let us await the results of the inquiry; third, we still have enough time to decide on our terms after the resumption of the talks. [This][1] does not bind us in any way, and may to some extent be useful to us.[2]
[1] Omission in the text restored according to meaning.—Ed.
[2] A reference to G. V. Chicherin’s letter to the Politbureau of the R.C.P.(B.) C.C. of December 2, 1921, saying that, according to information received from L. B. Krasin in London, S.E.C. Chairman P. A. Bogdanov had allegedly written a letter to Leslie Urquhart about resuming the concession talks which he had broken off. Chicherin felt that Bogdanov’s letter could be interpreted as the Soviet Government’s surrender to private capital, and requested a repudiation.
This question was examined by the Politbureau on January 12, 1922. In accordance with Lenin’s proposal, the Politbureau instructed I. S. Unschlicht, Deputy Chairman of the All-Russia Cheka, to investigate how Bogdanov’s letter to Taube, which had been sent on to Krasin in London, got into Urquhart’s hands. The Politbureau agreed with the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs that Bogdanov had made a mistake by addressing himself to Taube in circumvention of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade, and recognised that it was “inadmissible to bring up at the Politbureau questions sharply affecting responsible workers (Comrade Bogdanov) without obtaining the necessary information beforehand” (Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee).
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