Bolshevik Leaders correspondence

Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.

G. V. Chicherin to V. M. Molotov

August 11, 1921

TOV. MOLOTOV.

Dear Comrade.

The question of famine relief in Russia has now become an international issue of paramount importance. The capitalist world has evidently not agreed on a single line on this question, although at the same time there is no doubt that the main groups and governments in the camp of world reaction are conspiring among themselves on this subject .. We must be extremely vigilant in order to prevent attacks being prepared against us, and our policy must be highly flexible and finely calculated for a difficult situation, in view of the equally undoubted differences among our opponents. It is impossible in such a situation and at such a crucial time to remain at extremely rare meetings of the Politburo, without creating a permanent leading team to make quick decisions on the extremely important questions that arise in this connection. By agreement with Vladimir Ilyich, therefore, I propose that comrades Trotsky and Kamenev, who are in Moscow, together with you, form a political troika, authorized to take decisions instead of the Politburo on major questions of principle that arise daily in connection with assistance to the starving .

We cannot, moreover, remain without even a small apparatus to carry on this business. We've got an abnormal situation. Telegrams are received daily with proposals and requests for assistance to the starving. All this passes through my hands and is passed on by me to comrades Kamenev, Krasin and Litvinov. However, none of them, like me, has the apparatus to conduct this business. Tov. Kamenev cannot single-handedly replace the apparatus when he accumulates a mass of various telegrams and letters on this issue. As a result, no answer was given to the German Red Cross, the Norwegian government was not answered to its offer to send us fish, and requests and proposals received in recent days from Lithuania, Latvia, etc. were not considered by anyone. Every day there are special very voluminous reports from London about the famine relief campaign, resulting in a mass of foreign radio and telegrams with materials about the same. It is necessary to have all these texts in hand, follow them and ponder over them in order to grasp the situation from them.

All this quickly passes me by, and I have no referent on this question, because this is not a question of our Commissariat proper, but a question of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Commission . But there is also no apparatus, no referent for systematizing and studying all this material. Under such conditions, we cannot, fully armed with facts, consider our steps and assess the situation at any given moment. It is therefore necessary to proceed to the creation under Comrades Kamenev and Krasin of a special small secretariat, which would be in close contact with us and would concentrate and systematize all this material, and also keep track of unfinished business.

Incidentally, neither our missions nor the foreign delegates of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Commission were given sufficiently detailed instructions. Tov. Ignatov asks to send him detailed instructions, since from the messages I sent him it is not clear enough for him even how a delegation of six people will work, whether it will come together and, as a whole, adopt resolutions and determine its actions, or these six persons will work alone in different countries and will be directed directly from Moscow. He makes connections in Poland, but he cannot develop his activities until the main issues of the delegation's work are clarified.

With communist greetings Chicherin

RTSKHIDNI. F. 5. Op. 2. D. 315. L. 123-124. Typewritten text. The signature is an autograph.

Notes:

1 The question of rendering assistance to the starving in Russia became at that time the subject of discussion by the international community, individual financial groups and states. At a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Entente, held on August 10, 1921 in Paris, it was decided to create a commission "to find out the possibility of helping the starving population of Russia." It was about an attempt to create a single international organization to assist the starving in Russia under the control of the countries participating in the agreement (Documents of Foreign Policy. Vol. 4. P. 781).

2 The next day, August 12, 1921, the Politburo appointed a special commission consisting of Trotsky, Kamenev, Molotov and Chicherin to resolve issues related to helping the starving. The commission was obliged to meet at least once every two days (RTSKHIDNI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 192. L. 9).

3 We are talking about the commission for assistance to the starving at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (Kondakova I. “So successful rubbing glasses around the world” // Source. 1995. No. 3. P. 58).