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 - V. I. Lenin

June 9th, 1921

Comrade Lenin 1 .

Dear Vladimir Ilyich.

In relation to the Latvian communists, the situation is profoundly abnormal. I several times drew the attention of the Central Committee to the actions and tactics of the Latvian communists, which could cause the most serious harm both, in particular, to our relations with Latvia, and to our international position in general .. Nothing was done to stop the Latvian communists or to keep them within certain limits. And after the terrorist attacks, armed attacks and resistance, when the LatSection openly speaks about the upcoming partisan actions, and weapons are brought to them from Russia, and when repressions begin on the part of the bourgeois government, we have to disentangle the consequences of all this. If we disentangle, we must be able to influence. Meanwhile, the Latvian communists actually have the opportunity to jeopardize our international relations as they please. Or economic recovery, or adventures; if the first is necessary and the second is not necessary, then we should be able to actually arrange so that the second does not exist. Is it really necessary to spoil the international relations that we need so much because that the local party, which does not listen to us in anything, acts as it pleases and then forces us to interfere in the consequences of its actions. The Latvian ministers are going, and are still going, to exchange Latvian communists sentenced to death for Latvian bourgeois sentenced to death in our country. One can foresee the moment when they will stop going for it, because, in essence, such an exchange is completely abnormal. On the one hand, Latvian citizens and, on the other hand, Latvian citizens. If we are executing the Russian White Guards, will we allow the intervention of Latvia or anyone else. Even in 1918, we did not allow Mirbach to intervene in such cases, and in such cases he always made the reservation that he was asking (for example, for Shcheglovitov) as a personal acquaintance, in private, and not as a German representative. If this is our position,3 .

With communist greetings.

RTSKHIDNI. F. 5. Op. 2. D. 315. L. 57-58. Typewritten text.

Notes:

1 Lenin read this letter on June 10, 1921 (V. I. Lenin. Biographical Chronicle. Vol. 10. P. 536).

2In January 1920, Soviet power in Latvia fell and the Central Executive Committee of Soviet Latvia announced its self-dissolution. The formed government of Latvia entered into negotiations with the government of the RSFSR, and on August 11, 1920, a Soviet-Latvian peace treaty was signed in Riga, proclaiming the cessation of hostilities and fixing the Soviet-Latvian border. The RSFSR recognized the independence of Latvia. The establishment of diplomatic and consular relations was envisaged. A similar situation developed in the relations of the RSFSR with Lithuania and Estonia. However, representatives of the national communist parties did not give up hope for revenge and continued the underground struggle. On January 18, 1921, Chicherin wrote to Krestinsky about this: “[... ] We have to seriously raise the question of the activities of the outlying communist parties in connection with the political needs of the present moment. If indeed our line at the present time is a production policy, which also requires the establishment of economic cooperation with the capitalist states, then there are certain actions of the communist parties, which we have to recognize as harmful [...] It must be said in general that all border governments, even those us on the most friendly terms, believe that the local communist parties, so unpleasant to them, exist thanks to the influx of funds from Soviet Russia, where the Soviet Government is the real source.

3 The question raised by Chicherin was discussed at the Politburo on June 21, 1921. The adopted directives noted: “The Central Committee draws the attention of the comrades of the Communists of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to the fact that they need to adjust their policy to the specifics of the international situation of the RSFSR [.. .] The Central Committee asks the communists of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to exercise the greatest discretion both in foreign and domestic policy, taking into account the instruction of the Central Committee of the RCP that at the moment there can be no question of military assistance to them from the RSFSR" ( Ibid., F. 17. Inv. 3. D. 178. L. 4).