V. I. Lenin

Memo to V. M. Molotov for Members of the Politbureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) with a Draft Decision on the Note to Italy

Written: Written February 24, 1922
Published: First published in 1964 in the Fifth Russian Edition of the Collected Works, Vol. 44. Printed from the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, page 404.2.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala and D. Walters
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2004 Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.  

I think the question of Genoa is clear after the memos of Chicherin, Joffe, Krasin and Litvinov.

I propose a draft decision.

Plan: all members of the Politbureau attempt to come to an agreement in writing. Failing this, all meet and sit for 1 hour alone (and without a secretary).

Then 1 or 2 hours with the delegation and finis.

24.11. Lenin

I move: That the Politbureau direct Comrade Chicherin to send a Note to Italy, a longish, meticulously courteous Note, but with plenty of digs in it hinting that it is not we who are violating one of the first “conditions”, the 8.III convocation, that we propose 1) confirming 8.III; but if (2) the majority are against, we protest and propose 15.111.^{1}

Lenin

Notes

{1} The same day the Politbureau adopted Lenin’s proposal, and Chicherin sent a radio-telegram to the Italian Foreign Minister on the question of the date for convening the Genoa Conference (see Izvestia No. 47, February 28, 1922).