Letter to Georgy Chicherin, February 15, 1922

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15.II.1922

Comrade Chicherin:

A telegram from Krasin dated 13.II (File No. 1466/c) says (Lloyd George): “If the Soviet Government refuses to recognise the Cannes resolutions that will threaten the break-down of the entire conference and will, in any case, make it easier for Poincare to walk out....”

That is formulated more “threateningly” than accurately!

But the whole British press, judging by our papers, has made frequent statements to the effect that the invitation to the Genoa Conference does not require and never has required the preliminary acceptance of the Cannes terms and that the contrary opinion held by the French is an incorrect one.

All the material must be collected to establish precise and formally indisputable facts.

It seemed to me that three facts were indisputable:

(1) when we were invited it was not required that we make a precise, clear and formal declaration of acceptance of the Cannes terms;

(2) we did not make any such declaration in our reply, and we have not been informed that our reply is incomplete;

(3) the entire British bourgeois press in its dispute with the French recognised that the preliminary acceptance of the Cannes’ terms is not obligatory.

With communist greetings,

Lenin