Letter to Nikolai Semashko, November 27, 1919

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Written in connection with a report from B. S. Weissbrot dated November 5, 1919, concerning the supply of doctors for the Red Army. Weissbrot pointed out that there was a surplus of doctors in the medical institutions of Moscow and urged the need to call up doctors and send them to the front. Lenin marked off the passage in the report which said that some institutions, for instance, the clinics of the Second Moscow State University, had more doctors exempted than they had altogether before the imperialist war, and wrote “N.B.” in the margin and a footnote saying: “Check this fact = carefully and at once.” On another page, where Weissbrot pointed to the existence in Moscow of unnecessary medical establishments, Lenin noted: “how many of them are there?” (Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51, p. 394.)

27. XI. 1919

Comrade Semashko,

(1) Please return the enclosed to me with your comments.

(2) Have the facts verified (get responsible persons to state these facts quickly and accurately above their signatures).

(3) Weissbrot’s plan. Your amendments or counter-plan?

Yours,

Lenin