Letter to Vyacheslav Molotov, April 15, 1921

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Comrade Molotov:

I have just learned from Rykov that the professors (of Moscow Higher Technical College) do not yet know about (yesterday’s) decision.[1]

This is outrageous, and monstrously late. I shall raise the question of the CC apparatus in the Politbureau. We can’t have that sort of thing, no indeed.

The draft statement by Lunacharsky was ready yesterday.[2] It should have been made public the same day.

You must give orders at once for everything to be done, and to check up whether it has been.

You must verify and spur things on.

Delay is intolerable.

Lenin

  1. A reference to the decision of the Politbureau of the RCP(b) Central Committee of April 14, 1921, about the state of affairs in the Moscow Higher Technical College. The Politbureau reversed the decision to the effect that the college board was to be appointed by the Central Administration for Vocational Training, and suggested that the People’s Commissariat for Education submit for consideration by the RCP(b) Central Committee a draft statute for institutions of higher learning and a new composition of the board, and also a draft directive on the role and relationships of the communist cells, the non-Party students, the faculty and the People’s Commissariat for Education. The Politbureau also asked the People’s Commissariat for Education to issue a condemnation of the college lecturers who had suspended classes.
  2. A reference to the communication from the People’s Commissariat for Education on the state of affairs at the Moscow Higher Technical College, which was published in Pravda on April 19, 1921, and was signed by the People’s Commissar for Education A. V. Lunacharsky and Secretary of the RCP(b) Central Committee V. M. Molotov. A reprimand was issued to the members of the faculty who had suspended classes, and it was pointed out to them that such methods of protest were inadmissible. At the same time, the communist cells at the college and at all institutions of higher learning were invited to establish relations with the faculty and non-Party students promoting normal academic life in their institutions and the development of science in Soviet Russia.