122. TO V. M. MOLOTOV (original) (raw)

V. I. Lenin

122

To: V. M. MOLOTOV

Written: Written between April 9 and 21, 1921
Published: First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers,1976, Moscow,Volume 45, pages 119c-120a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source. • README

Comrade Molotov:

Unless my memory fails me, I believe the newspapers carried a C.C. letter or circular about May Day, which said: expose the falsehood of religion, or something to that effect.

That is not right. It is tactless. Just because it is the Easter holiday, we should recommend something quite different:

not to expose the falsehood,

but absolutely to avoid any affront to religion.

We should issue an additional letter or circular.[1] If the Secretariat does not agree, then in the Politbureau.

Lenin

Notes

[1] In addition to an earlier circular, the R.C.P.(B.) Central Committee published a letter in Pravda on April 21, 1921, urging that in celebrating May Day “nothing should be done or said to offend the religious feelings of the mass of the population”.