Letter to Molotov for the Members of the Politburo, 19 March 1922
A secret letter in which Lenin set out for the Politburo how the removal of church valuables during the famine of 1922 should be used to break the resistance of the Orthodox clergy.
Read the text at loc.gov ↗The Library of Congress exhibition, with images of the four pages ↗
The letter is headed “Top Secret” and addressed to Molotov for the members of the Politburo, which was about to discuss the resistance at Shuya to the removal of valuables from the churches. Lenin asks that no copies be made. The document was shown at the Library of Congress in 1992 among papers newly released from the Russian archives; the translation ends with the note that it is a true copy and that the original went to the Lenin Institute.
It is a private instruction from the head of the government to his colleagues, and it states his purpose more openly than any public decree. It is cited in the Russian Church under the Bolsheviks.
Cited in
- 1917 to 1918, firm date