Source: Tom 17

August 27, 1926

To Molotov (for friends).

1) The delegation of English coal miners must be arriving in the USSR any day now, if they have not already arrived. They must be received "according to all the rules," and as much money as possible must be collected for the miners. The Americans, they say, have promised 1 million dollars. We will have to collect and send as soon as possible two million rubles (less than the Americans would be unacceptable), or even a full three million. The situation in England is serious, and it obliges us to make serious "sacrifices."

2) In my opinion, we should tell Andreev to insist on an embargo. The embargo is now knocking on every door. The English Communists are waging an intensive campaign for an embargo. We cannot let the General Council get away with mere appeals for collecting money. That is now not enough. We must now hammer away with everything we have for the embargo. By the way, how are things going with Andreev?

3) I think that neither our press nor the English Communist press is making use of the fact of Thomas's and Henderson's flight from accountability at the congresses of the "Labour Party" and the "General Council trade unions" ("went on holiday," one to Canada, the other to Australia). We must trumpet in both our and the English press that these traitors fled from responsibility so that when the question of the strike was discussed, they, being absent, would not be touched. We must trumpet that the General Council and the Executive Committee of the Labour Party helped them flee from scrutiny, that they thereby took upon themselves responsibility for their villainy, and so on. It is strange that the English (and our) press is silent about this (I read English Communist newspapers and I know that these facts are not being exposed there).

4) How did the ECCI react to your letter about the campaign for dissolution of Parliament and new elections? What do the English Communists think about this?

5) The matter of publishing a weekly ECCI journal ("Communist International") cannot be shelved. Bukharin and you must push this forward. It will have tremendous significance in improving and restructuring the entire work of the CI and its sections. What does Bukharin think about this?

6) How are things with the economic situation? How are the procurement campaigns? How is the export? Let me know briefly, if you have time.

Well, all the best.

August 27, 1926.

J. Stalin

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Source: Letters of J.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov. 1925–1936. P. 78–79.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 5388.