22/XI-23

Dear Comrade Magidov!

I received your letter. Many thanks for it. From issue No. 15 of the confidential circular letter you will see that the questions you raised helped me formulate certain shortcomings in the practice of our party. The receipt of your letter coincided with the moment when the Politburo of the CC appointed a special commission headed by Comrade Yaroslavsky to investigate the work of the Donbass. As you see, on this point too you hit the mark. Your complaints about the lack of information from the center are entirely justified. I hope that circular letter No. 15 of the CC will give you some satisfaction in this regard. The trouble is that one cannot write about everything. For example, the CC resolved not to communicate to party organizations the resolution of the plenum of the CC and the CCC in October of this year concerning certain disagreements within the Politburo. These disagreements are, in essence, not great; they have already been resolved by the plenum of the CC and the CCC in the spirit of the position of the Politburo majority; the misunderstandings themselves have entirely or almost entirely disappeared, for we continue to work in harmony. Nevertheless, I have no right to send you the text of the corresponding resolution of the CC and the CCC in view of the prohibition by these party bodies. A general party conference is scheduled for January; we shall probably see each other in Moscow then, and I will be able to tell you everything that happened in person. Once more, many thanks for the letter. I ask you to continue writing. I shake your hand.

I. Stalin.

Bolshevistskoe rukovodstvo. Perepiska. 1912-1927. P. 289.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 2565. L. 1.

NOTE

B.I. Magidov, secretary of the Poltava regional committee of the RCP(b), wrote to Stalin on November 10, 1923, with a long, as he himself describes it, "personal, unofficial letter." The letter is pervaded with alarm over the situation in the RCP(b), both in connection with disagreements in the Politburo and with abuses by the leadership that were causing workers and peasants to lose confidence in the party.