Dear comrades,

Information has reached the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) to the effect that certain members of your conference are of the opinion that the resolution adopted by the Fourteenth Moscow Party Conference on the Central Committee’s report is directed against the Leningrad organisation, and that those comrades are calling for an open fight by the Leningrad delegation at the Party congress. If that information is correct, I consider it my duty to declare to you the following. At the Moscow conference a resolution based on principle was adopted on questions of principle. The stenographic reports of the speeches delivered at the Moscow conference and at the district conferences, as well as the above-mentioned resolution, can easily convince one that nobody in Moscow thought either of discrediting the Leningrad organisation or of calling for a fight against it. In view of this, it seems to me that the speeches delivered by Sarkis, Safarov and others at the district conferences and repeated at your gubernia conference give cause for alarm. Particularly alarming, it seems to me, are the speeches made during the last few days by certain comrades at your conference calling for an open fight at the Party congress. Under present conditions, unity among the Leninists, even if there is some disagreement between them on certain questions, is more necessary than ever before. Unity among the Leninists can be not only maintained, but also strengthened if you firmly wish it. The Leningrad organisation is and must remain one of our Party’s most important supports.

I consider it my duty to inform you of all this as a member of the presidium of your conference.

Member of the Presidium of
the conference of the Leningrad
organisation

J. Stalin

December 8, 1925

The magazine Krasnaya Letopis,

No. 1 (58), 1934