Moscow. CC VKP. Poskrebyshev.

For members of the Politburo.

I protest against the publication in Pravda of Yaroslavsky's article about the workers' unrest in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and the replacement of the Party leadership there. The article is clearly incorrect on the factual side and politically harmful. By his article, Yaroslavsky has given foreign correspondents the opportunity to write about a "new Kronstadt" that allegedly "dictated the latest decisions of the CC and the Council of People's Commissars on kolkhoz trade." Who gave Yaroslavsky the right to come out with such an article, damaging to the Party and clearly advantageous to our enemies? Why did the editorial board of Pravda permit such an irresponsible statement? Why is Yaroslavsky given the unchecked right to wield a weapon he does not command and which he repeatedly misuses to the detriment of the Party? Cannot this be put to an end?

Stalin.

Source: Stalin i Kaganovich. Perepiska. 1931-1936 gg. [Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936], p. 139.

RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 77, ll. 12, 12 ob.

NOTE

In the article "Restructuring Is Needed Immediately," published in Pravda on May 31, 1932, E.M. Yaroslavsky criticized the former Party leadership of Ivanovo Oblast, where mass unrest among textile workers had taken place in April.

Speaking of the effect produced by the article, Stalin "saw it as if looking into water." Among the papers seized at the beginning of October 1932 from Kh.G. Rakovsky there was a document entitled "Back to the Party Program, to the Soviet Constitution, to Leninism (Our Tasks)," which said in particular: "Those who attentively read Yaroslavsky's article in Pravda (on the general results of the three extraordinary district Party conferences in Ivanovo-Voznesensk) could not fail to be struck by the 'extraordinary' wholesale removal of all the 'committee men' and the accusation that they were incapable of class sensitivity to the needs of the workers, their supply, etc. ... The 'extraordinary' removal was matched by the extraordinary dispatch from Moscow of Kaganovich at the head of a special train with bread, flour, sugar, manufactured goods, and so on.

Pravda is silent about the reasons for all this extraordinariness and, unless some special circumstance loosens tongues, will continue to be silent." On the text a notation was left: "Old fool. I. Stalin."