Hello, Vyacheslav!

1) I received the piece on revolutionary legality. It turned out rather well. My minor corrections are in the text. I think the CC directive -- actually the first two points with certain corrections -- should be published, while the third point of the directive can be circulated confidentially.

2) Did you receive my latest telegram about Lancaster with the proposal for a new scheme (100 million dollars, 10 years, 3% additional, 15-20% of orders from the 100 million dollars)? We must insist on this new scheme. It is advantageous for us. It is also advantageous for Lancaster, since the sum of his claims rises to 60 million rubles (under the first scheme -- 40 million rubles), and orders rise to 40 million rubles (under the first scheme -- 7 million rubles).

3) How do things stand with the conference of secretaries on grain procurement?

Greetings!

I. St.

P.S. The number of inquiries from the Politburo has no bearing on my health. You can send as many inquiries as you like -- I will be happy to reply.

I. Stalin.

Source: Pisʹma I.V. Stalina V.M. Molotovu. 1925-1936 gg. [Letters of I.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov, 1925-1936], p. 243.

RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5388.

NOTE

The resolution of the CEC and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On Revolutionary Legality" was approved by the Politburo on June 25, 1932. At the Politburo meeting on this question it was decided to give all local Party organizations the following directive:

"The CC VKP(b) draws the attention of all Party organizations to the resolution of the CEC and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, published on June 27, on measures to strengthen revolutionary legality and demands that all Party organizations take the most serious measures for its full implementation.

Noting the special role that the court and prosecutor's office must play in strengthening revolutionary legality, the CC proposes to all Party organizations:

1. To ensure them every assistance and support in strengthening revolutionary legality.

2. Consistently to carry out in practice the Party's instructions on the strictest responsibility of Communists for the slightest attempt to violate the laws. CC VKP(b)."

Further in the Politburo decision it was said:

"Categorically prohibit interference by Party organizations in the resolution of individual concrete court cases, as well as any removal or transfer of judicial workers in connection with their activity, without coordination with higher Party and judicial-prosecutorial organs."

On June 27, 1932, the resolution of the CEC and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was published. It said:

"The Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars propose to the governments of the union and autonomous republics, the organs of the prosecutor's office, and the territorial (regional) executive committees:

1. To check the submitted statements about facts of violations of revolutionary legality on the part of officials and henceforth to ensure the speediest consideration of cases concerning these violations and the imposition of penalties up to bringing to trial officials who committed these violations or who are guilty of a bureaucratic attitude toward the statements of working people...

3. To eliminate facts of the imposition of fixed assignments, dekulakization, etc., committed in violation of the laws of Soviet power in relation to individual collective farmers and individual middle-peasant households, consistently carrying out the assignments and measures established by Soviet laws in relation to kulak elements.

4. To oblige courts and prosecutors' offices to bring officials to strict responsibility in all cases of violation of the rights of working people, especially in cases of illegal arrests, searches, confiscations or seizure of property, etc., and to impose strict penalties on the guilty.

5. The Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR draw the attention of all local organs of Soviet power and the prosecutor's office to the fact that the task of the strictest observance of revolutionary legality in relation to collective farms and the entire mass of collective farmers is an especially important task in conditions when the majority of working peasants have united in collective farms...

6. In order further to strengthen revolutionary legality and improve and raise the importance of judicial-prosecutorial organs, categorically prohibit the removal or transfer of people's judges except by resolution of territorial (regional) executive committees, and the removal and transfer of district prosecutors except by decision of the territorial (regional) prosecutor or higher organs of the prosecutor's office and People's Commissariats of Justice."