(Early July 1927)

Dear Vyacheslav!

I am ill, lying in bed, and therefore writing briefly.

1) The AUCCTU declaration is good; Rykov's response is poor.

2) Tomsky's report is weak.

3) I would be in favor of giving Ishchenko and Valentinov a warning.

4) Trotsky should be sent to Japan.

5) I can come for the Plenum if it is necessary and if you postpone it.

6) Bukharin's article on China is a success.

Regards.

J. Stalin.

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Source: Letters of J.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov. 1925–1936. P. 107. RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 5388.

NOTE

The AUCCTU declaration on the results of Tomsky's negotiations with representatives of the General Council of the trade unions concerning the Anglo-Russian Committee was approved by the Politburo on June 28, 1927, and read out at the Plenum of the AUCCTU. It contained criticism of the General Council's position, which was leading to the disruption of the ARC and support for the British Conservative government.

The reference is to Rykov's reply to the telegram of the British socialists who protested against the sentence of the OGPU Collegium in the cases of the twenty terrorists and demanded "an end to executions without trial," which "shock British public opinion." The reply said that the campaign over the death sentences was being deliberately launched by the bourgeoisie in order to cover the organization of an anti-Soviet imperialist bloc and preparations for intervention in the USSR.

In the autumn of 1927, the question of the anti-party and factional activity of Ishchenko and Valentinov was on the agenda at several sessions of the CCC. Ishchenko was accused of having violated party discipline by "distributing without the consent of party organs ... among non-party people his appeal to the faction of the water-transport workers' congress, containing slanderous attacks against the line of the Party CC."

It was stated that "his speech at the Plenum of the AUCCTU is slander against the party." Valentinov was charged with defending the proposals of the Trotskyist opposition. The decision said that his speech was "an attempt to discredit before non-party people the party leadership of the trade-union movement by juggling and distorting facts." By decision of the CCC, both were expelled from the party.

The reference is to Bukharin's article "The Current Moment of the Chinese Revolution," published in Pravda on June 30, 1927.