September 8, 1926

September 8.

Received your letter!

1) Our delegation in Berlin really conducted itself quite well. The AUCCTU report is good on the whole. The AUCCTU appeal is good. Tomsky's interview is good. As for the loan to the General Council or the Miners' Federation, I do not insist. I think we can postpone the question of the loan for now. I proposed the question of the loan in order to show "Europe" that we are not a republic of the "money bag" but people with calculation, that we know how to look after every kopeck, that we give a loan in order to get it back later, and so on. But this question can be postponed for now, and perhaps shelved altogether.

2) As for China, I have already sent a coded message. I am convinced that Kopp and Serebryakov will not carry out our policy; they will only give Zhang the opportunity to play on our shades of opinion and will ruin our cause. Sending Kopp back to Japan is in fact a reversal of the Politburo's decision regarding Kopp and Kamenev. It turns out badly when decisions of the Politburo with one composition are reversed by the same Politburo with a different composition without sufficient grounds. Of course, you see the situation more clearly now, but swinging from one extreme to the other because Zhang, emboldened by Kopp, decided to blackmail us a bit — that should be avoided.

Well, all the best.

I shake your hand.

J. St.

---

Source: Letters of J.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov. 1925–1936. P. 87.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 5388.

NOTE

In August 1926, at a meeting of the Anglo-Russian Committee in Berlin, the delegation of the AUCCTU proposed launching a broad campaign in support of the struggle of the miners of Great Britain, including the declaration of an embargo on coal imports into the country. The delegation of the General Council of the British Trade Union Congress rejected these proposals.

The reference is to the conflicts of the USSR with the head of the Mukden group, Zhang Zuolin, over the CER. On May 26, 1926, Soviet-Mukden negotiations opened, at which the USSR was represented by Serebryakov. At the end of August the Mukden authorities presented new claims against the USSR and seized part of the property of the CER. On September 2, 1926, the Politburo considered the question of China and, in particular, decided "urgently to send Comrade Serebryakov to settle the emerging transport difficulties on the CER."

On August 12, 1926, when the decision was adopted to appoint Kopp plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Italy and Kamenev plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Japan, the Politburo session was attended by Politburo members Bukharin, Rudzutak, Rykov, Stalin, Trotsky, and candidate Politburo members Andreyev, Kaganovich, and Kamenev. On September 2, the Politburo adopted a decision "immediately to summon Comrade Kopp to Moscow for his assignment to Tokyo." That session was attended by Politburo members Bukharin, Kalinin, Molotov, Rudzutak, Tomsky, and candidate Politburo members Andreyev, Mikoyan, and Petrovsky.