Rainie
16th September 2007, 14:34
"At meetings of the Sovnarcom, Lenin often exchanged notes with his collegues. On one occasion he sent a note to Dzerzhinsky: "How many vicious counter-revolutionaries are there in our prisons?" Dzerzhinsky's reply was "About fifteen hundred." Lenin read it , snorted something to himself, made a cross beside the figure, and returned the note to Dzerzhinsky. Dzerzhinsky rose and left the room without a word. No one paid any attention to Lenin's note or to Dzerzhinsky's departure. The meeting continued. But the next day there was excited whispering. Dzerzhinsky had ordered the execution of all the fifteen hundred "vicious counter-revolutionaries" the previous night. He had taken Lenin's cross as a collective death sentence. There would have been little comment had Lenin's gesture been meant as an order for wholesale liquidation. But, as Fotyeiva, Lenin's secretary explained: "There was a misunderstanding. Vladimir Illich usually puts a cross on memoranda to indicate that he had read them and noted their contents." This "misunderstanding" cost fifteen hundred human beings their lives. [p.350, David Shub, Lenin]