: : (How does that Lenin quote go again? Something about hanging 100 kulaks per day regardless of their alleged crimes in order to send a message, my copy of Lenin's biography is somewhere else). : Not sure about that quote, I've never seen it. What biography are you reading? It would be interesting to see how that 'quote' is cited.
Comrades! The kulak uprising in [your] five districts must be crushed without pity. The interests of the whole revolution demand it, for the 'final and decisive battle' with the kulaks everywhere is now engaged. An example must be made. I) Hang (and I mean hang so that the people can see)not less than 100 known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers. 2) Publish their names. 3)Take all their grain away from them. 4) Identify hostages as we described in our telegram yesterday. Do this so that for hundreds of miles around the people can see, tremble, know and cry: they are killing and will go on killing the bloodsucker kulaks. Cable that you have recieved and carried out [your instructions].
Yours, Lenin.
P.S. Find tougher men.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
The source of that was cited as RTsKhIDNI, f.2, op. i, d.6898, l.8 (whatever that means, I think it is a reference to unclassified soviet sources)
BTW: the italics were not mine.
The telegram was sent in 1918 to the Bolsheviks in Penza.
Hope that clarifies it for you.
None.
