Written: Written prior to March 19, 1916
Published:
First published in 1964 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 49.
Sent from Zurich to Berne.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 517b-518.
Translated: Martin Parker and Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2005).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README
I am sending copy to be set up. I am finishing the article on the “peace programme”, etc. (for the editorial), and will send it in tomorrow.[1]
The I.S.C.’s “Appeal” should be supplemented by a brief notice of the agenda, the terms of admission, etc.[2]
We absolutely cannot disclose the pseudonym of “Spartacus”.[3] We absolutely cannot; it would mean helping Internationale Korrespondenz to reprint it from us: we would be helping the informers.
Our “reservation”, statement (5–8. II) we made when voting for the circular, must be inserted fully and without fail.
“Crooks of the pen” won’t do. I suggest amendments (pp. 1, 2, 3).[4] This should be written with a minimum of invective, in an elaborately explanatory way. It would be a good thing to enumerate the facts, collect the references of the O.C. Secretariat Abroad (No. 2 of the Bulletin). (+No. 3 of Izvestia) to Samara, the Caucasus, Nad, etc., and show that in Russia all the O.C. people are participants. I strongly advise having this article rewritten another 2 or 3 times, and sent to me again, in order to make it a good and accurate exposition: this is extremely important.
Give Self-Defence to Shklovsky, Kasparov & Co. for 2–3 days, then return to me at once.
I still have no copies (of the German theses on self-determination). When is this going to end???
If Radek is holding up No. 2 of Vorbote, this is foul play on his part. We must think over ways of combating this. Should we not send a collective letter to Roland-Holst? Why not? Why should we stand on ceremony with him? This is a broken promise, we’ll say, it’s bad for the business, it’s bad faith, it’s an obstacle to the discussion for the April conference, precisely at the conference!
Return my theses (on peace, etc.) to me immediately: I have to redraft them. You had better not show them to Radek until they have been redrafted.
Salut!
Lenin
Why don’t you send me Nash Golos?[5] I haven’t seen it since Martov’s “self-determination” articles. Has the promised answer to him appeared there?
What about the Bureau of the Zimmerwald Left? Didn’t it have to prepare a report to the April conference?[6] And the theses?? What about it?
[1] A reference to the article “The Peace Programme” (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 161–68).—Ed.
[2] This refers to the publication in No. 52 of Sotsial-Demokrat of the appeal of the I.S.C. “To All Affiliated Parties and Groups” in connection with the convocation of the Second International Socialist Conference, giving a brief notice of the agenda and the terms of admission to the conference as printed in the I.S.C. Bulletin No. 3 for February 29, 1916.
[3] The letter concerns preparation for the press of the article “The Alternative”, which was published in Sotsial-Demokrat No. 57 on December 30, 1916, with the editor’s note: “This article is reprinted from Spartacus, No. 1, the illegal organ of the German revolutionary Social-Democrats.”
The next paragraph in the letter mentions the statement made at the enlarged meeting of the I.S.C. in February 1916 during the discussion of the appeal “To All Affiliated Parties and Groups”. In voting for the text of the appeal, the representatives of the Zimmerwald Left declared at the meeting that although they did not consider it satisfactory on all points, they were voting for it because they considered it a step forward compared with the decisions of the First International Socialist Conference in Zimmerwald.
[4] This refers to Zinoviev’s article “How Liquidationism Turned into Social-Chauvinism” (published in Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata).
[5] Nash Golos (Our Voice)—a legal Menshevik newspaper published in Samara from 1915 to 1916; adopted a social-chauvinist stand.
[6] This refers to the Second International Socialist Conference which was to be held in April 1916.
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