Written: October 28, 1919
First Published: First published in the Fourth (Russian) Edition of the Collected Works; Published according to the manuscript
Source: Collected Works, Volume 30,p. 89-90 Progress Publishers, 1965
Translated: George Hanna
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
October 28, 1919
Dear Comrades,
Only today have I learned of the split from the brief wireless message of the German Government (from Nauen). My article, “Greetings to French, Italian and German Communists”, was written before the news of the split arrived.
In that article I tried, from the standpoint of interna tional communism, to appraise your position, insofar as I could acquaint myself with it in some issues of the Berlin Rote Fahne. I am convinced that the Communists who are agreed on the basic issue (the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat and for Soviet government) and are implacably hostile to the Scheidemann and the Kautsky groups in all nations, could and should have acted in unison. In my opinion, differences on less important issues can, and unfailingly will, vanish; this will result from the logic of the joint struggle against the really formidable enemy, the bourgeoisie, and its overt (Scheidemann) and covert (Kautsky) servitors.
I am not a member of the Executive Committee of the Third International, but I believe it will offer the German Communists its good services in restoring German communist unity. It is not surprising that the furious persecutions, which have made the Party illegal, impeded its work and hindered a proper exchange of ideas and the elaboration of common tactics. A careful discussion of differences and an exchange of views on an international scale could assist in advancing the cause of German communism. and in mustering its forces.
I shall be very glad if we manage to exchange opinions on these questions.
With communist greetings,
N. Lenin