Written: Written in October, not earlier than 2nd, 1909, in Paris and mailed to a local address
Published:
First published in 1964 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 47.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 224-225a.
Translated: Martin Parker and Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2005).
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• README
Dear Mark,
There is indeed beginning to be quite a to-do over the school and you are right when you say that we must give thorough thought to the reply.[1] I am offering a draft and in the event that it takes time to contact all members of the E.C. (Executive Commission of the Bolshevik Centre)—this I believe should be done through one person, i.e., through you—I would advise the secretary of the B.C. to reply to the “School Council” that the letter has been received and forwarded to the members of the Executive Commission and it will take some time before they can answer and take a decision, since they are all away. The reply, however, should be rather caustic: to the effect that I am aware that Gr., Inok and Lenin have already replied on their own behalf to the Executive Commission of the school, hut that the School Council will have to be answered by the entire collegium.
I have a request to make of you. Send me a letter to the Editorial Board of Proletary signed Mark or any other pseudonym of yours. Contents approximately as follows: “In view of Comrade Domov’s statement in the press accusing the Editorial Board of Proletary of splitting activities, of not putting out popular pamphlets, of betraying Bolshevism, of drawing closer to Plekhanov, of ‘Dumaism’, and so on and so forth, I deem it advisable to acquaint Party comrades with Comrade Domov’s present views. In the presence of Comrades Maximov and Lyadov and myself he said: ‘There are now two pernicious misconceptions: first—that we have a party, and second, that a revolution is imminent in Russia.’ I made this public in a lecture to Paris Bolsheviks in the presence of Comrade Maximov, who could not deny the fact. The comrades should know who it is that is now campaigning against Proletary.”[2]
It is indeed high time to expose this crew! We’ll print your letter and answer them properly.
All the best,
Yours,
Lenin
[2] Evidently a reference to the stand taken by M. N. Pokrovsky as reflected in his conditional and partial support of the leaflet “Report of the Members Removed from the Enlarged Editorial Board of Proletary to the Bolshevik Comrades” put out by A. A. Bogdanov and L. B. Krasin. A critique of the leaflet was given by Lenin in his article “The Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and God-Building” (see present edition, Vol. 16, pp. 29–61).
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