Written: Written after September 17, 1912
Published:
First published in 1964 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 48.
Sent from Cracow to Paris.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
page 301.
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
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Dear L. B.,
Congratulations on your speech.[1]
Dash it all, it’s disgusting: the Vorstand will give permission to “circulate”....[2]
I am sending the article I wrote for Bremer Bürger-Zeitung with Malecki’s translation.[3] I decided to send it to you when I learned that you had met Pannekoek. It would be best if you personally gave him the article and discussed it with him. I give you the right to make cuts and changes but bear in mind that I do not agree to being simply “for Radek”.[4] If they do not want to hear out my whole statement (against Rosa and for our Party), then to hell with them.
Best regards,
Yours,
Lenin
Write details about Axelrod and all the Test. (We published in Leipzig a leaflet with our answer to the Vorstand. Wire or telephone Albert to let you have it all immediately if you haven’t received it yet.)
The Vorstand of course will forbid it. Arrange it privately and circulate it without fail.
[1] Kamenev’s speech at the German Social-Democratic Party Congress in Chemnitz on September 16, 1912.—Ed.
[2] Manuscript partly damaged. Several words illegible.—Ed.
[3] Bremer Bürger-Zeitung—a Social-Democratic daily published from 1890 to 1919. Until 1916 it was under the influence of the Bremen Left Social-Democrats and then was taken over by the social-chauvinists.
The article referred to has not been found.
[4] A reference to charges of unethical behaviour made against Karl Radek in an inquiry organised by the Chief Executive of the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. By decision of the board of inquiry, Radek was expelled from the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania and the Social-Democratic Party of Germany.
In early September 1913 a commission was set up in Paris on the initiative of the Bureau of the Sections Abroad of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania (Rozlamists) to review the decision.
Lenin supported the review of the Radek case, believing that the charges laid by the Chief Executive stemmed from the acute struggle it was waging against the Rozlamists.
The commission worked for five months and arrived at the conclusion that there were no grounds for the party trial of Radek and his expulsion from the party, and recommended that Radek be considered a member of the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and of the R.S.D.L.P. (see the pamphlet Sprawozdanie komisji badaj&acedil;ce jspraw&etail; czlonka S.D.K.P.i.L. Karola Radka—Report of the Commission Investigating the Case of S.D.P.K.P.L. Member Karl Radek—published in March 1914 by the Bureau of the Sections Abroad of the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania).
For background information on the differences between the Chief Executive and the Rozlamists see Lenin’s article “The Split Among the Polish Social-Democrats” (present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 479–84).
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