Written: Written on April 5, 1913
Published:
First published in 1923 in the book Iz epokhi “Zvezdy” i “Pravdy” (1911–14), Part III.
Sent from Cracow to St. Petersburg.
Printed from the typewritten copy found in police records.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1976],
Moscow,
Volume 35,
pages 95-96.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Dear Comrades,
Many thanks for your detailed letter and very valuable information. Write more often, and give us contacts with the districts.
It is very important that the liquidators are giving a “hostile” reception to the rapprochement of the pro-Party Mensheviks with the Party. A resolution about this ought to be adopted in the districts. This fact proves for the 1,000th time that the liquidators have finally become a non-Party and anti-Party element, that unity is possible only against them (against Luch) and by no means with them. You are quite right, in my belief, in attributing great importance to this fact. One can’t in any way talk about unity with the liquidators: one cannot unite the Party with the destroyers of the Party. The resolution of the February Conference of 1913 about unity from below, it seems to me, should be hectographed (if there are not enough copies), adding the resolution against Luch with the precise list of the five points.[1]
Furthermore, I fully share your opinion about the importance of a campaign against the Seven,[2] and of the workers displaying initiative in this respect. The Seven are wavering and near-Party, but to a very little extent Party people. One can enter into agreements with them within the Duma, in order to direct them and drag them after oneself, but it would be a crime to gloss over their liquidationism, their lack of character and principle. We must support and develop the campaign against the Seven. Now that the liquidators’ Luch is expanding (obviously on liberals’ money, because its deficit is 1,000 rubles a month, and its circulation is only 12,000) we must strengthen tenfold the campaign to support the six workers’ deputies, to increase Pravda’s readership, to extend Pravda. We must take the struggle for Pravda direct into the factories, pressing them to subscribe for more copies, winning away every factory from Luck, so that there is a competition between the factories for the largest number of subscribers to Pravda. A victory of Party principles is a victory for Pravda and vice versa. We should start this kind of campaign: to increase the circulation of Pravda from 30,000 to 50,000–00,000, and the number of subscribers from 5,000 to 20,000, and proceed unfalteringly in this direction. Then we shall extend and improve Pravda.
Your remarks about the lack of intellectuals are very true. And we won’t have them. Pravda and the illegal publications will replace them. You should publish at least hectographed resolutions and leaflets until more is technically possible. There should be a weekly publication of 30–00 copies of hectographed resolutions of the Petersburg Committee by way of directives. We could always come to an agreement by correspondence about these resolutions. Think this over. It will strengthen the illegal work, reduce the number of victims, make the propaganda more general, etc.
The resolution of the Petersburg Committee for the Six against the Seven is excellent.[3] Haven’t you even hectographed it? This is absolutely essential. Now this is just the kind of campaign that is necessary. We shall try to send you articles for Izvestia.[4] Let us know the dates. Tell us what the size will be, and what the length of the articles should be.
[1] Lenin refers to the resolution “The Attitude to Liquidationism, and Unity” passed at the “February” Conference of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. and Party workers held in Cracow from December 26, 1912 to January 1, 1913 (January 8–14, 1913) (see present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 463–65).
[2] The Seven were the seven Menshevik liquidator deputies who belonged to the Social-Democratic group in the Fourth Duma.
[3] Reference is to the resolution of the Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. passed in February 1913. The resolution noted the correctness of the political line maintained by the Bolshevik deputies in the Fourth Duma and condemned the conduct of the Menshevik deputies supporting the liquidators’ paper Luch.
[4] At a meeting in February 1913 the Petersburg Committee took a decision to publish Izvestia P.K. R.S.D.R.P. (News of the P.C. of the R.S.D.L.P.) and planned the first issue. The project did not materialise.
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