Published:
First published in 1929.
Sent from Geneva to Russia.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1974,
Moscow,
Volume 34,
pages 211-212.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
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
December 22, 19O3
To the Central Committee from Lenin, member of the C.C.
I have read the C.C.’s announcement circulated to the committees,[2] and can only shrug my shoulders. A more ridiculous misunderstanding I cannot imagine. Hans has been cruelly punished by this for his credulity and impressionability. Let him explain to me, in the name of all that’s holy, where he gets the temerity to speak in such an unctuous tone about peace when the opposition (Martov included) has formally rejected peace in the reply to the Central Committee’s ultimatum? Is it not childishness, after this formal rejection of peace, to believe the chatter of Martov who, firstly, does not remember today what he said yesterday and, secondly, cannot answer for the whole opposition? Is it not naïve to speak and write about peace when the opposition is on the war-path again, is clamouring at meetings in Geneva that it is a force, and is beginning a mean persecution in Iskra No. 53? And to tell a down right lie to the committees!—for example, that the conflict with the League is “completely at an end”? To keep silent about the first Council (with Ru)?
Finally, this silly advice that I should go away from here! I could understand if it has been given by members of the family or relatives, but for such piffle to be written by the Central Committee! Yes, it is now that the literary war begins. No. 53 and my letter, published in leaflet form,[1] will demonstrate that for you.
I am so angry at your announcement to the committees that for the moment I cannot think how you are to be extricated from a ludicrous situation, unless it is by declaring that the contents of Iskra No. 53, and especially the article “Our Congress”, have destroyed all your faith in the possibility of peace. Personally, I see no other way out.
Reply to the committees (and to Martov himself) that the disgracefully false article “Our Congress” has provoked a polemic in the press, but that you (the C.C.) will try to carry out positive work. Plekhanov was against the article “Our Congress” and against Martov delivering a public lecture.
[1] The reference is to the letter “Why I Resigned From the Iskra Editorial board” (see present edition, Vol. 7).—Ed.
[2] On Krzhizhanovsky’s return from abroad and on the basis of his report concerning the results of the negotiations with the Mensheviks, the C.C. circulated a letter to the local committees which played down the acute Party struggle and advocated a conciliatory policy towards the Mensheviks.
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