Written: Written between February 2 and 7, 1904
Published:
First published in 1929.
Sent from Geneva to Kiev.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1974,
Moscow,
Volume 34,
pages 229-230.
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
Dear friend,
I have seen Beast and only learnt about your affairs from him. In my opinion, you must make Deer go away at once and change his skin. It is stupid and ridiculous of him to await the blow. The only way out is to go underground and travel about. It only seems to him that such a step is difficult and hard to take. Deer should try it and he will quickly find that his new position will become a normal one for him. (I utterly fail to understand or share Konyaga’s arguments against it.)
Next, about the whole political situation. Things are in a terrible tangle. Plekhanov has gone over to the Martovites and is overpowering us in the Council. The Council has expressed a desire that the C.C. should have additional members (this is published in Iskra No. 58). The Council has given the editorial board the right to send out agents and receive literature for distribution.
The Martovites evidently have their own war fund and are only waiting for a suitable moment for a coup d’état (such a moment as a financial crash—we are without money—or a break-down in Russia, etc.). I have no doubt about this and Kurtz and I are demanding that C.C. members who do doubt it should come here to convince them selves, for it is ridiculous and undignified to have people pulling different ways.
I believe we should now 1) kick up a row in the committees against the C.O. by means of the most militant resolutions; 2) carry on a polemic against the C.O. in leaflets of the committees; 3) adopt resolutions on a congress in the committees and publish them locally; 4) set Schwarz, Vakar and others to work on leaflets for the Central Committee.
Hans should be warned that he will definitely be used to give false evidence against me, that is certain. If Hans does not want this to happen, let him immediately send a written categorical statement: 1) that there was no agreement about non-publication of the negotiations; 2) that in the Council on November 29, 1903, Hans did not promise to co-opt on to the C.C.; 3) that Hans understood that the Martovites would take over the C.O. for the purpose of peace and that they balked his expectations by launching war, beginning with No. 53. We shall publish this statement only if they provoke us.
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