V. I.   Lenin

1916

TO HENRIETTE ROLAND-HOLST


Written: Written after January 21, 1916
Published: First published in 1924 in Lenin Miscellany II. Sent from Berne to Laren (Holland). Printed from the original in German.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 36, pages 363-364.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive.   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 Comrade,

Comrade Radek has just shown us Comrade Pannekoek’s letter and the “Introduction”.

This letter and the “Introduction” substantially change the previously adopted constitution of Vorbote.[2] It had been agreed that Vorbote would appear as the organ of two groups, namely, (1) the Roland-Holst and Trotsky group (or Roland-Holst and her friends without Trotsky, if Trotsky is unwilling to join); (2) the Zimmerwald Left group (whose bureau consists of three comrades: Radek, Lenin and Zinoviev). Comrade Pannekoek was appointed representative of the latter group.

Now the above-mentioned documents (the letter and the “Introduction”) change the constitution: Vorbote appears as the organ of two comrades, Pannekoek and Roland-Holst.

If Comrades Pannekoek and Roland-Holst have decided to make this change, we take note of it. The owner of Vorbote had the full right to do so.

We do not refuse to co-operate in these new conditions, but must require certain guarantees. Vorbote appears for the first time as the organ of the Zimmerwald Left or “on the platform of the Zimmerwald Left”. We were elected representatives of that Left by all the members of the Zimmerwald Left attending at Zimmerwald (except Platten). We think therefore—and in this respect we have all three come to a unanimous decision—that this guarantee is self-evident, and will undoubtedly be given by you.

The guarantee consists in this, that if there are any differences of principle among us, the article which ... by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. (representative ...), the editorial board. ...[1]


Notes

[1] The manuscript breaks off at this point.—Ed.

[2] The changes in the constitution boiled down to the representatives of the Zimmerwald Left being invited to work in Vorbote not as editors, as had been planned earlier, but us contributors (see pp. 394–95).


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