Written: Written November 28, 1904
Published:
First published in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV.
Sent from Geneva.
Printed from the original in Krupskaya’s handwriting.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 139-140.
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
Archive” as your source.
• README
28/XI.
Dear Comrades,
Both your letters, of the 23rd and the 28th, received; the first (with the statistics and addresses) got into the hands of the Minority and was delivered to us only today. We have made out the addresses, the address for literature will be used at once. Your resolution in favour of the congress was received and forwarded to the Central Organ. We have not heard of any recount of votes, and there hardly will be one.
The resolution of the Nikolayev Committee was received recently and forwarded to the Central Organ. Martov re turned it with gross abuse, saying that the Central Organ and the C.C. knew for certain that there was no committee in Nikolayev (a downright lie, for the C.C. went with its declaration to the Nikolayev Committee and knows very well that the persons who signed the resolution are in the Nikolayev Committee), that the resolution had been sent by some impostors and frauds who had forged it.... The resolution of the Caucasian Union Committee in favour of the congress was not printed, but another ... against the congress was printed. Iskra said that the Saratov, Samara, Urals and Astrakhan committees had endorsed the C.C. policy (the resolutions were not given), but the very same day the issue came out we received a letter from the Urals saying they had not heard from the C.C. for several months and that they did not know in general whether the Party existed at all. Plekhanov is openly saying that there is not going to be any congress.... As for the C.C., it hypocritically declares that now it is not against the congress, but that it is necessary to make sure that the congress will really represent the opinion of the Party.... The C.C. is pigeon- holing the committees’ resolutions, and in its letter to Party comrades it says: “now that the Party has declared for us”....
The committees have asked the C.C. for Majority literature but the C.C. has refused to ship it, claiming firstly that it is not Party literature, and secondly, that it cannot contribute in any way to developing the class-consciousness of the proletariat. What hypocrisy! I suppose Trotsky’s new pamphlet issued by the new Iskra and therefore to some ex tent representing its “Credo” does contribute a great deal to the development of the class-consciousness of the proletariat.... The pamphlet declares that there is a wide gulf between the old and the new Iskra, that the Congress was a reactionary attempt to perpetuate sectarian methods of struggle, that the old Iskra did not care about the proletariat, that the Iskra supporters call the proletariat block-heads, etc., etc. No wonder Struve praised the Minority tendencies as vital... (see Lenin’s leaflet “An Obliging Liberal”[2] ). Did you get the Iskra letter to all Party organisations on the Zemstvo campaign? In its striving for a new, “higher” type of propaganda and agitation, Iskra talks a lot of nonsense, going so far as to say that demonstrations should be organised with caution so as not to cause a panic among the Zemstvo people. Lenin has replied to this letter in his pamphlet The Zemstvo Campaign and “Iskra’s” Plan.[3]
Now that the C.C. has made a deal with the Central Organ not to allow the congress to be held, it will be postponed indefinitely. Nevertheless the Majority has resolved to fight for it, but it can succeed only if it is fully united and properly organised.
Well, that’s all for the time being.
All the best,
Lenin
[1] Written by Krupskaya on Lenin’s instructions.—Ed.
[2] See present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 486–89.—Ed.
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