V. I.

Lenin

580

To:   KARL RADEK [1]

To Comrade Radek

29.V. 1917

Dear Friend, I am writing to you for the first time, letter No. 1, and ask you to
let me know whether you have received it. Try and send Bulletin
No. 1 ( Pravda Bulletin ) [2] as soon as you can—then an answer as to whether you
have a reply from Karpinsky in Geneva (I asked him to send me the end—the
“conclusion”—of the book on the agrarian question and the two articles:
Yuri’s, “Pyotr Kievsky’s”, and my own on self-determination).

I fully agree with you that Zimmerwald has become a hindrance and that
the sooner we break with it the better (you know that I disagree with the
conference on this point). [3] We must speed up a meeting of the Lefts, an international
meeting and only of the Lefts. Write what you can do in this
direction: we shall send the money (a sum of about 3–4 thous. rubles)
soon.

If we could speed up an international meeting of the Lefts, the Third
International would be established.

Can we count on the Scandinavian Lefts? Have you enlightened Höglund
& Co.? Is there any hope of getting the English and Americans? What
about your Stockholm trio publishing immediately in the
name of our C.C., plus the Poles, plus Arbeiterpolitik , plus
Höglund & Co., an inter national appeal for a meeting of
only Lefts (see our resolution for the list) on an international
scale?

Let us know what steps you are taking.

Forgive me for not writing more often: I am devilishly busy. I trust
you have been told everything now.

All the very best, Yours, Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
Radek was then a member of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P. (B.) Bureau Abroad
(Stockholm).

[2]
The Pravda Bulletin in German appeared in Stockholm from June
to November 1917 under the heading Russische Korrespondenz
“ Prawda ”. It was published by the agency abroad of the Central
Committee, R.S.D.L.P.(B.) and carried articles on important issues of the revolution in Russia, documents, reviews and news items
dealing with the life of the Party and the country. The Bulletin
was published also in French.

[3]
Lenin is referring to the point in the resolution of the All-Russia
April Conference “The Situation Within the International and the Tasks of
the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)” which said: “Our Party remains in the Zimmerwald
bloc, where it sets itself the task of upholding the tactics of the
Zimmerwald Left, and directs the Central Committee to take immediate steps
towards founding a Third International”—see The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks). Petrograd City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks). April 1917. Minutes . Moscow, Gospolitizdat, 1958, p. 255. In place of this
point Lenin proposed the following formulation: “We must remain in
Zimmerwald only for purposes of information” (see present
edition, Vol. 24, p. 82).