Pages: 64-65

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LETTER TO O. A. PYATNITSKY.
35370
[September – October 1904]
To Pyatnitsky. "To Pyatnitsky" personal from Lenin.
Dear Comrade! Our mutual friend* has informed me what letters are at your disposal (letters from a foreign
member of the Central Committee to Russian members of the Central Committee, which say that the
foreign minority has become insolent and that the resolution of the 22 undoubtedly
expresses the real will of the party)*. I think you must immediately send these letters here to me.
Firstly, I am a member of the Central Committee and therefore have every right
to know the correspondence of a foreign member of the Central Committee with Russian members, especially
when this correspondence concerns a general party issue about the
positions of the minority. Are you going to help members of the Central Committee who have defected
to the side of the minority to hide the real state of affairs from the Party (and
even from other members of the Central Committee)?
Secondly, from the content of the letters it follows that the members of the Central Committee
(Glebov, Konyagin and Nikitich)** are directly telling untruths, stating
in their letter to the Russian committees about the obligingness
of the foreign minority. Since you and I have openly declared
war on this Bonapartism, this deception of the party (in the
brochure *Golerka* he declared war on behalf of all of us), then our
direct duty is to expose before the party any deception of members
of the Central Committee. If we, having in our hands evidence of such deception,
do not point out this evidence to the party, we will not fulfill
our duty to the party. If we speak in print and publicly
about Bonapartism, while at the same time missing opportunities
to documentarily prove this Bonapartism, then we will turn out to be
* R. S. Zemlyachka. Ed.
** V. A. Noskov, L. E. Halperin, L. B. Krasin. Ed.

simple chatterboxes. But after all, we use the word Bonapartism
not as an insult, as Martov and Plekhanov used it.
Sometimes they say: you cannot use private letters in a political struggle. This is not true. When private letters reveal
abuses of power by party officials, it is imperative to use such letters. Plekhanov used private
letters in his Vademecum even not in relation to officials. In addition, the letters in question
are not private at all, but correspondence of members of the Central Committee on Central Committee affairs.
And I, as a member of the Central Committee, and you, as an agent of the Central Committee, are obliged to prevent
an attempt to hide the truth from the party.
For all these reasons, I consider it absolutely necessary
that you send me these letters immediately, or at least full copies of them. Of course, part of them is conspiratorial,
and we will never expose that part. But that which concerns the interests of the entire party and does not contain anything
conspiratorial must be exposed. How to do this and when, we will think about it here.
Be sure to answer this letter as soon as possible. It doesn't matter if you write badly in Russian. You can
even write in Yiddish. Answer in any case immediately.
If you do not agree with me regarding sending the letters, then we will all ask you to come as soon as possible,
in the next few days, here. This is such an important matter that it must be discussed
and resolved at all costs.
I shake your hand. Yours N. Lenin.
P.S. Be sure to tell Nik, I-ch, "Jacobin" and Zhitomirsky
that they immediately send me their addresses.
It is simply outrageous that everyone is wandering separately, not contacting
each other.

We are talking about letters from Central Committee member V. A. Noskov and V. N. Rozanov, a Menshevik who was just secretly
co-opted into the Central Committee without Lenin's knowledge. O. A. Pyatnitsky then forwarded these letters to Lenin in Geneva. Lenin published
them in his pamphlet "Statement and Documents on the Break of the Central
Institutions with the Party." V. A. Noskov wrote: "...They (i.e. the Central Organ and
League. Ed.) have become insolent and their appetites are growing." Rozanov wrote in a letter to Noskov
dated October 4: "According to the mood of the committees, it is clear that at the
congress resolutions will pass in the spirit of the 22, i.e. the removal of the editorial board and
transfer to the hands of the majority, change of the Party Council, etc."