To M. P. TOMSKY

Dear comrade, I have just returned to our local capital and read your letter about affairs. As for the school, you are mistaken to think that “our affairs are terrible.” Not at all terrible. When workers, once they’re paid, agree to travel to the beautiful South, that’s only natural—and there’s nothing to complain about. All we need to do is pass resolutions ensuring that, on their return journey, these workers stop by here for a month—therein lies the crux of the matter. Without that stopover here, all talk of “control,” “leadership,” and the like is nothing but empty rhetoric—or hypocrisy. Come here, and you’ll learn not only about Alexinsky’s bluster and Lunacharsky’s brand of “socialism.” And believe me, on that path—on the path of indoctrinating twenty to fifty workers with your own particular brand of theory—you won’t get far. Oh no, that’s good for making noise, for boasting with a letter to Kautsky203, for playing games abroad—but there’s nothing serious in that kind of whispering. Know this firmly: this is not a “school,” but rather a new foreign “Erogin-style” dormitory designed to whisper dozens of workers into the folly of recallist nonsense. Maximov and Co. will make some noise about it and end up feeling quite smug.

As for Trotsky, unfortunately, the matter does not pan out. We offered him exceptionally favorable terms, sincerely hoping to form a bloc with him: providing him with support, covering the deficit of “Pravda,” ensuring equality—

that is, to Paris, where the Bolshevik Center was located. Ed.

— from the French word “bavardage”: idle chatter. Ed.

We are referring to the factional, splintering activities of the organizers of the Capri School. Ed.