V. I.

Lenin

116

To:   A. A. BOGDANOV

Dear friend, Please tell Rakhmetov immediately that he is acting like a real pig towards
us. He cannot imagine how eagerly everyone here is expecting from him definite
and precise, encouraging reports, and not the telegrams he sends us. This
eternal suspense and uncertainty is real torture. It is absolutely impossible
that Rakhmetov should have nothing to write about: he has seen and is seeing
many people, he has spoken with Zemlyachka, he has been in touch with Beard, the
Moscow lawyers and writers, etc., etc. He must keep us au courant ,
pass on contacts, inform us of new ad dresses, forward local correspondence,
tell us about business meetings and interesting encounters. Rakhmetov has not
sent us a single new contact! It’s monstrous. Not a single item of
correspondence, not a single report about the group of writers in Moscow. If
Rakhmetov were to be arrested tomorrow, we’d find ourselves empty-handed, as if
he had never lived! It’s a crying shame; he could have written everything and
about everything without the slightest danger, and all he has done is to hint
at some young forces and so on. (What is known about Bazarov, Frich, Suvorov and
the others?) Not less than once a week (that’s not much, surely), two or
three hours should be spent on a letter of 10-15 pages, otherwise, I give you my
word, all contact is virtually broken. Rakhmetov and his bound less plans become
a boundless fiction, and our people here are simply running away, drawing the
horrified conclusion that there is no sort of majority and that nothing will
come of the majority. In their new form, the tactics of the Minority have become
quite clear, namely, to ignore and keep silent about the Majority’s
writings and the Majority’s existence, to keep polemics out of the
C.O. and talk importantly about positive work (recently the editors of the
C.O. issued in print, “for Party members only”, a letter to Party organisations concerning a plan for the participation of
Social-Democrats in the Zemstvo campaign—staggering pomposity about
staggering banalities. An analysis and scathing criticism of this letter has
been issued here by=

Lenin [1]

).

It is essential that the Majority should come forward with an organ of its own
[2] the necessary money and workers’
letters for this are lacking. We must work hard to get both the one and the
other; unless we have the most detailed and exhaustive letters nothing will come
of it. Contacts are not being transmitted, there is no possibility of attacking
one and the same personage from different angles, there is no co-ordination in
the work of the bulk of the Bolsheviks who travel about Russia arranging things
each on his own. This dispersal of efforts is felt everywhere; the committees
are again lagging behind the situation, some of them unaware of the
Council’s new decisions (the supplement to Iskra Nos. 73-74, a
special ten-page leaflet), others not giving serious thought to them and not
realising that these decisions are tantamount to the most complete and brazen
falsification of the congress. Only children could fail to see now that the
Council and C.C. will stop at nothing to sabotage a congress. We must
counterpose this by a force ==a press organ+ the organisation of
the Majority in Russia, otherwise we are bound to die. Lenin has not yet seen
Lightmind; it is strange that the latter has moved to the side lines and
maintains a waiting attitude!

And so, give Rakhmetov a triple dressing-down and make him write a diary as a
punishment. Why hasn’t Mme Rakhmetova gone where she promised? We
repeat: all and sun dry will run away (even Galyorka is groaning and moaning),
for there is no sign of any contact with Russia, no sign that Rakhmetov is
alive, working for the common cause, that he is worried and concerned about
it. Without letters there is nothing but complete isolation!

---
Notes:
[1]
The reference is to the pamphlet The Zemstvo Campaign and Iskra’s Plan (see present edition, Vol.  7).— Ed .

[2]
Lenin speaks of the need for creating the illegal Bolshevik newspaper
Vperyod , the first issue of which came out on January 4, 1905
(December 22, 1904).