V. I. Lenin

Source: en:CW/CW44; ru:PSS/v34;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Ganetsky earned his living as an employee in a trading firm of which Parvus was a shareholder. That is what Ganetsky told me. This has not been refuted.

Is it forbidden to work in the trading enterprises of capitalists? Where? By what decision of the Party?

Are there no people among us who work in the trading firms of Russian, English and other capitalists?

Or is it permissible to be technicians, managers, employees of Russian capitalists, but not of German capitalists, even when living in a neutral country?? And is this to be decided by an “internationalist” party??

Let it decide this directly, let it pass a general ruling, let it give reasons for the step against Ganetsky.

When Bukharin wanted to go and work for Parvus as a literary man, we advised him against it, because that, after all, is not a trading firm. But, having advised him against it, we did not persecute the Mensheviks who worked for Parvus. Zurabov and a host of others, we did not persecute them, we did not accuse them.

Who accused them, and where?

Why have we not yet questioned the Mensheviks and others who lived in Copenhagen and knew of Ganetsky’s trading and did not condemn him? We could and should have done this.

Not a single fact has been established against Ganetsky, no ban has been issued on working in the trading firms of capitalists of all countries, the rumours and slanders of known slanderers, like Zaslavsky, have not been verified—and yet “remove” him?? There is nothing here but “fear” of the gossip of irresponsible gossips.

It is unworthy of a workers’ party to be guided by such pliability to gossip. If the comrades who succumb to gossip are “agitated”, “worried”, why should they not take a little trouble? Would it not be better to take the trouble to find the truth than to repeat gossip? In Petrograd itself it is possible (if the agitated comrade wishes to take the trouble, and not to decide without trouble) to find witnesses from among the Copenhageners, as well as in Moscow. Why do the anonymous accusers of Ganetsky from the ranks of our party not do this??

Such an attitude towards an absent comrade who has worked for more than ten years is the height of injustice.

December 29 (12), 1917.