V. I.

Lenin

82

To:   ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI

Dear Comrade, I have received your letter and the English
enclosure. [2]

Many thanks!

I send you both the things you wrote about. Let us know—
if you translate them and send them off—what happens to them.

It is said that in Hamburger Echo there was a leading article “Über unseren Verrat an der
Internationale”, [1] which staled that the Germans (i.e., the German opportunist
scoundrels) are all in it, and that Plekhanov, Maslov and
Chkheidze are for them . [3]

Is it true? And what do yon think about it?

Greetings and best wishes,
V. Ilyin

P.S. Ask Alexander to make the acquaintance of Kobetsky
(Kobezky. Kapelwej. 51 4 . Kjobenhavn VI) and to take from him my letter to himself (Alexander).

It is useless to advocate a well-meaning programme of noble wishes for peace, if we do not at the same time and in
the first place advocate the preaching of illegal organisation and civil war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

N. Lenin

The European war has brought this great benefit to international socialism, that it has exposed for all to see the utter rottenness, baseness and meanness of opportunism, thereby giving a
splendid impetus to the cleansing of the working-class movement from the
dung accumulated during decades of peace.

N. Lenin