Nations

Dear friend! A huge thank you for the letters. You are saving us from foreign impressions. Please continue in the same way. For heaven's sake, get correspondence from the workers themselves. Why don't they write?? This is a real disgrace! Your detailed account of the committee's agitation during the Shidlovsky commission elections is excellent. We will publish it.

Another question: Have you accepted the 6 workers nominated for the Committee? Please answer definitely.

We advise by all means: accept workers into the committee, at least half. Without this, you will not be able to stand firm against the Mensheviks, who will send large reinforcements from here.

No one from the Bureau writes about the congress. This worries us, because the optimism of Rusalka (and partly yours), that the Central Committee's agreement on the congress is a plus, arouses enormous fears. For us, it is as clear as day that the Central Committee wanted to deceive you. One must be a pessimist regarding the Central Committee. Do not trust it, for God's sake! Take advantage of the moment to urge the minority committees and especially the swampers to attend. It is extremely important to focus on Kiev, Rostov, Kharkov: we know that in all these three centers there are "Vperyodists," workers, and intellectuals. It is absolutely necessary to bring delegates with a consultative vote* from them to the congress. The same applies to

* Write all this to Rusalka and Demon.

the Moscow typographers. In general, it is terribly annoying that the Bureau did not publish our decision to invite workers' organizations to the congress: this is a huge mistake.

Correct it as soon as possible and definitely.

I would strongly advise conducting agitation among all 300 organized workers of St. Petersburg to send one or two delegates at their own expense to the congress with a consultative vote. Surely, the workers will be flattered by this, and they will take up the matter enthusiastically. Do not forget that the Mensheviks are desperately discrediting the congress before the workers, saying: there were no workers. This must be taken into account, and special attention must be paid to the workers' representation. Three hundred rubles for two worker delegates, surely, the workers of St. Petersburg (or some patron will specifically donate for this) will collect - the agitation for collecting five kopecks will be enormous, everyone will know about it.

The significance of this would be enormous. Be sure to read this in the committee and at organizational and agitational meetings. Are all our organizers and agitators telling the workers about direct connections with "Vperyod"??

Sincerely, Lenin

P.S. Both leaflets of the Bureau (No. 1 on the uprising and No. 2 on relations with the liberals) are excellent, and we are reprinting them in full in "Vperyod" 19. If only they would continue like this!! By the way: why did the group of writers declare themselves part of the St. Petersburg committee organization? This is impractical for the following reason. The group of writers associated with the committee does not have a mandate at the congress. If it were a separate, non-committee, but an all-Russian "group of writers, part of the Russian SDPR," it would have the right to send (with the Bureau's permission) a delegate with a consultative vote. Arrange this, please! We will not print that it is a group under the CC. Let 1) the CC remove it; 2) it become, if only temporarily, separate and special; 3) "submit a petition" (what bureaucracy!) for the admission of its delegate to the congress with a consultative vote; 4) the Bureau approves. Can a dozen writers not raise 200 rubles for a delegate?? And surely, the delegate could be useful for the congress (for example, Rumyantsev or someone else). Report this to the Bureau, or better, do all this yourself without any reports.