Having left the meeting today, I consider it my duty to explain to you, in case of any party (and quasi-party) gossip and misrepresentation, the significance of my action.

I consider myself not only entitled, but obligated to refuse participation in the so-called "discussion," which serves as a pretext for the liquidationist section of the editorial board to put forward the basest gossip of the worst anti-party elements. When Martov, for example, refers to the fact that the Otzovists are part of the party, while at the same time loudly spreading the gossip of the most hooligan elements of the Otzevovist emigration, as if Comrade Viktor's affair has been concluded or hushed up through bribery,267 and while expressing the demand to protect him and Dan from such suspicions of "part of the party," it is clear to everyone that under the guise of "protection" from Otzevovist blackmail we are being presented with nothing other than liquidationist collaboration with Otzevovist outrages of the worst sort.

Considering it beneath my dignity to participate in a "discussion" in which such things are said, I declare that henceforth I shall endeavor to leave the meeting whenever such a "debate" takes place.

With comradely greetings, N. Lenin

7. XI. 10.

Written in Paris (local copy)

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXV

Printed from the manuscript