V. I.

Lenin

33

To:   G. D. LEITEISEN

10.XI. 01

Dear Leiteisen, I saw the gentleman [1] to whom you revealed a
League [5] secret and who is now raising a fuss.

I must say that you made a rather big mistake.

First, why did you speak about this gentleman to Leibov and Wasserberg,
who are not members of the League?? He complains particularly
bitterly about this. And he is right. The attitude of the League towards
third persons should be known only to League members. I think you
ought to tell Leibov and Wasserberg off properly and not trust them so much
in the future: if you found it possible to tell them, they should have kept
silent without fail.

Second, why didn’t you put an end to the affair at once, thereby
preventing the gentleman from making the trip to see G. V. and
us?? After all, you are an official functionary, a member of the
administration. You should have therefore accepted from the
gentleman whatever statement he wanted to submit, and after discussing it
with others, given him a proper collective answer. You should have told him
that he could contact the League only through you and that hence
he was obliged to submit to you what ever complaints he
had against the League in general or one of its members in particular and
had no right to take the matter up with the wrong people (G. V. or us).

As I see it, you departed from the rules (according to which all complaints are to be dealt with by the administration) and are
guilty, besides indiscretion, of failure to exercise your authority.

Well, so much for that. Do not be offended by my frankness. Now l’incident est clos . [2]

We, needless to say, told the gentleman this: we do not advise you to turn
to the League concerning yourself (i.e., to ask whether the League trusts
you, etc.). There is no point in doing that. The League is not obliged to
reply. What you ought to do is this: do everything you can to
throw light on the Ruma affair (in all its aspects), collect
all the evidence and ask the League to review the case and publish
the findings (i.e., the accusation against Ruma and, eventuellement , [3] the exoneration of others).

He agreed that this was the only way to go about it and set to work
putting down his own testimony. If you know of any other
witnesses, take steps yourself to get their evidence.

And so our tactics now are: within the League, a reserved
attitude towards the “gentleman” for the time being. But not a word about it outside the League, or even to the more aloof
members of the League. N’est ce pas? [4]

Yours, Frey