V. I.

Lenin

28

To:   INNA SMIDOVICH [1]

We have received information that Akim is printing
Vperyod . [2] We refuse to believe it and request you to
ascertain whether this is not a misunderstanding. That people who have been collecting hundreds and thousands
of rubles on behalf of Iskra , for the Iskra print-shop—
people who represent the Iskra organisation in Russia— should go over secretly to another undertaking and that
at a critical moment for us, when shipments have come to a stand, when the entire North and Centre (and the
South too!) have flooded us with complaints at the absence
of Iskra , and when the only hope was to have it reproduced
in Russia, that people should have done this in such an
underhand way, for Akim wrote us that he was printing
No. 10 and we were so sure of it, while Handsome did not
tell us a word about his magnificent plans—such behaviour,
which violates not only all rules of the organisation, but
also certain simpler rules, is simply unbelievable.

If this incredible news is true, we demand an immediate
meeting to deal with this unprecedented depravity and, for our part, we earnestly request Yakov and Orsha to
scrape together whatever money they can and immediately
carry out their plan of coming here.