16. VII. 02.

I enclose a letter to Arkady*.

I received your letter today, proofs, and money. Merci.

Regarding the "congress" in Switzerland¹⁸⁴ — there is simply some damned confusion going on.
Who, in the first place, dreamed up this "congress"? Not us. This was apparently concocted by B. N., who really ought to be given a serious dressing-down for his frivolousness (gallivanting abroad, gossiping with Korenevsky about a congress, etc.); if you haven't done so already, please give him a thorough scolding. I would do it myself, but it seems better if you do it, as I am already very angry.

No one is organizing a "congress": for a congress all people must be assembled (but we don't know anything definite about Arkady and Sonya**). For a "congress" you need some people from abroad (like Dimka, the old fellows, perhaps Aleksandrova, etc.), but nothing like that was even discussed. For a congress no one has even prepared a program, and no one knows what to talk about there: about the Russian organization of *Iskra*? without delegates from this organization itself?? All this is astonishingly hasty and ill-considered!!

L. Gr. is himself now postponing it "until autumn." Please do your best to yourself "scatter" this nonsense about the "congress." It is necessary to see Laptop right now: he will see the Swiss and come to us himself. What else? Then Cook, apparently, still needs training — and let him study in Zurich; that's excellent. Perhaps he, like B. N., will sit abroad for several more months?!? Why hurry to meet? And when he wants to go, he himself must come to us, and there's no need to drag him now. And what is this rubbish that B. N. and V. V. write to Berg: "one cannot talk without P. B." With whom? With Cook — he is with P. B. With three people — they are with P. B. With Laptop — he will be with P. B. Advise Berg to scold V. V. and B. N. thoroughly for this rubbish, and write me how Berg sees things, and whether there is hope that he will answer them so as to knock the nonsense out of them. And besides, P. B. himself traveled to Munich — he will come to London too. That G. V.'s arrival is necessary — no one doubted this.

I wrote to G. V. that I know nothing about the "congress," but a business meeting (with Laptop, etc.) is necessary in London, where, of course, he will be. If needed, I will write to him again.

Do your best to press L. Gr., to dissuade him: he has an unclear idea of who, for what, and how this "congress" will be.

Your...

As for the proofs, I think there's no need to return them? N'est ce pas?*
But what about V. I.'s article — surely it has been set?

Please do not forget: in my agrarian article there is a quotation from Bulgakov: p.? p.? This cannot be left as is, and if I do not come earlier and do not see proofs again, then you delete not the whole footnote, but only these words: "p.-p.-"¹⁸⁵.

Sent from Logivi (northern bank of France) to London

First published in 1928 in Lenin Miscellany VIII

Printed from the manuscript

* See the present volume, p. 201-203. Ed.

** Sonya — the conspiratorial name for the *Iskra* center in Samara. Ed.