Personal to Bear1*

2/VI

Dear Bear, received your letter2. Smit has canceled all addresses, so I have to write in a roundabout way. In general, Smit has tried to do everything to break off all communication. Most of his colleagues also do not write and do not give addresses for letters, what they do and think - Allah knows them. On their behalf are Neil and Valentine. Their tactics are the height of ridiculousness. Instead of meeting and singing together, they avoid any conversation, so as not to be influenced (e.g. Neil, when asked by Sokol to talk about general tactics, replied that he did not find it necessary, and that he would get his opinion from Valentine). They prefer - in order to prove their independence - to censure the Old Man (without even inquiring about the motives for his actions, a censure expressed by Smith) and to issue ultimatums. Neil began by stating that he was the only representative of Faust, and alone had the right to speak on behalf of Faust. His first order was to suspend the distribution of Lenin's broschyura3 (he said that Faust had spoken in favor of this, so Smit also?), and the other day he proposed to co-opt two of them, and Lenin to join the six. It was pointed out to him that this should not even be discussed otherwise at a general meeting. In general, Neil's behavior causes indignation - this is some kind of betrayal, and senseless, cowardly, from around the corner. What he wants, he doesn't know himself. He stated that he shares Martov's viewpoint in the siege situation and considers Lenina a Bonapartist. Smit apparently agrees with this too. Concerning] positive] work, the talk about it is more than ridiculous - instead of work, there is some nonsense, and the "leadership" consists in bowing to the minority] and harassing the "hardliners". The minority], having seen Neil, rejoiced and went off the chain. Even the most peaceful comrades are writing indignant letters about the behavior of the minority, and now there is a savage harassment of Gusev....

Despite all the servility of Neil and Valentin in front of the minority, we still have no doubt that victory will be ours, the position of the minority is too false and deceitful. It is only a question of time. For the time being we have decided to let the majority go wild, Lenin is sitting down to his popular pamphlets - and he will not answer all this nonsense - there are still some literary forces.... And there we shall see what happens2*.

Does Smit know Neil's position and understand his role? Has he seen Nos. 65, 66 and 67?

Let Medvezhonok give an address for letters to him5. Uncle is in Petersburg, there is no address to write to him, a simple personal letter can be written to Mama's address.

Hugs3*.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 1295 - autograph of N.K.Krupskaya, note - autograph of V.I.Lenin.

1*And then V.I.Lenin's note: "To write this on top of the page".

2* The words: "Seeit, obviously... what will be" - in the original are crossed out

3* N.K.Krupskaya's note on the letter: "postano".

1In the letter N.K.Krupskaya and V.I.Lenin inform M.I.Ulyanov about the deepening disagreements within the Central Committee of the RSDLP.

On the course of the struggle in the party see: Correspondence of V.I.Lenin and the RSDLP institutions he led with party organizations in 1903-1905. Vol. II. M., 1975, most of the published documents deal with this issue.

2The letter to M.I.Ulyanova has not survived. V.I.Lenin and N.K.Krupskaya did not keep their relatives' letters; they only made copies of the business part of the letter.

3Referring to Lenin's book "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (The Crisis in Our Party)". It was published on May 6 (19), 1904 (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 8, pp. 185-414).

4V.I.Lenin lists the issues of the newspaper Iskra that vividly characterize the positions of the Mensheviks.

"Iskra" - Central organ of the RSDLP, an illegal newspaper, published from 1900 to 1905. The editorial staff included P.B. Axelrod, V.I. Zasulich, V.I. Lenin, Y.O. Martov, G.V. Plekhanov, A.N. Potresov. On October 19, 1903 Lenin, who led the Bolsheviks after the Second Congress of the RSDLP, left the editorial board, and from issue 52 the newspaper was run by an editorial board whose members became leaders of Menshevism.

5V.I.Lenin asks M.I.Ulyanova to find out and give the address of G.M.Krzhizhanovsky (Smith), who at that time was in Kiev, as was Maria Ilinichna.