V. I.

Lenin

92

To:   I. I. RADCHENKO [1]

From Lenin, private, to Arkady, the Urals

28/X.

Dear Comrade, Your letter received. Please send us the resolution adopt ed by the
Urals Committee. The Minority maintains that the Urals Committee came out
against the congress, and Iskra has reported that it declared for
peace in the Party, voicing support for the actions of the Central
Committee. Everybody wants peace in the Party, and what is at issue now is
how to resolve the crisis experienced by the Party, through the Party, i.e., by convening the congress, or through a private
deal with the Minority. The Central Committee came out in its declaration
in favour of the latter. Consequently, the Iskra statement can be
under stood only in the sense that the Urals Committee has decided against
the congress.

Use invisible ink, and address your letters “To Lenin, private”.

Your letter shows that you are completely uninformed about the state of
affairs in the Party. I shall give you a brief outline. (See also letter to
the Siberian League.) So far the following committees have declared for the
congress:
Siberian, Caucasian Union Committee (after the resolution given in the
supplement to Nos. 73–74), Tiflis, Baku, Mingrelia-Imeretia, Odessa,
Nikolayev, Yekaterinoslav, Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Northern Committee
(after the C.C. declaration), Nizhni-Novgorod, Kazan, Riga, and Tula
(13 organisations with full rights)—formerly this would have been enough,
but the Council has given the right of vote to another five committees
(Smolensk (?), Orel-Bryansk (?), Samara, Astrakhan, and one more, evidently
Kremenchug). All these are committees which we know in advance will declare
against the congress. Moreover, the Council recognises only those
committees as having come out for the congress whose resolutions it has
received (the resolutions of the Nikolayev, Northern and Nizhni-Novgorod
committees have probably gone astray). Further, confirmation of the
resolutions is required every two months, which the committees, owing to
irregular receipt of Iskra and absence of regular correspondence,
may not know. The resolutions must be signed by the members of the commit
tees so that no one might vote twice for the congress (only Council members
may vote three times against the congress:
in the Council, in the Editorial Board, and in the League). In view of the
stand taken by the Council, the C.C. and the Central Organ (to hound those
conducting agitation for the congress), the demand for signatures has a
very definite purpose. The object of all this is to hamper agitation for
the congress. But since the committees are taking a very definite stand,
the Minority has now launched an attack against them. Everything is being
done to undermine the prestige of the committees in the eyes of the local communities and the
workers, who are being literally incited against the committees. Special
efforts are being made to influence the periphery. How this disorganises
work is easy to imagine. The Minority is now laying siege to
Petersburg. Such is the situation in the Party. Not a very happy one,
needless to say. Send us a secret address for contacts, people often go
from here and may also go to the Urals.

With comradely greetings,

L.

P.S. Ask the C.C. for Majority publications.