V. I.

Lenin

150

To:   P. A. KRASIKOV

September 14, 1905

Dear friend, I hasten to reply to your pessimistic letter. I cannot verify the facts, but it
seems to me that you are exaggerating; that’s the first point. The
C.C. ’s leaflets are good, and Rabochy No. 1 is very good. [1]
This is a big thing. At the moment financial affairs are bad, but
connections exist and the prospects are very good. One big enterprise, very
solid and profitable, has been set up, so the “financier” [2]
is certainly not asleep. The second point: you take a wrong view
of things. To wait until there is complete solidarity within the C.C. or among
its agents is utopian. “Not a circle, but a party”, dear friend!
Focus attention on the local committees; they are autonomous , they give
full scope, they free one’s hands for financial and other connections, for
statements in the press, and so on and so forth. Mind you don’t make the
same mistake you are blaming others for; don’t moan and groan, and if you
don’t like working as an agent, push on with committee work
-and urge those who think like you to do the same. Assuming that you do have
differences of opinion with the “agents”. It is far more advisable
for you to get your views accepted in the committee, especially if it is a
united, principled committee, and to conduct an open, straightforward, vigorous
policy in it than to argue with the “agents”. If you are right
about the anaemia of the committees and a plethora of “agents”, the
remedy for this malady is in your own hands: flock into the committees. The
committee is autonomous. The committees decide everything at
congresses. The committees can pass resolutions. The committees have the right to go into print. Don’t sit idle, looking up at the
“heads”, but get down to business on your own. You now have a broad,
free field and independent, rewarding work in a most important committee. Throw
yourself into it, pick a willing team, approach the workers boldly and widely,
run off leaflets, order them from us, Schwarz, me, Galyorka , loudly
voice your Party opinion in the name of the committee. In this way, I assure
you, you will do a thousand times more to influence the whole Party and the
C.C. in the direction you desire than by bringing personal influence to bear on
the agents and members of the C.C. It strikes me that you are looking at things
in the old parochial way, and not from the Party standpoint. The C.C. is
elective, the congress is not faroff, you have your rights, make use of them and
bring all energetic, resolute sup porters on to the same road: into the
committees! Pressure must be brought to bear formally, through the committees,
and not personally through talks with the agents. No one is obliged to be an
agent if he wants to work in the committees!

You write that the agent Myamlin stated that Iskra’s
Khlestakovian report is fair. [3] Very well. That is his
right. But in Letuchy Listok No. 1, the C.C. stated that two-thirds
of the Party is on our side. That means that Myamlin has hit out at himself!
Your job is to curb the Myamlins and expose and discredit them through your own committee, and not through talks with them. The committees will elect
people who appoint the Myamlins, but it is not the Myamlins who decide the fate
of the Party. Let energetic people capture the committees: there you have a
slogan for all, which I advise you to spread, to drum into people’s heads
and to implement.

The agent Myamlin stands for two central organs. Again:
who will decide? The committees and their delegates to the fourth
congress. Prepare one, two or more committees—there you have a rewarding
and practical task. Suppose the Myamlins are victorious. The
committees have the right to start their own organ of the press, even a
single committee! That is why you err and drift into the old, pre-party point of
view when you write: “They are printing Trotsky’s leaflets”
(there is nothing wrong in that if the leaflets are fairly good and vetted. I advise the St. Petersburg Committee, too, to print his
leaflets vetted, say, by you), or when you write: “A fall from grace
à la Boris is imminent.” I don’t understand it. Suppose there
are Borises. This junk is always plentiful. Suppose the Borises and Myamlins
prove to have the majority (of the committees , don’t forget that,
of the committees) . Then “all the preceding work is undone”, you conclude. Why? How can Proletary become undone,
what can cause its undoing? Even the absurdity of “two central
organs” will not cause the undoing of Proletary , it will only
introduce absurdity into the Rules. Life will only preserve Proletary
and sweep away the absurdity. Even the Myamlins will not dare to close down
Proletary . And finally, let us assume the worst of possible endings,
in the vein of your pessimism: suppose the closing down does take place. I shall
then ask: what is the St. Petersburg Commit tee for? Is it likely that Proletary will be weaker as the organ of the St. Petersburg Committee than as
one of “two” central organs? Take immediate energetic measures to
have the St. Petersburg Committee establish not formal, but business-like,
close, permanent ties with Proletary , and you will strengthen your
position and the impact of your ideas so much that you will defy a hundred
Myamlins. The St. Petersburg Committee is a force three times as great as all
the “agents” put together. Make Proletary the organ of the
St. Petersburg Committee and the St. Petersburg Committee the thorough-going
executor of the ideas and tactics of Proletary; there you
have a real struggle against Myamlinism, and not a struggle by
complaints and groaning. Hundreds of addresses can be found in St. Petersburg,
and a host of opportunities for organising workers’ correspondence,
revitalising contacts, placing orders for leaflets, republishing articles from
Proletary in leaflet form, retelling them in leaflets, re-writing them
in the form of leaflets, etc., etc. Leaflets can and should deal also with
general Party problems (the other day the Kostroma Committee sent us a
resolution against Plekhanov being appointed to the International Bureau: a
downright smack in the eye, and no mistake!). Myamlinism must be combated by
exemplary organisation of committee agitation, by militant leaflets to the Party and not by wry complaints to the C.C.!

What article of mine in No. 5 (?) of Zarya (on Prokopovich) are
you referring to? [4] I am puzzled. Why are you dissatisfied with
Ruben? Put me in direct touch with him and Lalayants without fail.

All the very best. Write oftener and cheer up! The Myamlins be damned!

Yours,
N. Lenin