V. I.

Lenin

168

To:   THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST BUREAU

Paris, May 26, 1909

Dear Comrade, The press reports that the tsar is going on a trip and intends to visit
Sweden, Italy, Britain and
France. [1]

The Swedish socialists have already found it necessary to take action
on this score, and our comrade Branting, on their behalf, has voiced in the Swedish parliament—in the form of an
interpellation to the government—a strong protest permeated with the
spirit of international socialist solidarity.

We are confident that our comrades in other countries share Branting’s
view that the tsar’s visit cannot be regarded as an ordinary official
diplomatic act and will on their part protest as the circumstances demand.

It is important, however, to urge them to act without delay. Clearly,
the Russian section cannot do so directly. We also believe that the
Executive Committee and the Inter-Parliamentary Commission could take the
initiative and issue an appeal to affiliated parties and also to their
parliamentary groups pointing to the role played by Tsar Nicholas II in the
outrages committed by the regime, of which he is not only a representative,
but an active and criminal instigator.

The attention of our comrades in the other sections should be
especially drawn to the brutality practised in the Russian political
prisons, where tens of thousands of our comrades are paying for their
striving for freedom and for having fought for the workers’ cause and
socialism. These facts were the subject of an interpellation made recently
by the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, and we are sending you a
translation of this interpellation [2] and would ask you to take note of it in drawing up
your appeal and if necessary to forward it to the sections with the re
quest that they print it in the press.

With fraternal greetings,

N. Lenin
I. Rubanovich