Date: 1909-05-26
Source: ru:PSS/v47

Source: PSS, Volume 47

BUREAU
Paris, May 26, 1909

Dear Comrade, the newspapers have reported on the Tsar’s upcoming journey and his intention to visit Sweden, Italy,
England, and France.273

The Swedish Socialists have already deemed it necessary to speak out on this matter, and in their name our comrade Branting delivered a vigorous protest—framed as a query addressed to the government—in the Swedish Parliament, imbued with the spirit of international socialist solidarity.

We are confident that our comrades in other countries will share Branting’s view that the Tsar’s visit cannot be regarded as a routine act of official diplomacy—and that, in light of the circumstances, they too will issue a protest as the situation demands.

All that remains is to urge them to take swift action. It is clear that the Russian Section cannot act directly. We also believe that the Executive Committee and the Inter-Parliamentary Commission could assume the initiative of reaching out to neighboring parties, as well as to the relevant parliamentary groups, pointing out to them the role that Tsar Nicholas II has played in the atrocities perpetrated by the regime—a regime of which he is not only the representative, but also an active and criminally culpable instigator.

Our comrades in the other Sections must devote particularly close attention to the atrocities committed in Russia’s political prisons, where tens of thousands of our comrades are paying for their yearning for freedom and for their struggle on behalf of the workers’ cause and for socialism. These facts were recently the subject of an interpellation submitted by the Duma’s Social-Democratic faction; we are sending you a translation of this interpellation,274 along with a request that you take it into account when drafting your own statement—

STATEMENT TO THE EDITORIAL OFFICE OF “SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT”

and, should the need arise, forward the text to the Sections, requesting that they publish it in print.

With fraternal greetings,

N. Lenin
I. Rubanovich

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Sent to Brussels

First published in 1960

in the journal

“Questions of the History of the CPSU,” No. 5

Printed from a typewritten manuscript signed

by V. I. Lenin

Translated from French