Copenhagen, 2 September* 1910.

Esteemed Comrades!

In the issue of *Vorwärts* of 28 August there was printed an anonymous article on the state of affairs in the Russian party which constitutes an unheard-of scandal. At the very height of the work of the International Congress, when all are gripped by the striving to preserve socialist unity, to discuss the internal disputes of the parties in individual countries with the utmost caution, to avoid as far as possible interference in those disputes, and to propagate the strength, greatness and moral prestige of Social-Democracy in all countries — at this very time there suddenly appears in the Central Organ of the German party, without any occasion whatsoever and without any visible necessity, an article containing incredible attacks on Russian Social-Democracy. In the said article the entire Social-Democratic movement of Russia is criticised without scruple; the article attempts to present before foreign audiences, in the gloomiest colours, the decline, impotence and disintegration of Social-Democracy in Russia. Further, it criticises and reviles from top to bottom all without exception of the existing factions and trends in the party; finally, it contains crude attacks directed at the official central institutions of the party — the Central Committee, the Central Organ — accusing them of factional one-sidedness, etc.; and individual members of these central institutions are slandered in an unheard-of manner.

Such an article in the Central Organ of the German party, the anonymous author of which had as his aim merely the satisfaction of a feeling of revenge for some petty personal grievance, will damage the interests of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia; it constitutes an unprecedented violation of international solidarity and brotherhood towards Russian Social-Democracy. And if the Russian party, which has at its disposal numerous and well-known writers, has for a number of years avoided bringing its internal affairs onto the pages of the German party press, this is only because it does not consider the foreign press a suitable field of struggle for the resolution of its disputes. The creation of the unity of the Social-Democratic party of Russia is and remains the most complex and most important task of all comrades in Russia, and above all of the central institutions of the party. It is clear that in the interests of preserving unity it is necessary to avoid everything that hinders the overcoming of internal disagreements. Against a calm, objective elucidation of the problems of Russian party life no one, of course, should object. But we protest in the most energetic manner against the malicious, petty and perfidious criticism of the movement, the party and its central institutions, such as is evident from the article named, all the more so since the anonymous author, appearing in his article in the role of an all-knowing outsider to the party, is presented as a correspondent of the Central Organ, the newspaper *Vorwärts*, which lends this article an official editorial character.

Delegates of the Central Organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party — *Sotsial-Demokrat*

G. Plekhanov
A. Warski

Delegate of the Central Committee, member of the International Socialist Bureau

N. Lenin (Vl. Ulyanov)

* In the original there is a slip of the pen: "August." Ed.

First published, from the text written in the hand of A. Warski and signed by V. I. Lenin

Translated from the German