V. I.

Lenin

219

To:   N. G. POLETAYEV

Dear Colleague, I received your letter of February 10 about the betrayal of the person
you call —Y.—.

You ask me to “announce this” to the
58 Mensheviks. [6] You must forgive me but I cannot comply with the
request. I do not intend to announce anything or to have anything to do
with such individuals. If you do not understand why, I shall tell you once
again.

You close your letter with the words: “Don’t you people in Paris
realise how your squabbles affect us?”

The liquidators in Paris understand full well what they are doing. It
is a pity that among you in St. Petersburg there are people who do not understand what they are doing and what they read. A great pity! Such
people are fated always to be led by the nose. The liquidators here, i.e.,
the Golos people, put out leaflets, such as the leaflet of the 58,
specially to provoke squabbles and confuse the struggle over issues of
principle. We have declared (in every issue of the Central Organ and every
issue of other publications [1] known to you and closer to you—spatially) that we shall not
tolerate the group of Mr.  Potresov and Co., the ideas of Nasha Zarya , etc., that we cannot tolerate
them, but are fighting them and shall continue to fight them
unrelentingly. This is a company of liquidators, enemies of
Social-Democracy, and their ideas are the ideas of traitors.

The Golos people are unable to wage a principled struggle
against this and hence the Martovs, Dans, Axelrods and
Martynovs reply with scandals and blackmail. Is the leaflet of the
58 not an instance of blackmail? The leaflet of the 58 contains
false accusations (insinuations)..., [2] for instance, although the Bolsheviks absolutely loyally
liquidated after the January 1910 plenary meeting ... every thing
connected with them, Why make these accusations in the form of dark hints?
The answer is: a leaflet, also printed, also put out in Paris, also
originating in the Golos camp, only signed not by the 58 but by
the “Editorial Board of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata ”. What is the
content of this leaflet? It amounts to this: equality in the Editorial
Board of the C.O. and there will be peace. [7]

One comrade writes: is this not despicable? To level criminal charges
today and to write tomorrow: “Let in one more man into the Editorial Board
and there will be peace.” Why, that is blackmail !

Can people with any political experience fail to see dozens of such
examples everywhere (especially in the Third Duma)? Has not the history of
Menshevism given a mass of examples of such blackmail? How often “crimes”
have been charged and then forgotten after equality or the
majority has been gained.

As for me, I called the blackmailers blackmailers in print in May 1910
and in Diskussionny Listok . [3]

If there were some who did not heed the warning, so much the worse for them .

— Y.— called the paper “foul”. —Y.— was right. I do not know
—Y.—. I do not know what sort of retraction in press he
seeks, I have no idea of his views, his understanding, what he is doing. To
sum up: until you learn to fight the blackmailers they will continue to frustrate your efforts with
scandals, to spit in your face. If you do not like it, learn to fight and
not complain.

Needless to say, we answered the blackmailers properly and will not
agree to any equality with them. We completely exposed the Potresov gang
for the liquidators they are. More, this gang is now flirting with
the group that violated after the January 1910 plenary meeting the
resolution on.... [4]

The Golos people are covering up ... who are “against”
Lenin-Plekhanov . This too we will expose , I can assure
you.

You cannot sit between two stools—either you are with the liquidators
or against them. I reserve the right to publish this letter. How are things
in the Editorial
Board? [5]

You must see to it that we should be represented, by your self, if there is
no one else. At any rate you are obliged to find us a representative. Why
don’t you return rejected articles? Rappoport has sent two
articles but has received no reply.

A young man, short, thick-set (Jewish), with a recommendation from me,
will shortly come to see you. Help him in any way you can.

As for the paper, in my opinion, you should join it yourself for the
time being, so that our trend should not be left without a representative,
for that would be disgraceful. For we hope they will not give up under the
first pressure but will try to carry on despite the closures. All the more
necessary, then, is it for you to be there. Send us at once the
text of the platform worked out by the group for the Moscow
elections. [8] Will you come here to see us at Easter? There is much to
talk about. Do you know what has happened to Os. Petr.?

---
Notes:
[1]
The newspaper Zvezda and the journal
Mysl .— Ed .

[2]
Here and further, blank spaces in the text.— Ed .

[3]
See “Notes of a Publicist” (present edition, Vol. 16, pp. 195–259).— Ed .

[4]
A reference evidently to the resolution adopted by the plenary meeting,
“On Factional Centres” (see KPSS v rezolutsiyakh i resheniyakh syezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK [The C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and
Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central
Committee], Part I, 1954, pp. 241–43).— Ed .

[5]
Editorial Board of the newspaper Zvezda.— Ed .

[6]
The “ 58 Mensheviks ” were the members of the “first” (Menshevik) R.S.D.L.P. promotion group in Paris who adopted at a general
meeting of the group an appeal “To All Members of the R.S.D.L.P.” framed
as a resolution on the state of affairs in the Party and later published as a supplement to Golos Sotsial-Demokrata No. 24,
February 1911.

[7]
A reference to the leaflet “Letter to the Comrades” put out in Paris
in February 1911 by the Editorial Board of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata .

[8]
The by-election to the Third Duma held in Moscow on March 20 (April 2),
1911. The Social-Democratic candidate was I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, who
had been arrested in February and exiled just about the time of the
elections for three years to Astrakhan Gubernia.