V. I.

Lenin

222

To:   A. I. RYKOV

Received your letter with the news about the call sent to M. M.

You are doing right in sending it. So far the non -conciliators
have sent 4 (if not 6). This makes a big difference. That’s one
thing. Secondly, it is time to is sue an ultimatum; you yourself are aware
of this when you say: “one must lose all respect for the Party to drag
things out endlessly.” True! Right! Correct!

Only there must be no threat to withdraw from the C.C., as you
propose. That would be a mistake. Don’t do that. [1]

Threaten to protest publicly against the Bureau and to show them up for a
nil or even worse if they, after having placed their confidence in you and
offered you their authorisation, do not go abroad at once .

You should invite Lyubich. It will be a mistake not to. It is
ridiculous to grudge 200–300 extra rubles when it is a matter of the
finale of the entire C.C. Lyubich is needed precisely so
as not to be dependent on a “philistine and coward”. [3] Only from your letter did I see how base this
“philistine and coward” is. People like that should be pinned to the
wall, and if they don’t submit, trampled in the mud. I shall do that
publicly by printing the record of our relations with the Bureau when my
patience has been exhausted.

There is full clarity now. Line-up against line-up. It’s either 1/2+1
for us and the
P.S.D. [2]
[4]

or a Menshevik victory in the C.C., our withdrawal and a disgraceful
split. But even if only Makar and Lyubich are brought over the situation
could be saved: Plekhanov and the group will be for us, and we can
nip the Menshevik split in the bud . The scoundrels would not dare
in that case.

I am enclosing a copy of a letter I received from a worker in
Bologna. He understood the Vperyod “platform”!! But look at those Golos scoundrels: Golos agent
Volontyor , a member of the Party School Commission, goes
against its decision and carries on agitation against it
among the ex-ists !! [5] Now I’ll expose them in the press .

Semashko was sent from the School Commission to Bologna. The
blackguards have been caught red-handed, they won’t wriggle out of it!

Return the copy of the letter.

I am enclosing a letter from Finikov (return immediately after
reading). Tell me, am I not right in saying that a Bolshevik like this is
stronger than a hundred “conciliators”, for he has understood the situation whereas the latter do not want to
understand it?

With a few such we shall defeat hundreds of “conciliators”.

Greetings!
N. Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
If you withdraw from the C.C., it will be tantamount to deserting the
field of battle, betrayal of Bolshevism at a difficult moment. You must not
withdraw but send an ultimatum to Makar and, if he does not show up and
yield, fight as a member of the C.C. to get the money returned . — Lenin

[2]
It is impossible to win in the seven. Therefore, it is necessary to
hold a plenary meeting abroad; call over Makar and Lyubich and ex plain
things to them. — Lenin

[3]
A reference to Lindov (G. D. Leiteisen) whom Rykov in one of his
letters to Lenin in 1911 called “a philistine and coward”. Lindov, then a
member of the Bureau of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P., in Russia, took an
indecisive, vacillating position on the question of calling a plenary
meeting.

[4]
Out of the eight members of the Bureau of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P., in
Russia, four Bolsheviks and one representative of the Polish
Social-Democrats.

[5]
The Party School Commission, established by decision of the January
1910 plenary meeting of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P., was to arrange in 1911 additional lectures in Paris for graduates of the
Vperyod school.

M. L. Veltman-Pavlovich (Volontyor), one of the lecturers at the
Vperyod school in Bologne, was a member of the party school
commission in March 1911. By giving a one-sided, factionalist picture of
the work of the commission, he incited the students against it with the
result that studies were disrupted.