V. I. LENIN — A. I. RYKOV  
[March 1911. Paris.]  

I have received your letter with the news about summoning M[ikhail] M[ironych].  

You are doing well by sending him. Until now, the "four" (if not six) who were sent were not conciliators. This is a significant difference. That’s the first point. Secondly, it’s time to issue an ultimatum, as you yourself have realized, saying: "One must lose all respect for the party to drag this matter on indefinitely." Correct! Right! Just!  

However, you should not threaten to leave the Central Committee, as you intend to do. This is wrong. Don’t do that! Threaten with a public protest against the bureau and declare it a zero or worse if those who trust you and offered you authority do not leave for abroad immediately.  

It is a mistake not to summon Lubich. It is ridiculous to spare 200–300 extra rubles when it comes to the final stage of the entire Central Committee. Lubich is needed precisely to avoid dependence on the "philistine and coward." Only from your letter did I realize how vile this "philistine and coward" is. Such people must be pinned to the wall, and if they do not submit, trampled into the mud. I will do this publicly by publishing the history of relations with the "bureau" when patience runs out.  

The matter has become entirely clear. It’s a clash of sides.  

If you leave the Central Committee, it will be fleeing the battlefield, a betrayal of Bolshevism at a difficult moment. You must not leave but send an ultimatum to Makar and, if he does not appear or yield, fight as a member of the Central Committee for the return of the money.  

Either half—one of us with the P.S.D., or the victory of the Mensheviks in the Central Committee, our departure, and a disgraceful collapse. But if we bring at least Makar and Lubich, the matter can still be saved: Plekhanov and the Faction will be on our side, and we will suppress the Menshevik split in its infancy. Those scoundrels will not dare then.  

I am enclosing a copy of a letter to me from a worker in Bologna. He understood the "platform" of the Vperyodists!! And what scoundrels the Golosists are: Volunteer—an agent of "Golos," a member of the party school commission, goes against its decision and agitates against it among the exiles! Well, I will now expose them in print.  

We sent Semashko to Bologna from the school commission. We’ve caught the scoundrels; they won’t escape!  

Return the copy of the letter.  

I am enclosing Finikov’s letter (return it immediately after reading). Well, tell me, am I not right that such a Bolshevik is stronger than a hundred "conciliators," because he understands the situation, while they refuse to understand?  

And with such individuals, we will defeat hundreds of "conciliators."  

Greetings!  

N. Lenin.  

1 The date is justified by the mention: "We sent Semashko to Bologna from the school commission." Semashko’s arrival in Bologna coincides with the end of the Bologna school sessions [in March 1911] (see the report of the Second Higher Social Democratic Propaganda and Agitation School for Workers—published by the Vperyod group, 1911, p. 29).  
2 "Philistine and coward" refers to Lindov, about whom Rykov writes in one of his letters to Lenin: "The matter is now decided by a philistine and coward, who has been far removed, over a series of years, not only from the party but also from party news."  
3 I.e., out of eight members of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee—4 Bolsheviks + a representative of the Polish Social Democrats.  
4 This letter from I. K. Vulpe, a student of the Vperyodist school, is not found in the archives of the Lenin Institute.  
5 "Volunteer"—M. L. Veltman-Pavlovich, one of the lecturers at the Vperyodist school in Bologna; in March 1911, he was a member of the school’s party commission.  
6 The author of the letter could not be identified.