Translation from German

Paris, 29/9/11.1

Dear comrades!

To our regret we must once again trouble you on our money question. About two months have passed since we asked you to give us the very deadline when you intended to at least begin the general process of deciding whether the money belonged to us. Unfortunately, we have not received this response from you to date2. Moreover, from Comrade Shatsky's reports on the negotiations held at Jena, we learn that the de-general process has not moved forward one step3. In reply to this, comrades, we must protest in the strongest possible terms. After all, on the legal side, the case is perfectly clear and absolutely indisputable. The money belongs to us and must be given to us immediately, since the conditions on which we agreed to the transfer of this money to the Central Committee, as you know, have not been met. All the other factions have quite a bit of money at their disposal and can use it as they see fit. And we, the only faction that respects and abides by Party decisions, are deprived of the opportunity to defend the interests of the Party to the end and to develop the increased measure of energy that the present moment demands.

Comrades! We demand only what is guaranteed to us by the decisions of the plenum of the Central Committee: that you begin the general process and give us the money that belongs to us. And we ask you at least to let us know what obstacles stand in the way of the beginning of this process? We believe that we have the right to claim the fulfillment of such a request.

Further: we have heard a rumor that the liquidationist faction and their loyal friends Axelrod and Trotsky have the audacity to demand money from you to pay the editors who have left the Central Organ, as well as the newspaper Pravda, which has broken with the Central Committee and expelled its representative from there,4 etc. We declare in the strongest terms that we will never agree that even one pfennig of our money should fall into the hands of these people and that we would consider such a use of our money the height of lawlessness. You, comrades, have the right to determine in the course of the general proceedings to whom the money should be awarded: to us, the Bolsheviks, or to the Central Committee, as the Plenum has decided. We have given our consent to a temporary measure for the purpose of convening a party conference5. This conference is on the way to realization. About 10 organizations in Russia have taken over the work of preparing it. We want the Organizational Commission and the Technical Commission also to be considered legitimate, although we are a minority there and are in opposition6. But if Axelrod and Trotsky (who, by the way, have considerably more means than we do) are stretching out their hands in such a cynical manner to get "a piece of the skin of the unkilled bear," we hereby officially declare: we do not give our consent to this, and the comrade-holders, as you know, were not in the slightest degree authorized to do so by the Plenum of the Central Committee.

Today we ask for confirmation:

1) that the money was originally held by Comrade Lenin on your order;

2) that the 20,000 francs were handed over by Comrade Lenin to the Technical Commission on your written order;

3) that Mr. Lenin, at your first request, sent you all the "holders' money "7 that was in his possession.

Such confirmation on your part is absolutely necessary in the face of the dark rumors which are being fomented in the reactionary press (as, for example, in "Novoe Vremya "8 etc.), and also to put an end to the gossip spread by the liquidators. And we have every right to expect you to give us this required confirmation.

Like our representative Comrade Shatsky, we ask you, in order to avoid misunderstandings, to check the transfer of the money funds by Comrade Lenin in a form acceptable to you (perhaps to set up a control commission).

We await your reply and ask you to excuse any justified interference.

With party greetings!

On behalf of Comrades Lenin, Kamenev and Zinoviev

G. Zinoviev

Published - Geyer D. "Kautskys russisches Dossier" ("Kautsky's Russian Dossier"). Frankfurt am Main - New York, 1981, pp. 531-533. Printed from the original in the archives of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 2770, letter - typewritten copy, signature - autograph of G.E.Zinoviev, note - autograph of V.I.Lenin.

1The copy of the letter has a note by V.I.Lenin: "Letter from Zinoviev (Lenin and Kamenev dated 29.IX. 11 with a request to check the amount contributed by] Lenin".

2See Doc. ZZ.

3This refers to the procedure for deciding to return to the Bolsheviks the sums of money placed at the disposal of the Central Committee of the RSDLP on the basis of a resolution of the Central Committee plenum in January 1910.

Shatsky (G. E. Zinoviev), being the Bolshevik representative at the congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in Jena (September 10-16, 1911 (A.D.)), negotiated with the "holders" on this question.

4See Doc. 19, note 2. The representative of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in the editorial office of Pravda (Vienna) was L.B. Kamenev; he was removed from the editorial office in August 1911. The Mensheviks L.Martov and F.Dan left the editorial board of the Central Committee in June 1911.

5It is understood that the Bolsheviks agreed to transfer part of the retainers to the budget of the Technical Commission for the preparation of the all-party conference.

6The Organizational Commission consisted of 5 members: 3 Bolsheviks (of whom 2 were Leninists, 1 was a reconciliator), 2 Polish Social-Democrats; the Technical Commission consisted of 3 members: 1 Bolshevik-Leninist, 1 Bolshevik-primirent, 1 Polish Social-Democrat.

7The money of the Bolshevik Center was in Lenin's account at the National Accounting Office in Paris. The secretary and cashier of the BC, A.I. Lyubimov, also had access to them (see doc. 16). After the January plenum of the Central Committee (1910), the money that came under the control of the "holders" continued to remain in Lenin's account at their request. "As I have written to you once before," Lenin's letter to K.Kautsky of May 24 (June 6), 1911 said, "I will at any moment willingly give up the unpleasant task of keeping this money and am ready to forward it to you" (Lenin's Collection XXXVIII, p. 41). June 17 (30), 1911. "holders" suggested to Lenin that all securities be transferred to the account of K. Tsetkin (Ibid., p. 43, note 1). On Lenin's order of June 23 (July 6), 1911. The National Account Bank in Paris (see doc. 35) transferred money and securities to K.Tsetkin.

8 "Novoe Vremya" - a daily political and literary newspaper, published in St. Petersburg-Petrograd from 1868 to 1917.