V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v48;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Saturday, February 25, 1911

Dear Vlasov,

I have just received your letter and hasten to reply at once, without waiting for Grigory, who today forwarded Samovarov’s letter to you.

Nadya is writing to Lyubich today. It is extremely annoying that you took action too late. Now you must write to him not about preparations for departure, but about immediate departure. Write to him again most insistently about immediate departure, otherwise the enemy will have 4 (a Bundist + a Lett + 2 Mensheviks) and we will have no more than that (3, of whom 1 is under a question mark, + 1 Pole).

Your letter concerning the declaration grieves me greatly, for I see from it how insufficiently we have yet come to an understanding and how “unstable” therefore (to my extreme regret) our agreement is.

Among the changes you propose there are some against which I can have nothing to say. This includes: separating the question of the foreign section into a special resolution; adding to the declaration a special paragraph on the significance of the Duma and on the fact that those who do not help in the elections to the Fourth Duma are traitors;—separating the question of reviving the nuclei (although I do not understand why it should be separated and where it should go? It must be mentioned somewhere! Where?).

But the changes you propose that are unacceptable and harmful are far more numerous.
(“To recognise the conference as urgent”?? Why dissemble? You yourself do not believe in it!

To breed hypocrisy and self-deception—there is nothing more harmful than this at the present moment!)

“To express satisfaction that otzovism-ultimatism has in essence disappeared from the political horizon”...

That is untrue. I have seen Vperedist workers, and even Yevgeny refutes this untruth by his speeches.

“To greet the decision of the Vpered group to participate in the elections”...

No such decision exists so far. And if it appears tomorrow, then to “greet” the splitters for fulfilling

their duty and to keep silent about the expropriation money—that would be a scandal.

You write: “I do not know of any otzovist or ultimatist statements by Vpered after the Plenum...”
It is too bad you do not know. Look: 1) The leaflet of the Vpered group after the Plenum: nothing but abuse of the Centres—not a word of renunciation of the otzovist-ultimatist platform.—

2) Symposium No. 1—the same. Not a single leading article on the Duma and Duma work.—3)
Lunacharsky in *Le Peuple* (quoted in the Central Organ—Lunacharsky was officially delegated by the Vpered group to the Copenhagen Congress).—4) A leaflet of the Geneva group of Vperedists (quoted in part in *Golos S.-D.*), expressing solidarity with Lunacharsky.

Vpered was obliged after the Plenum to issue a new platform, for the old one (issued on December 27, 1909, i.e., on the eve of the Plenum) is an otzovist-ultimatist platform. Vpered did not do this!

Your fundamental mistake is that you believe words and close your eyes to deeds. Various people like Domov or Alexinsky or someone else I don’t know have talked “sweet words” to you, and you believe them; you write: Vpered is “on the eve of a split or our possible ally,” it “is freeing itself from the otzovist-ultimatist platform.”

That is untrue. Those are the lying words of swindlers who are ready to promise anything, just to
cover up what exists—their special school, their 85,000 rubles from expropriations.

If Domov is breaking away from Vpered, then Domov is a high-school teacher, a philistine, a woman, not a politician. If Alexinsky “quarrelled” with Bogdanov and Co., now, having returned from Bologna, he has fully made it up again and yesterday read a lecture on behalf of the Vpered group!!

You rely on words and leave yourself powerless in practice—that means repeating the fatal mistake of the Plenum, which weakened the party for a year at least. If you now, a year after the idiotic conciliatory mistakes of the Plenum, repeat them, you will ruin

the whole “unification” once and for all. I say this with complete conviction, for I know it
thoroughly from experience. Let Samovarov shout that I wrecked “unification” (that’s Trotsky’s and Ionov’s phrases!!). Samovarov needs to shout this nonsense (which he dare not say in print and which I publicly analysed and refuted in No. 2 of the *Discussion Leaflet*), for he is ashamed to admit the mistake of the conciliators at the Plenum. Their mistake was that they almost ruined the cause of unification with the Party Mensheviks by believing the words of the anti-Party—the Golosists—and allowing them to strengthen themselves in practice.

Beware, do not repeat this mistake!

The Vperedists are very strong. They have a school = a conference = an agency. We (and the
CC) have none. They have money—up to 80,000 rubles. Well, will they give it to you?? Are you really so naive??

If not, how can you consider as “allies” factionalists who hold a factional fund against you!?

There is nothing more naive than to write: “I do not want to make it difficult for the fragments of Vpered to draw closer.”

They have drawn closer to the liquidators, they have set up a school against you, they throw dust in your eyes by saying: we are nothing, we are not otzovists, and you believe words and do not fight against deeds.

Why, that’s the devil knows what!

“I would not like (you write) to throw Vperedists out of a foreign, all-Party (not factional) organisation.”

One of two things: either you indulge a special faction and leave it its money.

Then we publish our statement in the CC (on the demand for an investigating commission) and say: let the Vperedists help such a CC, we will not.

Or you condemn the factionalism of the Vperedists, but then you must be consistent. Condemning only in words, you make yourself ridiculous.

Then you must say: until the Vperedists (1) issue a new platform, (2) make Party statements, (3) dissolve their factional school,

and (4) hand over their factional money to the Party—until then they are an anti-Party faction.

If you do not say this, you lose our cooperation and do not gain that of the Vperedists. Is that politics?

And as for the fragments (future!!), do not worry. If we are strong, all will come to
us. If we are weak, if we believe in words, we shall be laughed at, and that is all. It is not difficult to find the form: for example, after condemning the Vpered faction, say that a section of the Vperedist workers stand for elections, for legal opportunities, for Party loyalty, and that you call such workers, such Vperedists, from the faction to the Party, etc., etc.

In the resolution on uniting the foreign section, it is necessary to name precisely and clearly those who are disorganising; the Golosists and Vperedists must be named, and it must be explained wherein their “disorganisation and anti-Party character” lies: not in ideas (argue about that and write in the *Discussion Leaflet*, etc.), but in a special school, a special school fund, a special organ
(*Golos*), special collections for *Golos*, special factional groups (communicating with Russia against the CC).

If the Golosists and Vperedists are not named precisely and clearly, then the whole resolution = zero.

Then you will force us to come out against this game of unification.

If you name them precisely and explain clearly wherein the factionalism lies, you will at once and certainly
win the majority abroad (the Bolsheviks + the Plekhanovites + Party workers +
the mass of groups in the “provinces” and in America, where there are no leaders of Golosism).

If the CC’s “struggle” against factions consists in its courting the anti-Party factions of *Golos* and Vpered, hampering our work (in a Party spirit) with multi-storeyed formalities (a Pole, a commission, a board of people ignorant of the matter, “inviting” Vperedists, squabbling with Alexinsky, etc., etc.), then we will not go in for that.

We have just received a letter from St. Petersburg. Samovarov proposed that the Social-Democratic Duma group issue an election platform!!!

That is, to the majority of Mensheviks!! (and not a word to us). If Samovarov wants to conduct matters like that, I promise you to start a series of leaflets directly against Samovarov.

If an agreement is possible between us, then the Bolsheviks must close ranks in the meantime and work harmoniously (on the basis of the agreement), and not intrigue, not go over to the Mensheviks.

Write your opinion. As soon as possible. I press your hand.

Yours,
Lenin

P.S. Have you seen Nikitich? Has he not again thrown dust in your eyes about the peaceableness of Vpered?? He is a master at making promises and throwing dust in one’s eyes.