V. I.

Lenin

4

To:   G. L. SHKLOVSKY

Dear Comrade, Nadya sent you my little note today. [1]

I hasten to let you know—so that there should be no misunderstanding
and you should not make any mistake in your report— that yesterday there was a meeting in Paris of “
Social-Democrats” who were enemies of the Conference. They all
(the Plekhanovites and the Golos group, [3] the Vperyod
group and the conciliators, and tutti quanti [2]

)

adopted a resolution of protest against the Conference, and also
something about excluding me from the International
Socialist
Bureau [4] (this is from hearsay, because, of course, the
Bolsheviks and the supporters of the
Conference [5] did not attend the meeting).

Naturally, all this is laughable. If these gentry proved
unable to retain their grip even on the C.C. Bureau Abroad
(make fun of it in your report, using Plekhanov’s funeral
oration in No. 15 of this Dnevnik , Supplement 2! [6] ), now
they will be even less able to set up anything. Well, kind
friends, not words but deeds: you boast that you have united.
Do please unite in Nasha Zarya and Zhivoye Dyelo , and above all in Golos Sotsial-Demokrata . [7]

Comedians!

All the best, and best wishes for success.

Yours, Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
See the previous letter.— Ed.

[2]
The like.— Ed .

[3]
Golos group—Mensheviks associated with the liquidators’ paper
Golos Sotsial-Demokrata (Voice of the Social-Democrat) published
first in Geneva and then in Paris.

[4]
International Socialist Bureau (I.S.B.)—permanent executive and
information body of the Second International. The decision to set
up the Bureau was taken at the Paris Congress of the Second
International in 1900. From 1905 to 1912 Lenin represented the
R.S.D.L.P. in the Bureau. With the outbreak of the world war
the I.S.B. became an obedient tool in the hands of the social-chauvinists.

[5]
In Paris, on March 12, 1912, a meeting of representatives of the
Bund Committee Abroad, the Vperyod group, Golos Sotsial– Demokrata , Trotsky’s Vienna Pravda , the pro-Party Mensheviks
and the conciliators passed a slanderous anti-Party resolution
aimed against the Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P. and its decisions. As representative of the C.C. of
the R.S.D.L.P. in the International Socialist Bureau, Lenin wrote two letters concerning this resolution to the Bureau Secretary
Camille Huysmans (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 547–50, and
this volume, pp. 31–32).

[6]
Reference is to Plekhanov’s article “Vechnaya Pamyat” (Eternal
Memory) published in Supplement 2 to No. 15 of Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata (Diary of a Social-Democrat), which Plekhanov brought
out at intervals between March 1905 and April 1912 in Geneva.
Sixteen numbers were issued. Publication was resumed in 1916
in Petrograd, but only one issue appeared.

[7]
Nasha Zarya (Our Dawn), =

Zhivoye Dyelo (Vital Cause) and =

Golos Sotsial-Demokrata (Voice of the Social-Democrat) were organs of
the Menshevik liquidators.