V. I.

Lenin

5

To:   G. K. ORJONIKIDZE, S. S. SPANDARYAN AND YELENA STASOVA [1]

March 28, 1912

Dear Friends, I am terribly upset and disturbed by the complete
disorganisation of our (and your) relations and contacts. Truly,
it is enough to make one despair! Instead of letters, you
send various telegraphically brief exclamations which are
quite incomprehensible.

(1) Nothing from Ivanovich. What is he doing? Where is he? How is he getting on? It’s devilishly necessary to
have someone legal in Petersburg or near Petersburg, because
things are bad there. This is a furious and difficult war.
We have neither information nor guidance, nor supervision of the paper.

(2) Not one of the Conference delegates gives us any contacts. Not one, and not a single contact. Why, that’s
complete collapse!

(3) No resolutions from anywhere which are sensible, clear, stating what organisations adopted them, supporting
the decisions, confirming that their delegate attended, came
back, reported!! Is it really not clear how different such
formal resolutions are from letters of an intimate character:
“decent”, “jolly good”, “we won”, etc.? There are no resolutions from Kiev or from Savka’s
town. [2] Nikolai has sent in a letter full of joyful exclamations but absolutely senseless. It is quite unsuitable either for the press or for
official use. Were all the resolutions read out? Were they
approved? What is the text of resolutions on the Conference?
Are they joining forces with the local liquidators? Not
one (not one!) of these fundamental elementary questions
is answered. Not a single word of communication with that town (most important!) has been transmitted to us.
Is not that collapse? Isn’t that a parody of work?

(4) No resolutions from anywhere, not a single one, demanding the money! Simply a disgrace.

(5) Neither from Tiflis nor from Baku (terribly important
centres) is there any word of sense about reports having
been delivered. Where are the resolutions? Shame and disgrace!

(6) Not a single reprinting from anywhere of the
Announcement or even part of it, either in print or hectographed!
A disgrace.

(7) No precise reply in writing about the platform either.
Will it be published? When? Has it been approved completely? We have to print it in the Central Organ, but
have no precise information.

(8) They will have to go round all the organisations again and everywhere get resolutions adopted which are
precise, formal, detailed, sensible, clear (a) on representation at the Conference and on its substance,
(b) on support for the Central Committee, (c) and against the
liquidators, specifically against the local ones, and in general,
and (d) demanding return of the money.

(9) About the money, things are bad, send us a resolution which gives us the right to bring an action. The
Germans have sent a refusal. Unless it is taken to court, we
shall have a complete breakdown in three or four months.

(10) If you have no financial resources, the budget must
immediately be radically reviewed: we have gone beyond all limits, and are approaching bankruptcy.

(11) In
Vorwärts [3] of March 26, there was a furious and malicious article against the Conference, from the editorial
board. Clearly this is Trotsky. There is a great battle over
the Conference—but Russia is silent. It is no use putting
on a bold show and boasting; everyone knows about Vorwärts
and the protests, but nothing comes from Russia.

Summing up: this is collapse and disorganisation. A round of visits and contacts. Precise correspondence.
Reprinting of the Announcement, even by hectograph.
Otherwise it’s all boasting.

Lenin

Pass on the letter to S.  for further transmission.
Greetings.

---
Notes:
[1]
Novoye Vremya (New Times)—daily newspaper published in St.
Petersburg from 1868 to 1917. At first moderate-liberal in tone, it
became an organ of reactionary aristrocratic = circles and
officialdom after it was taken over by A. S. Suvorin in 1876. From 1905
onwards it was an organ of the Black Hundreds. It was closed down
by the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet
on October 26 (November 8), 1917.

[2]
Savka’s town —Ekaterinoslav, where Y. D. Zevin, who used the
pseudonym “Savka”, was working.

[3]
Vorwärts (Forward)—daily newspaper, central organ of the
German Social-Democratic Party, started in Berlin in 1891. In the
late nineties, after the death of Engels, the editorship of the paper
fell into the hands of the Party’s Right wing and regularly
published articles by opportunists.

In the issue for March 26, 1912, Vorwärts carried an anonymous
slanderous article written by Trotsky against the Sixth (Prague)
All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. and its decisions. The
German opportunists on Vorwärts refused to publish Lenin’s reply
to Trotsky. In order to give the German workers a true picture of
the Prague Conference, Sotsial-Demokrat printed Lenin’s reply in
German and published it as a separate pamphlet Der Anonymus aus dem “Vorwärts” and die Sachlage in der Sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterpartei Russlands (The Anonymous Writer in “Vorwärts” and
the State of Affairs in the R.S.D.L.P.).

The pamphlet was sent out to 600 German addresses— editorial boards of Social-Democratic publications, local committees,
and libraries.