V. I.

Lenin

Letter to the Swiss Workers [2]

Dear Comrades, On behalf of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, I confirm
hereby for the benefit of all the Swiss comrades that the general
Conference of this Party, held in January 1912, disclaimed by a
special resolution all responsibility for individual Russian groups abroad .

I also confirm that the Central Committee of our Party has so far recognised only one Russian Social-Democratic organisation abroad,
namely, the Committee of Organisations Abroad and its Zurich section . I enclose a pamphlet published by the Central Organ of our
Party in German, which describes in detail the disorganising behaviour of
the petty groups of Russians abroad. [1]

With Party greetings, Lenin ( V. Ulyanov )

Representative of the Russian Social-Democratic Party in the
International Socialist
Bureau. [3]

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 203–20 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]

“ Letter to the Swiss Workers ” was written by Lenin in
connection with the following events:

In July 1912 the Menshevik liquidators’ bureau of the united organisation
of the R.S.D.L.P. in Zurich sent a letter to the Executive of Die Eintracht (a Social-Democratic organisation) and to the Swiss Workers’
League. In the letter the bureau declared itself to be the sole
representative of the R.S.D.L.P. groups in Zurich On July 27 (August 9) the
Bolshevik Swiss Section of the R.S.D.L.P. Organisation Abroad held a
meeting which was attended by representatives of the Zurich, Davos, Berne,
Lausanne and Geneva Bolshevik groups.

The debate at the meeting ended in the adoption of resolutions (1) on the situation in the Party, (2) on the state of affairs abroad, and (3) a protest resolution against the liquidators’ bureau. The three
resolutions were published in the form of hectographed leaflets, the first
and second being in the Russian language and the third, which was published
along with Lenin’s present letter, in German.

[3]
The International Socialist Bureau —the permanent executive
and information agency of the Second International. The decision on its
formation from representatives of the socialist parties of all countries
was adopted at the Paris Congress of the Second Inter national in
September 1900. G.V. Plekhanov and B. N. Krichevsky were elected to the
Bureau as representatives of the Russian Social-Democrats. Lenin was a
member of the Bureau representing the R.S.D.L.P. from 1905 on. In 1912 the
Sixth (Prague) All-Russia

Party Conference re-elected Lenin to the Bureau as representing the
R.S.D.L.P. On the Bureau Lenin fought resolutely against the opportunism of
the leaders of the Second International. The Bureau ceased to function in
1914.