Dear A. M.!

If you acknowledge that "our squabble is caused by an irreconcilable difference of ideological roots" – that the SRs also have it – (that the Cadets also have it – *Vekhi* – you did not add this, but there is no doubt about it) – that a reformist (a felicitous word!) party is taking shape – then one cannot say to both the liquidator and his enemy: "you are both squabblers."

Then it is the business of those who have understood the ideological roots of the "squabble," without taking part in it, to help the masses seek out the roots, and not to justify the masses for regarding the disputes as "a personal generals' affair."

* See V. I. Lenin, "Results of Six Months' Work" (Works, 5th ed., Vol. 21, pp. 427-440). Ed.

We "leaders have not written a single clear book, not a single worthwhile pamphlet"... That is not true. We wrote as best we could. No less clearly, no less worthily than before. And we wrote a great deal. There were cases – we wrote against people without any "squabble" (against *Vekhi* *, against Chernov 103, against Rozhkov **, etc.). [Do you see all the issues of *Nevskaya Zvezda*?]

..."The result of this: in Russia now among the workers there is a great deal of good... youth, but it is so fiercely disposed against the emigration"... this is factually correct, but it is not the result of the fault of the "leaders," but of the isolation, or rather the rupture, between Russia and the émigré centres. The ruptured must be reconnected, while cursing the leaders is cheap, popular, but of little use... "which dissuades workers from participating in the conference"...

What conference? The one now being convened by the liquidators? We too are dissuading them!

Is there not some misunderstanding here on your part? 104
I read that Amfiteatrov came out in almost a Warsaw newspaper 105 for a boycott of the Fourth Duma? Do you have that article? Send it – I will return it.

And things are seething in the Baltic Fleet! I had a special delegate in Paris (between ourselves), sent by a meeting of sailors and Social Democrats.
There is no organisation – it simply makes one want to weep!! If you have any officer connections, every effort must be made to get something organised. The mood among the sailors is militant, but they may again perish all in vain.

And your articles in *Zaprosy Zhizni* are unsuccessful. A strange journal, incidentally – liquidator-Trudovik-Vekhist. In fact, precisely a "non-estate reformist" party...

You ask why I am in Austria. The CC has set up a bureau here (between ourselves): the border is close, we use it, nearer to Petersburg, we have news-

* See V. I. Lenin, "On *Vekhi*" (Works, 5th ed., Vol. 19, pp. 167-175). Ed.

** See V. I. Lenin, "Manifesto of the Liberal Workers' Party" (Works, 5th ed., Vol. 20, pp. 396-410). Ed.

L. B. KAMENEV. AUGUST 1912

papers from there on the third day, writing for the local papers has become much easier, collaboration is better organised. There is less squabbling here, that is a plus. There is no good library, that is a minus. Without books it is hard.

I firmly shake your hand. Yours, Lenin
Greetings to M. F.

---

Written before 25 August 1912

Sent from Kraków to the island of Capri

(Italy)

First published in 1924

in the Lenin Miscellany I

Printed from the manuscript