Dear L. B.!

I am replying point by point.

1) Regarding Haase’s letter to Ryazanov. This “document” is private. We do not have it. We cannot refer to it. For us to approach Haase (even through the I.S.B.) asking if he might “explain himself” — that would be awkward, quite awkward.

Your question “did they (who?) give him (Haase) the opportunity to ‘explain himself’?” falls away.

He always had and still has that opportunity. He was even notified by Ryazanov. Ergo,* he does not want to. And to hell with him! We shall press both him and all the Germans, for now we have a document showing that the *Vorstand* gave money to the Latvians + the Bund + the Caucasian Regional Committee.

2) Your question “do we have someone better in mind” is, forgive me, very strange. And even stranger: “does he (Haase) know anything at all” (??) (le préjugé est plus éloigné de la vérité que l'ignorance!**) and “is he capable (?) of understanding (??) the value (???) of ideological (????) differences”... Honestly, this is strange. He who does not want to cannot understand. And the German *Vorstand* (with Haase, its head) has proved it does not want to.

We are not seeking, cannot seek, and are not obliged to seek, someone “better”. That is not the point. It is a matter of ruling out patently “biased” persons, and that is all. After that, it is all the same to us.

3) What is this about the “confirmation of the opposition’s mandates” in Basel? Are you not ashamed that you have not yet written a word about this??

Who “confirmed”? The Russians? Social-Democrats + Socialist-Revolutionaries?? Who allowed them to meddle in this? How could the Russians meddle without securing a vote of the entire Polish delegation, as is mandatory under the International’s statutes? Was there a vote of the entire Polish delegation or not? If there was, we need in any case a document on this matter (apart from your own account) bearing the signatures of all the delegates who “confirmed”. Can it be that you, who have been here and know the whole acuteness of the opposition question, did not notice the importance of a document in such a matter in general? And for us in Kraków it is doubly important??

4) If Muranov’s signature was there, drop [please]*** a line to Huysmans, saying that in the reports there is a misprint or omission, that you urgently request a correction of the gap in the official report, that Muranov be inserted, that you cite the document, recall the facts, etc.

5) You are writing about the elections and about Basel for the Central Organ, are you not? Regarding the elections, read the vile article by Steklov in *Neue Zeit*, and bear it in mind, without replying to him, of course.

On Basel, send it to the typesetters quickly and dispatch the proofs to us as soon as possible, for we must confer: there are a number of important questions (how to speak of Plekhanov? and of the Polish opposition?). Take a sharper tone, in my opinion. But no collegial decision has been reached here yet, and without our article there cannot be one.

6) I swear, L. B., I have ceased to understand you — although we have, one might say, eaten a ton of salt together — ever since you began staging “scenes at the domestic hearth” over (a) the trip to Basel, (b) the (presumed) delegating of you to the conference.

What a tone!? What a way of posing questions?? How can you not be ashamed of posing the questions thus?

What harm did your trip to Basel do to the cause? Explain, for God’s sake!

How can you repeat the pointless whining of Yuri and the Kievans — it is in-con-ceiv-able!

What harm did it do to you? Explain!

Now — the conference. I would have (a) to abandon daily work on *Pravda*; (b) to spend twice or three times as much time as you; (c) to spend twice or three times as much money — and there is no money; (d) to walk into the enemies’ trap, they wanting to play on my extreme irritation (which could not have been otherwise, given the whole course of the war)??

Explain, for God’s sake, what is the matter with you?? Why was it that you wrote the pamphlet, yet I should be the one to go??

...“Will at once give the whole affair an absurd appearance”!? What does that mean?? Why did Martynov in Basel with you not give it an “absurd appearance”?? Why do you let yourself be caught by the old wives’ gossip of Parisian gossips??

...“Will at once tip the scales in the O.C.’s favour”... Honestly, this is naivety beyond all measure. Insofar as the Germans are against us (and that is a fact), the “scales” are already tipped towards the O.C. Do you really not see that?? My personal presence would only multiply such a tilt tenfold, for I am incapable of conversing peacefully (as you do) either with Haase or about Haase. You know this perfectly well!

But the whole point is that the serious deciding of the “scales” does not occur here at all, not before the Bureau, not at the conference, but in the real correlation of forces. We have 6 curia workers in the Social-Democratic Duma fraction on the Yagiello question — 6 against 6; Malinovsky writes today: “we have 6 curia + 4 liquidators + 2 waverers. The Siberians have not yet arrived.”

We shall mobilise this six, who represent the proletariat of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the South, and shall wage a fight against the gossip and intrigues of Tyszka + Rosa + Ryazanov and others...

There is where the serious “scales” are! You know this, after all! What is the point of “domestic scenes” when the struggle is not so easy as it is??

“The Germans will take offence... grow embittered”... That is already a fact. And we shall send a protest that the Germans gave money to the O.C. Let them grow embittered. They are now a party. We inevitably must fight the Germans and have already begun doing so (a) with the “Anonymous” + (b) with Chemnitz. Haase “replied” at Chemnitz. The war is on, and you naively say: they will grow embittered, take offence. I do not understand you!

I think we should reply to the Bureau’s proposal as follows: (a) we recuse all the Germans for giving money to the Bund and the Caucasus; (b) we go to the conference only with the excluded group of liquidators, without the nationalists; (c) a preliminary condition — a formal disavowal by them of the vile slander in *Luch* about a provocation in Warsaw. The motives are clear. Your opinion?

Reply more precisely, more directly, more decisively. I shall not go anywhere if you carry these “scenes” to the point of refusal; I shall put through Semashko or...* Is that what you are trying to achieve? Once again: were you proved right with your “apprehensions” about Basel? Or was I right that there was no damage to the cause, but benefit both for the cause and for the pocket?

7) The money crisis is serious. We had a C.C. session with Koba on the 140th. It was decided to warn you urgently: find an income! Count on 100 francs a month for about 3 months + space rates from *Pravda*, and after that, nothing. Think it over and write an answer as soon as possible.

Yours, Lenin

P.S. They write us from *Pravda*: Alexinsky & Co (sic!) approached with an offer of articles, setting as a condition the publication of their articles even if the editors disagreed. They replied: very glad of the collaboration, but we cannot accept such a condition, for our task now is to concentrate the anti-liquidator forces in the struggle against the liquidators.

A splendid reply and fully correct, in my opinion.

Bear this in mind! What do Alexinsky & Co want? (What Co? Only Lunacharsky? Or someone else? who?). Only squabbling, as I think (saying that *Luch* is kinder, while *Pravda* rejected me, etc.), — or a rapprochement, as Grigory thinks? You meet with... or meet..., verify, find out what you can, and write.

More on the fraction: there is a letter (not to us, but reliable) that the cultural-national autonomy was voted down, against the liquidators + Chkheidze. This is the only fact known to us of our majority forming with 12. We know nothing further so far. As soon as we find out, we shall write.

---

Written December 8, 1912

Sent from Kraków to Paris

Published for the first time, from the manuscript

* Therefore. — Ed.

** Prejudice is farther from the truth than ignorance. — Ed.

*** The manuscript is partially damaged. The word in square brackets has been restored based on meaning. — Ed.

* Word illegible. — Ed.