V. I.

Lenin

59

To:   INESSA ARMAND [1]

I have just had the telegram, and changed the envelope,
which had been marked for A....

What’s happening to the Central Organ?? This is a disgrace and a
scandal!! No sign of it yet, and not even the proofs. Enquire and get an
explanation, please.

The issue of Vorwärts where Kautsky used the rotten phrase
that there is no Party ( die alte Partei sei verschwunden
literally) is No. 333 of December 18, 1913. You should get hold of it (rue
de Bretagne. 49 or somewhere else) and organise a protest campaign. We are
for an exchange of opinion, for the resolution of the
I.S.B.— this N.B. —but are absolutely against Kautsky’s
scoundrelly phrase. [2] He should be beaten unmercifully for this, with the
reservation that we are for Aussprache (exchange of opinion), etc.

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Notes:
[1]
Armand, Inessa (1875–1920)—outstanding figure in the international women’s working-class and communist movement. She became a member of the Bolshevik Party in 1904 and took an active part in the
1905–07 revolution and in the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917.

[2]
Reference is to Kautsky’s speech at the meeting of the International
Socialist Bureau on December 14, 1913. It was criticised severely by Lenin
in his articles “A Good Resolution and a Bad Speech” and “Kautsky’s
Unpardonable Error” (see present edition, Vol. 49, pp. 528–31 and
546–48).