V. I.

Lenin

334

To:   INESSA ARMAND

...  [1]
It would be good now to have a Ukrainian Social-Democratic group
of our own , however small. Write whether you could make contacts
and do something in this direction.

What a magnificent victory at the Insurance Council elections! [4] Delightful! Try and
lancer [2] a report about this in the French socialist (or trade union) press. And how
much better-looking Pravda has become under brother [3]

—it’s

getting to be a real beauty! It does you good to look at it. For the first time we see the hand of a cultured, knowledge able editor on the
spot.

What impression did le geste de
M-me Caillaux [5] make on you? Frankly, I can’t get rid of a certain
feeling of sympathy. I thought only venality, cowardice and
meanness were rife in these circles. And suddenly this plucky woman goes
and delivers, a resolute le\c con!! I wonder what the jury will have to say
and what the political consequences will be . Will
Caillaux resign? Will the Radicals be overthrown?

All the very best, Yours,

V.U.

---
Notes:
[1]
The beginning of this letter is missing. The manuscript is available
from p.3.— Ed .

[2]
Insert— Ed .

[3]
This word is in English in the original.— Ed .

[4]
Elections to the Insurance Council in St. Petersburg were bold
on March 2 (15), 1914. A sharp struggle developed around these elections
between the Bolsheviks on the one hand, and the liquidators and
Socialist-Revolutionaries on the other. The liquidators suffered complete
defeat at these elections, three-fourths of the electors’ meeting declaring
in favour of the Bolsheviks’ electoral platform and rejecting that proposed
by the bloc of the liquidators and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The defeat of
the liquidators was further demonstrated at the elections to the All-Russia
Insurance Agency. Of the 57 delegates 82 per cent were Pravdists.

[5]
M-me Caillaux —the wife of Joseph Caillaux, French statesman,
Radical, Minister of Finance in 1913. In response to the hounding campaign
raised against him by the nationalist Gaston Calmette editor of Le Figaro , M-me Caillaux fired at Calmette in March 1914 and mortally
wounded him. Joseph Caillaux was obliged to resign.