Next comes the matter of organization. One cannot also leave "voiceless" the question of subscribers: one must publish their number, otherwise it is impossible to rise from cliquishness to organization, from private enterprise to collectivity.

I also cannot pass over in silence a glaring error in No. 22, where alongside the correct resolution of the Vyborg comrades (on Buryanov) there is placed, while the editorial board remains silent, a longer and viciously intriguing resolution of the Zurich comrades.309 The word of *Pravda* is law; its silence confuses the workers, its abstention sows perplexity.

With Buryanov one must be "wise as a serpent," and the editorial board has departed from this wisdom. We praise him only for breaking with the liquidators, by no means for the "independence" of a lone individual. Here the liquidators are right, and there is no greater danger for a politician in struggle than to occupy an incorrect position.

And the Zurich comrades support Buryanov in an incorrect, false, intriguing position!! And we give them the floor — for what? Knowing that the Zurich comrades are a minority abroad!

Knowing that we cannot compel all the emigration to speak out in *Pravda*!!

Buryanov must be made to understand and feel the falseness of his position. You have broken with the liquidators? Good.

You have proposed equality? Good.

What next? It is time to make a choice, and we will not support you in intriguing (playing the pendulum). The liquidators hound you as an "independent S.D.": they are right, and we will not defend you. Here is your god-given deadline, here is our aid for this period (silent, in speeches, etc.), but no more. Either choose (within 2-4 weeks), or we shall give no further aid.

Only in this way can one act. Otherwise in the near future (both at the Vienna Congress and before) Buryanov's position will do us harm, and we shall rightly be told that we support an "independent."

The editorial board must, at the first opportunity, state that (1) the Vyborg comrades are right, not the Zurich comrades; (2) that except abroad in part (Zurich) no one in Russia has approved or will approve "independence."

This must be done.

All the best and every sort of improvement and success to the newspaper!

V. I.

P. S. Buryanov will say in a month: the Zurich comrades supported me, while only the Vyborg comrades condemned me! And we shall not achieve a general, mass declaration in favor of the Vyborg comrades. And it is now absolutely essential.

If we "give free rein" and support to Buryanov, he will entrench himself against us — this would be a crime against the will of the majority of workers and against "Marxist wholeness."

P. S. Could you not send as soon as possible No. 2 of *Nasha Zarya*, when it comes out, so I can respond to L. Martov in *Prosveshchenie*?

P. P. S. I request that you show this letter to the newspaper's contributors from the RSDRP faction.

Could you not send me that article by Milyukov in *Russkiye Vedomosti*, where he speaks out on the tactic of disbelief in a peaceful outcome?

The lost book has been found. Insist on it not being abridged.

Regarding the newspaper I shall repeat that the improvement is enormous: a thousand greetings. (The same assessment from everywhere.) Laissez nous ecrire plus souvent l'opinion et les directives (les commandes meme) du redacteur!*

1914

* Ask that we be informed more often of the editor's opinion and directives (even orders)! — Ed.

Written before March 23

Sent from Cracow to St. Petersburg

First published in 1956 in the journal *Kommunist* No. 5

Printed from the manuscript