...[some] rather prominent spreaders of dark rumors. As soon as the data are finally collected and developed, all these disseminators will be named in the press. The workers will then see something of the methods of the people who are destroying their party and looking for scandal, chasing after retail for sensation!!!!

Let the filthy liquidators, the Martovs and the Dans go on. The more pesky they are, the brighter their exposure will be. And to the people who stand aside or let themselves sometimes be intimidated by the clamor of slander and dark gossip, to such people we say: provocateurs are not caught by what they shout in the newspapers about dark rumors - it is not difficult to understand this even without much thought. Suppose for a moment that Malinovsky is a provocateur - the public, greedy for sensations and intimidated by gossipers, willingly believes that this is possible. Suppose that the rumor-mongers, even Purishkevich, even L. Martov, were believed! What will you do? You will investigate, search, collect and verify data.

The leading institution is doing so, although it does not believe in M[alinovskii's] provocation, but believes in the possibility of finding and exposing by name the spreaders of rumors. And if Malinovsky is a provocateur, it is those who investigate, not those who make noise, who will expose him.

If L. Martov was spreading rumors long before M. Malinovsky left, he will be exposed by those who investigate him, and not by those who, out of extreme simplicity or credulity, oohing and aahing over the noise coming from known slanderers.

Mr. Martov pretends that he is an untainted citizen who can demand an arbitration or even an inter-party, etc., tribunal. But this is a mistake. Mr. L. Martov and his accomplice Dan have been repeatedly exposed in the press, which expresses the views of the majority of conscious workers, for the whole decade. Therefore, on the basis of ten years of experience, L. Martov is for us the same as Purishkevich, a man without honor, a deliberate slanderer. We will never go to any trials with this gentleman, except for bourgeois courts. We are not anarchists and we do not deny bourgeois legality. We use it.

If there are any socialist or democratic groups who trust L. Martov's honesty - then please, kind Mr. L. Martov, appeal to them. Speak to those who have no fear of staining themselves by communicating with you, no fear of taking responsibility for the rumors you spread! You are afraid to incriminate yourself with a personal signature, you do not accuse, but repeat dark, anonymous rumors. Try to find people who are not afraid to accuse - look for these people at least among your friends or possible friends. For example, among the leftists, for you mutually promise each other unity or trust! Or the ideological circle of the Pereddovites, which in Trotsky's journal preaches "reasonable compromise" with you - or Trotsky himself and his group - or the Caucasians among you, Anu and his group - or the liquidationist faction near Chkheidze - or the group of Plekhanov, who now wants to recognize you as part of the whole! And so on and so forth.

Please address all these groups, - show them (not us, we don't believe you anyway!) your "rumors", - convince them that it was not you who spread them, and, above all, that they can take it upon themselves to make an accusation in the press on the basis of your rumors.

Do it! We'll wait. Let the faint-hearted people worry. We'll wait. We shall prove to the workers that Martov and Dan and K° were afraid (we shall name the years and perhaps the months) to present these rumors, - afraid that even the supporters of rapprochement with them or "unity" with them or "compromise" with them will not believe them. This is what Martov and Dan are afraid of!

That is why they did not turn to their political friends when it was necessary to do so, and do not turn to them now.

And we have revealed 9/10 about the rumor mongers, we know the main names and we will publish them in due time.

Go on, Messrs. Martov and Dan!

Choose more seriously, more consciously, comrades workers, who to believe!

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 27134 - autograph.

1The first page has not survived. Lenin's manuscript has edits and insertions by G.E. Zinoviev; only Lenin's text is printed. The main points of the article are reflected in G.E.Zinoviev's article "To the Case of the Slanderers", printed in the newspaper "Trudovaya Pravda" No. 15, June 14, 1914.