V. I.

Lenin

TO YELIZAVETA RIVLINA [1]

Dear Comrade, I wrote to you the other day about Golay. Things are
now going forward from the other side, so to speak. It is
not a preliminary conference, but an international conference of the Left that has been set for Sept. 5. Merrheim
will be there from Paris (all this is entre nous , of course).
The Nashe Slovo people will attend. Why should not Golay
and Naine be there as representatives of Left-wing socialism in French Switzerland (since Grimm, who is much more
half-and-half than Naine and Golay, will be attending)? [2]
Please, try and see both as soon as possible, have a good
heart-to-heart talk with them, and drop me a line in reply,
as soon as you can, about the frame of mind of both these
Leftist Frenchmen. You realise, of course, that it is anti-chauvinist Frenchmen who would just now—especially in
the presence of Merrheim—be of particular importance at the conference.

So, hurry with your reply!

Regards to Rivlin.

Yours, Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
Yelizaveta Rivlina —a member of the Communist Party from 1908;
at the time, secretary of the Lausanne Bolshevik group.

[2]
Paul Golay did not attend the Zimmerwald Conference. Charles
Naine was a delegate from the Swiss Social-Democratic Party
and took an active part in its work.