V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v14;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

V. I. LENIN—TO K. RADEK
[Before August 20, 1915. Sörenberg]
Dear Comrade Radek,
I have received your letter to Wynkoop and am sending it on by the first post. I am adding a note to him that we must get down to work at once if we want to prepare a declaration (not to mention a new “Communist Manifesto”).
We have submitted 1) a manifesto, 2) a resolution, 3) a draft declaration. Send us your amendments or counter-drafts as soon as possible. Hurry!! Or we shall be late!!
Personally I am against the participation of Nashe Slovo, but I would not make this an ultimatum. Why am I against it? 1) It would be a scandal, because Nashe Slovo itself has not declared itself an independent third party or group (apart from the C.C. and the O.C.) for work in Russia; 2) In Nashe Slovo there are oikists in numbers unknown to the public. Dual representation!! (O.C. + Nashe Slovo). 3) Nashe Slovo is for the Chkheidze group (the O.C. and Plekhanov + Alexinsky are for it too). Is that not a scandal???
It would be ridiculous not to accept Lichtstrahlen as a group and to consider it less important than the Zetkin group.
This group includes Borchardt + Badek + the contributors to Lichtstrahlen. That is enough.
This group has a little journal. (Zetkin and Co. have none.)
Borchardt was the first to declare publicly: Die Sozialdemokratie abgedankt.* That is not propagandism, but a most important political act. It is a deed, not a promise.
What we (i.e., all the Lefts) need most of all is a clear, full and precise Prinzipienerklärung.** Without this all so-called “programmes of action” are mere phrase-mongering, sheer deception. What came of Zetkin’s “resolution on action” in Berne? Nothing in the way of action! Nothing in the way of principles!
If the Borchardt group comes out (together with us or separately) as an anonymous group (“Stern” or “Pfeil”*** or whatever you like) with a precise Prinzipienerklärung + a call for revolutionary action, it will play a world-historic role.
But Zetkin and Co., who have everything in their hands (newspapers, journals, connections with the Berner Tagwacht, opportunities to travel to Switzerland, etc.), have done nothing in ten months to unite the international Lefts. That is a disgrace.
All the best! Yours, Lenin.
P.S. I would advise you not to join the army. It would be stupid to help the enemies. You would be doing the Scheidemanns a service. Better emigrate. Honestly, it would be better. Left workers are badly needed now.
“The opposition in Germany is a product of ferment among the masses, while the Bolsheviks are the orientation of a small group of revolutionaries.”
That is not Marxist.
It is either Kautskyism or an evasion.
What was the Communist Manifesto and its group in 1847?? A product of ferment among the masses? Or the orientation of a small group of revolutionaries?? Or both?
And we, the C.C.? Or the R.S.D.L.P. group? Is it not proved that we have connections with the masses? And the Petrograd Proletarsky Golos? Or is there no “ferment among the masses” in Russia?
The Lefts in Germany will make a historic mistake if, on the pretext that “they are a product of ferment among the masses” (they = Zetkin, Laufenberg, Borchardt, Thalheimer, Duncker!!! Ha-ha!), they refuse to come out (anonymously, from the “Stern” group, etc. Later the workers will join and think about it) with a Prinzipienerklärung.
For the development of the “ferment among the masses” a Left declaration and programme are needed. They are needed in view of this ferment. They are needed to turn the “ferment” into a “movement”. They are needed to develop the “ferment” on a world scale in the International.
And immediately!!!
You are a thousand times wrong.

* — Social-Democracy has abdicated. Ed.
** — declaration of principles. Ed.
*** — “Star” or “Arrow”. Ed.