9/XI. 1915.

Dear A. M.! Only yesterday we received your letter of 18/X from Milwaukee. Letters take an awfully long time! You still have not received my letter (and Nos. 45–46 and 47 of *Sotsial-Demokrat*) about Zimmerwald and with all the answers to your questions; and that letter was written by me over a month ago.* Try at least to calculate (about 1½ months ahead) where you will be and give addresses (for letters to you) that will reach you closer.

As for the New York *Volkszeitung*, Grimm assured me today that they are allegedly thoroughgoing Kautskyites! Is that so? I think our German pamphlet could help you determine the “firmness” of internationalism.** Do you have it? (500 copies have been sent to you.) We are issuing here any day now (in German, and then we hope to put it out in French and, if we manage to wriggle out the money, in Italian) a small pamphlet on behalf of the Zimmerwald Left. Under this name we would like to put our left group in Zimmerwald (Central Committee + P.S.D. + Latvians + Swedes + Norwegians + one German + one Swiss) into international circulation as widely as possible, along with its draft resolution and manifesto (printed in No. 45–46 of *Sotsial-Demokrat*). The small pamphlet (20,000–30,000–35,000 characters) will contain these two documents and a brief introduction. We rely on you to publish this in America and in English (for it is hopeless to do so in England: it must be brought there from America) and, if possible, in other languages. This should be the first appearance of the core of left Social-Democrats of all countries who have a clear, precise, full answer to the question of what to do and where to go. It would be archi-important if we could manage to publish this in America, spread it widely, and establish firm publishing contacts (Charles Kerr (NB) in Chicago; *Appeal to Reason*** in Kansas, etc.), for in general it is archi-important for us to come out in various languages (in this respect you could do a great deal).

Write when you will still be in New York and for how many days. Try everywhere to see (even for five minutes) the local Bolsheviks, to “freshen” them up and link them with us.

I saw with chagrin from your letter that so far you have not managed to raise anything for the Central Committee. Perhaps this “Left manifesto” will help…

That Hillquit will be for Kautsky and even to the right of him I never doubted, for I saw him in Stuttgart (1907) and heard how he afterwards defended the prohibition of importing Chinese workers into America (an “internationalist”)…

The Zimmerwald Manifesto itself is insufficient: Kautsky & Co. are ready to reconcile themselves with it on the condition: “not a step further.” We do not go along with that, for it is sheer hypocrisy. So that if there are people in America who are afraid even of the Zimmerwald Manifesto, spit on them and pick out only those who are to the left of the Zimmerwald Manifesto.

I shake your hand warmly and wish you every success!

Yours, Lenin

(Ulianow. Seidenweg. 4a. III. Bern)

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* I.S.D. — “Internationale Sozialisten Deutschlands” — “International Socialists of Germany”. — Ed.

** This refers to the pamphlet *Socialism and War (The Attitude of the R.S.D.L.P. to the War)*. — Ed.

*** Try to get in touch with them — even in writing if you are not in Kansas. Their little paper is sometimes not bad. Be sure to sound them out with our resolution of the “Zimmerwald Left”. And what is Eugene Debs like? He sometimes writes in a revolutionary vein. Or is he also a rag à la Kautsky?