V. I.

Lenin

457

To:   HENRIETTE ROLAND-HOLST

8/III. 1916

Dear Comrade, Excuse me for not having answered your letter earlier. I have been
lecturing in various towns of Switzerland.

I thank you very much for your friendly reply. I shall be very pleased
if our collaboration proceeds without any friction.

Frankly speaking, there was never any question about you and Comrade
Pannekoek being “decent people”, as you term it. What worried us was the
sudden change in the editorial regulations . Under the first draft
we were given editorial rights (Editorial Board =a union between your group
(you+Trotsky) and the “Zimmerwald Left”; and in the bureau of
this Left, as you know, we had two votes out of the three: Radek’s,
Zinoviev’s and my own). With the change in the draft we lost our editorial
rights a-nd became mere contributors. Of course, we could not challenge
your right to draw up the regulations. But it is only natural—is it
not?—that we, as contributors, should nevertheless wish to have certain
guarantees of our rights .

I trust the matter is now clear and definitely settled.

Immediately on receipt of your letter I gave orders to the
forwarding office to send you our organ ( Sotsial-Demokrat—non-periodical; Nos. 33–51 were issued since
the be ginning of the war). Are you receiving it?

I take this opportunity to discuss important questions relating to our
collaboration.

(1) Our theses (on the right to self-determination) [1] were sent to you by Radek (please forward them on to Gorter too; I am
writing to him about this in detail in connection with his pamphlet). I
consider the Dutch-Polish standpoint to be altogether erroneous
theoretically and a result of the policy of the small states
practically. Cannot our joint struggle against old and new
annexations (what are annexations?) draw us somewhat closer
together? The German, English and Russian standpoint is after all more
important (and objectively more correct ) than the Dutch and
Polish! Gorter demands “national independence” for the Dutch East
Indies. Very good! But this is precisely the right to self-determination!! If Kautsky and the Russian Kautskyites (including
Trotsky) present the question wrongly, this is only another argument
against the Kautskyites! (If you are interested in this question, ask
Gorter to send you my letter. I shall be very pleased to discuss this
question more fully with the Dutch Marxists.)

(2) The German group Die Internationale . Have you read their
theses in No. 3 of Grimm’s
Bulletin ? [4]

In my opinion this is a decisive step to the right after the
first issue of the journal Die Internationale . Not a word against
the Kautskian Centre—and that is the main thing for the German party. Not
a word about the split (Otto Rühle is quite right—and they keep silent
about this after his article !!). Not a word about obvious
methods of struggle—about the illegal organisation, etc.

And the phrase: “in the era of imperialism there can no longer be
national wars”! This is theoretically false. Colonial wars are
national wars. (India against Britain, etc.) This—practically—is
chauvinism: we representatives of the Great Powers forbid
the oppressed peoples to wage national wars!!

My conclusion is this: Die Internationale wishes to come to an agreement with the Kautskyites. These theses cannot be
interpreted in any other way. On top of it all, Ströbel in Neue Zeit lauds
Bernstein! [5] Zetkin in Gleichheit is against the Zimmerwald Left: diplomatic phrase against
“Bolshevik sectarianism” (!!). A phrase worded so diplomatically that no
one can understand where our “sectarianism” comes in!! Zetkin
stands for “aurea mediocritas” between Ledebour and the Zimmerwald
Left. But how this is to be achieved—of this not a word. What is
our mistake?—so far, not a word about it, not a single line in Switzer
land, where there is no censorship.

How else can you account for it, other than as a desire to come to an
agreement with Kautsky & Co.?

(3) The “draft” ( Bulletin No. 3) drawn up by you and the
S.D.P. strikes me as being a very bad one. [6] Not even Radek could defend this draft. Why this curtailment of
the Party’s Programme? The programme of socialist revolution? Today there
is no need for it—and such a programme lacks a point dealing with the
conquest of political power. In such a programme § 6 (A) and § 5
(B) are very odd; § 6 (B), too, sounds queer: it is precisely in the
event of a socialist revolution that we shall have need of a militia to
defend the new order. We are not pacifists, are we? We cannot
count on a victory simultaneously all over the world (without civil wars?
without wars?)! The colonial programme is absent altogether.

Only in the event of our being quite sure that we are right on
the threshold of such a revolution shall we need such a
programme—but even then it would have to be formulated quite differently.

Today, however, we need something quite different: the labour movement
needs clear views on the necessity of breaking with the social-chauvinists
and Kautskyites, on the illegal organisation, on the means and methods of
mass struggle, etc.

(4) We shall soon send you our theses to points 5–8 of the agenda of
the second conference. [2]

It would be a very good thing if we could come to an agreement—on some of
the points, if not on all of them.

(5) What are our differences with Trotsky? This must probably interest you. In brief—he is a Kautskyite, that is, he stands
for unity with the Kautskyites in the Inter national and with Chkheidze’s
parliamentary group in Russia. We are absolutely against such
unity. Chkheidze with his phrases (that he is for Zimmerwald: see his
recent speech, Vorwärts 5/III) cloaks the fact that he shares the views of the Organising Committee and of the people
taking part in the war committees . [3]

Trotsky at present is against the Organising Committee (Axelrod and Martov)
but for unity with the Chkheidze Duma group!!

We are decidedly against.

With best regards to you, Comrade Pannekoek and the other Dutch
comrades!

Yours,
N. Lenin

My address is: Wl. Ulianow

Spiegelgasse. 12.

(Schuhladen Kammerer)

Zurich . I.

P.S. Is there any truth in the newspaper reports about the connections
between the New Review (New York) and Vorbote (see
Internationale Korrespondenz [7] No. 69)?

Don’t you think it would be essential to put out No. 2 of
Vorbote in March?

---
Notes:
[1]
See V. I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to
Self-Determination” (present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 143–56).— Ed .

[2]
See “Proposals Submitted by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. to
the Second Socialist Conference” (present edition, Vol. 22,
pp. 169–79).— Ed .

[3]
Meaning the war industries committees.— Ed .

[4]
The theses of the Internationale group were published in No. 3
of the I.S.C. Bulletin for February 29, 1916, under the heading
“Em Vorschlag deutscher Genossen” (A Proposal of the German Comrades).

[5]
Ströbel’s article “Die Ursachen der sozialistischen Krise” (Causes
of the Socialist Crisis) was published in Neue Zeit No. 12,
December 17, 1915.

[6]
This refers to the joint draft programme of the Revolutionary Socialist
League and the Social-Democratic Party of Holland published in No. 3 of the
I.S.C. Bulletin .

[7]
Internationale Korrespondenz —a weekly journal of the German
social-chauvinists appeared from late September 1914 to October 1, 1918, in
Berlin.