V. I. Lenin

Source: en:CW/CW36; ru:PSS/v49;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

March 19, 1916.

Dear A. M., We have received your letter and again congratulate you on your success.

I was devilishly angry that “noble” France confiscated (a fact!) a number of my registered letters to you

* This refers to the “Proposal of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. to the Second Socialist Conference” (see Vol. 27, pp. 282-93 of the Fifth Russian Edition).—Ed.

in America. There is nothing to be done about it. Now you must make every effort to establish communications with America.

You wrote to me that you had received “Internationale Flugblatter” No. 1 in German in America and that you would try to publish them in English! And now not a word about them??

What does this mean?!

Is it possible that there were no sympathisers in America and that it was impossible to publish “Internationale Flugblatter” in English????

Incredible!

But if this is nevertheless the case, they must be published in Norway (in English). Will you undertake the translation and how much will it cost to publish?

Further, I wrote to you in America* that I had received from Boston, Mass., a leaflet of the “Socialist Propaganda League” 255 (signed by 20 socialists with addresses, mostly in Massachusetts).

This League is an internationalist one, with a programme that is clearly veering to the Left.

I sent them a long letter in English** (and “Internationale Flugblatter” in German). There is no reply. Did “noble” France confiscate it?

If you have not received it and know nothing about them, I will send you their address and a copy of my letter. Will you undertake to forward it to America?

And what about the Socialist Labour Party***? They are internationalists (although with a narrow, sectarian taint). Have they been supplied with “Internationale Flugblatter”? Have you any connections with them??

Further. You wrote that you had started negotiations with Charles Kerr. What was the result? He promised, you said, to print part of our pamphlet (by Lenin and Zinoviev).

And now you are silent about it... How is this to be understood?
“Internationale Korrespondenz” printed that the “New Review” in America had undertaken to print articles by the Zimmerwald Left. Is that true? Do you know the “New Review”?

* See this volume, p. 167.—Ed.

** See Vol. 27, pp. 71-75 of the Fifth Russian Edition.—Ed.

***—Socialist Labour Party.—Ed.

Answer more quickly and in greater detail. You will, of course, find out all about direct mail steamers from Norway to America in the fullest detail.

As regards Höglund and the Norwegians, I have so far been unable to find out whether they have received “Internationale Flugblatter”, whether they have published them in Swedish and Norwegian, whether they have officially joined the Zimmerwald Left (as Roland-Holst’s “Rev. Soc. Verband”* did). Please, bestir yourself, find out, get things done, scold, compel, supervise! Let Bukharin inform you of what we wrote to him in a special letter about the Zimmerwaldists, and you see that it is carried out.

Greetings! Yours, Lenin

Address: Herrn Uljanow (Schuhladen Kammerer). Spiegelgasse. 12. Zurich. I.

P.S. What interesting books and pamphlets have you brought? Schlüter’s history of Chartism? Anything else?

P.S. I am sending our “theses” (from “Vorbote” No. 2).

Drive this home to the Scandinavians.