Dear friend! Your last letters have been so full of sadness and such sad thoughts have aroused in me and so awakened frantic remorse of conscience that I cannot come to my senses. I would like to say something friendly and to ask you not to sit almost alone in a place where there is no social life, but to go somewhere where you can find new and old friends and shake yourself up.

Yesterday we had a meeting of left-wing Germans1. Most of them are workers, there are young people. Work has not yet settled down with us: my impression is ambivalent, uncertain. Nobs is good: a worker sent him a left-wing article about the heinous act of postponing the congress2. Nobs published an article signed by him and on the next day of a different direction, and the leftist article was defaced, cut up, which I accidentally discovered at the meeting, criticizing the article in those places which Nobs had mutilated!3

What a bunch of "leftists"!

By the way: at the meeting it turned out that there are connections with the leftists in Neuchâtel, who used to oppose the Opportunists even earlier. It would also be a good idea to go there with addresses (respective2*recommendatoryed letters, which I could get here) and educate them, read a report, contact them, etc.

Did I write to you that at the Parteivorstand meeting (7.1) Naine had the good faith to speak against Grimm, to reproach him precisely as "international" secretary!

Olga writes me today that Guilbeau read the report on the French congress, scolded the Longitudinists severely ("cleaner than yours", she writes), and stood for the split. This is good, but he, Guilbault, he is a man of mood, he has no basis, no theory. That's dangerous. He is waiting for his wife from Paris, who is agitating there. Gilbo and Brilliant agreed to accept the resolution of protest about the postponement of the congress. On 1/22 they have a delegate meeting to vote on this resolution.

We have here the day after tomorrow, Sunday, a meeting of the bureau of the Left (Grgory, Radek and I) on the question of the protest against Grimm4. We shall see!

I shake hands firmly, firmly, and once again ask you to go somewhere at least for a while, even with abstracts or otherwise, to shake yourself up and go into an occupation that is exciting and useful for new and fresh ideas. Hey, working among the French is archinusive and archipotent.

Merci received the book and catalogs.

Yours3*.

P.S. About Troyanovskogo. Entrenous4*: I wish that this stuffed-up fool would finally go into print or "in a written statement". I've had enough of this disgusting squabble for years!!!! I'd teach him a lesson and wean him off for a long time. To "trust" the scoundrel Markov-2 - think how stupid it is!!!5

Published (without the first paragraph and postscript) - Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 49, с. 362-363.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 4365 - autograph.

1* The letter has a note I.F.Armand: "January 12. 1917", on the basis of which the letter is dated

2* Or - (French).

3* Further Lenin's signature is a stroke

4* Between us

On December 129, 1916 (January 11, 1917) Lenin attended a meeting of left-wing Swiss Social Democrats in Zurich, which adopted a resolution of protest against the postponement of the congress of the Swiss Social Democratic Party.

2This refers to the decision of the board of the Swiss Social Democratic Party of December 25, 1916 (January 7, 1917), taken under pressure from R. Grimm, to postpone the congress of the party indefinitely. A statement to this effect was published on December 27, 1916 (January 9, 1917) in the newspaper Volksrecht No. 7.

For a description of this meeting of the Board, see Lenin's letter to V.A. Karpinsky of December 26, 1916 (January 8, 1917) - Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 49, с. 358-360.

3The articles were published in "Volksrecht" Nos. 7 and 8, January 9 and 10, 1917 (n. s.).

4The meeting of the Bureau of the Zimmerwald Left, January 1-2 (14-15), 1917, adopted a draft statement demanding the withdrawal of R. Grimm from the International Socialist Commission.

5This refers to A.A. Troyanovsky's disagreement with the conclusions of the commission of the Central Committee of the RSDLP on the case of R.V. Malinovsky. In December 1916, at a meeting of the State Duma, deputy N.E.Markov stated that Malinovsky had cooperated with the security organs. The editorial board of the newspaper "Social-Democrat" in No. 58, January 31, 1917, published a refutation of this statement by Markov.