V. I.

Lenin

121

To:   INESSA ARMAND

Dear Friend, I have received the cuttings. Merci !

We were recently visited by two escaped prisoners of war. It was
interesting to see “live” people, not corroded by emigrant life. As
types: one is a Jew from Bessarabia, who has seen life, a Social-Democrat
or nearly a Social- Democrat, has a brother who is a Bundist, etc. He has
knocked about, but is uninteresting as an individual because
commonplace. The second is a Voronezh peasant, a man of the soil, from an
Old Believers’ family. A breath from the Black Earth. It was extremely
interesting to watch him and listen. He spent a year in a German prison
camp (a mass of horrors) with 27,000 Ukrainians . The Germans build
up camps according to nations, and do their utmost to break them away from
Russia; for the Ukrainians they sent in skilful lecturers from Galicia. The
results? Only 2,000, according to him, were for “self-rule” (independence
in the sense more of autonomy than of separation) after months of effort by
the agitators!! The remainder, he says, were furious at the thought of
separation from Russia and going over to the Germans or Austrians.

A notable fact! One cannot but believe him. 27,000 is a big number. A
year is ample time. The conditions for the Galician propaganda were
exceptionally favourable. And yet closeness to the Great Russians got the
upper hand! This does not imply, of course, that “freedom of
separation” is in any way wrong. On the contrary. But it follows from this that, maybe, fate will free Russia from the “Austrian type” of
development.

As regards defence of the fatherland our Voronezh man is like
Troyanovsky and Plekhanov. He sympathises with socialism, but “if the
Germans are pushing on, why shouldn’t we defend ourselves?” He doesn’t
understand. He is deeply hurt (both he and the Jew !!) that the
Germans are so mercilessly beating “our people”. As regards the tsar and
God, all the 27,000, he says, have finished with them completely, as
regards the big landowners too. They will return to Russia embittered and
enlightened.

All the yearning of the Voronezh man is to get back home, to the land,
to his farm. He traipsed around the German villages working, kept his eyes
open and learned a lot.

They praise the French (in the prison camps) as good comrades. “The
Germans also curse their Kaiser.” They hate the English: “Swelled heads;
won’t give you a piece of bread if you won’t wash the floor for them”
(that’s the kind of swine you get, perverted by imperialism!).

To change the subject, what a splendid row has arisen over the
referendum, especially its preamble! Delightful! You should have seen the
articles by Grimm and Co. in Berner Tagwacht and the “provincial” Social-Democratic press! One continuous howl and groan!
We’ve hit the scoundrels just where it hurt. I did my utmost to incite
Radek (he is still here, and we are maintaining—you didn’t expect
it?—the utmost friendship, as always against the “Centre”,
when there is no ground for Radekite twisting, diplomacy about
“rights”, etc.) to write a little pamphlet: we walked about Zurich for
hours with me “nagging” him. He sat down and wrote it. Our “Lefts”,
frightened by Nobs and Platten (those heroes were frightened by
Grimm, who him self was frightened by Greulich and Co.!!), heard it read
and turned it down (!!): it must not be printed, or they
would be expelled from the Party (!!). We shall print it separately.

The situation is such that interest has been heightened, and that all
who are internationalists not merely in words must help the Swiss
workers and the Left. And we shall help them!

And yet another subject. I have been rereading Engels’s Zur Wohnungsfrage [2] with his preface of 1887. Do you know it?
Wonderful! I am still “in love” with Marx and Engels, and cannot calmly
stand any abuse of them. No, these were real people! We must learn from
them. We must not leave that basis. It was from that basis that
both the social-chauvinists and the Kautskians departed. (By the way, have
you seen the Loriot-Rappoport, Saumoneau resolution? [3] Also 3/4 Kautskian. I want to write something for the
French, to demolish it and pacifism as a whole. I will ask Grisha whether
he will publish it. He did not reply about my answer to
Souvarine! [1]

).

Well, each and every good wish, I’ve chattered three bags full.

All the best.

Yours, Lenin

P.S. I hope that the referendum will bring much benefit in French
Switzerland as well. I await news from Abramovich, Olga, etc.

---
Notes:
[1]
See “An Open Letter to Boris Souvarine” (present edition, Vol. 23,
pp. 195–204).— Ed .

[2]
See F. Engels, “The Housing Question” (Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. I, Moscow, 1962, pp. 546–635).

[3]
This refers to the resolution on peace proposed on behalf of
Loriot-Rappoport and Saumoneau in December 1916, at the congress of the
Seine Federation of the French Socialist Party. The resolution was voted
down.