The article was intended for «Pravda». In content, it adjoins the note, possibly also written by Vladimir
Ilyich, «A New Dreyfus Affair» — printed in «Listok
Pravdy» of July 6 (49), 1917 and likely written on those same
days of July 5 (18) — 7.
V. I. Lenin.
12.
THE DREYFUSIAD.
July 1917.
The old combines with the newest — so it always was in the
methods of exploitation and repression used by Tsarism, so it
remains in republican Russia.
The counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie seasons the political persecution
of the Bolsheviks, as a party of the international revolutionary proletariat, with the vilest
slanders and a press «campaign» of a type entirely homogenous
with the campaign of the French clerical and monarchist newspapers
in the Dreyfus affair.
To accuse Dreyfus of espionage at all costs! — that was the password then.
To accuse someone from the Bolsheviks of espionage at all costs! — that is the password now.
The vilest slander, frame-ups, crude lies and refined work of confusing the reader — all these methods the yellow, and generally
bourgeois, press puts into play with extraordinary zeal.
In general, a rabidly wild roar results, in which sometimes
not only arguments, but even simply articulate sounds, cannot
be found.
Here are some of the methods of our newest republican
Dreyfusiad. First, they «pushed» three main «arguments»: Yermolenko,
20 million at Kozlovsky's, embroiling Parvus *).
The next day, the main pogrom newspaper «Zhivoye Slovo»
already prints two «corrections», acknowledging [the secondary character
of Yermolenko's testimony] — not the «leader» of the Bolsheviks as
bribed, but a fanatic, and replacing 20 million with 20 thousand.
And another newspaper already declared Yermolenko's testimony secondary.

LENINIST COLLECTION
In the «Listok Pravdy» of July 6, we already showed the complete
absurdity of Yermolenko's testimony.
Clearly, referring to them turned out to be inconvenient.
In the same «Listok» a letter from Kozlovsky was printed, refuting the
slander.
After the refutation, 20,000,000 are reduced to 20,000 — instead of an exact number, again «rounding»!
They embroil Parvus, trying with all their might to create
some kind of connection between him and the Bolsheviks.
But in fact, it was the
Bolsheviks, back in the Geneva «Social Democrat», who called Parvus
a renegade (the article about Parvus was titled «At the Final
Limit») 2), came out against him with merciless condemnation,
as against a German Plekhanov, eliminated once and for all any
possibility of any kind of rapprochement with such social-chauvinists.
It was the Bolsheviks in Stockholm, at a solemn meeting with the participation of Swedish left-wing socialists, who
categorically refused not only to talk to Parvus, but even to allow him in any capacity, even as a guest.
Ganetsky conducted commercial affairs as an employee of a firm in which
Parvus participated. Commercial and monetary correspondence, of course,
went through censorship and is fully accessible to control in its entirety.
They are trying to confuse these commercial affairs with politics, although they prove
nothing of the sort at all!!
They go so far as to make the ridiculous claim that «Pravda» is reproached
for the fact that its telegrams to socialist newspapers in Sweden
and all other countries (which went, of course, also through censorship
and were fully known to the censorship) were reprinted by German newspapers,
sometimes with distortions! As if reprinting or malicious
distortions can be imputed as blame!
A real Dreyfusiad, a campaign of lies and slander on the basis
of rabid political hatred...
But how dirty must be the sources that substitute the struggle of ideas for the dissemination of slander!

*) Regarding the circumstances accompanying the slanderous campaign
of the bourgeoisie against the Bolsheviks in the July Days, see Collected Works, Vol. XIV,
part 2, articles: «Where is the Power and Where is the Counter-Revolution», «Vile Slanders
of the Black Hundred Newspapers and Alexinsky», «Response».
2) «Sotsial-Demokrat» No. 48 of November 20, 1915 (Collected Works, Vol. XIII.)