# On Slanderers

In the issue of *Rech* from August 20, as well as in *Russkaya Volya*, a newspaper founded on knowingly shady money and recommending that voters, if they are "socialistically inclined," vote for "Unity"{59} and for the "Popular Socialists"{60}, slanderous statements concerning me have once again been published.

This information belongs, according to the report of both newspapers, to the "War Ministry," and *Rech* even asserts that it is established "by documentary data and numerous testimonies of individual persons."

The law on slander in the press has effectively been suspended in Russia. Messrs. slanderers, especially in the bourgeois press, have been granted complete freedom: appear in the press anonymously, lie and slander as much as you like, cover yourself with reports that are not signed by any official person but are supposedly official—everything will be gotten away with! The dirty slanderers, with Messrs. Milyukovs at their head, enjoy the privilege of inviolability.

The slanderers assert that I allegedly had certain relations with the "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine." Milyukov's newspaper writes: "The German government commissioned Lenin to propagandize for peace." "In Berlin, there were two meetings of socialists in which Lenin and Yoltukhovsky took part." And *Russkaya Volya* adds to this last phrase: "Lenin stayed at Yoltukhovsky's."

If Mr. Milyukov and other similar scoundrels, knights of vile slander, have been granted impunity, one thing remains for me: to repeat once again that this is slander, to counterpose once again to the knights of blackmail, who refer to the testimony of witnesses, a reference to a witness known to the masses.

One activist of the "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine," Basok, has been known to me since 1906, when he, being a Menshevik, participated together with me in the Stockholm Congress{61}. In the autumn of 1914 or at the beginning of 1915, when I was living in Bern, a well-known Caucasian Menshevik, Tria, who had arrived from Constantinople, came to my apartment. Tria told me about Basok's participation in the "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine" and about this Union's connection with the German government. Tria at the same time handed me a letter from Basok to me; in this letter, Basok expressed sympathy for me and hope for a rapprochement of our views. I was so indignant that I immediately, in Tria's presence, wrote a reply to Basok[5] and gave the letter to the same Tria for delivery, since Tria was planning to visit Constantinople once more.

In the letter to Basok, I declared that, since he was entering into relations with one of the imperialists, our paths unconditionally diverge and we have nothing in common.

This was the extent of any of my "relations" with the "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine."

*Rabochy* No. 8, September 12 (August 30), 1917. Signed: N. Lenin

Printed according to the text of the newspaper *Rabochy*

The first page of V. I. Lenin's letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP. – August 30 (September 12), 1917.