TELEGRAM TO THE REVOLUTIONARY MILITARY COUNCIL OF THE REPUBLIC

27. XII. 1918

Serpukhov
Revolutionary Military Council

I fully agree with Trotsky's telegram concerning fraternization244. I request that instructions on fraternization be worked out urgently and that it be especially encouraged on the Northern Front.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin

Published for the first time from the manuscript

404

TO G. V. CHICHERIN245

Comrade Chicherin! We must urgently (before the "Spartacist's"246 departure and with approval of the Central Committee) prepare an international socialist conference for the founding of the Third International.
(in Berlin (openly) or in Holland (secretly), say, for 1.II.1919)
in general very soon


For this we need (a) to formulate the foundations of the platform (in my opinion, one can
(.) take the theory and practice of Bolshevism - entrust Bukharin to set it forth in theses briefly, to the extent possible. Speak with Bukharin - perhaps take part from my draft program*
(.) then take "What does the Spartacus League want?"
+ . gives the foundations of the platform sufficiently clearly;
(b) determination of the base (organizational) of the Third International (nothing in common with social-patriots);
(c) provide a list of parties in roughly three categories
..) parties and groups which we have full grounds to consider as already standing on the basis of the Third International and sufficiently solidary for the formal founding of the Third International;
..) parties close to this, from which we expect rapprochement and merger;
..) groups and currents within social-patriotic parties, more or less close to Bolshevism.

I propose an approximate list (p. 4)**, which must be carefully supplemented.

Whom do we invite to our conference? Only .. + .. + .. and only those who (1) decisively stand for a split with the social-patriots (that is, those who supported, directly or indirectly, the bourgeois governments during the imperialist war of 1914-1918; (2) for socialist revolution now and for the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) in principle for "soviet power" and against limiting our work to bourgeois parliamentarism, against submission to it, for the reason that the type of soviet power is higher and closer to socialism.

Perhaps add: we do not propose that everyone be immediately named the Third International "communistic—