It is difficult to establish the facts whether the Czech Communists did right or wrong in not publishing the resolutions of the II World Congress2. I stand on the side of the right-wing of the congress, as there is also a left-wing which does not pursue the right tactics. That the Hungarian friends in Europe harmed and bad tactics were followed, I am convinced of this. That t. Schmeral should take three steps to the left and t. Kreibich should take one step to the right, I have said already these days. Today I would say that Mr. Schmeral is not a full three steps to the left and Mr. Kreibich one step to the right. Schmeral not a full three steps (Radek's exclamation: two and a half! Clarity!) to the left and t. Kreibich not less than one step to the right. Kreibich no less than one step to the right. I believe there are a few more (cum grani salis)1* irregularities. We had it easier in Russia in 1917 than today in Europe and also in Czechoslovakia. And that our first word was when we returned: caution and patience. A single word can show the wrongness of a method. As for the speech of Mr. Schmeral, I read his report only in the Reichenberg Forverts.3 The Reichenbergers had to prepare the material. Every report has to be a little party. There is a lot wrong in what is said by t. Schmeral - there is a lot wrong. If the agricultural workers are the most revolutionary, this is not in order, for the most revolutionary should be the industrial workers. It is bad when the agricultural workers go before them. It is also wrong to say t. Schmeral that because he is in opposition he should not oppose the oppositionists; that is precisely why he should oppose them and oppose them. After I read his speech, I said to myself: it is more reformist or half-reformist, but not quite communist. What was printed about it in the "Forverts" shows how t. Schmeral was wrong in his political arguments. The bad thing is that he does not (try to) want to be careful, especially when "leftist" Viennese and other friends are working in Czechoslovakia. I stand in favor of the proposal of t. Zinoviev, whose theses contain an opinion about t. Šmeral personally and the opposite position of Muna, which should also be emphasized. T. Šmeral and the Party should realize from a thorough letter that the whole agitation and the Party were not quite communist4. The opinion of T. Schmeral stands in contradiction to Kreibich's report that the direction of the speech against him in Gula's letter, too, was announced at the Reichenberg party day.

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 19627, l. 3 - translation from German of K. Kreibich's record.

1* With some irony (Latin).

1The meeting of the commission on tactics, created at the III Congress of the Communist International, devoted to the discussion of the Czechoslovak question, took place on July 6, 1921. The report was made by B. Shmeral, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. V.I.Lenin was present at the meeting of the committee and during Schmeral's speech he kept notes (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 44, pp. 436-437), which he used in his speech.

The content of Lenin's speech to the Tactics Commission is known only from the stenographic record of the representative of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, K. Kreibich. Several phrases from Lenin's speech are quoted in the book: The Third Congress of the Comintern. Moscow, 1975, pp. 385-386.

2It seems that during the work of the Third Congress of the Comintern, Lenin exchanged notes with B. Schmeral, in which it was a question of publishing the resolutions of the Second Congress of the Comintern in Czechoslovakia. Schmeral replied that in the early fall of 1920 the "Conditions of Admission to the Communist International" were published, the whole resolutions were published in January 1921 (see: Lenin V.I., Vol. 53, p. 11).

3V.I. Lenin is talking about B. Šmeral's report to the founding congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with which he became acquainted through its publication in the newspaper Vorwarts, No. 114, May 17, 1921.

When asked by Lenin whether the report was published in full in the newspaper, Šmeral replied, "Only a summary. The original is almost six times as large" (Lenin V.I. Poln. sobr. op. cit., vol. 53, p. 11).

"Vorwarts" ("Forward") - the organ of the left Austrian Social Democrats, published in Reichenberg from 1911 to 1934. Since 1921 the newspaper became the organ of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (in German).

4 V.I.Lenin made his proposals for changes in the draft "Theses on the Question of Tactics" (the section relating to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Works, vol. 44, p. 55) to the Commission on Tactics, which accepted them, changing the wording of part of the theses (cf.: Communist International in Documents. 1919-1932. Decisions, Theses and Proclamations of the Congresses of the Comintern and Plenums of the ICCI. Moscow, 1933, pp. 187-188).