# Notes and Proposals on the Draft Resolution of the Executive Committee of the Commintern in Connection With the Conclusion of the Conference of the Three Internationals
Date: 1922
Source: ru:PSS/v45

NOTES AND PROPOSALS ON THE DRAFT RESOLUTION OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE COMMINTERN IN CONNECTION WITH THE CONCLUSION OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
LETTERS TO G. E. ZINOVIEV
With regard to paragraph 1, I propose the following addition: We should expound, in particular detail, 1) the actual collusion between our Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries and the broad front of landowners and the bourgeoisie opposing Soviet power, paying special attention to Savinkov’s pamphlet “The Struggle Against the Bolsheviks” (Warsaw, 1920), as well as to S. Ivanovich’s “Twilight of Russian Social Democracy,” for these works lay bare—more vividly than many other documents ever could—the fact that, while the right wing of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries formally cloak themselves in the banner of a unified party, in practice they operate entirely on their own; 2) we should devote particular attention to elucidating the identity of our Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries with the leaders of the Second and Second-and-a-Half Internationals, and to exposing the profound harm inherent in Otto Bauer’s latest pamphlet, which in effect advocates and preaches a panicked retreat before capitalism. We cannot treat such a doctrine any differently from the way we treated the doctrine of panicked flight on the battlefield during wartime.
I accept paragraph 2.
With regard to paragraph 3:
On this point, I have my doubts, for I believe that a resolution requiring unanimous agreement ought, one would think, to spare us from error—and yet general appeals on themes that clarify those points already endorsed by the Berlin Conference (the defense of Soviet Russia, and so forth)

will prove extraordinarily useful to us, since we will draw upon them repeatedly in the future, exposing how thoroughly muddled our adversaries have become.
With regard to paragraph 4: I wholeheartedly support it.
With regard to paragraph 5: I have no objection.
With regard to paragraph 6:
The meaning of this paragraph is unclear to me, for I hold that the Berlin Agreement should be ratified immediately upon receipt of the official text of the resolutions adopted—or perhaps even better, that it should be ratified without delay, with the proviso that only the text published in Pravda on April 9 is to be ratified.
I especially urge that the full text of the Berlin Conference protocol be dispatched as quickly as possible by special courier, and that it be verified whether this protocol has been signed by the official representatives of each of the three Internationals.
Lenin
Dictated over the telephone on April 11, 1922.
First published in 1959.

In Lenin Collection XXXVI

Printed from the secretary’s record (typewritten copy)

Comrade Zinoviev!
With regard to those paragraphs of the Executive Committee of the Comintern’s resolution on which we exchanged notes this morning, the following should be added:
The critique of the policies of the Second and Second-and-a-Half Internationals should now take on a somewhat different character—namely, it should be rendered more explanatory in tone (especially at meetings attended by workers who are supporters of the Second and Second-and-a-Half Internationals, and in special leaflets and articles addressed to them), delivered with particular patience and thoroughness, avoiding harsh language that might alienate these workers, and clearly outlining the irreconcilable contradictions between the slogans adopted by their representatives in Berlin—