Date: 1911
Source: ru:PSS/v49
Source: CW vol 49

11/II.

Dear friend! I have received two of your letters, dated the 4th and 5th of February. Many thanks. Regarding the dispatch of "Sotsial-Demokrat," we gave your letter to the secretary of the expedition commission to read. Tomorrow I will personally remind him, and I hope that everything will be done.

The Parisians promised to send you Plekhanov's pamphlet, and we are very surprised that you have not received it. We will order it again and get a copy for ourselves so that we can send it to you.

Two of Plekhanov's people, about whom you wrote, were here. We chatted with them. Pay attention to the fair one (they are returning by the same route) - he seems to have been pushed away even more by Plekhanov than the dark one. The latter appears to be an incurable talker. The first one keeps silent, and you cannot tell what is on his mind.

We received a letter today from "Nashe Slovo" (published in Paris instead of "Golos") with a plan for a general protest against "official social-patriotism" (in connection with the draft of the London Conference of socialists of the Triple Entente**). Whether this conference will take place, we do not know; recently we received a letter from Litvinov, forwarded by him, from Huysmans, who is planning something strange, calling for an Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau in The Hague on the 20th of February, and from the 20th to the 25th of February organizing personal negotiations (!!) there with delegates from England, France, and Russia!!

Strange!! It looks like some kind of preparation for something Franco-friendly and patriotic (incidentally, you are quite right that now there are many "philes," but few socialists. For us, both Francophiles and Germanophiles are equally = patriots, bourgeois or their lackeys, not socialists. Most of the Bundists, for example, are Germanophiles and are glad about Russia's defeat.

But how are they better than Plekhanov? Both are opportunists, social-chauvinists, just of different colors. And Axelrod too).

We replied to "Nashe Slovo" that we are pleased with its proposal and sent our draft declaration*. There is little hope for agreement with them, as it is said that Axelrod is in Paris, and Axelrod (see Nos. 86 and 87 of "Golos" and No. 37 of "Sotsial-Demokrat"**) is a social-chauvinist, wishing to reconcile Francophiles and Germanophiles on the basis of social-chauvinism. We will see what is more important for "Nashe Slovo" - anti-chauvinism or Axelrod's favor.

I think that in Russia and in the whole world, a new basic grouping is emerging within the S.-D.: chauvinists ("social-patriots") and their friends, their defenders, - and anti-chauvinists. In essence, this division corresponds to the division between opportunists and revolutionary S.-D., but it is plus precis*** and represents, so to speak, a higher, closer to the socialist revolution, stage of development. Incidentally, the old grouping (liquidators and Pravdists) is becoming obsolete, being replaced by a new, more rational one: social-patriots and anti-patriots. By the way, it is said that Dan = a German "social-patriot," i.e., a Germanophile, i.e., for Kautsky. Is this true? It looks very much like the truth. It is a curiosity that in the OC, the split is along the bourgeois line: Francophiles (Plekhanov + Alexinsky + Maslov + "Nasha Zarya"), and Germanophiles (Bund + Axelrod + Dan?? etc.).

If you cannot get money from the Swedes, write to us: we will send 100 frs****. Think carefully about where it would be better

* See this volume, pp. 60-63. Ed.

** Refers to the article by V. I. Lenin, "Russian Südekums" (see Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 26, pp. 119-125). Ed.

*** - more precise. Ed.

**** - francs. Ed.