October 14th.

Dear, beloved friends! We sent you a letter about three weeks ago through Irina**.

With all our hearts we join in your plan. Write if there is any possibility at all. Bonch and Lenin have taken the publishing house upon themselves. Already published: "Down with Bonapartism," "Our Misunderstandings," "To the Party." Coming out soon: "Onto a New Path," "The Struggle for a Congress," "On Socialism." For the Congress, by our count, 14 committees have already spoken out in favor, of which 11 are full-fledged. All attempts by the Central Organ, the Central Committee, and the Soviet to obstruct agitation for the Congress have proved fruitless. The Central Committee saw that it must also reckon with the majority, and is apparently ready to "back down." With the minority, however, they do not achieve complete unity either. In a word, they have gotten themselves into a mess.

Previously the Central Organ set committees against the Central Committee and persecuted the Central Committee; now it sets the periphery against the committees and tries to prove that the opinion of the committees is not the opinion of the Party—indeed, properly speaking, there is no Party at all. They did everything to tear the Party apart, and now they cry that there is no Party.

The position of the Central Committee has freed our hands, and now it is much easier to live than before. Of course, there is much that is unpleasant—for example, Brodyaga has become a minority, Samsonov too—but one cannot avoid this. We will work, defend our point of view, and then we shall see.

* The letter was written by N. K. Krupskaya on the instructions of V. I. Lenin. —Ed.

** See the present volume, pp. 384-385. —Ed.