Date: 1908
Source: ru:PSS/v48

Source: PSS, Volume 48

…** How foolish—and downright idiotic—those people are who have “been frightened” by the so‑called “trusted representatives” of the 273, treating them as if they were some kind of “offensive” entity for the cells. According to this logic, it follows that there can be no cells at all—as long as people insist on having “trusted representatives”!

What jesters! They chase after words without pausing to reflect on just how devilishly complex and intricate life truly is, a life that continually gives rise to entirely new forms, only some of which we have managed to grasp.

For the most part (99% of the bourgeoisie, 98% of the liquidators, roughly 60–70% of the Bolsheviks), people do not know how to think; they merely memorize phrases. They’ve committed the word “underground” to memory—firmly, repeatedly, even reciting it from start to finish, knowing it by heart.

* The manuscript ends abruptly here. Ed.

** The beginning of the letter has not been recovered. Ed.

But when it comes to transforming its forms in a new context—when we must relearn and rethink how best to proceed—we simply do not yet understand.

The Summer Conference of 1913, held abroad, resolved to defeat the “seven-man clique.” In the autumn of 1913, the campaign among the working masses in Russia was overwhelmingly in our favor!! The “Circle of Trusted Representatives” (without any election by the cells—“Guard!” cry Antonov, Isaac & Co.) had decreed one thing—and the masses delivered.

How, then, are we to accomplish this? To begin with, we must learn to comprehend this “cunning” machinery. None of this would have been possible without the underground and the cells. Nor could it have been achieved—if not for the emergence of new, highly sophisticated forms of both the underground and the cells.

I am deeply interested in whether you will succeed in explaining this to the public. Please write in greater detail.

We have received one copy of “The Worker’s Companion” 274. Already, 5,000 copies have been distributed!! Hooray!! Now, tackle the women’s magazine with utmost energy! 275

---

Written in late December 1913.

Sent from Kraków to Paris.

First published in 1950,

in the fourth edition of the Collected Works

of V. I. Lenin, Volume 35.

Printed from the manuscript.