Dear friend! We recently received a gratifying letter from Moscow (we will send you a copy soon, although the text is not interesting). They write that the mood of the masses is good, that chauvinism is clearly on the wane, and that there will surely be a celebration on our street. The organization, they say, suffers from the fact that the adults are at the front, and in the factories there are young people and women.

But, they say, this does not lower the fighting spirit. They send a copy of a leaflet (a good one) issued by the Moscow Bureau of the Central Committee 453. We will print it in the next issue of the Central Organ.

The chicken is still alive! It is hard for people and our party to live, but they still do.

Another letter from Kollontai, who (this is entre nous* for now) has returned from America to Norway. N. Iv. and Pavlov (the Latvian who was in Brussels: Pavel Vasilyevich) have, they say, "conquered" the "New World" (I receive this newspaper very poorly), but... Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel immediately conspired with the right wing of the "New World" against the left Zimmerwaldists!! So there!! That's how Trotsky is!! Always true to himself = wavers, cheats, poses as a leftist, helps the rightists, as long as he can...

Among the left in America, work, they say, is going well, although Kollontai fears anarcho-syndicalist currents in the S. L. P. (N. Iv., they say, is not afraid of this). I read in the organ of the S. L. P. ("Weekly People") 454 that they are putting forward a minimum program... N. Iv. has been stumbling over this very point since 1915. I am worried about him! And the mail to America is not working.

Lately, I have been intensively studying the question of the relationship of Marxism to the state, collected a lot of material, and, it seems to me, came to very interesting and important conclusions, much more against Kautsky than against N. Iv. Bukharin (who, however, is still wrong, although closer to the truth than Kautsky). I would terribly like to write about this: to release issue No. 4

* - between us. Ed.

of the "Social-Democrat Collection" with an article by Bukharin and my critique of his small errors and the great lies and vulgarization of Marxism by Kautsky.

Nadya is ill: she caught bronchitis and is lying in a fever. It seems she will have to stay in bed. Today I called the doctor.

Well, what about your trip to La Chaux-de-Fonds? Have you completely abandoned this idea and all plans regarding Romandy-Swiss work? You should not abandon them.

Here, as I wrote, things are not good, but today we finished leaflet No. 1 (the "Swiss group of Zimmerwald lefts"). Let's see what comes out!

If not now, then generally (i.e., a little later) it will succeed (I am sure) - if not for us, then for our successors - to create a left-wing direction in Switzerland. There is ground for this!

Have you read the proposals of the left at the congress of the Zurich cantonal party in Toss on February 11, 1917, in "Volksrecht"? Not bad at all, eh?

All the best and a firm handshake. Excuse the scribble on the last page: I am being rushed.

Yours, Lenin