FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE WAR ERA
L E T T E R S OF V. I. LENIN
TO A. G. SHLYAPNIKOV AND A. M. KOLLONTAI
BERN - ZURICH
Prepared for publication and commented on by
St. KRIVTSOV and K. I. SHUTKO
Foreword by L. KAMENEV

FOREWORD.
The letters of Vladimir Ilyich to comrades A. G. Shlyapnikov and A. M. Kollontai cover the period from the first days of the war in 1914 to the first days of the revolution in 1917. Taken together, they provide an irreplaceable, vivid, and passionately sketched chronicle of events characterizing the development of our party and the beginnings of the III International during the war period, in a manner inherent to Vladimir Ilyich. Vladimir Ilyich spent this entire period in Switzerland, in Zurich and Bern; Comrade Kollontai lived in Sweden, Norway, and America; Comrade Shlyapnikov traveled to Russia during this time, returned to Scandinavia, and then went back to Russia. This explains the intensity of the correspondence, with the help of which Vladimir Ilyich tried to keep both comrades abreast of the affairs of international socialism, through whom he maintained contact from Switzerland with the left-wing groups in Sweden, Norway, America, and Russia.
It is necessary to recall the terrible isolation and detachment that came for Vladimir Ilyich with the beginning of the war. Vladimir Ilyich's closest associates, members of the Central Committee of the party, members of the editorial board, members of the Bolshevik faction of the Duma (G. I. Petrovsky, A. E. Badayev, M. K. Muranov, F. I. Samoilov, N. R. Shagov, I. V. Stalin, Ya. M. Sverdlov, M. P. Tomsky, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Timofey Spandaryan, L. B. Kamenev, etc., etc.) were all either in penal servitude or in remote corners of Siberia. Under these conditions, it was natural that Vladimir Ilyich had to value and intensely "develop" any "connection" that gave at least a faint hope of transmitting his thoughts and directives to Russia or to foreign groups of the "left." Comrade Shlyapnikov, who left Petrograd at the very beginning of the war, and A. M. Kollontai, who had an excellent command of foreign languages, could serve as these necessary relay points for Vladimir Ilyich, and therefore Vladimir Ilyich systematically took care of informing them.

LENINSKIY SBORNIK.
These letters, therefore, represent a most essential commentary on Vladimir Ilyich's articles, now collected in Vol. XIII of the Collected Works. But, in addition, these letters also express such aspects of Vladimir Ilyich's activity that, for various reasons, were not reflected in his public speeches. More than any other materials available to us so far, the letters to A. G. Shlyapnikov and A. M. Kollontai allow us to trace the breadth of Vladimir Ilyich's international interests, his participation in the formation of "left" groups in various countries, his connection with these groups, and the ways he influenced the processes of developing communist ideology in Europe and America. Finally, these letters give us an accurate picture of the external conditions of Vladimir Ilyich's literary and political work in 1914-1917 and slightly lift the veil over the difficult conditions of his material situation (see the meager, but shocking in the mouth of Vladimir Ilyich, words at the end of letter No. 40).
Separately from the entire series of letters from the pre-revolutionary era stand the last two letters (Nos. 43 and 44)—the first responses of Vladimir Ilyich to the first revolution of 1917, written on March 16 and 17, new style (March 3 and 4, old style). In them, the thoughts and the will that predetermined October are already thrown on the scales of history.
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Vladimir Ilyich's letters to Comrades A. G. Shlyapnikov and A. M. Kollontai were provided to the Institute by the named comrades. All of them were written in Vladimir Ilyich's own hand. Some of them have notes by Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. To these letters, we have added two fragments of drafts of his letters to the League of Socialist Propaganda in America and to Comrade G. Roland-Holst that have survived in Vladimir Ilyich's papers. These fragments will help to understand the corresponding passages of the letters to Shlyapnikov and Kollontai.
A group of letters (7 in total) among those transmitted to the Institute by Comrades Shlyapnikov and Kollontai is entirely devoted to the conflict related to the publication of the journal "Kommunist." So far, this conflict has not yet been reflected in the literature. The editors of the "Sbornik" are aware that a number of materials relating to this conflict are in the hands of some comrades, primarily Comrade Zinoviev. We have therefore decided to single out this group of letters from Vladimir Ilyich in order to give the reader a comprehensive picture of this significant episode of intra-party relations in one of the following "Sborniks," supplementing these letters with other materials.

L. B. KAMENEV.

PREFACE TO THE LETTERS.
All the printed letters have been prepared for publication and provided with notes by Comrade K. I. Shutko under the guidance of Comrade S. S. Krivtsov. The reply letters of Comrade Shlyapnikov to Vladimir Ilyich, as well as his book "On the Eve of the Seventeenth Year" (two parts) and A. M. Kollontai's book "From My Life," Odessa, 1921, have been used for the commentaries.
L. Kamenev.

1.
Dear friend!
I came home yesterday evening from a lecture tour and found your letter. A very big hello to you, and through you to all Russian friends! I gave the answer to Vandervelde 1) to translation yesterday and I have not yet seen the text. I will write about it as soon as I see it.
In my opinion, the most important thing now is a consistent and organized struggle against the chauvinism that has gripped the entire bourgeoisie and the majority of opportunistic (and those who reconcile themselves to opportunism—*tel* 2) Mr. Kautsky!) socialists. And to fulfill the tasks of this struggle, it is first of all necessary to fight against the chauvinism of one's own country—specifically, in our case, against Messrs. *à la* 3) Maslov 4) and Smirnov 5) (see "Russkiye Vedomosti" and "Russkoye Slovo"), whose "works" I have read, or Messrs. Sokolov 6), Meshkovsky 7), Nikitin 8), and others whom you have seen or heard. Plekhanov, as you have probably already been written, has become a chauvinist-Frenchman. Among the liquidators, apparently, discord *). Aleksinsky, they say, is a Francophile. Kossovsky (Bundist, right-wing, I heard his lecture) is a Germanophile **). It looks like the middle line of the entire "Brussels bloc" of Messrs. liquidators with Aleksinsky and Plekhanov will be adaptation to Kautsky, who is now more harmful than all others 9). His sophistry is so dangerous and vile— *) Our Parisian intellectuals (majoritized in the section by workers) went as volunteers (Nikolay Vasilievich], Antonov, etc.) 10) and issued a stupid non-party appeal together with the socialist-revolutionaries. It was sent to you.
**) Martov is the most decent of all in "Golos" 11). But will Martov hold out? I do not believe it.

To A. Shlyapnikov.
17/X - 1914.