## DRAFT LETTER OF THE BOLSHEVIK CENTER TO THE COUNCIL OF THE SCHOOL ON CAPRI

Source: PSS vol. 47

The Executive Commission of the Bolshevik Center is extremely gratified by the communication from the "Council of the Party School on Capri" of 16. VIII. 09, stating that it has no objection to "ideological control" on the part of the BC.

But in order to decide whether the BC can undertake this control and carry it out, whether it can render literary and financial support to the school, as the Council writes—for this it is necessary to know the school's affairs in detail. And the BC knows nothing detailed about it.

If the Council of the school was able to discuss (as it writes) the school's relation to the BC, knowing the BC's views from printed resolutions and from *Proletariat*, knowing the composition of the BC from its former members—then the BC is not in a position to discuss the question of the BC's relation to the Council of the school's request, because the BC does not know: (1) what the Council of the school is, (2) what the Executive Commission of the school is, (3) what the school's program is (it promised to send it, but the school's Executive Commission did not send it), (4) what the present composition of the school's lecturers is and (5) of the students in the school, (6) what the school's present means are, (7) what the intended duration of the courses is, (8) to what extent the school's students are bound to its present location, i.e., the island of Capri, (9) whether the school's students could come to Paris (which three members of the BC wrote to them about personally), for what period, etc.

Not having such information, the BC can for now say only one thing: to all members of the social-democratic organizations operating in Russia, as well as to all comrades delegated by these organizations to the BC, the BC is ready to render every possible literary and lecturing assistance in mastering the social-democratic world-outlook, and not declining financial assistance within what is possible and after discussion of this question in connection with assistance to local organizations.