Letter to Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, Between September 10 and 14, 1903

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Thanks to Smith for his long letter. Let him write to Yegor, making a last appeal to reason. Let Zarin go and see Yegor immediately, after obtaining authority (full authority) to decide matters in Yegor’s countries. Arrange all this with strict precision. You must act formally and, as regards the Yegors, you must prepare for a decisive war, and see to it at all costs that any attempt of theirs to get into the committees meets with a prompt and vigorous rebuff. You must be on your guard about this and prepare all the committees. All the Yegors are carrying out and extending the boycott; they are devilishly embittered, they have dreamed up a heap of imaginary grievances and insults, they imagine that they are rescuing the Party from tyrants, they are shouting about this left and right, they are stirring people up. Their dissension has already deprived us (I don’t know for how long, possibly even forever) of two of our largest sources of money. Please make the most desperate efforts to obtain money—that is the chief thing.

And so, don’t let Smith look on Yegor in the old way. Friendship is at an end here. Down with all softness! Prepare for the most vigorous resistance, send Zarin at once, nominate candidates (in the event of Smith’s death ) , and in the same event prepare Smith, too, for a trip “to Yegor”, appoint members to the Council, put everything on a very formal footing and exert yourself to the utmost. We shall cope with the matter of literature. We are putting strong hopes on Vadim.