Letter to Inna Smidovich, December 18, 1901

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Smidovich, Inna Germogenovna—a Social-Democrat. From the first day of Iskra’s organisation until the arrival of N. K. Krupskaya in Geneva in April 1901 she discharged the duties of secretary of the Editorial board, and afterwards handled literature shipments across the frontier. p. 92

We have received information that Akim is printing Vperyod. We refuse to believe it and request you to ascertain whether this is not a misunderstanding. That people who have been collecting hundreds and thousands of rubles on behalf of Iskra, for the Iskra print-shop— people who represent the Iskra organisation in Russia— should go over secretly to another undertaking and that at a critical moment for us, when shipments have come to a stand, when the entire North and Centre (and the South too!) have flooded us with complaints at the absence of Iskra, and when the only hope was to have it reproduced in Russia, that people should have done this in such an underhand way, for Akim wrote us that he was printing No. 10 and we were so sure of it, while Handsome did not tell us a word about his magnificent plans—such behaviour, which violates not only all rules of the organisation, but also certain simpler rules, is simply unbelievable.

If this incredible news is true, we demand an immediate meeting to deal with this unprecedented depravity and, for our part, we earnestly request Yakov and Orsha to scrape together whatever money they can and immediately carry out their plan of coming here.