Letter to Karl Radek, May 29, 1917

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 29 May 1917


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Written May 29 (June 11), 1917
Published: First published in 1932 in the journal Krasnaya Letopis No. 5–6. Sent from Petrograd to Stockholm. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 43, page 632.
Collection(s): Krasnaya Letopis
Keywords : Karl Radek, Letter

Radek was then a member of the CC, RSDLP (B.) Bureau Abroad (Stockholm).

To Comrade Radek[edit source]

29.V. 1917

Dear Friend,

I am writing to you for the first time, letter No. 1, and ask you to let me know whether you have received it. Try and send Bulletin No. 1 (Pravda Bulletin)[1] as soon as you can—then an answer as to whether you have a reply from Karpinsky in Geneva (I asked him to send me the end—the “conclusion”—of the book on the agrarian question and the two articles: Yuri’s, “Pyotr Kievsky’s”, and my own on self-determination).

I fully agree with you that Zimmerwald has become a hindrance and that the sooner we break with it the better (you know that I disagree with the conference on this point).[2] We must speed up a meeting of the Lefts, an international meeting and only of the Lefts. Write what you can do in this direction: we shall send the money (a sum of about 3–4 thous. rubles) soon.

If we could speed up an international meeting of the Lefts, the Third International would be established.

Can we count on the Scandinavian Lefts? Have you enlightened HĂśglund & Co.? Is there any hope of getting the English and Americans? What about your Stockholm trio publishing immediately in the name of our CC, plus the Poles, plus Arbeiterpolitik, plus HĂśglund & Co., an inter national appeal for a meeting of only Lefts (see our resolution for the list) on an international scale?

Let us know what steps you are taking.

Forgive me for not writing more often: I am devilishly busy. I trust you have been told everything now.

All the very best,

Yours,

Lenin

  1. ↑ The Pravda Bulletin in German appeared in Stockholm from June to November 1917 under the heading Russische Korrespondenz “Prawda”. It was published by the agency abroad of the Central Committee, RSDLP(b) and carried articles on important issues of the revolution in Russia, documents, reviews and news items dealing with the life of the Party and the country. The Bulletin was published also in French.
  2. ↑ Lenin is referring to the point in the resolution of the All-Russia April Conference “The Situation Within the International and the Tasks of the RSDLP(b)” which said: “Our Party remains in the Zimmerwald bloc, where it sets itself the task of upholding the tactics of the Zimmerwald Left, and directs the Central Committee to take immediate steps towards founding a Third International”—see The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). Petrograd City Conference of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). April 1917. Minutes. Moscow, Gospolitizdat, 1958, p. 255. In place of this point Lenin proposed the following formulation: “We must remain in Zimmerwald only for purposes of information” (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 82).
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