Letter to Karl Radek, September 19, 1915

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Dear Radek,

Many thanks for the manifesto and report.[1]

(1) Could we have gratis 20 copies of this issue of Berner Tagwacht, to send to our Party groups?

(2) In the manifesto, the words “revolutionary proletarian class struggle” have been replaced by the word “irreconcilable”. Is that loyal on Grimm’s part?

(3) The report does not say that a part (one-tenth) of the German delegation (and one-third of the Swiss) signed our draft resolution.

Is that loyal on Grimm’s part?

Your opinion, please: ought we not officially to write to Grimm about this?

(4) Does Grimm guarantee that in the detailed report (the minutes of the sessions) our draft and our statement will be included in full?

Yes or no?

(5) There are many inaccuracies in the report, and not a word about the voting (on our draft)!

The question of a split and of the dissolution of this Bureau (Grimm and Co.) was not voted on.[2]

We must do something.

Yours,

Lenin

P.S. Please, send me our draft and our statement.[3]

Grimm does not say a word about our booklet[4] (= report)! What a rogue!

  1. ↑ A reference to the manifesto adopted by the First International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald, and a report on it carried, with some distortions, by Berner Tagwacht (Berne Sentinel) No. 218, September 18, 1915, and in Bulletin der I.S.K. (I.S.C. Bulletin) No. 1, September 21, 1915.
  2. ↑ A reference to the International Socialist Commission (ISC) in Berne, the executive of the Zimmerwald group, set up at the Zimmerwald Conference held from September 5 to 8, 1915. On the I.S.C. were the Centrists R. Grimm, O. Morgari, Charles Naine and A. Balabanova, who acted as interpreter. The official report of the Conference, which appeared in Bulletin der I.S.K. on September 21, 1915, said: “This Secretariat must in no case substitute for the existing International Bureau but must be dissolved as soon as the latter is in a position to play its proper role.” = The copy at the Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CPSU Central Committee shows this place underlined by Lenin with the following note in the margin: “Kein Beschluss darüber” (No decision on this).
  3. ↑ The draft resolution proposed by the Zimmerwald Left and a statement giving the motives on which the Left Social-Democrats voted for the official manifesto at the Conference.
  4. ↑ A reference to the pamphlet Socialism and War.