Letter to Pyotr Krasikov, April 5, 1905

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 5 April 1905


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First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVI. Sent from Geneva to Paris. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 36, page 145
Keywords : Letter, Pyotr Krasikov

April 5, 1905

Dear Friend,

So far I can say nothing definite about the date.[1] I think you will have time enough to go to Liège, if you can return on Sunday, or if you don’t take a return ticket and don’t go back to Paris (probably the best thing will be to take a 45–day circular ticket, Paris—Liege, etc.— Paris, right away). It’s hardly possible before Monday, although, I repeat, I’m not sure. Today, April 5, was fixed as the latest date for departure from St. Petersburg—ergo it is hardly likely before Monday. So far no one has arrived. On Friday, two will be setting off from here—they may call at your town, but strictly incognito.

Have you seen Plekhanov’s Dnevnik[2]? What a melancholy tone of utter resignation! I am sorry for the old man, he’s angry for no good reason, but what a lovely brain....

Our line with the delegates must be strictly peaceable: we “have nothing to lose, but stand to win everything (if there’s a victory)”; for our opponents it’s the other way round. You will, of course, see this yourself from the B.M.C. and CC leaflet,[3] and also from No. 13 (Question of Organisation).[4]

Hurry, hurry, hurry with the report of the Committee of the Organisation Abroad,[5] the list of members and all the documents.

Au revoir,

Yours,

N. Lenin

Greetings to Kiska! How is she getting on?

  1. ↑ A reference to the opening of the Third Party Congress. Lenin wrote to P. A. Krasikov on Wednesday, April 5, expecting it, to open not earlier than Monday (April 10). However, the Congress opened only on April 25. CC members who were on the Organising Committee for the convocation of the Congress made a final effort to reach agreement with the Party Council (Plekhanov, Axelrod and Martov), to have them recognise the CC decision on the convocation of the Congress and approve the work done by the OC The talks dragged out until the arrival of the delegates from Russia in Geneva and the departure of the Bolsheviks for London.
  2. ↑ Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata (Diary of a Social-Democrat)—a non-periodical published at long intervals by G. V. Plekhanov in Geneva from March 1905 to April 1912. There were 16 issues in all. Its publication was resumed in Petrograd in 1916, but only one issue appeared.
  3. ↑ A reference to the joint appeal to the Party on behalf of the CC and the Bureau of Majority Committees (B.M.C.) of March 12, 1905, setting the task of the Congress: to work out general Party tactics and establish organisational unity. The appeal listed the authorised committees and said that the CC and the B.M.C. were setting up an Organising Committee for the convocation of the Congress. The appeal appeared in Vperyod No. 13, on April 5 (March 23), 1905.
  4. ↑ The newspaper Vperyod No. 13 carried a draft report of the Bureau of Majority Committees to the Third Congress of the RSDLP under the title “Question of Organisation ” containing draft changes in the Party’s Rules (prepared by “Ivanov”—A. A. Bogdanov).
  5. ↑ A reference to a report prepared by P. A. Krasikov, who was nominated a delegate to the Third Congress of the RSDLP from the Committee of the Organisation Abroad. The Committee headed Bolshevik groups abroad which had broken with the League Abroad, when it fell under Menshevik control after its Second Congress.
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