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Special pages :
Letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP, December 22, 1903
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1974, Moscow, Volume 34, pages 211-212.
December 22, 19O3
To the Central Committee from Lenin, member of the CC
I have read the CCâs announcement circulated to the committees,[1] and can only shrug my shoulders. A more ridiculous misunderstanding I cannot imagine. Hans has been cruelly punished by this for his credulity and impressionability. Let him explain to me, in the name of all thatâs holy, where he gets the temerity to speak in such an unctuous tone about peace when the opposition (Martov included) has formally rejected peace in the reply to the Central Committeeâs ultimatum? Is it not childishness, after this formal rejection of peace, to believe the chatter of Martov who, firstly, does not remember today what he said yesterday and, secondly, cannot answer for the whole opposition? Is it not naĂŻve to speak and write about peace when the opposition is on the war-path again, is clamouring at meetings in Geneva that it is a force, and is beginning a mean persecution in Iskra No. 53? And to tell a down right lie to the committees!âfor example, that the conflict with the League is âcompletely at an endâ? To keep silent about the first Council (with Ru)?
Finally, this silly advice that I should go away from here! I could understand if it has been given by members of the family or relatives, but for such piffle to be written by the Central Committee! Yes, it is now that the literary war begins. No. 53 and my letter, published in leaflet form,[2] will demonstrate that for you.
I am so angry at your announcement to the committees that for the moment I cannot think how you are to be extricated from a ludicrous situation, unless it is by declaring that the contents of Iskra No. 53, and especially the article âOur Congressâ, have destroyed all your faith in the possibility of peace. Personally, I see no other way out.
Reply to the committees (and to Martov himself) that the disgracefully false article âOur Congressâ has provoked a polemic in the press, but that you (the CC) will try to carry out positive work. Plekhanov was against the article âOur Congressâ and against Martov delivering a public lecture.
- â On Krzhizhanovskyâs return from abroad and on the basis of his report concerning the results of the negotiations with the Mensheviks, the CC circulated a letter to the local committees which played down the acute Party struggle and advocated a conciliatory policy towards the Mensheviks.
- â The reference is to the letter âWhy I Resigned From the Iskra Editorial boardâ (see present edition, Vol. 7).âEd.