Letter to the Editors of Iskra, December 24-27, 1903

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 24 December 1903


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Written December 24-27, 1903, in Geneva (local mail)
Published: First published in 1929. Printed from the original
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1974, Moscow, Volume 34, pages 213-214.
Keywords : Iskra, Letter

Lenin wrote this letter for Lengnik, the CC’s representative abroad.

To the Editorial Board of the Central Organ[edit source]

Comrades,

In connection with the resolution adopted on December 22 by the editorial board of the Central Organ, the representative of the CC abroad considers it necessary to point out to the editors the extreme unseemliness of this resolution, which can only he put down to excessive irritation.[1]

If Lenin, acting not as a CC member but as a former editor, expounded something which you thought incorrect, you can thresh this out in the press.

Comrade Hans did not conclude on behalf of the CC any agreement about non-publication of the negotiations and he could not do so without our knowledge. The editorial board cannot fail to be aware of this. Probably Comrade Hans made a suggestion about non-publication of the negotiations in the event of a formal peace being concluded.

Not evasively, but quite categorically, the CC representative abroad twice informed the editorial board of the CO that he permitted Lenin’s letter to be published.[2]

If the editorial board had not been moved by a spirit of excessive irritation, it would easily have seen how extremely out of place were its remarks about the number of CC members living abroad. To this and other unseemly attacks of the editorial board (like the ludicrous charge of some kind of alleged “secret” printing), the CC represen- tative abroad replies merely by a call to remember Party duty and put a stop to acts capable of making literary polemics the occasion for a split.

The Central Committee Representative Abroad

  1. ↑ This refers to the resolution passed by the editorial board of the new, Menshevik, Iskra concerning the publication as a separate sheet of Lenin’s letter “Why I Resigned from the Iskra Editorial Board” (see ^^Vol. 7^^ of this edition).
  2. ↑ The reference is to the letter “Why I Resigned From the IskraEditorial board” (see present edition, Vol. 7).—Ed.
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