Talks With Our Readers

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“Talks with Our Readers” is the editor’s introduction to a letter, published by Proletary in excerpts, from the Bolshevik S. Gusev, who in the second half of 1905 was the secretary of the Odessa Committee of the RSDLP In his letter Gusev expressed his opinion of the Bolsheviks’ tactics in the 1905 Revolution, reported on the explanatory work among the masses that was being conducted on these questions, and criticised the decisions of the Geneva Conference of the Mensheviks. Replying to Gusev on September 7 (20), 1905, Lenin wrote that he was instituting contacts between the Central Organ and practical workers, and that the editorial board intended publishing his letter in part. “On the whole we are in agreement and hold the same opinions (your ideas coincide with mine in Two Tactics),” Lenin wrote (Collected Works, Vol. 34, “A Letter to S. I. Gusev”).

From the Editors. We are publishing excerpts from a letter written by a comrade who is a member of one of our Party committees. This comrade is one of the few that not only write to the Central Organ, but speak of their understanding of tactics and of the way they apply this tactics. Without such talks, not intended specially for publication, it is impossible to work out uniform Party tactics in common. Without such an exchange of opinions with those engaged in practical work, the editorial board of a paper brought out abroad will never be the real mouthpiece of the whole Party. That is why we are publishing an opinion expressed by a comrade who is familiar with a small part of the most recent literature, because we wish to encourage the largest possible number of practical workers to talk to us and exchange opinions on all Party problems.