From the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

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V. I. Lenin

FROM THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC LABOUR
PARTY (BOLSHEVIKS)

Written on November 5 or 6
(18 or 19), 1917
 
First published in 1927,
in the pamphlet The Party's Fight
Against Zinoviev's and Kamenev's
Strike-breaking Tactics
in October 1917

Published according
to the manuscript
 
 
 
 
 
 

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964

Vol. 26, pp. 301-302.

Translated from the Russian
by Yuri Sdobnikov and George Hanna
Edited by George Hanna

Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (October 1999)


page 301


FROM THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC LABOUR
PARTY (BOLSHEVIKS)


    To Comrades Kamenev, Zinoviev, Ryazanov and Larin

    Once before, the Central Committee delivered an ultimatum to the leading exponents of your policy (Kamenev and Zinoviev), demanding complete subordination to the Central Committee's line and decisions, and renunciation of efforts to sabotage its work and of all subversive activity.[*]

    By leaving the Central Committee, but remaining in the Party, the exponents of your policy undertook to abide by Central Committee decisions. Actually, however, you have not confined yourselves to criticism within the Party, but have brought confusion into the ranks of the fighters in an uprising which is still going on, and continue, in violation of Party discipline, to frustrate Central Committee decisions and hamper its work outside the Party, in the Soviets, the municipal bodies, the trade unions, etc.

    In view of this, the Central Committee is forced to restate its ultimatum and to request that you immediately pledge yourselves in writing either to abide by Central Committee decisions and to conduct its policy in all your statements, or to withdraw from all Party activity in public and resign from all responsible posts in the working-class movement until the next Party congress. <"fnp301">

    * See pp. 280-82 of this volume. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Ultimatum from the Majority of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. to the Minority". -- DJR]

page 302

    Refusal to pledge yourselves to either course will make it imperative for the Central Committee to consider the question of your immediate expulsion from the Party.