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V. I. Lenin
TO THE SECRETARIAT
OF THE INTERNATIONAL
SOCIALIST BUREAU
Published in Gazeta Robotnicza
No. 19, November 21, 1912
Published according
to the newspaper text
Translated from the Polish
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968First printing 1963
Second printing 1968Vol. 18, pp. 276-77.
Translated from the Russian by Stepan Apresyan
Edited by Clemens Dutt
Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo,
djr@marx2mao.org (May 2002)
page 276
TO THE SECRETARIAT
OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST BUREAU
August 31, 1912
Dear Comrade,
I have received from you Circular No. 15 (July 1912) in which the Executive Committee of the Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania gives notice of a split in that organisation.
In my quality of representative of the R.S.D.L.P. in the International Socialist Bureau, I must emphatically protest against the notice for the following reasons:
1. The Executive of the S.D.P. and L. declares that the Warsaw Committee "is not affiliated to the R.S.D.L.P., of which the S.D.P. and L. is an autonomous section".
But the Executive of the S.D.P. and L. has no authority whatsoever either to decide or to declare who is affiliated to the R.S.D.L.P., which I represent.
Today the Executive of the S.D.P. and L. itself is not affiliated to our Party, for it maintains no organisational relations either with the Central Committee I represent, which was elected at the Conference in January 1912, or with the opposed liquidationist centre (the so-called "Organising Committee").
2. The assertion of the Executive of the S.D.P. and L. that the split occurred "unexpectedly just before the Duma elections" is not in accord with the facts.
I happen to know that the very same Executive of the S.D.P. and L. must have foreseen a split as early as two years ago, when it provoked a sharp conflict with its former members, Malecki and Hanecki, and removed Hanecki from the Board.
page 277
3. It is hypocritical of the Executive to declare: firstly, that agents provocateurs have made their way into the Warsaw organisation "as into all the other revolutionary organisations in tsarist Russia";
secondly, that the split came about with "the active co-operation of the secret police", although the Executive cannot give a single name, and does not dare to express any specific suspicion!
How very hypocritical one has to be to make in public the dishonest accusation of "co-operation of the secret police", with the aim of morally destroying one's political opponents, even while lacking the courage to give a single name or express any specific suspicion!
I am confident that every member of the International will indignantly reject these unheard-of methods of struggle.
I have for a number of years known the two former members of the Executive of the S.D.P. and L., Malecki and Hanecki, who openly march shoulder to shoulder with the Warsaw Committee. I have received, precisely from the Warsaw Committee, an official notification confirming this fact.
In the present situation, I consider it my duty to convey to the International Socialist Bureau the enclosed protest from the Warsaw Committee of the S.D.P. and L.
As the statement of the Executive Committee has been circulated to all members of the International Socialist Bureau, I must ask you, dear comrade, to circulate also this statement of mine, together with the protest of the Warsaw Committee, to the representatives of all the parties affiliated to the International.
With Party greetings, N. Lenin