Written: Written January 28, 1914
Published:
First published in 1964 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 48.
Sent from Brussels to Paris.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 381b-383a.
Translated: Martin Parker and Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2005).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README
...[1] There is an important job to be done in Paris—the reorganisation of the C.O.A. It is more important now than ever.
We have started a new splendid transportation arrangement. A new method, wonderful job, already tested (I had a letter yesterday). Cheap. We are all delighted. They take 2 poods a month.[2]
We must publish. But we have neither money nor any printing facilities outside of Paris. Therefore it is of primary importance for the Party to arrange publication in Paris. I beg you to do this both as a duty and a favour.
Yesterday I sent N. V—ch the MSS. for No. 1 of the Bulletin. I also sent instructions point by point.
Read them. See that they are followed implicitly. Assure the people over there that we shall give the C.O.A. the sack—no, really—and appoint in its stead a committee of our own (on behalf of the C.C.)—really, I am not joking—unless the business of publishing and dispatching the Bulletin (a matter of primary importance to the whole Party) is organised with meticulous care, not à la Antonov.
I demand literally strict execution of my instructions concerning the Bulletin. That’s one thing. Secondly, the C.O.A. must set up a businesslike committee, so that Antonov (a nice man and good comrade, but a good-for-nothing daydreamer and preposterous fumble-fist) should have nothing to do with the practical side of the business.
Publication and printing should be done at a printing house. The C.O.A. (+the committee) should exercise special and daily control. Copy out the instructions and follow them implicitly.
Put this through the C.O.A. and get the committee going. I repeat, this is a matter of primary importance. Answer me quickly whether everything has been done. I am still here, in Brussels, waiting for the proofs.
I am enclosing a letter for Vl. Khr. Read it, give it to N. V. to read and hand it over.
Have the adjuvant committee appointed before I leave here (I shall be here another week, until Tuesday or Wednesday).
You will appreciate the importance of this business and spare no efforts, I am sure.
Yours,
V.U.
[[BOX-ENDS: N.B. We haven’t a penny. The C.O.A. must pay for everything. ]]
P.S. Edisherov is dead timber. So is Kamsky. If you go away, who remains?
2 or 3 efficient hustlers should be put on the job to do all the footwork, to visit the printing shop 2 or 3 times a day, to see to it that the Bulletin is issued on time and keep in close touch with us. As for the C.O.A., let it exercise “control” from above.
[1] The beginning of this letter is missing. The manuscript is available only from p. 3.—Ed.
[2] I. F. Popov, during his stay in Brussels in January 1914, made contact, through the local organisations of the Belgian worker’s Party, with Belgian seamen of a merchant vessel plying between Antwerp and Southern Russian ports. Popov asked the seamen to ship illegal Party publications to Russia. His proposal was approved by Lenin. During his visit to Brussels to attend the Fourth Congress of the Social-Democrats of the Lettish Region Lenin met two representatives of the Belgian seamen and talked with them about conditions of the revolutionary work in Russia.
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