Written: 28 October, 1919
First Published: Published in English in The Workers’ Dreadnought No. 41, January 3, 1920; First published in Russian in 1932; Published according to the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 30, pages 85-86
Translated: George Hanna
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
October 28, 1919
Dear Friend,
I thank you with all my heart for your letter, which is the more precious because we very rarely receive any from you.
In France, as in England, victorious imperialism has not only enriched a certain number of small capitalists, but it has also been able to give alms to the upper grade of workers, the aristocracy of the working class, by throwing it a few crumbs from the imperialist exploit, won by the pillage of the colonies, and so on.
But the crisis caused by the war is so serious that even in the conquering countries the working masses are inevitably condemned to appalling misery. From this springs the rapid growth of communism and the increasing movement of sympathy towards the Soviet power and towards the Third International.
It follows that you must maintain a long struggle still, especially with the very refined opportunists of the Longuet type; in the same way the experimenters and politicians will continue making effort after effort to make words suffice where it is a question of revolutionary tactics and of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, they will continue to deceive the proletariat by means of new subterfuges, as Longuet, Merrheim and company did regarding the 21st of July. They will adhere to their old opportunist policy which consists in hindering the revolution and in prejudicing it in all ways. In France and in England the old rotten (pourris) leaders of the workers will make thousands of such attempts.
But we are sure that the Communists who are working in close contact with the proletarian masses will succeed in paralysing and in breaking these attempts. The more the Communists are firm and energetic in their attitude, the sooner they will gain a complete victory.
With communist greetings,
N. Lenin