V. I.   Lenin

1917

UNIDENTIFIED ADDRESSEE


Written: Written at Zurich on January 11 or 12, 1917
Published: First published in 1929 in Lenin Miscellany XI. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 36, page 417.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive.   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


Today, Nobs and Münzenberg told me the following facts which are not without significance.

On Jan. 7, Münzenberg proposed that the congress should be postponed to March (clearly wishing by this proposition to expose the hypocrisy of the arguments used by Grimm+ the social-patriots). It was defeated.[2]

Greulich proposed postponement until May. Nobs stated that he was in favour (once again choosing the lesser evil and exposing the same crowd). When Nobs said that he was for, Greulich (what a character!) immediately withdrew his proposition (having seen his mistake). Then Naine declared that he was moving Greulich’s proposal. It was defeated.

Münzenberg proposed that the cantonal committees (to whom the matter has now been referred) should be allowed time until July. It was defeated!

These facts show up Grimm’s unprecedented impudence, when he says in his article (Berner Tagwacht of Jan. 8 or 9, Parteibeschlüsse)[3] that the Left wing, too, were “in principle” not against postponement!

Münzenberg has written an article for Volksrecht (Nobs hag promised to insert it tomorrow or the day after) against the decision of the Partei-Vorstand.[1] [4]

After reading this, send it on to Olga, for her to send to Abramovich.


Notes

[1] Party executive.—Ed.

[2] A reference to W. Münzenberg’s speech at a sitting of the   Executive of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party on January 7, 1917, on the question of postponing the party congress set for February 11, 1917, in Berne, to discuss the war question (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 217–19 and 283).

[3] Parteibeschlüsse (Party Decisions)—an unsigned editorial article in the daily of the Swiss Social-Democrats, Berner Tagwacht No. 6, January 8, 1917.

[4] The Zurich Social-Democratic newspaper, Volksrecht (People’s Right) No. 11, January 13, 1917, carried an article “Zur Parteitagsverschiebung” (On the Postponement of the Party Congress), signed “g”, opposing the decision of the Executive of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party of January 7 to postpone the convocation of the congress indefinitely.


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