V. I.   Lenin

199

To:   J. A. BERZIN


Written: Written on November 1, 1918
Published: First published in part on January 21, 1925, in Pravda No. 17. Published in full in 1965 in Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 50. Sent to Berne. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1975, Moscow, Volume 44, pages 160-161a.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
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


1/XI.

Dear Berzin,

I have received a lot of books from you. Many thanks.

I hear that all are at loggerheads over there. We shall take Shklovsky and Zalkind.

In case of anything, write; I shall sign your orders (to your subordinates), so that they will not dare quarrel and will strictly carry out your orders.

Stay in bed and follow the treatment strictly; you ought to be living not in Berne, but in the mountains in the sunshine, in some place where there is a telephone and a railway, and you should send a secretary to Berne and people should travel to you.

In the German translation of The State and Revolution an unfortunate error has crept in: the postscript is not dated. Yet the whole point is to show that the postscript was written after the October Revolution. Namely: 30. XI. 1917. Could not a correction slip be pasted in?

Some capable comrades are on their way to you. Do not grudge money, particularly through them, for propaganda in France.

All the very best,
Yours,
Lenin

N.B.
Prepare everything for the eventuality that the Entente will force Switzerland to deport you. Bereit sein!![1]

P.S. If the French translation of The State and Revolution is ready, put it out at once, but in the publisher’s preface criticise both Kautsky and Vandervelde (Le Socialisme contre l’Etat), because Vandervelde slurred over, concealed, distorted everything of importance about the state.

I am sending about half a pamphlet against Kautsky. Will you please have it translated as quickly as possible and let me know by telegram: Antikautsky is being   translated into German, French or Italian. Otherwise I’ll have it done here.

I hope you sent Staat und Revolution to Berlin? The more the better!


Notes

[1] On November 12, 1918, the Swiss Government, yielding to pressure from the Entente countries, expelled from Switzerland the staff of the Embassy of the R.S.F.S.R. headed by Berzin.


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