Written: Written on September 25, 1920
Published:
First published in 1965 in Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51.
Printed from the typewritten copy.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1975,
Moscow,
Volume 44,
page 435b.
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.
Very urgent
Gillerson
Prague
Publish at once in the press and inform the Congress of the Czechoslovak Social-Democratic Party[1] that Franz Bene&swhatthe;’s mention of a talk alleged to have taken place with me on the possibility or impossibility of a proletarian dictatorship in Czechoslovakia is a lie from beginning to end and that not only did I never talk with him but I have never even seen him. It goes without saying that my opinion of Bela Kun and of the Hungarian Revolution, as quoted by Bene&swhatthe;, is just as foul a lie.
[1] The reference is to the Thirteenth Congress of the Czechoslovak Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, held in Prague from September 25 to 28, 1920. The Congress was preceded by a struggle between the revolutionary wing in the party—the Marxist Left wing— and the Right-wing reformist leadership. The Congress was attended by 321 persons, all supporters of the Left wing. At that time the party had more than 4,800 functioning organisations and almost 500,000 members. The Left wing at the Congress took over the leadership of the party and formed an independent party entitled the Czechoslovak Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (Left). It included most of the members of the former Social-Democratic Party. The Congress condemned the splitting policy of the Right wing, expressed agreement with the conditions for affiliation to the Communist International, and instructed the new Executive Committee to conduct negotiations for joining the Communist International. The reformist leaders took the course of splitting the party and in November 1920 held their own Congress.
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