Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

217A LETTER TO V. A. KARPINSKY 98Dear Comrades!I am sending you a most important communication.Discuss it and pass it on to Brilliant 99 and Guilbeaux:then we shall know whom they support and who they are:cowards or men capable of fighting.The whole struggle will now be shifted here.Let me know how they reacted and if there are any chancesof publishing a protest or an open letter.We should take advantage of the fact that Naine enjoysundisputed authority in French Switzerland.Best wishes, YoursThe Executive (Parteivorstand) of the Swiss SocialistParty met in Zurich on Sunday, January 7, 1917.It adopted a disgraceful decision—to postpone indefinitelythe party congress, which was to have met in Berne onFebruary 11, 1917 for the express purpose of discussing thewar issue. The excuse: the need to fight the high cost ofliving; the workers are not yet ready; there was no unanimityin the commission, and similar excuses that are an outrightinsult to the party. (Two drafts have already been drawn upin the commission and published confidentially: one, againstfatherland defence, prepared by Affolter, Nobs, Schmid,Naine and Graber; the other, for fatherland defence, preparedby G. Müller, Pflüger, Huber and Klöti.)The January 7 meeting was very stormy. Grimm led theRights, i.e., the opportunists, i.e., the nationalists, shoutingthe most vile things against the “foreigners”, against