Translated from: ru/1912/1912-12_pismo_lb_kamenevu_dekabr_1912_goda.txt

Greetings, my friend!

I kiss you on the nose, Eskimo-fashion. Devil take me. I miss you terribly. I miss you -- I swear by the dog! I have no one, no one to have a heart-to-heart talk with, devil take you. Will you really not move to Krakow?

There are five of us here: three deputies (Petrovsky, Malinovsky, Badaev; of them, Petrovsky represents the Six in the faction). I was alone. A sixth is coming. Despite the stupidity committed by four of the six regarding Luch (I learned about this afterward), the Six remains a cohesive group. One need only give them time to get their bearings, to familiarize themselves with party affairs, to work seriously with them. Stavsky will make a capable worker. Of Malinovsky, there is nothing more to be said. Yes, one cannot say everything in a letter, and there is much to talk about. Ilyich recommends a "firm policy" by the Six within the faction, a policy of threats to the majority of the faction, a policy of appealing to the rank and file against the majority of the faction; but Ilyich will yield, for it is self-evident that the Six is not yet mature enough for such a firm policy, not yet prepared, that one must first consolidate the Six and then use it to beat the majority of the faction, as Ilya Muromets beat the Tatars with a Tatar. Besides, it is quite possible that within a month or two there will already be a majority in the faction (there is hope of winning over one or two), and then we will have the opportunity to beat the liquidators with the faction as such -- this is far more advantageous. Therefore, we must work and wait just a little for the firm policy. The latest blunder with the participation in Luch shows once more that we must, above all, consolidate the Six itself, which wants to be Bolshevik but is not yet fully Bolshevik. The Six at every step needs a guide in a leader: I happened to be absent from one of the faction meetings, and that was enough for the Six to commit the blunder with Luch. In short -- we must wait a little... Well then, for now, I firmly shake your hand.

Koba.

Bolshevik Leadership. Correspondence. 1912-1927. Moscow, 1996. p. 16.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 5391. L. 3.

NOTE

After escaping from exile in September 1912, Stalin, as a member of the CC of the RSDLP and the Russian Bureau of the CC, participated in November-December in a CC conference with party workers in Krakow. Kamenev had been abroad since 1908, residing mostly in Geneva. He moved to Krakow, following Lenin, in 1913. Kamenev and Stalin first met in Tiflis in 1904. The letter was sent from Krakow to Geneva.

On 15 November 1912, the Fourth State Duma began its work. On the initiative of the Bolsheviks, a one-day political strike and demonstration to the Tauride Palace (the seat of the Duma) in St. Petersburg were timed to coincide with this date. At a meeting of Social-Democratic Party representatives convened on the initiative of its Duma faction on 13 November, opinions were divided. The Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP spoke in favor of the demonstration; the Organizing Committee (the leading body of the liquidators) and the editorial board of Luch spoke against it. The strike took place, but after the meeting, the Social-Democratic faction, fearing provocation, came out jointly with the editorial board of Luch to condemn it. Learning of this, Lenin criticized the faction and raised the question of the necessity of its "workers'" wing breaking with the liquidators. In the second half of November, he wrote the article "On the Events of November 15 (An Undelivered Speech)," in which he called what had happened a disgrace (Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 208). However, in December 1912, the "workers' deputies" of the Social-Democratic faction in the Duma again agreed to include their names in the list of contributors to Luch, while continuing to contribute to Pravda. In Krakow, at the conference, this question was discussed in the context of the need for a complete organizational break with the liquidators. On 26 December 1913, Stalin published in issue No. 47 of Pravda a special article on the Luch incident under the title "The Situation in the Social-Democratic Faction." The article was signed K. Stalin (Stalin, I.V., Works, Vol. 2).