794. To L. D. TROTSKY
Comrade Trotsky, copies to Zinoviev, Bukharin, Radek,
Stalin and Kamenev
1. About Bordiga, I very strongly advise the adoption of your proposal that we send a letter from our C.C. to the Italian delegates and insistently recommend that they adopt the tactics you have outlined, otherwise the actions of the latter will be highly harmful for the Italian Communists in everything they subsequently do.[1]
2. I have read your theses concerning NEP and on the whole find them very good, and some formulations extremely felicitous, but a small part of the points seemed to me to be dubious. I would advise their publication in the newspapers for the time being, and then re-issue in a pamphlet without fail. With some comments, they will be especially appropriate for informing the foreign public about our New Economic Policy.
Lenin
Notes
[1] The Fourth Congress of the Comintern discussed the merger of the Communist and Socialist Parties of Italy. The leadership of the Italian Communist Party, at the time in the hands of the sectarian Bordiga group, came out against the merger.
The R.C.P.(B.) Central Committee sent the Italian Communist Party delegation a letter advising it not to vote against the merger resolution which was worked out by a commission. The I.C.P. delegation accepted the advice.
The congress adopted a unanimous decision on the merger and set up a special organising committee to put it through. See this volume, Document 803.