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August 18, 1909 

Dear Comrades!

    I have just received your invitation. The curriculum of the school, which (curriculum) you say you enclose, I have not received.

    My attitude to the school on the Island of Capri is expressed in the resolution of the extended editorial board of Proletary (Proletary, No. 46, and supplement*). If you have not seen Proletary and the supplements to Proletary, and the special letter on the school circulated to Bolshevik members of the Party in the form of a printed leaflet, the editorial board will be pleased to send you all these materials. On the point in question, I must inform you that my opinion of the school on Capri, as the enterprise of a new faction in our Party -- a faction with which I do not sympathise -- does not, of course, imply any refusal to deliver lectures to comrades who have been sent from Russia by local organisations. Whatever the views of these comrades, I shall always be glad to give them a series of lectures on questions of interest to Social-Democrats. Of course I shall not go to Capri to lecture, but shall willingly do so in Paris. If only from the financial point of view it would be cheaper for the nine comrades from Russia (I take the figure communicated by Comrade Leva, whose name is not unknown to you) to come to Paris than for three lecturers (I have heard about your proposal to Leva and Innokenty[172]) to travel from

 
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Paris to Capri. Apart from financial considerations there are quite a number of reasons incomparably more important, which you undoubtedly understand, why Paris is the place for a real Party school abroad. In any case, I can assure you that the editorial board of Proletary would do everything in its power to organise the lectures you desire in Paris.

With Social-Democratic greetings, N. Lenin 

P. S.  You forgot to send the official address of the school.

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  ^[172] Leva -- M. K. Vladimirov; Innokenty -- I. F. Dubrovinsky.    [p. 468]