An ideological scandal has emerged in Moscow over the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth next month. The original version of the 6,000-word theses by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party last December attributes to Lenin a statement made by Otto Bauer, the Austrian Socialist leader and long-time antagonist of Lenin. The quotation was published by Pravda and other leading Soviet newspapers last December 23, a few days after the theses including the quotation had been read, discussed and approved by the Central Committee. According to reports reaching the United States the error was not discovered in Moscow. It went undetected until Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader, read the theses in his party newspaper, Neues Deutshchland. He is said to have telephoned Moscow immediately in a state of outrage. There has been no public mention of the scandal in Moscow although it was said to be the talk of the town. When the theses were published in pamphlet form by the State political publishing house a few days after their appearance in Pravda the mistaken quotation was simply dropped from the document.
