Letter to Alexander Bogdanov, Between March 28 and April 19, 1902

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Dear Comrades,

We are very glad about your proposal for the publication of pamphlets. There is, in fact, a certain lack of pamphlets, and we could easily publish them in any quantity. (As regards transport, we cannot at the moment guarantee regular delivery en masse, but we hope that this too will be constantly improving.) However we beg you not to insist on the stipulation that pamphlets should be accepted or rejected en bloc, without any partial changes at all. This stipulation is extremely inconvenient, and will hold up everything terribly. Take the very first article sent to us, about organisation (the technical problems of organisation). In the general opinion of the editorial board, this article ( interesting and valuable though it is) cannot appear in this shape, because it contains quite inappropriate and tactless remarks (like “one-man rule” and “dictatorship by one member of the committee”, etc.); and there are also minor defects requiring correction. Yet an agreement about such changes, not particularly essential from the author’s standpoint (but unquestionably necessary), could be reached without any difficulty at all. Think this over well, and don’t hold up an important undertaking out of a desire to impose particularly restrictive conditions on us.

We repeat that the article is, on the whole, practical and valuable; in general, we are even prepared to agree to the stipulation that articles should be accepted or rejected as a whole, without partial corrections. But, then, under this stipulation, we should be obliged to reject your very first article, and that would be harmful to the cause. After all, it would surely be possible to come to an agreement with the author about any partial corrections. Why don’t you try and let us make these corrections by way of experiment? If you like we shall write to you in greater detail about what precisely should be changed.