Letter to Anna Ulyanova, March 12, 1909

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March 12, 1909

Dear Anyuta,

Today I received the clean proofs of signatures 1-9 and 13—“clean” because they are on good paper and have apparently already been printed, although they have a stamp at the top of each signature (put on by the printer) saying “proof”, which I do not understand.

Whatever the case may be, whether they are proofs or whether they are copies of signatures already printed, I must say that the jumbled paragraphs have been completely corrected and that, in general, these clean proofs are thoroughly satisfactory. I am now thinking of one thing and one thing only and I beg you—speed up the issue of the book. Things have now been properly organised, the proofs are excellent, but hurry, hurry, at all costs, for there has already been a devilishly long, an impossible delay. If, therefore, there is anything whatsoever hindering you, you must immediately hire an assistant proof-reader (if you have not yet done so).

I am sending a list of misprints that have not been corrected but which were pointed out in my previous corrections; this list is only for signatures 6-9 and for signature 13 (I will send the list relating to the first five signatures tomorrow or the day after because I have given the proofs to someone and must ask for them back).

These misprints absolutely must be shown in a list of errata at the end or the beginning of the book because there are some that distort the meaning. On the whole there are so few misprints that under no circumstances must the book be delayed on account of them.

I have not seen signatures 10, 11 and 12 (pp. 145–192) made up into, pages; for this reason I shall send the list of misprints for those signatures separately. I am heading them exactly—list of misprints for such-and-such made-up printer’s signatures. The book must be published without waiting for my last list of misprints but with this present list printed under the heading of errata.

[[BOX:

The most important—p. 126, line 16 from the top ]]

All the best; kiss Mother for me.

Yours,

V. U.

P.S. Please do not tone down anything in the places against Bogdanov, Lunacharsky and Co. They must not be toned down. You have deleted the passage about Chernov being a “more honest” opponent than they, which is a great pity. The shade of meaning you have given it is not the one I want. There is now no overall consistency in my accusations. The crux of the issue is that our Machists are dishonest, mean-spirited, cowardly enemies of Marxism in philosophy.