Letter to Georgi Plekhanov, January 28, 1903

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 28 January 1903


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First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany IV. Sent from London to Geneva. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 43, pages 106b-108a.
Keywords : Georgi Plekhanov, Letter

28.I. 03

Dear G. V.,

I am sending you the OC announcement (it went into No. 32) and an article by Pero for No. 32[1]; please return both as soon as you can: the OC announcement must be preserved without fail (as a very important document) and you will have to decide about Pero’s article in view of the abundance of articles against the S.R.s. The Rostov people are writing a protest. That’s one thing. Pero is No. 2. A. N. has already written, most likely (he wrote that he was finishing it), about the S.R.s.[2] That’s three. Your editorial “Pseudo Friends of the Proletariat” is four. This has to be discussed to avoid des Guten zuviel.[3] It had better be discussed by you since the Rostov comrades are close at hand, and so is A. N. with whom you can talk things over. In my opinion the editorial (an annihilating one) in any case should be written by you and no one else because you have debated this in public and have seen the Rostov comrades. The Rostov protest should also be published in No. 33, but it should be as brief and sachlich[4] as possible. Pero’s article (it isn’t long) should also go in, I think, for it is a sensible reply to a foolish move. A. N.’s article could perhaps be held over, for it is not a reply nor does it deal with a topical issue but is about moderate fathers and S. R. sons “in general”.

Think all this over and let us know your decision as soon as possible.

The article about Nekrasov will go into No. 33.

Already several days ago I received the Armenian Proletariat[5] (with Russ. S.D.L.P. on the masthead) as well as a piece of copy (an item about it); I shall try to get it into No. 33.

I am sending you Proletariat as well. Please ask Lalayants or somebody else to translate in full everything in it about nationalism and federalism and send it to me as soon as possible. An item on this should be published without fail (the piece sent in needs editing and for this we must have the text).

What do you think of Bonch!? Our “net gain” was just the two of them—not very much! There is the liquidator (see Zhizn No. 6) Mr. Kuklin. Make his acquaintance through Bonch. Couldn’t we squeeze something out of him? I believe you met him before, didn’t you? At least for the Russian congress, for the OC (one of its members is abroad and he could be sent to see Kuklin if need be)? After all, Kuklin can’t eat up the printing office, can he? We should levy a contribution of 10,000 on him for our not having come down on Zhizn (it is not for nothing that I defended it by pleading its light mindedness!) or for not doing so in the future....

Yours,

Lenin

P.S. Have you seen Rudin’s pamphlet (S. R., “On the Peasant Question”)? The shameless scoundrels! My fingers are itching terribly to get at Rudin and at No. 15 on socialisation! Please let me know whether you are writing your pamphlet, how big it will be, and when you expect to finish it. Iskra should not be filled with that material; a pamphlet examining all aspects would be far better, and now that the transport channels are working we could knock them out with a businesslike and principled examination of the sub stance of the matter. Should I write a criticism of Rudin? What do you think? The idea occurred to me to write an article criticising Rudin[6] and to publish separately “articles against the S.R.s” together with “Revolutionary Adventurism”.

What do you think of this?

  1. ↑ A reference to the “Announcement of the Formation of an Organising Committee”, published in Iskra No. 32, January 15, 1903, and L. D. Trotsky’s article, “High-Mindedness Instead of a Programme and Nervousness Instead of Tactics”, in Iskra No. 33, February 1, 1903.
  2. ↑ The article “On Two-Faced Democracy”, by A. N. Potresov, printed in Iskra No. 35, March 1, 1903.
  3. ↑ Too much of a good thing.—Ed.
  4. ↑ Businesslike.—Ed.
  5. ↑ Proletariat—an illegal newspaper in Armenian, organ of the Union of Armenian Social-Democrats. Only one issue was put out in October 1902 in Tiflis (for reasons of secrecy the place of publication was given as Geneva). The publication was found ed by S. G. Shahumyan, and B. M. Knunyants helped with the organisational arrangements.
  6. ↑ Lenin never wrote the article criticising A. Rudin. His Revolutionary Adventurism (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 186–207) came out as a separate pamphlet without the other articles against the Socialist-Revolutionaries (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 172–75).
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