Letter to Maxim Gorky, January 11, 1916

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January 11, 1916

Dear Alexei Maximovich,

I am sending you at the Letopis address, not for Letopis but for the publishing house, the manuscript of a pamphlet and request you to publish it.[1]

I have tried in as popular a form as possible to set forth new data about America which, I am convinced, are particularly suitable for popularising Marxism and substantiating it by means of facts. I hope I have succeeded in setting out these important data clearly and comprehensibly for the new sections of the reading public which are multiplying in Russia and need an explanation of the world’s economic evolution.

I should like to continue, and subsequently also to publish, a second part—about Germany.

I am setting to work on a pamphlet about imperialism.[2]

Owing to war-time conditions I am in extreme need of earnings, and would therefore ask, if it is possible and will not embarrass you too much, to speed up publication of the pamphlet.

Yours with respect,

V. Ilyin

The address is Mr. Wl. Oulianoff, Seidenweg, 4-a, Berne, (Suisse).

  1. The Parus (Sail) Publishing House was organised under the auspices of the magazine Letopis (Chronicle). Parus was to publish Lenin’s New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture. Part One. Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 13–102).
  2. Reference is to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 185–304).—Ed.