Letter to Pavel Axelrod, July 9, 1901

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 9 July 1901


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First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany III. Sent from Munich to Zurich. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 36, pages 87-88
Keywords : Letter, Pavel Axelrod

July 9, 1901

Dear P. B.,

I enclose Nevzorov’s article, which we have rejected.[1] Just have a look at this thing (I heard you were interested in it), and when you have read it, please send it on at once to G. V., who is also interested in the Parisians. We think it is essential to keep a copy, as a document.

We are having No. 6 of Iskra set up—it will probably be 6 pages, because there is a good deal of material in the social chronicle and on the labour movement. For the second number of Zarya we have sent (1) G. V.’s leading article, “What Next?”, and (2) L. I.’s article, “Why We Don’t Want to Go Backwards”, signed Orthodox. Then Arsenyev and Velika Dmitrievna are writing articles, and there’s a paper by Alexei (what did you think of it? Velika D. was dissatisfied). I have written a little article on Witte’s minute and the preface to it, and have of course damned Mr. R.N.S.[2]—Velika Dmitrievna is very much displeased, and I shall have to send the article to G. V., etc.: this Mr. R. N. S. is a sore point!

How is your work going, and how is your health? Will you have a long holiday this year, and where do you intend to spend it? I should very, very much like you to look in here and have a talk about various things—but I am afraid of inviting you lest, instead of relaxing, you put more strain on your nerves. If this does not frighten you, do come.

They have written to us from Russia that there is increasing talk of a congress. This once again impels us to think of a programme. The publication of a draft programme is extremely necessary, and would be of tremendous importance.[3] But apart from you and G. V. there is no one to take it on: it’s a job that requires calm concentration and careful consideration. Please come to our help, provided your affairs and your health permit. Or perhaps you will see G. V. and spend some time with him—you could then take advantage of such a stay?

Kautsky passed through here (on his way for a holiday in Tyrol), but we forgot to talk with him about the Erfurter Programm (which Alexei is now looking through). Has he promised a special introduction?

What were the books about which you told Alexei’s sister that they had been sent?

We can’t be too sure about the foreign affairs review for Zarya: Parvus wants to write only about organisation, Luxemburg and Danevich will (perhaps) give us something on France, and nothing else, neither on Germany nor Austria. That’s bad!

Well, until later. Forgive me for writing so rarely; I have very little time left in the local hurly-burly. The Londoners[4] are here at the moment; I like them. What do you think of them?

Very best wishes to you and all your family. Yours....

Leiteisen’s address is: 52, Faubourg du Temple. Mr. Gouman. Paris; on the inner envelope: pour Mr. Basile.

[We shall have to wait a little with reprinting the first issue of Iskra: the matter of the one thousand copies that have been preserved, as it turns out, and of the attempt now being made to transport them will soon be cleared up.]

The note on Adler will still be in time for Iskra No. 6,[5] if it arrives not later than in a week.

I write nothing about the draft agreement with the Union: there is nothing new, and you must know the old situation from Alexei’s sister.

  1. ↑ A reference to Nevzorov’s (Y. Steklov) article, “Well, Where Do We Begin?”, directed against Lenin’s “Where To Begin?” (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 13–24) published in Iskra No. 4, May 1901, as a leading article. For Lenin’s assessment of Nevzorov’s article see present edition, Vol. 34, p. 75.
  2. ↑ Lenin’s article written in June 1901, entitled “The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism”. It criticises __PRINTERS_P_625_COMMENT__ 40—39 the secret minute of the tsarist Minister Witte, “The Autocracy and the Zemstvo”, and the preface written by the Liberal, P. B. Struve (R. N. S.), published abroad illegally. The article was published in the Zarya’s double issue No. 2–3, December 1901 (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 31–80).
    For over a month, members of Iskra’s Editorial Board polemised over the article in their letters. Lenin accepted some of the proposals to reword some of his formulations but flatly refused to modify the sharply accusatory tone and tenor of the article (see present edition, Vol. 34, pp. 83–84, and p. 91 of this volume).
  3. ↑ On Lenin’s initiative, Iskra’s editorial board started to draft the RSDLP Programme in the summer of 1901. The draft was published in Iskra No. 21, June 1, 1902.
  4. ↑ V. P. Nogin and S. V. Andropov.
  5. ↑ P. B. Axelrod’s item, “The Latest Electoral Victory of the Austrian Workers”, dealing with V. Adler’s election to the Lower Austria Landtag, was published in Iskra No. 6, July 1901.
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