Letter to the Editor of Zvezda, April 22, 1912

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 22 April 1912


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First published in 1923 in the book Iz epokhi “Zvezdy” i “Pravdy” (1911–14), Part III. Sent from Paris to St. Petersburg. Printed from the typewritten copy found in police records.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 35, pages 36-37
Keywords : Letter, Zvezda

Dear Colleague,

I am sending new material today for the Voter’s Handbook. This is nearly all, there will be another article or two from here in two days’ time, and then you will get an article on the budget from Tver.

(1) I very much advise you also to reprint from Zvezda No. 34 (December 17, 1911) the article by Frey: “The Role of Worker Electors in the Election Campaign” (it would also be a good thing to reprint his article in No. 36, December 31, 1911, about the role of peasant electors,[1] as well). Don’t go out of your way to cut them down. It is better to publish in full a substantial article which will be of value in giving intelligible guidance for the elections. Don’t go out of your way for cheapness and brevity—better publish something solid.

If, after all, it is absolutely impossible to publish all the articles, be certain to return those you don’t.

(2) Here it is most essential to make arrangements for regular correspondence. Let your secretary write to me direct here, and not through Arcachon, to avoid any delay. Give us a better address for letters to you.

(3) You are wrong not to reply to the liquidators. This is a great mistake. You can and should reply, without saying a word about the Conference. You should print a brief reply to every lie of Zhivoye Dyelo: Zhivoye Dyelo in such-and-such a number is lying, as all the liquidators do. It is essential to reply, otherwise you lose.

(4) If Plekhanov writes, you should send his articles here in proofs. Otherwise it becomes a “privilege” for him, which we cannot tolerate. Be careful. You will force us to leave if Plekhanov is given the privilege of writing against the Conference when we cannot write in favour of it. It would be a mean trick to allow him to abuse it when we cannot praise it.

(5) Be sure to send us in a separate packet, wrapped up in Novoye Vremya,[2] these numbers of Zvezda: Nos. 24 and 25 of the summer of 1911, No. 18 (54), No. 19 (55), No. 22 (58), No. 23 (59)—we haven’t got them—and Zhivoye Dyelo No. 11 and No. 12. Please send us confiscated issues separately, wrapping them up in newspapers of the Right.

(6) Let us know as soon as possible about the daily paper.[3] What will be the size? What length of article can be sent?

(7) Try and buy as cheaply as possible the Verbatim Reports of the Third Duma, especially the sessions of 1911–12. Write.

  1. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 372–84.—Ed.
  2. ↑ Novoye Vremya (New Times)—daily newspaper published in St. Petersburg from 1868 to 1917. At first moderate-liberal in tone, it became an organ of reactionary aristrocratic = circles and officialdom after it was taken over by A. S. Suvorin in 1876. From 1905 onwards it was an organ of the Black Hundreds. It was closed down by the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet on October 26 (November 8), 1917.
  3. ↑ Lenin refers to the Bolshevik legal daily paper Pravda that was being prepared for publication.
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