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Special pages :
Letter to the Editorial Board of Pravda, Not earlier than May 25, 1913
Dear Colleagues,
Today at last I have received the file of Pravda for the last few days or, more precisely, for the last week. My best thanks and best congratulations on your success: in my opinion the paper has now undoubtedly found its feet. The improvement is a tremendous one and a serious one, and, let us hope, firm and for good. The length of Plekhanovâs articles and the abundance of anti-liquidationism (about which one of the workersâ deputies writes to me) are now questions of detail; it wonât be difficult to correct matters in Ibis respect, now that the paper has taken a firm stand, and I think that the workers on the spot will see at once bow to make the necessary correction. We have also received the detailed letter of a member of the staff (who unfortunately has not the pleasant âdeputyâ quality), and we were very glad of it, congratulating him on every kind of success. It seems as though now (and only now, after the Stâv[1] adventure) the period of wavering has ended ... touch wood!...
I donât advise you to present Plekhanov with ultimatums: it is too early, it may do harm!! If you do write to him, write as kindly and mildly as possible, He is valuable now because he is fighting the enemies of the working-class movement.
As regards Demyan Bedny, I continue to be for. Donât find fault, friends, with human failings! Talent is rare. It should be systematically and carefully supported. It will be a sin on your conscience, a great sin (a hundred times bigger than various personal âsinsâ, if such occur...) against the democratic working-class movement, if you donât draw in this talented contributor and donât help him. The disputes were petty, the cause is a serious one. Think over this!
As regards expansion, I have recently written in detail to one of the Prosveshcheniye people; I hope you also have seen the letter. I, too, am in favour of financial caution: to provide the same six pages (the present extra sheets) in another form, with a different sauce and title and content: 4 pages of Sunday supplement for the advanced workers + 2 pages of a âworkersâ kopekâ for 1 kopek, for the masses, to win a hundred thousand readers, with an especially popular content. You shouldnât imitate Luch but go your own road, the proletarian road: 4 pages for the advanced workers and 2pages (and later even 4) for the masses, for a long and stubborn battle for 100,000 readers. We must go wide and deep, into the masses, and not follow intellectual patterns like Luch.
Once again greetings, congratulations and best wishes.
Yours,
V. I.
Another special greeting to Vitimsky: his article about the workersâ press and workersâ democracy against the liberals[2] was very successful!! And the Bogdanov âIdeologyâ is certain to heresy: I promise you that I will prove this exactly!![3]
Marxists are glad of an increase in circulation when it is increased by Marxist articles, and not by articles against Marxism. We want a principled paperâall the contributors and readers of Pravda want itâa Marxist, not Machist paper? Isnât that so?
P.S. The address is not Paronen, but Poronin (Galizien), and be sure to add on the wrapper: via Warsaw-Frontierâ Zakopane.
- â Who this refers to has not been established.âEd.
- â Lenin refers to the article by M. S. Olminsky (A. Vitimsky) âKto s kem?â (âWho Is on Whose Side?â), published in Pravda No. 106, May 10, 1913. The article was part of the polemic with Luch concerning the conference between the editors of bourgeois publications and representatives of the workersâ press. The conference was called for the purpose of protesting at the introduction of harsher laws against the press. The chairman of the conference did not allow a vote on the draft resolution submitted by the Pravda representatives. They and representatives of a number of trade union papers refused to sign the liberal editorsâ resolution. Besides the representatives of Rech, Russkaya Molva, Sovremennoye Slovo and Dyen, etc., = only the representatives of Luch and Nasha Zarya signed the resolution, thus acting against the workersâ papers represented at the conference.
- â On Leninâs insistence A. A. Bogdanovâs article âIdeologyâ (from the âDictionary of Foreign Wordsâ series) was rejected by Pravda as anti-Marxist. Concerning the statement which Bogdanov then sent to Pravda announcing his resignation from the paper, Lenin wrote a âLetter to the Editorâ which was published in the newspaper Put Pravdy No. 9, January 31, 1914 = (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 93â94).