V. I.

Lenin

12

To:   V. P. NOGIN

5/ II. 01

Thanks for the letter and the detailed analysis of Iskra . Thorough and
well-argumented appraisals pointing out slips (inevitable in such a difficult
job as this) are so rare that one appreciates them doubly. Your interest in
Iskra reinforces my hope that we shall work together for it.

I fully agree with you that the review of home develop ments is skimpy. In the
second issue it is better, but skimpy nonetheless. It is one of the most
difficult sections, and only gradually can it be put on a satisfactory footing.

As regards contributions from correspondents, you are not quite right, in my
opinion. The coincidence with
Rabochaga Mysl [3] No. 10 incidentally, I have not seen the issue; please send it to
me

does not bother me.

It shows that we too have contacts with the St. Petersburg League,ie and that
is a very good thing.

Your interpretation of the advice “to be careful” con tained in the
item about the crisis [4] is in my view erro neous and far-fetched. It
is clear from the context that the warning is only against
strikes , and since next to this it is pointed out that strikes are not
the only means of strug gle, that it is necessary in these difficult times to
use other methods of struggle: propaganda (“to explain”) and agita
tion (“to prepare for more resolute—N.B.—struggle”), I categorically protest against comparing the call “to be careful”
with the Rabochaya Mysi kind of thinking. The advice “to be
careful” when it comes to strikes and to prepare for more resolute struggle is the exact opposite of the
Rabochaya Mysl position. Your point about demonstrations is fully
justified, but, first, this enters precisely into the broader concept of
“more resolute struggle”; second, it would be out of place to make this
call more concrete and definite since there is no direct occasion for such
action and it is impossible to assess the overall situation in detail. In
issue No. 2, in a commentary on one particular strike and an item in
Yuzhny Rabochy , [5] an attempt is made to be more definite on this score.

I cannot agree that the demand for state unemployment insurance could
serve to stir the workers into action. I doubt whether this is right in
principle: in a class state unemployment insurance can hardly amount to
more than a deception. From the standpoint of tactics, it is especially out
of place in Russia, since our state is fond of experiments in
“etatisation”, loves to advertise them as being for the “common good”,
and we should resolutely oppose any extension of the functions of the
present state and work for more freedom for public initiative. Aid
and benefits for the unemployed are all right, but “state insurance”—?

Your point that the article about Zubatov is not quite rounded out is
perhaps justified. [6]

As for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Decembrists—this really
was an omission. [7]

If you wish, I can get you a Bulgarian passport. Write me if you need it , and if so, let me have the particulars for Identification.

The transport situation has improved and we may be able to manage
without the help of new people.

Please send me “ Rabochaya Mysl ”, and also
Byloye [8] and other London publications . I would also
like to have a catalogue of publications put out by the Fabian Society and
other socialist firms. Which British newspaper would you recommend? Can you
send me a couple of issues as samples? I subscribed to
Justice [9] but was not satisfied with it.

I haven’t got four copies of Iskra at the moment. We shall get
them soon. Why, incidentally, must you have them? Do not forget that under no circumstances can it be
circulated abroad. The copy sent you is only for you and your
friend [1]

;

in general, for the time being, it must remain strictly a secret.

With best regards, Petrov

I am sending you our pamphlet as well. [2]

So far also only for you, confidentially .

Please let us know your opinion.

When are you planning to go to Russia? Before you go, we must see each
other. Couldn’t you come over for a week or so? [10] How are you off for earnings and finances in general?

Once more, best regards, Yours, Petroff

---
Notes:
[1]
The reference evidently is to S. V. Andropov.— Ed .

[2]
Probably the pamphlet May Days in Kharkov , with a preface by
Lenin (see present edition. Vol. 4, pp. 357–65).— Ed .

[3]
Rabochaya Mysl (Workers’ Thought)—a newspaper published by
the Economists from October 1897 to December 1902. It was edited by
K. M. Takhtarev and others.

[4]
An unsigned item printed in Iskra No. 1 in the “Our Public
Life” column. It cautioned workers against unorganised strikes in the
crisis conditions then prevailing, for the employers seized upon them as a
pretext for wholesale dismissals.

[5]
Yuzhny Rabochy (Southern Worker)—an illegal
Social-Democratic newspaper published by a group of the same name from
January 1900 to April 1903. At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. the
delegates from this group took a Centrist position.

The Second Congress dissolved the Yuzhny Rabochy group along
with all other Social-Democratic groups and organisations Which had
functioned independently.

The reference is to reports on a strike at the Prokhorov mines (on the
Donets) carried by Iskra No. 2 (February 1901) and Yuzhny Rabochy No. 3 (November 1900).

[6]

V. P. Nogin had suggested that L. Martov’s article “New Friends of the
Russian Proletariat” should end in a more pointed analogy between the
preachments of S. V. Zubatov and the treatment of economic struggle in the
programme of Rabochaya Mysl .

[7]

V. P. Nogin had pointed out that although Iskra had chosen as
its motto words first used by the Decembrists, it made no mention of the
uprising of December 14, 1825.

[8]
Byloye (The Past)—-an historical journal devoted mostly to
the history of Narodism and earlier social movements, published in 1900–04
and 1906–07, first abroad, them in St. Petersburg.

[9]
Justice —a weekly published in London from January 1884 to
the beginning of 1925; organ of the Social—Democratic Federation and,
from 1911, of the British Socialist Party. From February 1925 to December
1933 it was published under the name of Social-Democrat .

[10]
On his way to Russia in May 1901, V. P. Nogin spent a week in Munich
where he discussed with Lenin the work to be conducted in Russia.