Note: from 18 October 1900

4.
18/X 00 [Munich].

Dear P. B., Yesterday I received your long and kind letter of 15/X — thank you very much for it. We are extremely glad to learn that you are feeling better and that work is going well for you. An article for the newspaper is already being recopied! You are outpacing us — we cannot all arrange things so that there is someone to recopy the necessary materials for sending. Zagorskaya *) has still not left, and the work of maintaining correspondence is growing more and more. I am exhausted at times and have completely lost the habit of my actual work.

Your hint about the forthcoming "fuss" with the Parisians²) I did not quite understand. Of course, it would be terribly difficult for you to write about everything, but perhaps you could pass on the essence to Vera Ivanovna [Zasulich], who we hope will come here soon?³)

We still have no editor-in-chief...⁴) The declaration is ready and has been sent to Russia (I will send it to you soon), and soon we will be able to begin typesetting the newspaper. We are thinking of publishing the large correspondence "May Days in Kharkov" (about 50,000 letters) as a separate pamphlet⁵), and in the newspaper print only a short extract, otherwise we would be taking up 3/4 of a page with one piece! (The newspaper will have about 3 columns per page, approximately 6,000 letters, or more precisely, "spaces" in a column [we are thinking of making the first issue of the newspaper 2 sheets, 8 pages?). What do you think?

Thank you for the advice about correspondences — we will certainly try to make use of it, for the physiognomy of the newspaper would certainly benefit from it.

With your view on brother [Potresov's]⁶) trip I completely agree. What is to be done with him? We are receiving warnings from everywhere — both from Paris (that arrivals from Russia call all three of them by their names) and from Russia (that they tracked me down on my way here and in one provincial town arrested a completely innocent man, a distant relative⁷), who had never seen me, and asked what instructions I had given him!!). And I convince brother [Potresov] with all my strength either not to go or to dash off for 2 weeks, and I convince him, and mock him, and curse at him (I have never cursed at him so viciously before) — nothing works, he keeps harping on one thing: home and home! Now he has gone so far that the declaration has been sent to Russia — which means it will already be the case that if this declaration is intercepted, and it certainly will be, it will be a direct indication of a new literary enterprise. And now wouldn't it be better to wait a bit longer for Alexei [Martov]? Right now my "opponent" will arrive and I will give him this to read — let him "refute" it, if he has the conscience for it!

We are both completely healthy, but our nerves are utterly wound up and frayed — mainly this agonizing uncertainty⁸), these damned Germans feed us breakfast, — ah! I would like to...!

Yes, I forgot! (forgive me, please, generously for the hastiness of this letter!) — there have already been negotiations with Bucharin — he refused, simply refused outright. He is trying to impose on us the Vermittlerrolle⁹ — and nothing will change his mind!

I clasp your hand firmly and send greetings to your whole family. Your Petrov.

Just now Zagorskaya-Smidovich-Leman arrived. I will see her tomorrow.

[Postscript by A. N. Potresov.]
I have read the letter and do not approve of its contents.
Krak.

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*) Zagorskaya, Inna Germogenovna Smidovich-Leman, also known as "Dimka," who performed secretarial duties for the editor of *Iskra* until N. K. Krupskaya's arrival in April 1901. Later I. G. Smidovich worked as an *Iskra* contributor in Russia; in 1902 she was arrested in Kremenchug; on 13 January 1903 she escaped from the Kiev Gendarme Administration (on her escape see No. 33 of 11-1903 and No. 535 of 1/IV-1903 of *Iskra*). Subsequently she became a Menshevik (see also "Letters of P. B. Axelrod and Yu. O. Martov." Berlin 1923, p. 61).

²) "Parisians" — Gurevich, Ryazanov, Steklov — see letter 1, note 5.

³) V. I. Zasulich moved to Munich for work in *Iskra*. By around the 20th of October, V. I. Zasulich was already in Munich.

⁴) Editor-in-chief for *Zarya*.

⁵) "May Days in Kharkov" was published as a separate pamphlet by *Iskra* in January 1901 (Pub. of *Iskra*, *Iskra* printing house. Price 10 kopecks).

(See below — p. 296).

⁶) The reference is to the fact that the Russian police had already learned of V. I. Lenin's and A. N. Potresov's presence in Munich, and that a trip to Russia under such circumstances was not safe.

⁷) Who is meant has not been established.

The police were very interested in V. I. Lenin and in general the entire group that made up the editorial board of *Iskra*. In the "Survey of Gendarme Inquiries" for 1901, it is directly stated that Vladimir Ilyich lives in Munich and works at *Iskra*.

⁸) Delay in the printing of *Iskra* and especially *Zarya*.

⁹) Vermittlerrolle — the role of mediator.