To the Editorial Office of “Pravda.”
[July, before the 22nd, 1912
Kraków.]
Dear Colleague! I am sending yet another article by I. Gyl’ysh².
The author reminds us: railway workers’ agitation.
It is absolutely imperative to respond to him without delay—preferably through me, but in any case on a separate sheet. The author resides in Lemberg, devoting himself wholeheartedly to his field of study; such a dedicated contributor must be retained. Once again, I strongly advise granting him an advance—and in every possible instance, responding to him forthwith.
N.V.: If Gyl’ysh’s articles are not forthcoming, return them immediately and without fail!
We have received the shipment, yet we cannot help but voice our complaint.
Of the books, there is only one! Please explain why. Did other colleagues take the remaining volumes that arrived at the editorial office? For how long—or perhaps permanently? If so, we should arrange for a temporary loan of the books.
Let us reiterate: without books, it is simply impossible to work.
The office must pay closer attention to this matter.
The Voter’s Companion was delivered 27* weeks after its release!³
And yet, a single parcel would have cost just 5 kopeks….
There has been a delay with the newspapers. We are sitting idle, without papers—and we will remain so for another two or three days.
I would strongly recommend dispatching a reporter to the City Administration to ascertain how many applications are being submitted by tenants, and then systematically begin publishing reports on this topic (encouraging those districts that are performing well while urging those that are lagging behind). Time is running out, and the newspaper must take full responsibility for this task.
We must obtain from the City Administration—through contacts among statisticians (or officially, via the editorial offices of State Duma members)—all available statistical materials; if such materials are lacking, we should purchase Retch’ for the relevant years and months, or some other newspaper covering elections to the Second and Third State Dumas—statistics pertaining to St. Petersburg (housing, population, and the like). With these materials at hand, and with a competent reporter who visits the City Administration daily, or two to three times a week, we can effectively organize the newspaper’s election coverage section.
* Which districts? Which streets? And so on—please provide more detailed information.


Do you send Pravda to Vienna, to the ((Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung»)?⁴
Please send it to us as well, along with its accompanying parcel.
To Trotsky, I suggest replying in the mailbox: “To Trotsky (Vienna). We shall not respond to contentious or frivolous letters.”
Trotsky’s vile campaign against Pravda is nothing but outright lies and baseless complaints. The renowned Marxist and Menshevik, Rotstein (London), wrote to us that he had received Trotsky’s slanderous letter and replied to him thus: “I cannot accuse the St. Petersburg Pravda of anything.” Yet this very same slanderer and liquidator continues to lie left and right.⁵
At your service, V. Ulyanov.
P.S. Even better would be to reply to Trotsky in the mailbox as follows: “To Trotsky (Vienna). You waste your time sending contentious and frivolous letters—there will be no response.”³
1 The date is established based on the postmark affixed by the Pravda editorial office upon receipt of the letter, dated July 22 (9), 1912.
2 I. Gyl’yka (Basok) was M.M. Melenevsky, a member of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic organization “Spilka.” Only one of his articles (“The Union of Rural Workers in Germany”) was published in Pravda, No. 65, July 27 (14), 1912.
3 Announcements regarding the availability of “The Voter’s Companion” appeared in Pravda, No. 42, June 30 (17), and in Nevskaya Zvezda, No. 14, July 7 (June 24), 1912.
4 The Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung (“Vienna Workers’ Newspaper”), the organ of Austrian Social Democracy.
6 In the Vienna edition of Pravda, Trotsky’s No. 25, May 23, 1912, carried an editorial note titled “We Await a Response,” which accused the “Leninist circle” of “usurpation,” “falsification,” and the appropriation of the title “Pravda”—a title belonging to the Vienna-based newspaper Pravda. At the same time, the editorial staff of the Vienna Pravda announced their “official” appeal to the editorial office of the “new St. Petersburg newspaper,” demanding that it “renounce what it has no right to claim.”