V. I.

Lenin

12

To:   P. B. AXELROD

March 20, 1901

Dear P. B., I have received all your letters and have given Auntie
news of her old friend. [1] There was no need for you to worry
about addresses and to think that there had been any change.
I am still living at the same place and you should write
to me at the old address:

Herrn Georg Rittmeyer, Kaiserstrasse 53/0, München. Inside: für Meyer .

I am not expecting my wife for some time yet: her term of exile only ends on Sunday, and she has to make some
calls on the way, so she can hardly be here before the second half of April. Even when she does come you can still
write to
Rittmeyer, [2] for he will always forward everything to me, and I in turn will let you know in good time
of any change of address.

We are having trouble with Zarya . That capricious -3 gentleman
Dietz [3] definitely rejected your editorial article; he was frightened by the references to Iskra , scented a
whiff of “groups”, etc., and referred to the fact that both
Bebel and Singer (shareholders in his G.m.b.H .) are rather
afraid, [4] and so on. To our very great regret, we had to
give up your article, replacing it by a few words “to the
readers”. This new censorship is horribly unpleasant! The
cover, too, has suffered: they deleted even “several
Russian Social-Democrats”. When shall we get rid of the
“tutelage” of these Dreck-Genossen ?!

We are having unpleasantness with that Calf (Judas)
too. A very angry letter has come from his friend (=the
proposed source of money= goldene Wanze [5] ), saying: I am sending 200 (two hundred!) rubles for Sovremennoye Obozrentye , and bear in mind, he says, that it is for this
enterprise and not for yours. We are all indignant, and it has
been decided: 1) not to publish the statement about the
coalition, 2) to send the Calf and his “friend” an ultimatum :either firm financing of our enterprise or we refuse, 3) to
finish the Witte memorandum. [6]

Well, haven’t we been fooled again by Judas?

There is one consolation: No. 2 of Iskra has reached
Russia safely. It is a success and letters are pouring in. The
devil knows what is happening in Russia: demonstrations
in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Kazan; martial law in Moscow (by the way, they arrested my youngest sister
there and even my brother-in-law, [7] who had never taken
part in anything!); bloody battles; prisons crammed full,
and so on.

In a few days we are expecting
Brother [8] and our common friend—Feld [9] —who have already left (at last!); the
latter ( so far ) has safely fulfilled everything required of
him.

We are publishing a May-Day leaflet, [10] and then we shall start on No. 3 of Iskra , and perhaps also No. 4 at the
same time—there is a lot of material.

Zarya will come out on Saturday, they say, and will be sent to you directly from Stuttgart.

Our finances are in a very bad way. Hence for the time being we must definitely refrain from all expenditure on
inviting a man out (proposed by you as a carrier).

All the very best.

Yours,

Meyer

---
Notes:
[1]
The reference is to Dobrogeanu-Gherea (Kats, K. A.) (1855-1920)—leader of
the opportunist wing of the Rumanian Social-Democrats. p. 58

[2]
Rittmeyer, G. —a Munich Social-Democrat at whose place Lenin lived
in 1900-01 under the name of Meyer. Letters to Lenin were sent to his address
from December 1900 to the end of July 1901. p. 58

[3]
Dietz —owner of a Stuttgart printing-house at which Zarya ,
the Marxist scientific and political journal, was printed.

G.m.b.H.—Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung. p. 58

[4]
This refers to an article of Axelrod’s intended as an editorial for the
first issue of Zarya . In the phrase that was to appear on the cover of
the journal “Published in close co-operation with G. V. Plekhanov,
V. I. Zasulich, P. B. Axelrod and several Russian Social-Democrats”, Dietz
crossed out the last five words. p. 58

[5]
This refers to D. Zhukovksy, a publisher of books on philosophy. p. 55

[6]
The secret memorandum of tsarist minister S. Y. Witte under the heading
“The Autocracy and the Zemstvo”, with a preface by P. B. Struve
(using the pseudonym R.N.S.), was published illegally by Zarya in
1901. Both the memorandum and the preface were sharply criticised by Lenin
in his article “The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of
Liberalism” (See Vol. 5 of this edition). p. 59

[7]
Referring to Maria Ulyanova, and M. T. Yelizarov. p. 59

[8]
This refers to Y. O. Martov. p. 59

[9]
The pseudonym of Blumenfeld, Yosif Solomonovich (born
1865)—a Social-Democrat, active member of the Emancipation of Labour
group, later a member of the Iskra organization, by trade a
compositor. In the E. L. group and Iskra was in charge of printing
and shipping arrangements. In March 1902 was arrested with a parcel of
Iskra publications and imprisoned in a Kiev jail, whence he
escaped abroad in August 1902. After the split at the Second Congress of
the R.S.D.L.P. he joined the Mensheviks. In December 1903 became secretary
of the editorial board of the Menshevik Iskra and subsequently
worked in the Menshevik organizations in Russian and abroad. p. 59

[10]
This refers to the Iskra leaflet “First of May” issued in April 1901. p. 59