V. I.

Lenin

Dear A. M., How is your health? M. F. wrote that you had returned
with a cough, etc. I hope you are better.

We’ve had some bad luck with
Mysl . [1] You probably know what has happened from Rech and other papers. We
have to transfer the whole business to St. Petersburg, and
begin all over again. But we have no legal and reliable
people.

Could you help us, if you sympathise with Mysl ? Or perhaps Pyatnitsky could help? As things are, we still
have enough money to publish such a small journal ( provided, of course, that we all work for nothing and pay
outsiders 20 rubles a sheet! Not so generous, you see). So
at present it is only technical help that is needed: to find
a publisher who, without spending a kopek of his own , would
bring out the journal (and we so strongly recognise the
strictest legality, that we give the right both to the publisher and to the secretary of the editorial board-f-a lawyer
to hold up anything in the least dangerous; we brought out
four issues without the slightest faultfinding from the court.
No. 5 was confiscated on account of
Kautsky [2] ! That was obviously a mere pretext. There was nothing illegal in
Kautsky).

Why should not Pyatnitsky or someone else help us in such a safe business? If it is impossible to find a publisher,
what about a secretary , a legal person whom we would pay
50 rubles a month for worrying about the printing press and
forwarding. All we want is an honest and thoughtful person.
The trouble is that we have no legal people, except workmen (and they won’t do).

The second question. We have a translation of Kautsky’s
latest articles against Maslov, which has already been paid
for. [3] It’s quite legal. It’s an essential thing, because
Maslov has written a lot of nonsense and has also lied to
his Russian readers. It’s 3–5 printed sheets. Could it be
published—without author’s fees (for our translation has
already been, paid for) at cost price? Is Pyatnitsky (or
someone else) suitable for anything like this or not?

The third question. Y. M. Nakhamkis, deported here from St. Petersburg for his connections with the
Social-Democratic Duma group (he is Nevzorov or Steklov , author
of a good book about
Chernyshevsky [4] ), is badly in need of work and asks me to inquire whether it would be possible
to publish Peary: A Journey to the North Pole . He thinks
it will have a good sale.

What news is there of the “plans”? Please write.

And do reply to the workers at our school. They are good
fellows. One of them is a poet, and keeps writing verses,
but the poor chap has no guide, helper, instructor or adviser.

Best wishes, Yours, Lenin

Robert E. Peary :

La découverte du pôle nord , Paris—magnificent illustrations. The blocks can be bought here cheaply. About 15
printed sheets, each of 40,000 letters and spaces. (I have
just seen Steklov, who gave me these details.)

---
Notes:
[1]
Mysl (Thought)—a Bolshevik legal magazine, published in
Moscow from December 1910 to April 1911; was closed down by the
tsarist government.

[2]
The first part of the Russian translation of K. Kautsky’s pamphlet,
Taktische Strömungen in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie (Tactical
Trends among German Social-Democrats), Berlin, 1911, appeared
in Mysl No. 5, April 1911, and this was the pretext for its
closure.

[3]
A reference to K. Kautsky’s article, “Malthusianismus und
Sozialismus” (Malthusianism and Socialism), published in Die Neue Zeit Nos. 18, 19, 20, February 1911.

[4]

Y. M. Steklov’s book, N. G. Chernyshevsky, His Life and Work (1828–1889) , appeared in 1909.