V. I.

Lenin

184

To:   MAXIM GORKY

Dear A. M., You are wrong in asking me to come over. Why should I be slanging Maximov,
Lunacharsky, etc.? You yourself write about keeping at loggerheads strictly
among ourselves and yet you invite us to do the same in public. It’s no
model. And about repelling the workers, you are wrong there too. If they accept
our invitation and call on us, we shall have a chat with them and fight for the
views of a certain news paper, [2] which certain factionalists are
abusing (I heard this long ago from Lyadov and others) as being a deadly bore, a
semi-literate and useless paper which does not believe in the proletariat or
socialism.

As regards a new split, your arguments don’t hang together. On the one
hand, both are nihilists (and “Slav anarchists”—why, my dear man,
the non-Slav Europeans at times like ours fought, cursed and split a hundred
times worse than we do!)—and, on the other hand, the split will be not
less deep than that between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. If it is a question
of the “nihilism” of the “loggerheads”, of the semi-literacy, etc., of someone who does not believe in what he writes,
etc.—then, the split is not deep or it is not a split at all. And if the
split is deeper than that between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks—then it is
not a question of nihilism, not a question of writers who do not believe in what
they write. It doesn’t hold water, really! You are wrong about the present
split and justly [1] say: “I understand people but not their deeds.”

What strikes you and Maximov in Proletary as insincerity and futility, etc., is due to a totally different view point on the
entire present moment (and, of course, on Marxism). We have been marking time
for almost two years now, torturing questions which still seem “disput- able” to Maximov, but which events decided long ago. And if we were to
continue “disputing” about them, we would still be vainly marking
time. But by parting company, we shall show the workers clearly, directly and
definitely, two ways out. The Social-Democratic workers will make their choice
easily and swiftly, for the tactics of preserving (in storage cans) the
revolutionary words of 1905-06 instead of applying the revolutionary
method to a new, different situation, to a changed epoch, which demands different methods and different forms of organisation—these
tactics are dead. The proletariat is moving towards revolution and will come to
it, but not in the way it did prior to 1905. To one who
“believes” that the proletariat will make it, but who does not understand this “not in the way”–to him our position is
bound to seem insincere, futile, tedious, based on lack of faith in
the proletariat and socialism, etc., etc. The divergence resulting from this is,
undoubtedly, deep enough to make a split—at least abroad—inevitable. But it does not come anywhere near the split between
the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, if one Is to speak of the depth of the split in
the Party, in Social-Democracy, among Marxists.

You are surprised that I fail to see Mikhail’s hysteria, lack of
discipline (it is not for you to say, nor for Mikhail to listen) and other bad
qualities. Well, I have had a little opportunity of testing him: I thought that
nothing would come of a conversation between you and me, that there was no sense
in writing. Under the impression of my talk with Mikhail, I wrote at once, in
the heat of the moment, without even reading through the letter, without putting
it off until the next day. The next day I thought: I have been foolish enough to
believe Mikhail. But it turned out that for all his enthusiasm Mikhail was right
to some extent , for we did have our talk, you and I—not
without hitches, of course, and not without Proletary being
annihilated, but that can’t be helped!

All the very best,

N. Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
An addition “justly”: I make a reservation. Without understanding their deeds one cannot understand people either, unless it be
... outwardly. That is to say, it is possible to understand the psychology of one or other participant of a struggle, but not the meaning of the
struggle, not its party and political significance .
— Lenin

[2]
The newspaper referred to was Proletary ^^(see Note 353)^^.