2/IX 98 [village of Shushenskoye].

I received your letter of 11/VIII yesterday with the list of books and the parcel — *Archiv*. The article by the "outstanding political economist" is extremely interesting and excellently composed. The author evidently had at his disposal the richest material, which fortunately fell into his hands. Generally, in the sphere of journalism he turns out to be scarcely even a worse writer than in the purely economic sphere. *Archiv*, in general, is an interesting journal, and I shall certainly subscribe to it next year¹).

I would also like to subscribe to some English periodical — a journal or newspaper (weekly); could you not suggest what would be best to choose. I am completely unfamiliar with what is most interesting in English journalism and accessible in Russia.

As regards Struve's article, in the evaluation of which we do not agree, one must of course say that one cannot judge the author's views precisely from it alone²). It seemed to me, for example, and still seems to me, that he precisely set himself "general classificatory tasks" (the title alone indicates this), while you find that he "by no means set them." That "we must wrest our artisanal industry from so-called folk production," with this I am of course entirely and unconditionally in agreement, and it seems to me that this task still stands before our "disciples"³) unresolved. In Struve's article I saw a **plan** for solving this task.

Have you noticed in *Russian Wealth* the article by N. G. (in the last two issues) against "materialism and dialectical logic"⁴)? Extremely interesting — from the negative side. I must confess that I am incompetent in the questions raised by the author, and I am extremely astonished why the author of *Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus*⁵) has not spoken out in Russian literature and does not speak out decisively against neo-Kantianism, leaving the field to Struve and Bulgakov to philosophize about particular questions of this philosophy, as if it had already become part of the views of Russian disciples⁶). Surely there would have been room for philosophical articles not in just one of our journals, and a book could have passed through freely. His polemic with Bernstein and Conrad Schmidt interests me extremely, and I am deeply sorry that I cannot manage to obtain *Zeit*⁷). I would be most grateful to you if you could help me with this. Of course, it would be entirely sufficient to receive this journal even for a short period. Do you have that issue of *Novoe Vremya* where an article by the same author on Hegel appeared (thirtieth anniversary of his death — something like that⁸)? *Novoe Vremya* does not reach me, nor any of my comrades here, although they promised to send it from Petersburg! The devil take all those promising and pledging in vain!

There is also an interesting little article by Ratner in *Russian Wealth* (for July) on *Capital*⁹). What infuriates me most of all are such lovers of the golden mean, who do not dare speak out directly against doctrines unsympathetic to them, who wriggle about, introduce "corrections," avoid the fundamental points (such as the doctrine of class struggle) and go round and round particular details.

The articles of another author in *Novoe Vremya* on social currents in Russia are also evidently extremely interesting: you have quite teased me by mentioning them¹⁰).

"And the eye sees, but..." If I have understood you correctly, this author expresses thoughts he has set forth elsewhere (on the danger of einer politischen Isolierung des russischen Proletariats¹¹). It seems to me that "estrangement from society" by no means necessarily signifies this "isolation,"*) inasmuch as there is society and there is society: in warring with Populism and all its offshoots, the disciples thereby draw closer to those of the gauches¹²) who are inclined to **decisively** break with Populism and **consistently** hold to their views. From such people the disciples would hardly become unconditionally aloof. Rather the opposite. A "reconciliatory" (or, better, alliancist)¹³) attitude toward such people is quite compatible, in my view, with war against Populism and all its manifestations.

Write. I shake your hand. V. Ulyanov.

*) And that this "isolation" cannot be allowed — in this the author is entirely and a thousand times right, especially against the **narrow** supporters of "economism."

Н-да-с, you really are fighting, so it's even frightening from afar: with sticks and so on! Fortunately, Eastern Siberia, it seems, has lagged somewhat behind Vyatka province in belligerence¹⁴).

¹) *Archiv für sociale Gesetzgebung und Statistik*, edited by Dr. Heinrich Braun. Berlin. — *Archive of Social Legislation and Statistics*, published by Heinrich Braun. The lines in Lenin's letter devoted to this *Archive* make it possible to assert that he has in mind here the XII volume of this collection, published in 1898. In this volume there appeared an extensive article by an anonymous author under the title: "New Factory Legislation in Russia" (pp. 475–512), devoted to the history and critique of the law of June 2, 1897, and furnished with abundant excerpts from the minutes of government institutions and commissions that worked on developing this law. The editorial board of the German journal, in a special note to the article, declared that it was publishing the article unsigned because of possible unpleasantness for the author from the Russian government, while indicating at the same time that its author was "an outstanding political economist, known both in his native country and abroad." The beginning of this characterization ("outstanding political economist") is quoted in Lenin's letter. D. B. Ryazanov, who specially studied the indicated article and the circumstances of its appearance at our request, came to the conclusion that its author was most probably P. B. Struve. The official documents used by the author of the article ("Report on the proceedings of the State Council and stenographic report of the commission of January 23, 1897") were published in the same year 1898 in Geneva in a pamphlet: "Secret Documents Relating to the Law of June 8, 1897."

Judging from Lenin's letter, the *Archive* booklet with the indicated article was sent to him by A. N. Potresov, possibly thinking that Lenin himself had written a special work on the law of June 2, 1897.

Whether Lenin fulfilled his desire to subscribe to *Archive* for the next year is unknown to us.

²) This refers to P. Struve's article "The Historical and Systematic Place of Russian Artisanal Industry," printed in the journal *Mir Bozhii* for 1898, No. 4. (Reprinted in Struve's collection of articles: *On Various Themes*, Petersburg, 1902). Initially the article, as a report, was read at a meeting of the Historical Society at Petersburg University in spring 1898.

³) "Disciples" — i.e., disciples of Marx. This term, originally used by Populists in an ironic tone, was widely applied in the 1890s in the polemic between Marxists and Populists as a legal, censorship-compatible designation for Marxists, social-democrats.

⁴) This refers to the article by N. G. "Materialism and Dialectical Logic," appearing in the Populist journal *Russkoe Bogatstvo* (Russian Wealth) for 1898, nos. 6 and 7. The author of the article was the émigré Kh. Zhitlovsky, one of the future founders of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. The article is written by an opponent of dialectics, but a confused one who has no real understanding of dialectics whatsoever. The author, who bows and scrapes before Marx and tries to strike down Engels, takes it for granted that "all the factual proofs with which the dialectician thinks to support his basic propositions crumble to dust the moment you subject them to a deeper logical analysis." Therefore he does not trouble himself to prove the unsoundness of dialectics, believing that this has been done for him by a certain retired German general, more famous for his philosophical exploits — E. Hartmann (Hartmann wrote an entire book in refutation of dialectics, *Ueber die dialektische Methode* — "On the Dialectical Method") and only tries to get to "the revealing... of the philosophical premises and influences that in their totality led to the dialectical method." As a result of such "revealing," the author discovers "the backward sides of Kant's teaching, which the dialecticians made use of." And after so remarkable a "revealing," he declares that dialectics is incompatible with materialism.

In the same 1898, in the August issue, *Nauchnoe Obozrenie* (Scientific Review) responded to N. G.'s article with a short note in "Literary Review" (pp. 1449–1452). It can be supposed that it was written by the editor of this journal, M. Filippov.

⁵) The author of *Beiträge zur Geschichte des Materialismus* (*Essays on the History of Materialism*) is G. V. Plekhanov. The descriptive expression is used for censorship reasons.

⁶) Lenin has in mind the polemic between Bulgakov and Struve, which flared up around the book published in 1896 by German professor-Kantian Stammler: *Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung* (there is also a Russian version: R. Stammler. *Economy and Law from the Point of View of the Materialist Interpretation of History*).

The dispute between Bulgakov and Struve was conducted in the plane of recognizing the necessity for a Marxist to accept the basic premises of Kant's philosophy and revolved around particular questions of this philosophy. Both of them saw in Kant's "criticism" a true philosophical revelation, while treating the materialism of Marx-Engels as backward metaphysics. Vladimir Ilyich's negative attitude toward G. V. Plekhanov's silence regarding the articles of Struve and Bulgakov is reflected even more clearly than in this letter in his letter to Potresov of June 28, 1899. (See note 18 to that letter.) For articles by Struve and Bulgakov see *Questions of Philosophy and Psychology* 1896, book V (35) — Bulgakov — "On the Regularity of Social Phenomena"; 1897, I (37) — Struve — "Freedom and Necessity"; *Novoe Slovo*, 1897, May, book 8: Bulgakov — "The Law of Causality and the Freedom of Human Actions"; Struve — "More on Freedom and Necessity." Bulgakov reprinted both his articles in the collection: *From Marxism to Idealism*, Petersburg, 1903. Struve reprinted only the first in his collection of articles: *On Various Themes*, Petersburg, 1902.

⁷) This refers to G. Plekhanov's article: "Bernstein and Materialism" (*Neue Zeit*, No. 44, July 1898). Not receiving *Neue Zeit* in Siberia, Vladimir Ilyich learned of these articles through correspondence, perhaps from A. N. Potresov's previous letters. The journal *Neue Zeit* (in Russian *Novoe Vremya*) — the theoretical organ of German social-democracy, in which at that time the most prominent theoreticians of Marxism contributed.

⁸) G. Plekhanov's article: "On the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel's Death," *Neue Zeit* for 1891, vol. IX. In Lenin's text it says "thirtieth anniversary," — apparently a slip.

⁹) M. Ratner's article: "Regarding the New Edition of Volume I of *Capital*" in No. 7 of *Russkoe Bogatstvo* for 1898.

¹⁰) Vladimir Ilyich has in mind the articles by P. Axelrod, appearing in Nos. 30 and 31 of *Neue Zeit* for April 1898 under the title: "Die historische Berechtigung der russischen Sozialdemokratie" and subsequently printed in Russian under the title: "The Historical Justification and Mutual Relations of Liberal and Socialist Democracy in Russia" (Geneva, 1898). Lenin did not himself have P. Axelrod's articles at that moment and judged them by A. Potresov's account in one of the latter's letters that has not reached us. Having received these articles (they were probably sent to him again by A. Potresov: in a letter of April 27, 1899, Lenin informs the latter of the return of "Die historische Berechtigung," i.e., precisely these articles by P. Axelrod), Lenin gave a detailed opinion of them in his next letter to A. Potresov of January 26, 1899.

¹¹) "On the danger of einer politischen Isolierung des russischen Proletariats" — "on the danger of political isolation of the Russian proletariat." This thought was expressed by P. B. Axelrod in his pamphlet: "On the Question of the Contemporary Tasks and Tactics of Russian Social-Democrats," published by the "Union of Russian Social-Democrats," Geneva, 1898. See, for example, the following passage: . . . "the actual state of affairs by no means condemns our industrial proletariat to socio-political isolation. And thank God it does not. Having only recently begun to distinguish itself from the enserfed state, poorly-cultured peasantry, it still to this day, in its masses, sinks too deeply in general folk barbarism and ignorance to be capable — in the grip of absolutism — of rising completely independently, without any outside support, to the height of conscious revolutionary force. Our 'revolutionary workers' party' would have even fewer chances of growing and vigorously manifesting itself in life if it had to struggle from the present low stage of intellectual and cultural development of the people's masses in Russia, on the soil of an autocratic-police state, against **all** bourgeois and petty-bourgeois classes, as against 'one solid reactionary mass.' And yet the Marxist youth of the 1880s seemed completely unconscious of the significance of these moments and saw the sole guarantee of the success of our social-democratic movement in the numerical growth of the factory proletariat. This point of view could somehow be reconciled with purely propagandistic activity in small circles of select units of the working class. But it becomes incompatible with organizational and agitational activity among the masses." Pp. 15–16.

¹²) *Gauches* — the left.

¹³) *Alliancist* — from *alliance* — alliance/union.

¹⁴) An allusion to heated debates between Marxists and Populists raging at that time in colonies of exiles. A. Potresov apparently described in his letter one of such clashes among the exiles of Vyatka province.