V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v49; en:CW/CW35;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Dear Comrade,

Unfortunately, we cannot publish the article “Towards a Theory of the Imperialist State.” It turns out that the space is so taken up by Russian material that all other subjects are cramped, and there is not enough money. Times are hard.

But that is not the main thing. The main thing is certain defects in the article.

N.B.

The title does not correspond to the contents. The article consists of two parts, the connection between which has not been sufficiently thought out: 1) on the state in general, and 2) on state capitalism and its growth (especially in Germany). The second part is good and useful, but nine-tenths of it is legal. We would advise publishing it in one of the legal symposia (if not in *The Annals*), after a very slight revision, and we would be prepared to do everything in our power to get it published there.

The first part touches on a subject of enormous fundamental importance, but it only touches on it. We cannot, when publishing symposia once a year, print an insufficiently thought-out piece on such a cardinal question of theory. Leaving aside the polemic with Gumplowicz, etc. (it, too, would be better revised and developed into a legal article), we must point to a number of extremely inexact formulations by the author.

Marxism is a “sociological” (???) “theory of the state”; the state is the “general” (?) organisation of the ruling classes; the quotations from Engels are broken off precisely at the places which are particularly important when one is speaking about this. The distinction between Marxists and anarchists on the question of the state (pp. 15-16) is defined in a decidedly incorrect way: if one is to speak of this, one must not speak in that way; one cannot speak in that way. The conclusion (author’s italics): “Social-Democracy must strongly emphasise its fundamental hostility to state power” (p. 53); compare: the proletariat creates “its own temporary state organisation of power” (p. 54) (“state organisation of power”!?)—this, too, is either extremely inexact or incorrect.

Advice: revise the part on state capitalism and the polemic with Gumplowicz and Co. into a legal article. Let the rest mature. Such is our conviction.