V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v13;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

V. I. LENIN — A. M. GORKY
ON CAPRI (ITALY)
November 14, 1910 [Paris]¹

Dear A[lexei] M[aximovich], It is a very long time since we had any news from you and M[aria] F[yodorovna]. I have been missing news from Capri. What is the matter? Surely you cannot be keeping count of letters as some people, they say, keep count of visits.

Everything is the same here as before. A heap of petty affairs and all sorts of unpleasantnesses connected with the struggle of the various “appanages” inside the Party. Brrr!... But it must be fine on Capri...

As a rest from squabbling we have taken up the old plan of publishing a *Workers’ Gazette*. We collected 400 francs with difficulty. Yesterday No. 1 finally came out. I am sending it to you together with a leaflet and a subscription form. Sympathisers with such an undertaking (and with the “rapprochement” of the Bolsheviks with Plekhanov) among the members of the Capri-Naples colony are invited to give every possible support. The *Workers’ Gazette* is needed, and it is impossible to have any dealings with Trotsky, who is intriguing in favour of the liquidators and the recallist-Vperyodists. Plekhanov and I already protested energetically in Copenhagen against Trotsky’s most contemptible article in *Vorwärts*.³ And what a vile thing he printed in *Die Neue Zeit* about the historical meaning of the struggle among the Russian Social-Democrats!⁴ Have you seen Lunacharsky’s article in the Belgian *Le Peuple*?⁵

We are organising a small legal journal to combat *Nasha Zarya* and *Zhizn*, also with the participation of Plekhanov. We hope to bring out No. 1 soon.⁶

Such are our affairs. Little by little, quietly, with difficulty, we are nevertheless extricating ourselves from the squabbling and getting on to the right road.

What is new with you? Did you write to Stroyev and what reply did you get? We wrote him a first letter “to establish contact”; he received it and replied that he did not understand who was writing. We wrote again. He is silent. There is a devilish shortage of people, and the old ones have scattered.

We had almost arranged a weekly newspaper in St. Petersburg together with the Duma fraction (the Mensheviks there are fortunately inclining not to the liquidators but to Plekhanov), but the matter has again been held up for God knows what reason.

Write and tell me how you are getting on. Is your work going well? Is anything coming of the journal you spoke about in the summer? What about *Znaniye*?⁷

I have a right to be angry with M[aria] F[yodorovna]. She promised to write. Nothing. She promised to find out about the Paris library on the history of the Russian revolution. Nothing. Not good.

I press your hand,
Yours,
Lenin

Tria’s report will probably be printed after all. The Editorial Board of the Central Organ has decided that. Well, what squabbling there is in that Editorial Board, it’s beyond endurance...