V. I.

Lenin

20

To:   G. V. PLEKHANOV

July 7, 1901

Dear G.V., How is your work going? All this time I have been
wanting to write you about the ending to Orthodox’s article,
i.e., the later addendum concerning Berdayev’s article [2]
in No. 6 of Mir Bozhy . Our
Struvefreundliche Partei [3] rejected this ending by a majority of 2 3/4 votes against 1 1/4
(Alexei “divided himself” into 3/4 and 1/4)—I was left in the
minority with my “ in favour ”. They didn’t like the note
on romantic love either, no? the general character of the
addendum. In my opinion, however, it gave a brief, sharp,
clear and business-like rebuff to the gentleman in question?
the concluding verses are especially good!

We are again told in letters from Russia that there is to be a congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party—in one town even an invitation has been received.
It is extremely important to make haste with the programme.
Write, please, whether you are thinking of undertaking and can undertake this work. Apart from you and
P. B. there is really no one: the formulation requires
intensive thinking put, but with the bustle existing here, for
example, it is quite impossible to concentrate and give
proper thought to it. Those old drafts of the programme
and the article (that is, one draft and one article) which.
Alexei brought you—and which he quite wrongly took back—are hardly likely to be of much use, are they? What
do you think? If, however, you need them, we shall immediately send them to you.

I have ordered Shakhovskoi and
Tezyakov. [4] Why do you need them for the programme? You are not thinking
of drawing up demands for the agricultural workers on the
basis of them, are you? And what is your attitude to demands for the peasantry? Do you in general accept the possibility
of such demands in the Russian Social-Democratic programme?

The proofs of your article have not yet come. Zarya No. 2
contains: Old Believer on Russkoye Bogatstvo , V. I. on
Berdayev, I have written on the Witte memorandum and trounced the
Preface [5] (I am thinking of sending it to you for your advice, but I don’t know whether there will
be enough time), Alexei has an essay on “The Tasks of the Socialist Intelligentsia”—you have seen it, what do you
think of it? I shall write, too, against
Chernov. [1]

.

And will you do the review of the miscellany At the Post of Honour ?

For Iskra (No. 6 is being set up and will appear in July,
No. 7 should appear in August) we are expecting from you
articles concerning the letter of a worker and on the “Rebirth of Revolutionism in Russia”.

Parvus is still standing by his “organisation”!

Kautsky passed through here. He is going on holiday and does not promise to write anything just now.

Nevzorov has sent Iskra a “disgusting” (the comment of V. I. and Puttman) article against the article “Where
To
Begin” [6] —a hymn to the committees, a defence (evasive) of Rabocheye Dyelo , etc. We shall return it to the
author (we shall make a copy and send it to you, if you like).

Yes, regarding the plan of federation or amalgamation with the Union, I hope you have seen our counter-plan?
If not, ask Koltsov to get it from Dvinskaya. I doubt whether anything will come of this.

All the very best.

Yours....

Oh, yes, about the money from the Belgians for our movement. I think one-third should be given to Rabocheye Dyelo : for the sake of 50–100 francs it is not worth while
to give cause even for talk.

---
Notes:
[1]

“ The Agrarian Question and the ’Critics of Marx”’ (see present
edition, Vol. 5).— Ed .

[2]
Berdayev, Nikolai Alexandrovich (1874-1948)—a reactionary
idealist philosopher and publicist.

The reference here is to his article “The Fight for Idealism”,
published in the journal Mir Bozhy No. 6, for 1901. p. 74

[3]
Struvefreundliche Partei —the name by which Potresov and
Zasulich were jokingly called among the editorial staff of
Iskra . p. 74

[4]
The reference is to the books: N. Shakhovskoi, Agricultural Outside Employments , Moscow, 1896; N. I. Tezyakov, Agricultural Workers and the Organisation of Sanitary Supervision Over Them in Kherson Gubernia , Kherson, 1896. p. 74

[5]
The preface to Witte’s “memorandum” was written by
P. B. Struve. Lenin “trounced” Struve’s preface in
Chapter V of his article “The Persecutors of the Zsemstvo and the
Hannibals of Liberalism” (see Vol. 5 of this edition). p. 75

[6]
This refers to Nevzorov’s (Y. M. Staklov’s) article “And
So, Where Do We Begin?” directed against Lenin’s article
“Where To Begin” (see Vol. 5 of this edition). p. 75