V. I.

Lenin

TO P. B. AXELROD

October 10, 1900

Dear P. B., I have received your letter with the enclosures. Thanks
for these.

About the English journal (there were two messages in it)
my
sister [1] says that she doesn’t remember the title exactly
—something like Family Pictures [2] —a yellow cover with
red drawings, an illustrated journal, somewhat larger than
Neue Zeit , [3] about 10 sheets; she says she gave it to you,
in the presence of your wife, to pass on to me.

Alexei is well, writing, busy organising contacts. He will be free in six or eight weeks, hardly earlier. My
brother [4] is still here, keeps putting it off.

The statement will be ready in a few days, and I shall of course send it on to
you. [5] There is already plenty of copy for the paper; only a pity that it’s mostly highly
specific workers’ stuff, strikes and strikes, and descriptions
of the workers’ condition. Nothing at all on internal questions.

Dietz has undertaken to publish the journal for us. The
type has been bought, but there is still no responsible
editor [6] : one arrangement has fallen through, but there
are others in view. If we fail to find a responsible editor,
we shall move the printing press elsewhere.

How is your health? Do you manage to do any work?
I suppose Paris has completely worn you out? Let us know
about the article on
Liebknecht [7] for the journal and for the paper —how do matters stand, and when can we expect
to have it?

I shake you warmly by the hand, and wish you the best of health and more free time.

Yours, Petroff

Here is the best address:

Herrn Dr. Med. Carl Lehmann , Gabelsbergerstrasse 20a, München .

Inside, on the second envelope: for Petrov.

( Excuse the scribble!)

P.S. We have just had a letter from Nakhamkis, from which it appears that there has been a misunderstanding
about the subject of the Paris congresses. [8] You asked
Gurevich to write, and of course this was very good.
Koltsov wrote to tell us that he intended to deal with the same subject, and even informed Nakhamkis that we
had “commissioned” him to write about it, which was not
actually the case. Would you write to Koltsov suggesting
that he should rather take up some other subject? Will you do this, please, since we don’t know exactly where
he is at present. We are writing to tell Nakhamkis that
he and Gurevich should divide this work between them.

---
Notes:
[1]
A reference to A. I. Yelizarova.

[2]
Family Pictures —a journal which was used for the secret
transmission of reports or articles for Iskra .

[3]
Die Neue Zeit —a theoretical journal of the German
Social-Democratic Party, published in Stuttgart from 1883 to 1923. Up
to October 1917, it was edited by K. Kautsky and then by
Heinrich Cunow.

[4]
A reference to A. N. Potresov.

[5]
A reference to the draft declaration of the Editorial Board of
Iskra on the publication of a newspaper. It was drawn up by Lenin
in late March and early April 1900 (see present edition, Vol. 4,
pp. 320–30). The draft was rewritten by Lenin when he arrived
abroad, after the August 1900 conference with members of the
Emancipation of Labour group (G. V. Plekhanov, P. B.
Axelrod, and V. I. Zasulich). In the first half of October, the
declaration was published as a leaflet (ibid., pp. 351–56).

In contrast to the original draft, which set forth a programme
for the two organs—newspaper and journal—the declaration
issued by the Iskra editors concerned only the newspaper, it having
been decided that the tasks of the journal Zarya would be dealt
with separately, in its first issue. For reasons of secrecy it was
decided not to circulate the declaration abroad until it reached
Russia.

[6]
A reference to the Marxist scientific and political journal Zarya and
its “responsible editor” as required by German press laws.

[7]
A reference to P. B. Axelrod’s article, “Wilhelm Liebknecht”,
carried in Iskra No. 1. Apart from this short article on the death
of the prominent leader of the German and international
working-class movement, Axelrod was also writing a long article for
Zarya , which, however, was not published.

[8]
A reference to the congress of the Second International and the
congress of the French Socialist Party held in Paris in
September 1900. Neither Iskra nor Zarya carried E. L. Gurevich’s or
Y. M. Steklov’s article on the subject.