P. B. AXELROD 8. XI. Dear P. B.! I have received your letter of the 5th and the article*. Many thanks for it. The reworking must have cost you no little labour and even more unpleasantness, because compressing such a subject must have been extremely uninteresting work. For us it is all the more valuable that you undertook it. Please excuse me for not sending you any articles: our “secretary” is, unfortunately, burdened with serious family duties, and the copying is consequently making very slow progress. I am sending the article “New Friends of the Russian Proletariat,” which we want to put in No. 1, as a feuilleton**. Please let me have your opinion—you can write on the article itself in pencil—and then be so good as to send it on to G. V. With regard to the Paris people, we have decided to stick exactly to the tactics you advise: on the one hand to “refrain from arming them,” and on the other to “hold back.” They are, of course, dissatisfied with our restraint, and recently we had to (it was absolutely necessary) give such a rebuff to their expressions of dissatisfaction that we were rather afraid of a “cooling off” (afraid is not the right word, because we had decided to give that rebuff even if it led definitely to a rupture). Yesterday we received an answer from the “secretary” of the group they have formed in Paris ; judging from the answer, our rebuff had no harmful consequences, and “everything is going well.” We hope it will continue so. That later on we shall probably have to consider the “rules” and other nice and interesting things of which you speak is quite true, but you did very well in setting about half a year as a tentative time for this. Until the enterprise is “in full swing,” —
* Reference is to P. B. Axelrod’s article “Wilhelm Liebknecht.”—Ed.
** The author of the article “New Friends of the Russian Proletariat” is L. Martov.—Ed.

TO P. B. AXELROD. NOVEMBER 8, 1900
this would be premature; with this opinion of yours we fully agree. But as for the idea of beginning to come out openly here—I cannot agree with you. That “legality is already lost” I cannot yet think. In my opinion it is not yet lost for the time being, and this for the time being may last a few more months, during which much will be clarified. (Brother is already in Russia; so far all is well. The Traveler* is also still journeying successfully.) And even if legality is completely and finally lost, there may be weighty considerations against coming out openly (for instance, considerations about trips home). Therefore, until the first numbers appear and until we all (with Alexei and brother) meet, I shall in any case continue to hide. If the enterprise is destined to succeed, this decision may change quickly—but my former “optimism” regarding this condition has been pretty well shaken by the “prose of life.” As for a journal, it will probably be settled soon whether we shall arrange it here or go to other countries in search of refuge. As soon as it is settled I shall let you know. Writing to America is very awkward for me, since I know no one and no one knows me—in any case I’ll have to resort to your mediation: so wouldn’t it be better to write to you directly and send a statement, saying that it is from the Russian group, that your relations to this group are such and such, that the pamphlet “The May Days in Kharkov” is now being set in type at the same printing press, and when it is finished the newspaper will be set, that the statement says nothing about the journal (or symposium) for conspiratorial-technical reasons, that for No. 1 the following articles by G. V., you, Kautsky (“Erinnerungen**”—an interesting little thing, which V. I. is already translating), and others are being prepared (or are ready). I think all the aims about which you write will be attained much more directly and better by your letter; sending a statement to America from you would not now (I think) threaten any undesirable publicity, especially if only one copy is sent to be read out by the secretary of the society there at its meeting. I press your hand warmly. Yours, Petroff
P. S. Received the cushion and the book.
* Y. O. Martov.—Ed.
** — Reminiscences.—Ed.
V. I. LENIN