V. I.

Lenin

TO G. V. PLEKHANOV

November 9

I received your letter today, dear Georgi Valentinovich,
and at once sent you by registered book-post (1) the article
“What Has Happened?” by Puttman; (2) the article by
Byvaly, and (3) the article by D. Koltsov about the Paris
Congress. [4]

Vera Ivanovna found this last article quite unacceptable and I entirely agree with her. The article is
uninteresting, quite unsuitable for the journal (especially since you
will be writing about
Millerand [5] ) and much too long for the paper. It contains 22,000–27,000 letters, whereas for
the paper we need an item of 6,000-9,000 letters or only
a little more. We would therefore like to ask Rakovsky to write an article of that size for the paper, and to reject
Koltsov’s article. We decided to send it on to you, all the
more since you were going to reply to Rakovsky. So do as you find most appropriate—either reject Koltsov’s
article and order one from Rakovsky, or request Koltsov
to rewrite and shorten the article, under your guidance.
It seems to us more probable that you will choose the first
alternative, and in that case you can of course refer to us
when informing Koltsov, and we can write to him ourselves as soon as we get your reply.

I am sending the article by Byvaly for polishing up and
insertion of some corrections which you indicated. Of course you may make corrections: please do so with all the
articles, either making them in pencil right in the manuscript or on separate sheets. I can, if you like, write to
Byvaly afterwards about these corrections—he is not likely to take a rigid stand, but if he does, we shall have to
discuss the matter and make a choice: whether or not to take
the whole as it is. The only thing I cannot agree with you
on at all is the suggestion to cut out the mention of
Bakharev’s pamphlet, [6] and this not so much because it would
be extremely unpleasant for the author, as because I, too,
consider Bakharev’s pamphlet useful (in spite of its defects), for it raises a really important point and, on the whole,
deals with it correctly. Byvaly writes not only about the
old but also about the new; if serious revolutionaries had
no need of such pamphlets in the 1870s, we nowadays certainly have need of them, and we had the firm intention
to print a critical but approving note about it (possibly
in the paper, but not in No. 1). The fact that quite young
workers and intellectuals are being drawn into the mass
movement, who have almost completely forgotten, or rather have no knowledge of what used to happen in the old
days and how, and the absence of organisation of “ experienced” revolutionaries—all this makes it necessary to
publish pamphlets about rules of behaviour for socialists.
The Poles have such a pamphlet, [7] which seems to give
a great deal more than Bakharev’s does. Vera Ivanovna agrees that the mention of Bakharev should not be cut out.
In certain conditions, if you think it useful, a discussion
in the journal on the question of the possible importance of
such pamphlets might perhaps not be altogether irrelevant.
We intend Byvaly’s article for the journal and not the paper. Vera Ivanovna says that our paper turns out to be
at a lower level, in terms of the readers for whom it is
intended, than you probably imagine. Vera Ivanovna is on
the whole rather dissatisfied with the paper: she says it
is of the Rabocheye Dyelo type , only somewhat more literary, more brushed up. I have sent one article to
Pavel Borisovich, asking him to send it on to you. It would
be quite inconvenient to have the question of Kautsky’s
resolution shortened and abridged to the size of a newspaper
article and that is why we should like the journal to carry
an article or item on this question by you. Or perhaps you
intend to confine yourself to something very small?
Probably even an item on this subject will require about 10
printed pages, i.e., about 20,000 letters, if not more?

I must say that I thought you would be willing to write
an item about Solovyov. Puttman is hardly likely to take
it on. I shall write to him, but I am not very hopeful.

Vera Ivanovna is prepared to write about the
Decembrists, [8] but what about the material? We shall write
immediately to have them send us what they can. Perhaps you
too will suggest what it would be particularly important
to have for this work. I think the most important thing
is the historical journals, which are not available here.

Gurevich is writing a big article for the journal on French
affairs, and for the newspaper on the national congress.
Goldendakh or Nakhamkis was going to write about the
International Congress, but did not.

Please send us your article, “Socialism and the Political
Struggle” (it can be sent by registered book-post to the same address of Lehmann ); I doubt that Alexei would not
like the article because of the comradely criticism, for I
remember him telling me that he found the objections of
Pavel Borisovich to be justified.

We shall number the separate sheets (unless they have been numbered already) and I don’t think the compositors
will lose anything; after all, they always have to deal with
separate sheets, and the same applies to our paper, and
so far they have never lost anything. The question of “
responsible editor” will evidently be settled favourably, I
think, tomorrow or the day after (today I received news
that two have agreed, and am expecting vital information
tomorrow). We think that all the same we shall not manage
(initially, at least) without the help of Blumenfeld, whom
Dietz has agreed to take on as a compositor, and who would
put the thing on its feet for us, train the Germans, etc. As
soon as all this is finally cleared up, I shall write or
telegraph to him at once. But I should very much like to
have your article, “Once More”, etc., [9] as soon as possible,
because we might have to send it for setting immediately.

Against Rabochaya Mysl —more precisely, only against the article “Our Reality” in the Separate Supplement —
I had an article, “The Retrograde Movement in Russian
Social-Democracy”, [10] written as far back as a year ago. It
has now been sent here to me, and I am thinking of rewriting it for the journal, with additional material directed against
Rabocheye Dyelo .

I don’t quite understand to which “latest No.” of Rabochaya Mysl you refer. No. 8 was the last issue of the paper
(a new editorial board “from page 5”), which, incidentally,
carries a repudiation of the famous parallels at the end
of the article on Chernyshevsky in the Separate Supplement .
Is that what you have in mind?

I would think the item, “To What Lengths They Have
Gone”, [11] a useful one, though now I doubt the “ belligerency” of Rabochaya Mysl : they nevertheless want to take
a few steps “towards us” ( passez moi le mot [1]

),

and we ought to try to consider them verbesserungsfähig . [2]

But of course there should be an attack in any case: they won’t change
unless attacked. I have been corresponding lately with
Vetrinskaya, an old comrade of mine in the
League, [12] and told her that I supported Alexei’s words: “We shall
have to wrestle with you.” Go ahead, if you are not ashamed,
she told Alexei. I wrote to say that I was not in the least ashamed.

I should also like to have a talk with you about the economic trend and Alexei’s views, but it is already very
late, and I will confine myself to a few words. The economic trend , of course, was always a mistake, but then it
is very young, while there has been overemphasis of “ economic” agitation ( and there still is here and there ) even
without the trend, and it was the legitimate and inevitable
companion of any step forward in the conditions of our movement which existed in Russia at the end of the 1880s
or the beginning of the 1890s. The situation then was so
murderous that you cannot probably even imagine it, and
one should not censure people who stumbled as they clambered up out of that situation. For the purposes of this
clambering out, some narrowness was essential and legitimate:
was, I say, for with this tendency to blow it up into a
theory and tie it in with Bernsteinism, the whole thing of
course changed radically. But that the overemphasis of “
economic” agitation and catering to the “mass” movement were natural, you too, unless I’m mistaken, recognised
in “The New Campaign” written in 1896, when
Vilna
Economism [13] was already à l’ordre du jour , [3] while St.
Petersburg economism was emerging and taking shape.

Every good wish, and please excuse the disorderly writing.

Yours, Petroff

---
Notes:
[1]
Excuse the expression.— Ed .

[2]
Capable of improvement, not entirely hopeless.— Ed .

[3]
On the agenda.— Ed .

[4]
The article by Puttman (the pen-name of A. N. Potresov), “What
Has Happened?”, and the article by Byvaly (the pen-name of
Bogucharsky [V. Y. Yakovlev]), “About the Old and the New”,
to which the reference is made in the letter, were carried in Zarya
No. 1 in April 1901. The article by D. Koltsov (B. A. Ginzburg)
on the international congress in Paris did not appear in Zarya .

[5]
A reference to G. V. Plekhanov’s article, “A Few Words about
the Latest International Socialist Congress in Paris (An Open
Letter to the Comrades Who Have Authorised Me as Their
Delegate)”, = which was carried in Zarya No. 1 in April 1901.

[6]
Bakharev —the pen-name of V. P. Makhnovets. The reference
is to his pamphlet, “How to Behave at Interrogations”, Geneva,
1900, issued by the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad.

[7]
The name of the pamphlet is unknown.

[8]

V. I. Zasulich’s article on the Decembrists did not appear in
the press. On December 14 (27), 1900, Plekhanov spoke at a
meeting of Russian political émigrés in Geneva on. “The 14th of
December, 1825”. This speech was published in Zarya No. 1 in
April 1901.

[9]
A reference to G. V. Plekhanov’s article, “Once More on
Socialism and the Political Struggle”, carried in Zarya No. 1 in April
1901.

[10]
See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 255–85.

[11]

G. V. Plekhanov did not write the item because he included the
gist of it in his article, “Once More on Socialism and the Political
Struggle”.

[12]
A reference to the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class founded by Lenin in the autumn
of 1895.

[13]
A reference to the Economist trend, which emerged in Vilna in
the mid-1890s. It was led by A. I. Kremer, who issued a pamphlet
in 1896, entitled “On Agitation”. The St. Petersburg trend, which
arose later, was led by Takhtarev and others.