V. I.

Lenin

31

To:   G. V. PLEKHANOV

April 4, 1902

Dear G. V., I am sending you my article on the cut-off lands. [1]

When you have read it, please send it to P. B. together with
this letter, for if you keep to the plan which I originally
supported (viz., that this article should be, so to speak, a
general defence of our general draft), we must agree jointly on any necessary corrections. If, however, you reject
this plan, then we shall have to make other arrangements.

In some places I have quoted the general part of the programme (the statement of principle) according to my
draft; this will be altered, of course, if my draft is rejected, (I could then make some quotations from the Erfurt
Programme, [4] if you had no objections.)

Velika Dmitrievna made some marginal comments without, however, suggesting definite changes in each
particular case. Please write and give me your opinion on
these points. On one of them, I should like to say a few
words in my own defence. Velika Dmitrievna suggests deleting pages
79–82 [2]

;

I, of course, would not go out of my way to defend them. But she has also discovered in
them the programme’s “encouragement of unfairness” in proposing not to give preference to small leaseholders
(of nationalised land) but leasing to big and small alike
on condition of fulfilment of the agrarian laws and (N.B.)
proper cultivation of the land and livestock management.

She argues: this will be a “crime”, for “the rich will grab
everything”, while improved cultivation will deprive of work
nine-tenths of the workers whom no agrarian laws will help.

I think this argument is incorrect, for (1) it presumes
a very highly developed bourgeois society in which it is
a rare peasant who can manage without wage-labour; (2) the “rich” can then obtain land only if large-scale
farming is technically and economically “well organised”,
but this cannot be done all at once, hence the sudden transition that frightens Velika Dmitrievna cannot happen;
(3) the ousting of workers by machines is, of course, the
inevitable result of large-scale production, but we are
pinning our hopes not on retarding the development of capitalist contradictions, but on their full development;
moreover, improved cultivation of the soil presupposes a gigantic growth of industry and intensified efflux of
population from the land; (4) the proposed measure will
not only not help any “criminals” but, on the contrary,
is the sole conceivable measure in bourgeois society for
counteracting “crime”, for it directly restricts not only exploitation of the worker, but also plunder of the land
and deterioration of livestock. It is precisely the petty
producer in bourgeois society who especially squanders the forces not only of people, but of the land and livestock.

If you, too, are in favour of deleting pp. 79–82, please give your
advice on how to alter the note on
p. 92. [3]

What is your opinion as to whether it is possible in general to publish the agrarian part of the programme (and
the commentaries on it) separately from the programme as
a whole, prior to the publication of the whole programme?

I received yesterday the proofs of V. I.’s article and sent them to Dietz. Yesterday I sent to your address the
continuation of the proofs of her article. (To speed things
up she could send the corrected proofs directly to Dietz.)

It is now three weeks since we last heard of poor Tsvetov.
He has probably gone under. It will be a great loss to us!

All the very best.

Yours,

Frey

April 5. P.S. I have just received your letter. I have passed it on to our people. We shall answer in a few days.

Please send Berg’s draft (which you call commissional) [5]
immediately to this address: Frau Kiroff, Schraudolfstrasse ,
29, III. 1. bei Taurer. This is very urgent , for they have no copy and do not understand your comments. (Personally,
I would have preferred publication of both drafts, in the
form of the “third way” proposed by everyone, but the majority) apparently, is now of a different mind.) I shall
send you the agrarian books. Velika Dmitrievna, it seems,
is ready to soften her “detraction” of the legal Marxists.