V. I.

Lenin

69

To:   G. V. PLEKHANOV

28.I. 03

Dear G. V., I am sending you the O. C. announcement (it went into No. 32) and an
article by Pero for
No. 32 [3] ; please return both as soon as you can : the
O. C. announcement must be preserved without fail (as a very important
document) and you will have to decide about Pero’s article in view of the
abundance of articles against the S.R.s. The Rostov people are writing a
protest. That’s one thing. Pero is No. 2. A. N. has already written, most
likely (he wrote that he was finishing it), about the
S.R.s. [4] That’s three. Your editorial “Pseudo Friends of the
Proletariat” is four. This has to be discussed to avoid des Guten
zuviel. [1]

It had better be discussed by you since the Rostov comrades are close at
hand, and so is A. N. with whom you can talk things over. In my opinion the
editorial (an annihilating one) in any case should be written by
you and no one else because you have debated this in public and have seen
the Rostov comrades. The Rostov protest should also be published in No. 33,
but it

should be as brief and sachlich [2] as possible. Pero’s article (it isn’t long) should also go in, I think, for
it is a sensible reply to a foolish move. A. N.’s article could perhaps be
held over, for it is not a reply nor does it deal with a topical issue but
is about moderate fathers and S. R. sons “in general”.

Think all this over and let us know your decision as soon as possible.

The article about Nekrasov will go into No. 33.

Already several days ago I received the Armenian
Proletariat [5] (with Russ. S.D.L.P. on the masthead)
as well as a piece of copy (an item about it); I shall try to get it into
No. 33.

I am sending you Proletariat as well. Please ask Lalayants or
somebody else to translate in full everything in it about
nationalism and federalism and send it to me as soon as possible . An item on this should be published without fail (the piece
sent in needs editing and for this we must have the text).

What do you think of Bonch!? Our “net gain” was just the two of
them—not very much! There is the liquidator (see Zhizn No. 6)
Mr. Kuklin. Make his acquaintance through Bonch. Couldn’t we squeeze
something out of him? I believe you met him before, didn’t you? At least
for the Russian congress, for the O. C. (one of its members is abroad and
he could be sent to see Kuklin if need be)? After all, Kuklin can’t eat up
the printing office, can he? We should levy a contribution of 10,000 on him
for our not having come down on Zhizn (it is not for nothing that
I defended it by pleading its light mindedness!) or for not doing so in the
future....

Yours, Lenin

P.S. Have you seen Rudin’s pamphlet (S. R., “On the Peasant
Question”)? The shameless scoundrels! My fingers are itching
terribly to get at Rudin and at No. 15 on socialisation!
Please let me know whether you are writing your pamphlet, how big
it will be, and when you expect to finish it. Iskra should not be
filled with that material; a pamphlet examining all aspects would be far better, and now that the
transport channels are working we could knock them out with
a businesslike and principled examination of the sub stance of the
matter. Should I write a criticism of Rudin? What do you think? The idea
occurred to me to write an article criticising
Rudin [6] and to publish separately “articles against the S.R.s”
together with “Revolutionary Adventurism”.

What do you think of this?

---
Notes:
[1]
Too much of a good thing.— Ed .

[2]
Businesslike.— Ed .

[3]
A reference to the “Announcement of the Formation of an Organising
Committee”, published in Iskra No. 32, January 15, 1903, and
L. D. Trotsky’s article, “High-Mindedness Instead of a Programme and
Nervousness Instead of Tactics”, in Iskra No. 33, February 1,
1903.

[4]
The article “On Two-Faced Democracy”, by A. N. Potresov, printed in
Iskra No. 35, March 1, 1903.

[5]
Proletariat —an illegal newspaper in Armenian, organ of the
Union of Armenian Social-Democrats. Only one issue was put out in October
1902 in Tiflis (for reasons of secrecy the place of publication was given
as Geneva). The publication was found ed by S. G. Shahumyan, and
B. M. Knunyants helped with the organisational arrangements.

[6]
Lenin never wrote the article criticising A. Rudin. His
Revolutionary Adventurism (see present edition, Vol. 6,
pp. 186–207) came out as a separate pamphlet without the other articles
against the Socialist-Revolutionaries (see present edition, Vol. 6,
pp. 172–75).