V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v26;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Date: 1907-11-11
Source: Lenin Miscellany, Volume 26
Pages: 34-36

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Dear A[natoly] V[asilyevich]!

At last your pamphlet has arrived—the first part came quite a while ago.² I kept waiting for the end so as to read it as a whole, but I never got it. The third appendix (How Marx Regarded, etc.) is still missing.

This is extremely unfortunate, for without having the whole thing complete, one is afraid to hand it over to the publisher for setting. If you have not yet sent this third appendix, please try to send it as soon as possible. The money (200 rubles) has been sent to you: have you received it?

As regards the content of your pamphlet, I liked it extremely, as did all our people. A most interesting and excellently written piece. Only one thing: there are many external carelessnesses, so to speak, i.e., such as will be seized upon by all sorts of Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, syndicalists, etc. We conferred collectively: should we retouch or make a reservation in the preface? We decided on the latter, for it would be a pity to retouch; that would mean too great a disruption of the unity of exposition.

Of course, a conscientious and attentive reader will be able to understand you correctly, but you ought nevertheless to protect yourself specifically against false interpreters, for their name is legion. For example, we must of course criticise Bebel, and I do not approve of Trotsky, who recently sent us a piece of unadulterated eulogy on the Essen³ and German Social-Democracy in general. You are right in noting that Bebel was wrong at Essen both on the question of militarism and on the question of colonial policy (or rather on the character of the struggle of the radicals at Stuttgart on this point). But it must be stated at the same time that these are mistakes of a man—with whom we are travelling the same road and which are corrigible only on this, the Marxist, Social-Democratic road. For there are many people (you probably do not see their literature) who maliciously snigger at Bebel [and are not worth] for the glorification of Socialist-Revolutionarism, syndicalism (à la Yezersky, Kozlovsky, Krichevsky—see Obrazovaniye, etc.)⁴, anarchism.

In my opinion, all your ideas can and should always be expounded in such a way that criticism is directed not against orthodoxy, not against the Germans in general, but against opportunism. Then you cannot be misinterpreted. Then the conclusion will be clear: Bolshevism, learning not only from the Germans but also from the Germans (this demand of yours is a thousand times correct!), will be able to take all that is living from syndicalism in order to kill Russian syndicalism and opportunism. It is precisely we Bolsheviks who can and should do this most easily and naturally, for in the revolution we fought most of all against parliamentary cretinism and Plekhanovite opportunism. And only we can refute syndicalism, which brings with it a mass of confusion (especially dangerous for Russia), from a revolutionary and not from the pedantic-Cadet standpoint of Plekhanov and Co.

Issue No. 17 of Proletary has come out and has been sent to you. Zarnitsy⁵ have come out and have been sent to you. Have you received them? Do you read Tovarishch? How do you like it now? Why not shake off your lethargy and have a laugh at them in verse? Please write.

A firm handshake. Yours, Lenin.