*Source: Lenin Miscellany, volume 26*
*Pages: 45-48*

Dear A. M.! Regarding your statement, I shall consult with A. A.*: in my opinion, it is not worth publishing, since you personally did not know...

In which Bekovsky collection did you send an article on cynicism? I am puzzled, for people write to me earnestly about Bekovsky collections, but I have heard nothing of this one. I hope it is the Petersburg one2. Send me the Letter to Senke­vich, if you have a copy (with a note of when it was sent)—but Senkevich will certainly publish it, since it is in response to a questionnaire.

Your plans are very interesting, and I would be glad to come. But you will agree, I cannot simply abandon party work, which must be set in order immediately. Setting up new work is difficult. I cannot abandon it. Once we have set things in order in a month or two, or something like that, then I can freely tear myself away for a week or two3.

I agree with you a thousand times on the necessity of systematic struggle against political defeatism, renegadism, whining, and so forth. As for "society" and "youth," I do not think we have any disagreement. The significance of the intelligentsia in our party is declining: reports come from everywhere that the intelligentsia is fleeing the party. Let that rabble go where it will. The party is being cleansed of petty-bourgeois rubbish. Workers are taking up the work more. The role of professional workers is strengthening. All this is splendid, and I am confident that your "jabs" should be understood in the same sense.

Now—how to exert influence, what exactly "literature" should we produce? Collections or *Proletariy*? Of course, the easiest answer would be: not or, but and—an answer that would be impeccable, but little practical. Legal collections, of course, must exist; our comrades in Petersburg are laboring over them with great effort, and I labored*

37475
7. II. [190j8. [Geneva]
* With A. A. Bogdanov. —Ed.


over them after London, sitting in Kvakache1. If possible, all efforts must be applied to support them and continue these collections.

But my experience from London until XI. [19]07 (half a year!) has convinced me that one cannot now create systematic legal literature. I am convinced that the party now needs a properly issued political organ, conducted with consistency and vigor along the line of struggle against disintegration and despondency—a party organ, a political newspaper. Many Russians do not believe in a foreign organ. But this is a mistake, and our collegium had good reason in resolving to transfer *Proletariy* here. It is difficult to set it up, to establish it, to revive it—no question about that. But it must be done, and it will be done.

Why not include literary criticism in it? Is there not enough space? I do not know, of course, the system of your work. Unfortunately, at our meetings we have had more occasion to chat idly than to speak properly. If you do not feel drawn to small, brief, periodic (weekly, bi-weekly) articles, if you feel yourself better suited to large work, then naturally I would not advise you to interrupt it. It will bring greater benefit.

But if you have the inclination also for collaborative work in a political newspaper—why not continue, why not establish as a habit that genre which you began with your "notes on philistinism" in *Novaya Zhizn'* and began, in my opinion, well4? I wrote to you about this "with deliberate intention" in one of my earliest letters, thinking: if this appeals to him, he will seize upon it. And it seems to me that in your last letter you are rather seizing upon it. Or am I mistaken? How many times better would both party work through the newspaper—not so one-sided as before—and literary work benefit, becoming more closely bound with party work, with systematic, continuous influence on the party! So that there would be not "raids" but solid pressure along the entire line, without interruption, without gaps, so that s.d. Bolsheviks not only attacked piecemeal every scoundrel, but conquered everything and everyone just as the Japanese conquered Manchuria from the Russians.

Of the three themes you sketch out for the collections (philosophy, literary criticism, and the tactics of the moment), one and a half would go into the political newspaper, into *Proletariy*: the tactics of the moment and a good half of literary criticism. Oh, there is no good in separate, lengthy literary-critical articles—scattered across various semi-party and non-party journals! Better for us to attempt a step forward from this old intelligentsia, aristocratic habit, that is, to bind literary criticism more closely with party work, with party leadership. This is how adult s.d. parties do it in Europe. This is what we must do too, not fearing the difficulties of the first steps of collegial newspaper work in such a matter.

Large literary-critical works—in books, partly in journals.

Systematic articles, periodic, in concert with the political newspaper, in connection with party work, in the spirit of what *Novaya Zhizn'* has begun—tell me, do you have the inclination for this or not?

Third topic: philosophy. I am very conscious of my own unpreparedness in this field, which prevents me from appearing publicly. But, as an ordinary Marxist, I read attentively our party philosophers, I read attentively the empiriomonist Bogdanov and the empirio-critics Bazarov, Lunacharsky, and others—and all my sympathies push me toward Plekhanov! One must have physical strength not to let oneself be carried away by sentiment, as Plekhanov does! His tactics are the height of vulgarity and baseness. In philosophy he defends the right cause. I—for materialism against "empirio-" and so forth.

Can one, should one, link philosophy with the direction of party work? with Bolshevism? I think this cannot be done now. Let our party philosophers work yet some time on theory, dispute and... come to agreement. For now I would stand for the separation of such philosophical disputes as between materialists and "empirio-critics" from integral party work.

I shall await your answer, but for now I must conclude.

Your Lenin.

1 On 2 February 1908, Lenin wrote to A. M. Gorky regarding N. A. Semashko, who had been arrested by Swiss authorities: "If you do not know him personally, then you should not intervene in the following matter. If you do know him, it is worth it. L. Martov placed a 'statement' in the Bern social-democratic newspaper, saying that Semashko was not a delegate at the Stuttgart congress, but merely a journalist. Not a word about his membership in the s.d. party. This is a vile move by a Menshevik against a Bolshevik who has fallen into prison. I have already sent my official statement as representative of the RSDLP to the International Bureau. If you know Semashko personally or knew him in Nizhny, then by all means write also to this newspaper that Martov's statement outrages you..." (see Works, XXVIII, 518).

2 A. M. Gorky's article "On Cynicism" was published in the collection *Literary Disintegration* (1908). In addition to Gorky, the collection included articles by Steklov, Kamenev, Yushkevich, St. Ivanovich, Lunacharsky, Voitolovsky, Trotsky, Bazarov, and M. Morozov. Simultaneously with *Literary Disintegration*, the French journal *Documents du Progrès* published A. M. Gorky's article.

3 This refers to Gorky's invitation to Lenin to visit Capri. The trip was accomplished only in the second half of April 1908.

4 "Notes on Philistinism" appeared in nos. 1, 4, 12, and 18 of *Novaya Zhizn'* for 1905.