LENIN’S LETTERS TO GORKY.
143
I’ve heard from the editor of “Prosvetleniye” — who had seen Ladyzhnikov* — that you’re dissatisfied with “Pravda” for its dryness? That’s true.
But this shortcoming is not easily rectified overnight. There simply aren’t enough people.
With great effort, it took us a full year after we began publishing to achieve even a passable editorial standard in Petrograd.
(I have forwarded your letter to “Prosvetleniye.”)
Please write and tell me about your plans—and how you’re faring in health. I earnestly urge you to take your treatment seriously: by Jove, it’s entirely possible to recover; to let things drag on would be nothing short of outrageous and criminal.
Your Lenin.
P.S.
We’ve had, and will continue to have, a good readership among certain circles. And have you seen “Nash Put’”?8 How’s that going? It’s already the second issue. We’ll launch a third edition down south as well.
Address: Ulianow, Poronin (Galicia), Austria.
(In winter, I’ll be in Kraków: Lubomirskiego 51.)
1) Telegrams from A. M. Gorky “regarding Bebel” are not currently held in the Institute’s archives. Was this telegram sent in connection with Bebel’s death on August 12, 1913?
*) The editor of “Prosvetleniye” was likely M. A. Savelyev. I. P. Ladyzhnikov was a publisher who organized the printing of Russian books in Berlin and maintained close ties with A. M. Gorky.
8) “Nash Put’” was a Moscow-based Bolshevik newspaper that appeared from August 25 (September 7) to September 12/25, 1913. Only 13 issues were published in total.
Letter 3L
[Early November 1913]*.
Dear Alexei Maksimovich!
Today, I’m sending you, via registered mail, the opening chapters of a novel that is being serialized in “Prosvetleniye.” We hope you won’t object.
If, against all expectations, you do object—please telegraph to “Prosvetleniye”: “Put Voitinsky’s work on hold,” or “Do not publish Voitinsky’s novel.”2
The news that you’re being treated with a new method—albeit one once championed by the Bolsheviks—has, by Jove, deeply troubled me. Heaven forbid we should ever rely on fellow doctors in general, and Bolshevik doctors in particular! To be honest, in 99 out of 100 cases, fellow doctors are “donkeys,” as one excellent physician once put it to me. I assure you that, except in the most trivial of cases, you should seek treatment ONLY from first-rate, world‑renowned specialists. To experiment with the inventions of a Bolshevik—now that would be utterly dreadful!! The only exception might be the oversight of professors in Naples… if those professors truly possess genuine knowledge…
You know, if you’re planning to travel in winter, you absolutely must pay a visit to top-tier physicians in Switzerland and Vienna—if you fail to do so, it would be unforgivable. How are you doing now, in terms of health?
Your N. Lenin.
P.S.
Things are going quite well for us; in Petrograd, workers are uniting under party banners within all legal organizations—including insurance societies. Here too, we’ve encountered some truly interesting and capable young men.
Address: Wl. Ulianow, 51 Ulica Lubomirskiego, Kraków. Krakau (Galicia).
1) The letter is undated. Its approximate date has been established by comparing it with the postscript to Letter No. 3*2 and with Letter L2 33.
2) V. Voitinsky (pen name: Sergei Petrov). In 1905–1907, he served as an agitator for the Petrograd Committee of the Bolsheviks and as a contributor to the Bolshevik press. In 1907, he was sentenced to hard labor and later exiled for his involvement in Bolshevik activities, during which time he wrote a number of fictional works depicting life during the Revolution and in prison. In 1917, he defected to the Mensheviks and thereafter became a virulent opponent of Bolshevism.
An excerpt from his novella “Waves,” titled “A Ray of Light Amidst the Night,” was published in the April 1914 issue of “Prosvetleniye.” From Letter No. 33, it’s clear that A. M. Gorky expressed opposition to the publication of Voitinsky’s novel in “Prosvetleniye.” Consequently, it’s difficult to determine whether Vladimir Ilyich’s letters refer to the manuscript of “Waves” or to some other work by Voitinsky.

LENIN’S LETTERS TO GORKY.
Letter 32.
[November 14, 1913]*.
Dear A. M.!
What on earth are you doing?—it’s simply appalling, by Jove!
Yesterday, I read your response in “Rech’” to the “campaign” launched against Dostoevsky, and I was ready to rejoice—but today, a liquidationist newspaper appears, printing a paragraph from your article that wasn’t present in “Rech’.”*
That paragraph reads as follows:
“As for ‘the search for God,’ we must, for the time being—just for the time being—put that endeavor aside; it’s a futile pursuit: there’s nothing to seek where none exists. You haven’t sown, so you cannot reap. You don’t have a God—you haven’t yet created Him. One doesn’t seek gods; one creates them; one doesn’t invent life—rather, one brings it into being.”
So it turns out that you’re opposed to “the search for God” only “for the time being”!! It turns out that you oppose “the search for God” solely in order to replace it with “the creation of God”!!
Now, isn’t it utterly appalling that this is what you’ve ended up saying?
The “search for God” differs from “the creation of God,” or “the making of God,” or “the worship of God,” and so forth, no more than a yellow devil differs from a blue devil. To speak of “the search for God” not in order to express opposition to ALL devils and all gods—to reject every form of ideological idolatry (for any god whatsoever is, at its core, an idol—whether it’s the purest, most ideal, unsearched-for deity, or the one we strive to construct)—but rather to prefer the blue devil over the yellow devil—that is a hundred times worse than simply remaining silent altogether.
In the freest of nations—in countries where appeals to “democracy, to the people, to public opinion, and to science” are entirely out of place—such nations (like America, Switzerland, and others) deliberately dull the minds of the people and the working class, especially through the idea of a clean, spiritual, constructible god. Precisely because every religious idea, every notion of a god—even the slightest flirtation with divinity—is an indescribable abomination, yet is often tolerated—or even met with benevolent favor—by the democratic bourgeoisie, it is precisely for this reason that this “—