V. I.

Lenin

195

To:   MAXIM GORKY

Dear A. M., November 22, 1910

I wrote you a few days ago when sending Rabochaya Gazeta , and asked
what had come of the journal we talked about in the summer and about which you
promised to write to me.

I see in Rech today a notice about Sovremennik , published
“with the closest and exclusive [that is what is printed!
illiterately, but so much the more pretentiously and significantly I
participation of Amfiteatrov” and with you as a regular
contributor. [1]

What is this? How does it happen? A “large monthly” journal, with
sections on “politics, science, history, social life”—why,
this is something quite different from symposia aiming at a concentration of
the best forces of belles-lettres . Such a journal should either have a
perfectly definite, serious and consistent trend , or it will
inevitably disgrace itself and those taking part in it. Vestnik Yevropy [2] has a trend—a poor, watery, worthless
trend—but one which serves a definite element, certain sections of the
bourgeoisie, and which also unites definite circles of the professorate and
officialdom, and the so-called intelligentsia from among the
“respectable” (or rather, would-be respectable)
liberals.
Russkaya Mysl [3] has a trend, an odious trend, but one which performs a very good service for the counter-revolutionary liberal
bourgeoisie. Russkoye Bogatstvo [4] has a trend—a
Narodnik, Narodnik-Cadet trend—but one which has kept its line for scores
of years, and which serves definite sections of the population. Sovremenny Mir [5] has a trend—often Menshevik-Cadet trend (at present
with a leaning towards pro-Party Menshevism)—but a trend A journal without
a trend is an absurdity, a ridiculous, scandalous and harmful thing. And what
sort of trend can there be with the “exclusive participation” of Amfiteatrov? One cannot expect
G. Lopatin to provide a trend, and if the talk (said also to have got into the
newspapers) is true about Kachorovsky’s participation, then that is a
“trend”, but a trend of the blockheads, a S.R. trend.

During our talk in the summer when I told you that I had all but written you a
disappointed letter about Confessions but did not send it because of
the split with the Machists which had begun at that time, you replied:
“ it’s a pity you did not send it”. Then you went on to reproach me for not going to the Capri
school, [6] and you said that, if matters had taken a different course, the breakaway of the
Machists and otzovists might have cost you less nervous strain, less waste of
energy. Recalling these talks, I have now decided to write to you without
putting it off and without waiting for any verification, while the impression
the news has made is still fresh.

I think that a political and economic monthly with the exclusive participation
of Amfiteatrov is something many times worse than a special Machist-otzovist
faction. What was and still is bad about this faction is that the
ideological trend deviated and still deviates from Marxism, from Social-Democracy, without, however, going so far as a break with Marxism, and only
creating confusion.

Amfiteatrov’s journal (his
Krasnoye Znamya [7] did well to die when it did!) is a political act, a political enterprise in which
there is not even a realisation that a general “leftism” is not
enough for a policy, that after 1905 to talk seriously about politics without
making clear one’s attitude towards Marxism and Social-Democracy is out of
the question, impossible, inconceivable.

Things are turning out bad. It’s saddening.

Yours,

Lenin

To M.F.— salut et fraternité .