V. I.

Lenin

20

To:   MAXIM GORKY

Dear A. M., The other day I had a letter from the editorial board
of Pravda in Petersburg, in which they ask me to write to
you that they would be extremely glad of your regular contributions. “We would like to offer Gorky 25 kopeks
a line, but we are afraid of offending him.” That’s what
they write to me.

To my mind, there is nothing at all to be offended at.
Nobody could even dream of your contributions depending on considerations of payment. In the same way,
everybody knows that the workers’ Pravda , which usually pays
2 kopeks a line, and still more frequently pays nothing,
cannot attract anyone by its fees.

But there is nothing bad about contributors’ to a workers’
paper receiving regular payment, however small it may be. In fact, it’s all to the good. The circulation is now
20–25 thousand. It’s time it began thinking of a proper
arrangement about payment for contributions. What is bad about everybody working on a workers’ paper beginning
to earn a little? And how can there be anything offensive
in this proposal?

I am sure that the fears of the Petersburg editors of
Pravda are quite without foundation, and that you will not
treat their proposal otherwise than in comradely fashion.
Write a couple of words, either to them direct at the office,
or to me.

Tomorrow is the election of electors in Petersburg (for
the worker curia). The struggle with the liquidators has developed. In Moscow and Kharkov the Party people have
won.

Have you seen Luch , and do you get it at all? There are
people who have fiddled the cards and pretend to be “ kindhearted”!

I have seen an advertisement for
Krugozor . [1] Is this your undertaking, or are you there by invitation?

Every good wish, and above all for your health.
Greetings to M. F.

Yours, Lenin

47. Ulica Lubomirskiego. Krakau.

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Notes:
[1]
Krugozor (Horizon)—literary-political monthly with a bourgeois-liberal orientation. Two numbers were published in St.
Petersburg in January and February 1913. Maxim Gorky was listed
among the contributors but actually did not take part.