V. I.

Lenin

33

To:   THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF PRAVDA

Dear Colleagues, Let me first of all congratulate you on the vast
improvement in the whole conduct of the paper which has become
apparent during the last few days. I want to congratulate
you and to wish you further successes in the same direction.
The day before yesterday I sent the first two short articles
entitled “An Increasing
Discrepancy”. [1]

From No. 234 of Pravda I see clearly that these articles will not be
suitable. Therefore please pass them over without delay to
Prosveshcheniye , to which I am sending the final section.
Please pass over to them also the other articles which have
not been printed (the reply to Mayevsky; on morality; Bulgakov on the
peasants [2] —Bulgakov’s articles from
Russkya Mysl , etc.). Please be sure to reply as soon as
possible whether you have done this. Send me Nos. 7, 8,
21 and 24 of Luch and No. 25 of Pravda . I had always been
getting Pravda until lately in the mornings, as I do Rech
and Novoye Vremya . But for the last week Pravda has begun to come late, and arrives only in the evenings.
Clearly the dispatch department is working carelessly. I
earnestly request you to take steps to see that, they display
greater care with the daily post.

I receive no new books at all. Steps must be taken (a) to
get them from the publishers on a deposit account, (b) to
get the Duma arid official publications through the deputies.
It is absolutely impossible to work without books.... I don’t
receive either Zavety or Russkaya Molva . [3] I can’t get on without them. I particularly need the issue of Russkaya Molva where they wrote about Luch and explained that the
Mensheviks are against underground work.

March 1 (14) will be the 30th anniversary of the death of Marx. You ought to publish a supplement for two or
three kopeks, four pages in Pravda formal with a big portrait of Marx and a number of small
articles. [4] There should also be detailed advertisements both for Pravda
and Prosveshcheniye . Probably it would pay for itself with
a circulation of 25–30 thousand, and make a profit. If you
agree, cable me: “Draw up” (we shall then sit down to write), then, in addition, send a more detailed reply. Reply
please, two or three times a week in a few lines, about what
articles you have received and which will be printed.

In my opinion you were quite right to publish Dnevnitsky
in full, as a first step. But for the future it would be better
to hold up such long (and bad) articles, and to begin correspondence about passing them over to Prosveshcheniye .

Yours,
I.

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 562–79.— Ed .

[2]
Lenin’s articles “A Reply to Mayevsky”, “Bulgakov on the
Peasants” and two other articles on morality, mentioned in this
letter, have never been found.

[3]
Russkaya Molva (Russian Tidings)—daily newspaper of the
Progressist Party; appeared in St. Petersburg from December 1912 to
August 1913.

[4]
On March 1 (14), 1913, the thirtieth anniversary of the death of
Karl Marx, Pravda published Lenin’s article “The Historical
Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx” (see present edition, Vol. 18,
pp. 582–85). The issue of Pravda dedicated to the anniversary
appeared on March 3 (16), 1913.