V. I.

Lenin

To:   MAXIM GORKY

Dear A. M., How do you stand about a little article or a story for
the May issue of Prosveshcheniye? They write to me from
there that they could publish 10–15 thousand (that’s how we
are marching ahead!), if there were something from you.
Drop me a line whether there will be. [1] Then Pravda reprints it, and we get 40,000 readers. Yes ... the affairs of
Prosveshcheniye could begin to prosper; otherwise there
does not exist , devil take it, a single consistent journal
for the workers, for the Social-Democrats , for revolutionary
democracy; nothing but rotten sour-pusses of one kind or another.

How is your health? Have you rested, and will you be taking a rest in the summer? It is essential, my word on
it, that you should have a good rest!

Things are not too well with me. The wife is down with goitre. Nerves! My nerves are also playing me up a little.
We are spending the summer in the village of Poronin, near Zakopane. (My address is: Herrn Wl. Ulianow, Poronin, Galizien , Austria.) It’s a good place, and healthy. Height
about 700 metres. Suppose you took it into your head to
pay us a visit? There will be interesting workers from Russia.
Zakopane (seven versts from us) is a well-known health resort.

Have you seen Demyan Bedny’s
Fables ? [2] I will send them if you haven’t. If you have, write and say what
you think of them.

Do you get Pravda and Luch regularly? Our cause is going ahead—in spite of everything—and the workers’ party
is being built up as a revolutionary Social-Democratic party,
against the liberal renegades, the liquidators. We shall
have cause to celebrate one day. We are rejoicing just now
at the victory of the workers in Petersburg over the liquidators when the Board of the new Metalworkers’
Union [3] was elected.

And “your” Lunacharsky is a line one!! Oh, what a fine fellow! Maeterlinck, he says, has “scientific mysticism”....
Or Lunacharsky and Bogdanov are perhaps no longer yours?

Joking apart. Keep well. Send me a couple of words.

Rest as well as you can.

Yours, Lenin

Ulianow, Austria. Poronin (Galizien).

How did you find the jubilee number of
Pravda ? [4]