V. I.

Lenin

40

To:   THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF PRAVDA

Dear Colleagues, Today at last I have received the file of Pravda for the
last few days or, more precisely, for the last week. My best
thanks and best congratulations on your success: in my opinion the paper has now undoubtedly found its feet.
The improvement is a tremendous one and a serious one, and, let us hope, firm and for good. The length of
Plekhanov’s articles and the abundance of anti-liquidationism
(about which one of the workers’ deputies writes to me) are
now questions of detail; it won’t be difficult to correct
matters in Ibis respect, now that the paper has taken a firm
stand, and I think that the workers on the spot will see at
once bow to make the necessary correction. We have also
received the detailed letter of a member of the staff (who
unfortunately has not the pleasant “deputy” quality), and
we were very glad of it, congratulating him on every kind
of success. It seems as though now (and only now, after
the
St—v [1] adventure) the period of wavering has ended ...
touch wood!...

I don’t advise you to present Plekhanov with ultimatums:
it is too early, it may do harm!! If you do write to him,
write as kindly and mildly as possible, He is valuable now because he is fighting the enemies of the working-class
movement.

As regards Demyan Bedny, I continue to be for . Don’t find fault, friends, with human failings! Talent is rare.
It should be systematically and carefully supported. It
will be a sin on your conscience, a great sin (a hundred times bigger than various personal “sins”, if such occur...)
against the democratic working-class movement, if you don’t draw in this talented contributor and don’t help
him. The disputes were petty, the cause is a serious one.
Think over this!

As regards expansion, I have recently written in detail
to one of the Prosveshcheniye people; I hope you also have
seen the letter. I, too, am in favour of financial caution:
to provide the same six pages (the present extra sheets) in another form , with a different sauce and title and content:
4 pages of Sunday supplement for the advanced workers + 2
pages of a “workers’ kopek” for 1 kopek, for the masses ,
to win a hundred thousand readers, with an especially popular content. You shouldn’t imitate Luch but go your
own road, the proletarian road: 4 pages for the advanced
workers and 2 pages (and later even 4)
for the masses , for a long and stubborn battle for 100,000 readers. We must go
wide and deep, into the masses, and not follow intellectual
patterns like Luch .

Once again greetings, congratulations and best wishes.

Yours,
V. I.

Another special greeting to Vitimsky: his article about
the workers’ press and workers’ democracy against the liberals [2] was very successful !! And the Bogdanov “Ideology”
is certain to heresy: I promise you that I will prove this
exactly!! [3]

Marxists are glad of an increase in circulation when it
is increased by Marxist articles, and not by articles against Marxism . We want a principled paper—all the contributors
and readers of Pravda want it—a Marxist, not Machist paper? Isn’t that so?

P.S. The address is not Paronen, but Poronin (Galizien),
and be sure to add on the wrapper: via Warsaw-Frontier– Zakopane .

---
Notes:
[1]
Who this refers to has not been established.— Ed .

[2]
Lenin refers to the article by M. S. Olminsky (A. Vitimsky) “Kto s
kem?” (“Who Is on Whose Side?”), published in Pravda No. 106,
May 10, 1913. The article was part of the polemic with Luch
concerning the conference between the editors of bourgeois
publications and representatives of the workers’ press. The conference
was called for the purpose of protesting at the introduction of
harsher laws against the press. The chairman of the conference did
not allow a vote on the draft resolution submitted by the Pravda
representatives. They and representatives of a number of trade
union papers refused to sign the liberal editors’ resolution.
Besides the representatives of Rech, Russkaya Molva, Sovremennoye Slovo and Dyen , etc., = only the representatives of Luch and Nasha Zarya signed the resolution, thus acting against the workers’
papers represented at the conference.

[3]
On Lenin’s insistence A. A. Bogdanov’s article “Ideology” (from
the “Dictionary of Foreign Words” series) was rejected by Pravda
as anti-Marxist. Concerning the statement which Bogdanov then
sent to Pravda announcing his resignation from the paper, Lenin
wrote a “Letter to the Editor” which was published in the
newspaper Put Pravdy No. 9, January 31, 1914 = (see present edition, Vol.
20, pp. 93–94).