...would you send it to me if you have it free? In case of demand, I will return it promptly.

The preparations for the Moscow newspaper greatly delighted us. Our trio of deputies from the Moscow region will take up this matter: Malinovsky, Shagov and Samoilov. This has already been agreed. But caution is needed: without strengthening *Pravda*, we cannot grab at the Moscow newspaper. We have a plan for setting up *Moskovskaya Pravda* 174.

Please write to Tikhonov that he should speak only with Badaev and Malinovsky, and he must speak with them.

I was especially pleased in your letter by the words: "From all the plans and assumptions of the Russian intelligentsia it follows with complete certainty that socialist thought is interlayered with diverse currents fundamentally hostile to it: here there is mysticism, and metaphysics, and opportunism, and reformism, and belches of Narodism. All these currents are all the more hostile because they are extremely indefinite and, not having their own chairs, cannot define themselves with sufficient clarity."*

I underline the words that particularly delighted me. Precisely: "fundamentally hostile" and all the more so because they are indefinite. Now you ask about Stepanov (I. I.). What did he turn out to be (and he is a good fellow, a worker, knowledgeable, etc.) in the era of disintegration and wavering? (1908-1911). He wanted to reconcile with the Vperedists. But that means he himself was wavering.

He wrote me letters saying that a cross should be placed over the democratic revolution in Russia, that things would go for us without a revolution, in the Austrian manner. I called him a liquidator for these vulgarities**. He took offense. And later Larin blurted out his ideas in print.

Now Stepanov demonstratively writes not with us, but in Rozhkov's newspaper *Novaya Sibir* in Irkutsk 175. And Rozhkov—do you know what "current" he opened? Did you read

* See V. I. Lenin and A. M. Gorky. Letters, Reminiscences, Documents. 2nd ed., 1961, pp. 92-93. Ed.

** See V. I. Lenin. Works, 5th ed., vol. 47, pp. 223-225. Ed.

his article in *Nasha Zarya* of 1911 and my reply in *Zvezda*?* And Rozhkov stuck to his arch-opportunism. And Stepanov? Allah knows. Precisely: an "extremely indefinite" and muddled position. I would never now entrust Stepanov with any independent department whatsoever: he will jump, not knowing himself where. But as a contributor, he could probably be useful. He is one of those who "hasn't sorted things out." To entrust him with "organizing" a department would mean ruining both him and the department for sure.

You write: "It is time for us to have our own journal, but we do not have a sufficient number of well-harmonised people for this."

I do not accept the second part of this phrase. A journal would force a sufficient number of people to harmonise, if there were a journal, if there were a nucleus.

There is a nucleus, but there is no (thick) journal for external reasons: there is no money. If there were money, I am sure we could manage even now a thick journal, for to the nucleus we could attract many paid contributors, distributing topics and assigning places.

As long as there is no money, we must, in my opinion, not only dream but also build from what is at hand, that is, from *Prosveshchenie*. It is a small fish, of course, but, firstly, the big grows from the small. Secondly, a small fish is better than a big cockroach.

It is time, long since time, to begin the harmonisation, if we want to have "harmonised people" in large numbers.

"It is time for us to have our own journal." There is a literary nucleus. The correctness of the line has been confirmed by the experience of 12 years (or even 20), and by the experience of the last 6 years especially. To gather around this nucleus, thereby defining it more precisely, growing it and expanding it. We had to begin with the illegal press and with *Pravda*. But we do not want to stop at that. And therefore, since you said that "it is time for us to have our own journal," allow me to hold you to account for these words: either to outline now

* See V. I. Lenin. "Manifesto of the Liberal Workers' Party" (Works, 5th ed., vol. 20, pp. 396-410). Ed.