15/IX.

Dear Alexei Maximovich! I received Tonkov, and even before his arrival and before your letter, we decided in the Tseka to appoint Kamenev and Bukharin to verify the arrest of bourgeois intellectuals of the near-Cadet type and to free whoever can be freed⁴². For it is clear to us that errors were made here too.

It is equally clear that on the whole the measure of arresting Cadet (and near-Cadet) circles was necessary and correct.

When I read your frank opinion on this matter, I particularly recall a phrase of yours that struck me deeply during our conversations (in London, on Capri, and afterwards):

"We artists are irresponsible people."

Precisely! Incredibly angry words you are speaking on what grounds? On the grounds that several dozen (or even hundreds) of Cadet and near-Cadet gentlemen will sit a few days in prison to prevent conspiracies like the surrender of Red Gorka⁴³, conspiracies threatening the death of tens of thousands of workers and peasants.

What a calamity, one would think! What an injustice! A few days or even weeks of prison for intellectuals to prevent the beating of tens of thousands of workers and peasants! "Artists are irresponsible people."

It is incorrect to confuse the "intellectual forces" of the people with the "forces" of bourgeois intellectuals. I shall take Korolenko as an example: I recently read his pamphlet written in August 1917, "War, Fatherland and Humanity." Korolenko is indeed the best of the "near-Cadets," almost a Menshevik. And what a vile, base, abominable defense of imperialist war, cloaked in saccharine phrases! A wretched philistine, captivated by bourgeois prejudices! For such gentlemen, 10,000,000 killed in the imperialist war—is a matter deserving support (in deeds, amid saccharine phrases "against" war), while the death of hundreds of thousands in a just civil war against landowners and capitalists provokes oh's and ah's, sighs, hysterics.

No. Such "talents" are not wrong to sit a few weeks in prison if it is necessary to do so to prevent conspiracies (like Red Gorka) and the death of tens of thousands. And we have uncovered these conspiracies of the Cadets and "near-Cadets." And we know that near-Cadet professors give help to conspirators on a regular basis. This is a fact.

The intellectual forces of workers and peasants are growing and strengthening in the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and her accomplices, the petty intellectuals, lackeys of capital, who fancy themselves the brain of the nation. In reality this is not a brain, but sh...

To "intellectual forces" desiring to bring science to the people (and not to serve capital), we pay wages above the average. This is a fact. We protect them.