Dear colleague!

I have received your long letter and see that we must once again explain ourselves.

First, a minor point. Correspondents cannot be found for 2 kopecks per line. Until there is money, we will have to make do with our own articles about abroad.

Now, the main point. You complain about monotony. But this will always be the case if you do not publish polemics—if you severely cut Kamenev (he writes in a different tone)—if everything is fitted into "positive liquidationism." And besides, you will drive away all contributors if you do not publish, or even respond to, or return articles (for example, mine: the reply to Blanqui is important! "Undying Hopes" 87 and a number of others!!).

Look at "Nevsky Golos"; it is livelier. It is not afraid of polemics. It provokes.

It boldly carries things to their conclusion.

By avoiding "sore points," "Zvezda" and "Pravda" make themselves dry and monotonous, uninteresting,

* - "Workers and the Nation." Ed.

non-combative organs. A socialist organ must engage in polemics: our time is one of desperate disarray, and without polemics, we cannot manage. The question is whether to conduct it lively, attacking, raising issues independently, or only defending, dryly, boringly.

For example, the "Supporter of Zvezda" in No. 16 responded well. It is clear that he is a man of principle. But still, he did not dispel the terrible apprehensions, which were aroused everywhere (I have a series of letters) by issue No. 6 of "Nevsky Golos" 88. What, then? Was there a meeting?

Whose? For what purpose? All of this is unclear! And without clarifying this, no one wants to work. Everyone says: I have the right to know for whom I am working, whom I am helping to get into the Duma? Is it not a liquidator? Is it not a confused reconciler-Trotskyist? Am I not participating (indirectly) in the creation of a "common platform"??

Such questions paralyze energy, introduce decay.

But "Nevsky Golos" attacks briskly, is more spirited. It is harmful, ruinous, and ridiculous to hide disagreements from the workers (as "Pravda" does). One cannot let the opponent, "Nevsky Golos," start the conversation about disagreements. "Pravda" will perish as merely a "popular," "positive" organ; this is certain.

It would certainly have won if it had not been afraid of polemics, if it had spoken directly about the liquidators, if it had been enlivened by debate, by a feuilleton against Axelrod, and so on. Such articles as Axelrod's attract attention: the workers hear about the disagreements and are drawn to the open explanations by Axelrod, who speaks a hundred times more boldly than we do. All the workers hear talk about a single platform, all the worker leaders know Axelrod's feuilleton 89—if you remain silent, you will fall behind! And a newspaper that falls behind is dead. A newspaper must be ahead of everyone, and "Nevskaya Zvezda" and "Pravda" should be. Alongside two "positive" articles, "Pravda" should publish polemics—a literary note by Kamenev—a feuilleton ridiculing the liquidator—and so on. Monotony and lagging behind are incompatible with newspaper work. And "Pravda" has an especially, extremely important duty: "whom it will lead"—this is what everyone is asking, reading between the lines. Here (once every four years, before the elections) a meeting is important—it is impossible to run a newspaper without at least occasional meetings with regular contributors.
Think about this carefully and quickly, for time is of the essence.

Sincerely, Ulyanov