Dear Comrade!

The enclosed letter* is a formal conclusion of the negotiations begun by me in Berlin, on behalf of the Duma fraction, with Poletayev.

The editorial commission for publishing the report has been formed by me, in agreement with the fraction, consisting of Comrades Grigory (candidate – Kamenev), Steklov, and Alexandrov.

Since the fraction undertook to provide no less than 500 rubles for expenses, and all the expenses for publishing the report have been estimated by us at 2,100–2,200 rubles, we propose that the shortfall of 1,600 rubles be issued from Party

* See the previous letter. — Ed.

TO A. M. GORKY. APRIL 1911

(“holder’s”) money (at the disposal of the Editorial Commission), to which the representatives of the Bolshevik tendency have consented.

Lenin

30 April 1911.

---

Written in Paris

Printed for the first time,

from a handwritten copy

TO A. M. GORKY

Dear A. M.! How is your health? M. F. wrote that you returned with a cough, etc. I hope you have recovered.

We have had a misfortune with *Mysl*. From *Rech* and other newspapers you surely know what has happened.

The matter must be transferred to Piter and started afresh. And we have no legal reliable people.

Could you not help us, if you sympathise with *Mysl*? Or, perhaps, Pyatnitsky could help? The matter stands thus: we still have some money for now to publish such a little magazine (of course, on condition that all of us work for free and outsiders are paid 20 rubles per sheet! Not generous, as you see). So the help needed now is exclusively technical: to find a publisher who would, without spending a kopeck of his own, publish the magazine (and we recognise the strictest legality to such an extent that we give the publisher, the secretary of the editorial board, and a lawyer the right to hold up anything at all dangerous: we put out four issues without the slightest quibble from the court. Issue No. 5 was seized because of Kautsky!! 45 It is clear that this is a quibble. There is nothing illegal in Kautsky).

Why should not Pyatnitsky or someone else help us in a matter so safe?

If it is impossible to find

* Refers to the closure of the journal *Mysl* in April 1911. — Ed.

a publisher, could one not find a secretary – a legal person, to whom we would pay 50 rubles a month for dealing with the typography and dispatch. All that is needed is an honest and careful person, nothing more. We have no legal people – apart from workers (these are not suitable), that is our misfortune.

Second point. We have an already paid-for translation of Kautsky's latest articles against Maslov 46. A legal thing. A necessary thing, because Maslov has heaps of lies and told falsehoods to Russian readers. 3-5 printer's sheets. Could it be published – without royalties (for the translation is already paid for) at cost? Is Pyatnitsky (or someone else) suitable for something like that, or not?

Third point. Yu. M. Nakhamkis, exiled here from St. Petersburg for contacts with the Social-Democratic faction (Nevzorov, alias Steklov, author of a good book on Chernyshevsky), is very much looking for work and asks to inquire whether it would be possible to publish Peary: “Journey to the North Pole.” He thinks it would sell.

What news do you have with the “plans”? Write.

And answer the workers from our school. Good lads. One poet, poor fellow, writes poetry all the time and has no director, helper, mentor, or adviser.

I shake your hand. Yours, Lenin

Robert E. Peary:

“La découverte du pôle nord.” Paris – magnificent illustrations. The clichés can be bought cheaply here. About 15 printer's sheets of 40,000 letters each. (I have just been to see Steklov, who gave me these details.)

Written at the end of April 1911.

Sent from Paris to the island of Capri

(Italy)

First published in 1924

in Lenin Miscellany I

Printed from the manuscript