V. I.   Lenin

60

To:   G. V. PLEKHANOV

Published: First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany IV. Sent from London to Geneva. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [1977], Moscow, Volume 43, pages 96^b-98^a.
Translated: Martin Parker and Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
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Dear G. V.,

I received your letter and hasten to reply. So you are writing the pamphlet. I am very glad to hear it. It would be a very good thing to publish in the feuilleton of Iskra some of the chapters from the pamphlet, including the one you mention. I expect it next week; otherwise it won’t get into No. 30. It would be desirable to get it in so as to keep on attacking the S.R.s without let-up.

Aren’t you really going to reply to Tarasov (reprint from No. 3)? Please do not give up the idea. He needs a good lesson.

Drop me a couple of lines to let me know whether you are writing something, and if so, what and when do you expect to finish, so that I may know what should go into the issue.

I cannot tell whether it is necessary to go to Brussels, for I have no idea of what will be discussed at the conference.^[2] We have money now (America has sent 5,000 frs.), which means that if necessary it is possible to go. Ginsburg, in my opinion, could take your place only as an exception, for this once, but under no circumstances permanently, for it is very likely that decisive steps will have to be taken there too.

If you decide to go, write or wire about the money.

Levinson is threatening to leave because Lalayants was made manager of the printery and he has quarreled with him. I wrote Lalayants asking him to “smooth” things out. Perhaps you too could help to calm down Levinson and impress it on Lalayants to handle him “with care”.

I am sending to the printers (to Lalayants) the beginning of the translation of Kautsky and a popular pamphlet on army life. Please look through it at least in proofs.

In Petersburg our workers have been arrested, and our intellectuals too. And so the Economists have managed to incite part of the workers. Inde^[1] Nadezhdin’s glee. He should be taken to task for his demagogy. The scoundrel!

Lepeshinsky is In the fortress; he was transferred there until “ready to submit to interrogation”. The threat of a High Court trial (which means hard labour) hangs over him. They took from him a letter concerning the Organising Committee.^[3]

Stavsky, the worker-orator from Rostov, is now in Berne. L. I. has contacted him: he is an Iskra supporter. He should be drawn closer to us.

The Tomsk people have reprinted our draft programme with an introduction which is a hymn of praise to Iskra-Zarya and all its work.

We shall soon have more information on the progress made by the Organising Committee.

Best regards,
Yours,
Lenin

Things are schwach with transport, altogether schwach! A real calamity!!

Notes

[1] Hence.—Ed.

[2] A reference to the session of the International Socialist Bureau held in Brussels on December 29, 1902. G. V. Plekhanov did not attend.

[3] The Organising Committee (O.C.) for convening the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was established on Lenin’s initiative at the conference of Social-Democratic committees held in Pskov on November 2–3, 1902. The majority of the new committee were Iskra supporters. P. A. Krasikov, F. V. Lengnik, P. N. Lepeshinsky and G. M. Krzhizhanovsky from the Iskra organisation in Russia and A. M. Stopani from the Northern League of the R.S.D.L.P. were co-opted to the committee.