Written: Written in June, after 18th, 1914
Published:
First published April 22, 1962 in Pravda No. 112.
Sent from Poronin to St. Petersburg.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 404c-405.
Translated: Martin Parker and Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2005).
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• README
... Is it true that there are conciliationist tendencies among prominent Pravdist workers, that one of them—by the name of Malinin or Dolinin—had a long talk about this with a contributor to the newspaper, the writer M. N.? It is very important to know whether this is a trend—If so, what sort of trend, what it stands for, what its terms of unity are—or just an individual and a casual fantasy.
As regards Plekhanov in his Yedinstvo,[2] you should adopt straightaway a tone to the effect that this distinguished theoretician, who has great services to his credit in the struggle against opportunism, Bernstein and the philosophers of anti-Marxism—a man whose mistakes in tactics during 1903–07 did not prevent him during the hard times of 1908–12 from singing the praises of the “underground” and exposing its enemies and opponents, that this man now, unfortunately, is again revealing his weak side. The utter vagueness of his ideas is due, perhaps, partly to his being totally uninformed: it is not clear whom he wants unity with—with the Narodniks (see Sovremennik, in which the Himmers are already parading his name) or with the liquidators of Nasha Zarya and Mr. Potresov, and on what conditions? And, having put these questions, you should calmly state that the reader will hardly get a clear answer to these natural questions, since we know from the literature that it is these very questions Plekhanov is vague about.
Again my greetings and congratulations on your huge success (but the business side, the business!!!) and my best wishes.
Contributor to Put Pravdy
The tone of the newspaper, pending the Vienna congress, should be altered. We are in for a period of struggle. We must pull no punches at the insolent beggars of the different little groups, we must nip in the bud their attempts at disorganisation. They dare to split the four-fifths!![1] Drop me a line whether you agree, and when you are issuing.
You should hit out at the liquidators and the little groups at once and as hard as possible: the 40,000 must know exactly where we stand. It is our duty to make a laughingstock of the adventurists....
[1] Meaning four-fifths of the advanced workers united around the Bolshevik Pravda.—Ed.
[2] Yedinstvo (Unity)—a legal newspaper published by a group of pro-Party Mensheviks headed by Plekhanov and Bolshevik conciliators in St. Petersburg in May and June 1914. Four numbers were put out.
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