Written: Written on October 17, 1914
Published:
Published in full in 1929 in Lenin Miscellany XI.
First published, but not in full, in Pravda No. 92, April 22, 1926.
Sent from Berne to Geneva.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1976],
Moscow,
Volume 35,
pages 159-160.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Dear K.,
Just while I was staying in Geneva joyful news arrived from Russia. There also arrived the text of the reply of the Russian Social-Democrats to Vandervelde.[1] We therefore decided to publish, instead of a separate manifesto, the next issue of the Central Organ, Sotsial-Demokrat.[2] Today this decision will be finally shaped, so to speak.
And so, please take all the necessary steps as soon^as possible to find a Frenchman, i.e., a Swiss citizen, as a responsible editor, and to determine the costs. We think of two pages as the size, with a format something like that of the Paris Golos.[3] The dates of publication will be indefinite—hardly more often than two or three times a month at first. The printing will be small, because with our orientation we cannot reckon on the man in the street (500 copies?). The price is to be about 10 centimes. All this is still assumption, but you need to know it for the discussion with the compositor.
And so, the price?
How long is needed for the publication (setting, etc.) of an issue of that size?
Then the type? Is there only one large size, or is there also a small size, brevier? How many thousand letters and spaces will go into two pages of Golos format of (1) large type and (2) small type, brevier?
You should not distribute the type of the manifesto which has already been set: we shall fit it into the paper. By Monday we shall send you some small amendments to the manifesto, and a different signature (because after contact with Russia we are now acting more officially).
A thousand greetings!
Yours,
Lenin
P.S. Please check up whether my letters to you arrive absolutely to time (without any delay).
[1] This refers to the Bolsheviks’ reply to Emile Vandervelde’s telegram, which he sent to the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, appealing for support of the Russian Government in the war against Germany. The reply, which was published over the joint signature of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. in Sotsial-Demokrat No. 33, November 1, 1914, stated that in the interests of democracy and socialism the Bolsheviks considered it an urgent task of the revolutionary proletarian party in the period of the imperialist war to extend and consolidate the class organisations of the proletariat and to develop the class struggle against the imperialist bourgeoisie and its governments.
[2] The central organ of the R.S.D.L.P., Sotsial-Demokrat, was revived by Lenin after it had been silent for almost a year. No. 33 appeared in Geneva on November 1 (14), 1914.
[3] Golos (Voice)—Menshevik daily; came out in Paris from September 1914 to January 1915.
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