Written: Written in August 1916 sent from Plums to Hertenstein
Published:
First published in 1964 in Collected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 49.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 566b-567a.
Translated: Martin Parker and Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2005).
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• README
This is Nadya’s draft of the cuts.[2]
I read the article a second time (I read it once before). I am definitely against any cuts. It means spoiling the article. An integral summarising article (with minor details, mentioning the participant or interlocutor) is extremely important.
Honestly, this article cannot be cut.
What’s to be done?
As a matter of fact, we can seriously “unload” only by holding over your article. Reasons:
1) It is written not for this collection.
2) It is part of a book, for the publication of which we already have an agreement; the chances of its being published, therefore, are real. Double publication is a luxury we can ill afford.
3) The main and important things about the history of the International have already been said by you in your article in Sotsial-Demokrat.
4) The collection must be limited (α) to Russian material+(β) to highlights of the controversy, to vexed and mooted questions of the Party.
5) And defeatism—where does that come in?
Write and tell me candidly what you think of this proposition: from a businesslike editorial point of view (specifically) or from the point of view of grievance.
{{
But our disputes and efforts towards agreement must continue
in any case.
}}
A 160–page collection, according to my plan,
would give rich, extremely valuable Russian material+a discussion
on self-determination (without
Yuri[1]
)
+ defeatism+Trotsky,
+about the Interna- tional
(Chkheidze),
that is, everything that brooks no delay.
Cost about 2,500 frs. +400 to Ludmila (=ditto transport) +about 500 for transport =nearly 3,400. We can just about manage that, and no more.
I agree to put out a No. of the C.O. (+another 100–200 frs.).
[1] As this will mean having to write a reply to Yuri[3] and sending it to him!! —Lenin
[2] This letter of Lenin’s is prefaced by a plan of the cuts, written in Krupskaya’s hand, to Zinoviev’s article “The Second Inter national and the Problem of the War” which was intended for Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata (it was published in No. 2).
Point 5 of Lenin’s letter refers to Zinoviev’s article “\thinspace‘Defeatism’ Before and Now” (printed in the first issue of the collection).
Lower down Lenin lists his articles for the collection: “The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up”, “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism”, “Efforts to Whitewash Opportunism” and “The Chkheidze Faction and Its Role”.
[3] In August 1916 G. L. Pyatakov (Yuri) sent in his article “The Proletariat and the ‘Right of Nations to Self-Determination’ in the Era of Finance Capital” for Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata. This article and Lenin’s reply to it were to have been published in No. 3 of the collection, which did not come out at the time owing to lack of funds.
Lenin replied to Pyatakov’s article in his articles “Reply to P. Kievsky (Y. Pyatakov)” and “A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism” (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 22–27 and 28–76).
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