Written: Written August 1, 1905
Published:
First published in 1934 in Lenin Miscellany XXVI.
Sent from Geneva to Viareggio (Italy).
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1977],
Moscow,
Volume 43,
pages 161b-162a.
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.
• README
Dear An. V.,
I am sending you a new pamphlet by Plekhanov. How petty are his sallies and “digs” at the Machists! For me this is all the more disappointing since essentially Plekhanov’s criticism of Mach is, I believe, correct.
I am thinking of writing a short article entitled “G. Plekhanov’s Latest Contribution”.[2]
Prepare the introduction to your pamphlet Sketches on the History of the Revolutionary Struggle of the West-European Proletariat.[3] We shall put out a special one about the February revolution.[4]
We have C.C. letters from Russia looking forward to writings by you.[5] It is very difficult for us without your regular, close collaboration. The paper, true, comes out, but it is somewhat monotonous as well. That’s one thing. Secondly, there are no pamphlets, especially popular ones. You ought to continue in the vein of How the Petersburg Workers Went To Petition the Tsar.
My pamphlet will come out this week.[1] I shall send it to you.
The Congress minutes will probably come out in August.
Vas. Vas. is swamped with routine work and does not write, which is a great pity.
Best regards,
Yours,
Lenin
[1] A reference to Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution (see present edition, Vol. 9, pp. 15–140).—Ed.
[2] A reference to the second edition of Frederick Engels’s Ludwig Feuerbach translated by G. V. Plekhanov and with an introduction by him. Lenin never wrote the article in which he proposed to comment on Plekhanov’s introduction. For Lenin’s criticism of some of the propositions advanced by Plekhanov, see Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (present edition, Vol. 14, pp. 151–53).
[3] Sketches on the History of the Revolutionary Struggle of the European Proletariat were printed in Vperyod and Proletary and later published in pamphlet form in Geneva with an afterword by the author.
[4] A. V. Lunacharsky’s article “The February Revolution and Its Consequences”, dealing with the events of 1848, was printed in Proletary No. 20, October 10 (September 27), 1905.
[5] A reference to a letter dated May 26, 1905, from D. S. Postolovsky, a member of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P., in which he wrote: “It would be most desirable fur Voinov to write, under your guidance, at least once a week a political leaflet which could be sent in manuscript form to the organisations for printing.”
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