V. I.   Lenin

509

To:   G. Y. ZINOVIEV

Written: Written in August 1916 sent from Flums 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, page 565^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. • README

1) On the question of the “commissioned” article, you are wrong in trying to exonerate yourself. You couldn’t help noticing that I was extra-careful to avoid any sharply worded expression of displeasure in my first letter (which you have not answered).

I wrote nothing about bad faith: omission, too, is a mild, and not harsh expression, which includes simple forgetfulness and inattentiveness, and these are far removed from bad faith, Why this exaggeration, this talk about “bad faith”?

Where, in my own hand, have I written about 5 pages? Send it to me, if you are not yet persuaded that you were wrong.

2) About Franz,^[2] we quite agree with you (both Nadya and myself): it seems worse at first than afterwards.

3) I am sending you two draft of a letter to N. I.^[1] I shall not object to making it more polite: send corrections and additions, if you consider them necessary.^[3]

Best regards,
Lenin

Notes

[1] See present edition, Vol. 35, pp. 230–31.—Ed.

[2] This refers to Franz Koritschoner’s article “From the Life of Austrian Social-Democracy” (published in No. 2 of Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata).

[3] In the draft letter written by Lenin (see present edition, Vol. 35, pp. 230–31) Zinoviev introduced a number of corrections and changed the concluding part. For Lenin’s attitude to these corrections see documents 514 and 515 in this volume and Vol. 35, pp. 228–29. Lenin’s correspondence with Zinoviev and Bukharin concerning Bukharin’s article “A Contribution to the Theory of the Imperialist State” was published in 1932 in the journal Bolshevik No. 22.