Lenin Collected Works:
Volume 36
Preface by
Progress Publishers
Volume 36 Contains some of Lenin's writings from 1900 to 1923. A
large part of the volume Consists of his letters directly Connected
with the letters, telegrams and notes printed in Volumes 34 and
35. The letters for 1900-03 to P. B. Axelrod,
G. V. Plekhanov, V. P. Nogin,
S. I. Badchenko, P. N. Lepeshinsky and
P. A. Krasikov, Yelena StasoVa and others show Lenin's
Varied activity in Creating the first all-Russia, illegal Marxist
paper, Iskra, and the journal Zarya, and throw
light on his struggle against “Legal Marxism” and
Economism. The letters for 1903-04 to
G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, V. A. Noskov,
V. D. Bonch Bruyevic,h, G. D. Leiteisen and
others relate to Lenin's struggle against the disrupting and
disorganising activities of the Mensheviks after the Second Congress
of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.
The correspondence for 1905-07 sheds light on Lenin's activity in
connection with the calling of the Third Party Congress and the
fulfilment of its decisions.
The documents for the years of reaction show the measures taken by
Lenin to resume publication of the newspaper Proletary in
Geneva and improve the work of the Central Organ, and his struggle
against open and undercover liquidationism and the attempts to
distort the theoretical foundations of the revolutionary Marxist
party.
A number of documents reflect Lenin's activity in the International
Socialist Bureau.
A large number of letters during the years of the First World War
addressed to V. A. Karpinsky, A. G. Shlyapnikov,
Alexandra Kollontai and others deal with the resumption
of publication of Sotsial-Demokrat (the Central Organ of
the Party), the rallying of internationalist elements, and the
exposure of social-chauvinism and Centrism in Russian and
international Social-Democracy. The question of calling the
internationalists' conferences at Zimmerwald and Kienthal is a
prominent one in these letters.
A considerable part of the documents in the volume represent
spadework done by Lenin—plans, summaries, outlines,
theses. Among them are the “Preliminary Draft of the April
Theses", “Plan for a Report on the Seventh (April)
All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)", “Draft
Decree on Consumers' Communes. Preliminary Theses”,
“Material for the Fourth (Extraordinary) All-Russia Congress
of Soviets", “Notes on the Question of Reorganising
State Control”, “On Polytechnical Education. Notes on
Theses by Nadezhda Konstantinovna*", [*
N. K. Krupskaya.—Ed.] “Notes for a
Speech at the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) on the Substitution
of Food Requisitioning by a Tax”, “Notes for a Report at
the Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education Workers", “Notes on the History of the R.C.P.",
“Notes for a Speech on March 27, 1922", “Notes for a
Report 'Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of
the World Revolution'", and “Outline of Speech at the
Tenth All-Russia Congress of Soviets”.
The volume includes 59 works (marked with an asterisk in the
contents) which were first published in the Collected Works
in the Fourth Russian Edition. Three letters to
G. V. Plekhanov—November 9, 1900, July 13, 1901 and
December 1, 1902—relate to the period when Plekhanov was a
member of Iskra's editorial board. They draw attention to
the need to repel the efforts of some members of the board to weaken
Iskra's fight against opportunism and revisionism, and give
details on the preparation of material for the various issues of the
paper.
In a letter to Karl H. Branting on April 19, 1901, Lenin invites the
Swedish and Finnish Social-Democrats to establish closer relations
through contributions to the newspaper Iskra and the
journal Zarya. Lenin points out how important it would be
for the Russian people, the Russian workers
in particular, to be informed about the political state of the
people of Finland amid their struggle against tsarism.
The volume includes the “Preface to the Speeches of
Nizhni-Novgorod Workers in Court”, written before December 1
(14), 1902. In his letters to the secretary of the British Labour
Representation Committee, dated March 23 and May 20, 1905, Lenin
gives an account of the disbursement of the money sent in aid of the
families who had suffered on “Bloody Sunday” (January 9
122 1, 1905).
In a letter to Lydia Fotieva on June 1 or 2, 1905, Lenin tells of
his intention to give a lecture in Paris on “The Third
Congress and Its Decisions”. The article, “The State of
Affairs in the Party”, written in July 1911 during the
preparations for the Party Conference at Prague, deals with the
struggle against the conciliators and their Menshevik and Trotskyite
allies, who were trying to prevent the calling of the Conference.
Eight letters addressed to the editorial board of the Bolshevik
paper Pravda (five in October and November 1912, and three
between February and April 1914) show Lenin's guidance of
Pravda, which brought up a whole generation of
revolutionary Russian workers known as “Pravdists”; the
letters deal at length with the work of the editorial board in
connection with the Fourth Duma election campaign.
The volume includes nine articles written for Pravda in
1912 and 1913 but not printed at the time, and 16 articles published
in Pravda in 1913 and 1914, part of them unsigned, part
over various pen-names, and which were only established as belonging
to Lenin on the strength of fresh archive documents.
His articles “After the Elections in America",
“More Zeal than Sense” and “In America”
expose the deception of the masses by the bourgeois parties, and the
cynical and dirty trading in “party principles” during
the elections to secure the fat jobs in the Administration. Lenin
showed how the American multi-millionaires under the pretext of
providing external defence for the state, were in reality defending
the interests of the capitalist monopolies; he explained that the
workers of all countries stood for peace, and that imperialist wars
waged in the interests of the Capitalists involved tremendous
sacrifices.
In a number of articles, Lenin analyses the working-class movement
in Germany. The proletariat's growing indignation against the
imperialists and the plunder of the masses by a handful of
capitalist arms manufacturers is described in “The German
Social-Democrats and Armaments”. In “Lessons of the
Belgian Strike”, he examines the general strike by the Belgian
proletariat in April 1913 to back up their demand for universal
suffrage. “The High Cost of Living and the 'Hard' Life of the
Capitalists” and “Capitalism and Female Labour”
deal with the plight of the workers in tsarist Russia and give a
vivid description of the enrichment of a handful of capitalists and
the impoverishment and ruin of the masses of working people in
capitalist conditions.
Included for the first time in the Fourth Russian Edition of the
Collected Works are the plan for a lecture on “The
Russian Revolution, Its Significance and Its Tasks”,
delivered at Zurich not later than March 27, 1917; a letter to
Giacinto M. Serrati of December 4, 1918; “Draft Third Clause
of the General Political Section of the Programme (for the
Programme Commission of the Eighth Party Congress)", showing
the essence of proletarian socialist democracy and its basic
distinction from bourgeois democracy; a telegram to Bela Kun of
May 13, 1919, with greetings for the Red Army of the Hungarian
workers and peasants, and a letter to Bela Kun of June 18, 1919,
warning him not to trust the
Entente,* [* See Note 260.—Ed.]
which was only trying to gain time to crush the revolution.
A group of documents (December 31, 1920-August 5, 1921) deal with
the manufacture of electric ploughs.
In a letter to the chairman of the State Bank, A. L. Sheinman, on
February 28, 1922, Lenin points to the defects in the work of the
State Bank and the need for a more careful selection of
personnel. In a letter to N. Osinsky on April 12, 1922, Lenin
underlines the importance of studying and broadly popularising
advanced local experience.
The volume includes documents dictated by Lenin in December
1922-January 1923: “Letter to the Congress”, known as
the “Testament", and letters “Granting Legislative
Functions to the State Planning Commission” and “The
Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation'".
These works lead up to Lenin's last writings, which are of programme
significance: “Pages from a Diary", “On
Co-operation", “Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov's Notes)", “How We Should Reorganise the Workers' and
Peasants' Inspection (Recommendation for the Twelfth Party
Congress)" and “Better Fewer, But Better” dictated in
January and February 1923 and published at the time in
Pravda (see present edition, Vol. 33).
In his “Letter to the Congress” Lenin emphasises the
need to preserve the Communist Party's unity, and proposes
practical steps to ensure it, enhance the Central Committee's
prestige and improve the Party machinery. Lenin proposes that the
number of members of the Party's C.C. should be increased to between
50 and 100. He describes the personality of some Central Committee
members, and points out Stalin's defects and suggests a discussion
of the question of replacing him by another comrade as
Secretary General.
In his letter “Granting Legislative Functions to the State
Planning Commission” Lenin points out the need to extend its
terms of reference and tells of the political and business qualities
its leaders should possess.
Of great importance is Lenin's letter, “The Question of
Nationalities or 'Autonomisation'", written before and during the
First Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R. It vividly brings out
Lenin's role as the true inspirer and creator of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, and his concern for a correct national policy
and the strengthening of the U.S.S.R. He demands the application of
the principles of proletarian internationalism and the
strengthening of the friendship of all the peoples of the Soviet
Union, great and small.
He condemns the Great-Power deviation in the national question as
the principal danger at the time, points out the harmfulness of
Great-Power and chauvinist distortion of the idea of unifying the
Soviet republics, and denounces the excessive centralism and
bureaucratic practices in this sphere. He stresses the need to
ensure full and effective equality of nations, to exercise skill in
conducting the
national policy and take account of the particular features and
interests of the various nations, and to strengthen the sovereignty
of each republic as a necessary condition for the people's unity and
fraternal friendship.
* *
*
The works of Lenin included in Volume 36 are given in chronological
order, with the documents sent from abroad dated in the New Style.
The volume contains an index of names identifying the assumed names
used in the text.
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