Written: Written at the end of April 1901
Published:
First published in 1928 in Lenin Miscellany VIII.
Sent from Munich to St. Petersburg.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
page 81.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
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
We have received your letter. We fully approve of your method of distributing the literature, and advise you to keep strictly to it, without listening to anyone’s advice or calumny.
One thing that is desirable is that you should show some consideration for the Sotsialist group,[2] and, in case of need, give them some privileges (for example, credit), because they are seeking to come closer to us, and promise to agitate for us. They have offered us a share of their income instead of payment for literature; we authorise you to accept this, at your discretion, if you find it not unprofitable financially. (Why do the Sotsialist group complain that you don’t give them any literature?)
In general, don’t give away anything free, but distribute everything as quickly as possible for cash.
Don’t give any money to Grigoryev, send it all to us. Grigoryev should make money on his own literature, of which he has a lot.
Number 3 is being printed, and the fourth is to follow immediately. A May Day leaflet and a special Iskra leaflet have appeared.[3]
Do everything you can to have people sent to Berlin to collect the suitcases (the address is).[1] The password is: from Petrov.
If you still have some 100–200 of Kharkov Days, send them immediately by hand to....
Contact Pskov. We shall be sending the suitcases to Lepeshinsky, and you can collect them from him.
[1] A blank space in the manuscript.—Ed.
[2] The Sotsialist group was organised in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1900; its members were dissatisfied with the Economist trend of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle. The group laid emphasis on political, struggle. In January 1901, it merged with the Rabocheye Znamya (Workers’ Banner) group, but after the arrests in the spring of 1901 the group broke up.
[3] Two May Day leaflets were issued in 1901: in April, Listok “Iskry” (Iskra’s leaflet) signed by the Iskra organisation, and the all-Party leaflet, Pervoye Maya (The First of May), adopted at a conference of several Southern committees at the beginning of February. A comparison of the two shows that the latter pursued the general aims of spreading socialist ideas among the masses, whereas the former put forward slogans of political struggle against the autocracy, in response to the broad student movement which had been revolutionised by workers’ participation.
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