Written: Written after September 26, 1915
Published:
First published in 1924 in Lenin Miscellany II.
Sent from Sörenberg to Stockholm.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
page 357.
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.
Dear Alexander,
It is a very good thing that you are undertaking to handle the leaflets.[1] We are drawing up a detailed plan for them, and will soon be sending it to you and to N. I. But you know it is still most desirable that N.I. should write the leaflets in two copies simultaneously (with a copying-pencil over carbon paper), and that you (or he himself) should send us the second copy at once. For leaflets are a very responsible thing, and the most difficult of all forms of literature. It is essential therefore to give them most careful thought, and to have collective consultations. In view of the slowness of setting up, printing and transport, the time lost on dispatch here will be relatively small, and, in any case, does not matter in comparison with the importance of well-thought-out appeals.
How do you plan to sign the leaflets? You have forgotten to write about this.
Kollontai’s pamphlet has a good underlying idea. But the subject is exceptionally difficult; it is extremely hard to present it on this popular level. I think it needs correcting. I have already written to her about this, asking her to agree to these corrections.[2] If she does, things will go ahead very quickly, for I have already prepared a draft of the corrections.
As regards a visit to your country,[3] there is a hitch, first, because of lack of finance (the fare is high, and the cost of living there) and, second, because of the dubious police situation. We shall rather await Belenin’s return and his news of home.
Every good wish,
Yours,
Lenin
[1] The leaflets the C.C. Bureau Abroad intended to publish for circulation in Russia.
[2] A reference to Alexandra Kollontai’s pamphlet Who Needs the War?, issued in 1916 by the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee. Lenin’s corrections to this pamphlet are in Lenin Miscellany XVII, pp. 324–30.
[3] The idea of Lenin’s moving from Switzerland to a neutral Scandinavian country, which did not materialise.
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