V. I.   Lenin

70

To:   THE SECRETARY, EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE GRANAT BROS. ENCYCLOPAEDIC DICTIONARY (July 21, 1914)


Published: First published in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XIII. Sent from Poronin to Moscow. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [1976], Moscow, Volume 35, page 153.
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.
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July 21, 1914

Dear Colleague,

To my greatest regret, a number of quite exceptional and unforeseen circumstances (beginning with the resignation of Malinovsky) obliged me at the very beginning to interrupt the article on Marx[1] which I had begun, and after several unsuccessful attempts to find time to continue it, I have been forced to the conclusion that I shall not be able to do this work before the autumn.

I offer you my profound apologies, and express the hope that the editorial board of your so valuable publication will have time to find another Marxist and get the article from him by the time appointed.

Yours to command,
V. Ilyin


Notes

[1] Lenin managed to finish his article on Marx in November 1914 (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 43–91).

In its reply to Lenin’s letter the Granat Bros. Publishing House wrote on July 12 (O.S.), 1914: “Since with this particular article we connect a whole series of factors of great importance to the entire character of the Dictionary, we are unable to resign ourselves to having an indifferent, average interpretation of this subject. We have all along wanted to get a scientifically serious and forceful interpretation.... Though we have considered foreign as well as Russian names, we cannot find an author. We request you most earnestly, therefore, to go ahead with the article.... We are prepared ... to grant a considerable postponement—till August 15.... We request you most insistently, again and again, not to   give it up and to share with us the view that this article would be a valuable and necessary undertaking.” (Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U.)


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