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Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.
Number 3
I. V. Stalin - R. V. Malinovsky
April 10 [1914]
From Joseph from Turukhansk 1
10.IV.
Hello Friend!
No. 1 of Rabotnitsy 2 and one No. of Puti Pravdy 3 with your Duma speech received. Thank you, friend, especially for the speech. I salute you all, especially you and Badaev, for your successful speech in the Duma on the question of the press! 4I am glad from the bottom of my heart that your speeches will be discussed at meetings of workers. In my opinion, this is the only correct method of work, which has been so well mastered by the collective of St. Petersburg Marxists. This should be done on every question that concerns the workers. In general, the soul rejoices at the sight of how skillfully, how skillfully the faction and the St. Petersburg collective use all and every legal opportunity. Press organs, political and professional, growing like mushrooms; successful performances by members of the faction and their frequent trips (very necessary and useful); the regular intervention of the St. Petersburg collective in all matters of proletarian actions; growth of Pravda's prestige 5, except for St. Petersburg, still in the provinces; a colossal increase in donations to Pravda, and, along with this, the mournful howl in every sense of the decaying group of liquidators - a picture of magnificent eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!...
I also read your article in Pravda on the tasks of the opposition. Both your behavior (the speech in Pravda and not in Sovremennik 6 ) and the article itself are impeccable. So them, the Shchukin sons from Sovremennik, - beat, friend! ...
One of my St. Petersburg friends writes to me that there are terribly few literary workers in St. Petersburg. If this is true, write - I will tell I. Stalin to write more often. Still help. He has already sent to Prosveshchenie 7 a long article on "cultural-national] autonomy." If he receives the necessary books from Russia (and he will receive them, for he subscribed to them), he will write and send an equally long article (5 feuilletons) for Pravda under the title "On the Foundations of Marxism." There will also be (for Enlightenment) an article on the Organizational Side of the National Question. If necessary, he will write and send to Pravda a popular article on the national question, which is completely accessible to the workers. You just write, order.
Then a request: I have not received Pravda since January. Tell them to send. Maybe at the old address. Issues of Pravda accidentally fall into my hands, and without a newspaper it is very difficult here.
The other day I sent you a letter. You must have received it and scold me. Well scold me if you think I deserved...
Hi Stephanie.
Kisses guys.
Shake your hand.
Joseph.
Tur[Wuhan] region
PS We have "new trends": the new governor transferred me to the far north 8 and confiscated the money received in my name (60 rubles in total). Live brother...
Someone, it turns out, is spreading rumors that I will not stay in exile until the end of my term. Nonsense! I declare to you and I swear by the dog that I will remain in exile until the end of my term (until 1917) 9 . Once I thought about leaving, but now I have abandoned this idea, finally abandoned it. There are many reasons, and if you want, I will someday write in detail about them.
Joseph.
PS I read L. Martov's article on the opposition , 10 where he tries to whitewash the liquidators by casting a shadow on your Bolshevik physiognomy. I swear by the dog, friend, such a juggler and conjurer, such a buffoon and comedian as L. Martov, is difficult to find in all our socialist literature. It is bad, bad business for the liquidators if they have to play the famous hero Gleb Uspensky, a pitiful buffoon and "pyro-hydro-technician" who was engaged in "decapitation of the head and other parts of the body." Needless to say, the answer to L. Martov's article can only be a mockery.
Well, all the best. Joseph].
RTSKHIDNI. F. 558. On. 1. D. 5394. L. 6-8. Autograph.
Notes:
1 . This letter was found by Petrovsky in his personal archive and sent to Stalin with an accompanying note: “Comrade. Stalin, at the request of Comrade Poskrebyshev, to return the materials and extracts of the Central Committee to the Central Committee, digging through my archive, I found your letter, I consider it my duty to return it to you. I am sending you a similar, apparently coordinated letter from Comrade Sverdlov, Ya. M. G. Petrovsky. 17/VІІІ 39 Moscow” (RTSKHIDNI. F. 558. On. 1. D. 5394. L. 5).
The letter was sent from the Turukhansk region to St. Petersburg.
2 . "Rabotnitsa" - a legal women's magazine, an organ of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), was published in St. Petersburg from February to June 1914.
3 . Put' Pravdy was one of the titles of the legal Bolshevik newspaper Pravda (since 1917 the Central Organ of the RSDLP(b)) in 1914.
4 . We are talking about the article "For freedom of the press", published in No. 29 of the newspaper "Put' Pravdy" on March 6, 1914. The article was devoted to the speeches of Badaev and Malinovsky about the workers' press at a meeting of the State Duma on March 5, 1914 ("The Way of Truth". No. 29. March 6, 1914).
5 . "True" - See note 3.
6 . Sovremennik is a literary and political journal around which the Menshevik Liquidators, Socialist-Revolutionaries, People's Socialists, and Left Liberals were grouped. Published in St. Petersburg in 1911-1914.
7 . Enlightenment is a theoretical legal journal of the Bolsheviks. Published in St. Petersburg.
8 . We are talking about the transfer of Stalin to the village of Kureika, Yenisei province, Turukhansk region.
9 . Stalin returned to Petersburg from exile in the spring of 1917.
10 . We are talking about Martov's article against the Bolsheviks in March 1914 in No. 3 of the Nasha Zarya magazine.