Letter from Lenin to Gorky







								     Secret

							     Sept. 15, 1919

     Dear Aleksei Maksimovich [Gorky]!
     I  saw Tankov,  and  even  before his visit  and  your  letter, we had
decided in the Central Committee [TSeka] to appoint Kamenev and Bukharin to
review  and  confirm  the arrests  of  the  bourgeois intellectuals  of the
quasi-Constitutional Democrat [Kadet] stripe and to free everyone possible.
For it is clear to us that here indeed mistakes were made.
     It  is also  clear  that,  in  general, the  arrest of  the Kadets and
quasi-Kadets was the necessary and correct measure to take.
     When I read your frank opinion on this subject, I  recall a phrase you
used during our  conversations in  London, Capri, and elsewhere that made a
deep impression on me:
     "We artists are irresponsible people."
     Just  so! What gives you cause to say  these  improbably angry  words?
This cause, that  dozens  or even hundreds of  these Kadet and  quasi-Kadet
little gentlemen  will  spend several days  in  prison  in order to prevent
conspiracies  similar  to  the  surrendering  of the  Krasnaia  Gorka Fort,
conspiracies that threaten the lives of thousands of workers and peasants!
     What a tragedy, you're thinking! What an injustice!  Intellectuals  in
prison for several days or even weeks just to prevent the massacre of  tens
of thousands of workers and peasants!
     "Artists are irresponsible people."
     ...Recently I read his [Korolenko's]  War,  Motherland, and Mankind, a
pamphlet written in  August 1917. Korolenko,  you know, is the best of  the
"quasi-Kadets,"  almost a Menshevik. But  what a  vile,  despicable, rotten
defense  of the imperialist  war, dressed up  with  sugar-coated phrases! A
pitiful  petty  bourgeois  captivated  by  bourgeois  prejudices!  For such
gentlemen, 10,000,000 men  killed  during an  imperialist  war  is a matter
deserving support (by  deeds, while mouthing sugar-coated phrases "against"
the  war), but  the  death of hundreds  of  thousands in  a  just civil war
against  landlords  and  capitalists  evokes only  aahs, oohs,  sighs,  and
hysteria.
     No.  It isn't a sin to jail such "men  of talent" for short periods if
that's what it takes to prevent  plots (such  as the one at Krasnaia Gorka)
and the deaths of tens of  thousands. We  uncovered the conspiracies of the
Kadets and quasi-Kadets. And we know that quasi-Kadet professors are giving
assistance heart and soul to the conspirators. That is a fact.
     The  intellectual forces of the workers and  peasants are  growing and
getting stronger  in  their  fight  to overthrow the bourgeoisie and  their
accomplices,  the educated classes,  the lackeys  of  capital, who consider
themselves the brains  of the nation. In fact  they  are not its brains but
its shit.
     We pay above-average  salaries to those "intellectual forces" who want
to bring learning to the people (rather than  toadying to capital). That is
a fact. We cherish them. That is a fact.  Tens of thousands of officers are
serving in the  Red Army and are winning in spite of  hundreds of traitors.
That is a fact.
     Regarding your frame  of mind, I know how to "understand" it (once you
asked  whether  I  would  understand  you).  Several  times,  on Capri  and
elsewhere, I  told you,  "You  let  yourself be  surrounded  by  the  worst
elements of the bourgeois intelligentsia, and you give in to their whining.
You  hear and listen to the  wail of hundreds of intellectuals  about their
"terrible"  incarceration lasting several weeks, but  you  do  not hear  or
listen to  the voices of  the masses, of millions - workers and peasants  -
who  are threatened by  Denikin, Kolchak, Lianozov, Rodzianko, the Krasnaia
Gorka (and other Kadet)  conspirators. I  quite, quite understand that this
is how you can end your letter with the statement that these "Reds are just
as much enemies of the people as the Whites" (fighters for the overthrow of
capitalists and landlords are just as much enemies of the people as are the
capitalists and the landlords), or even  end up believing in a tin divinity
or in "our father the tsar." I quite understand.
     Really and  truly  you  will  die* if  you don't break away  from this
situation with the bourgeois intelligentsia. With all my heart I  wish that
you would break away as soon as possible.

							       Best regards
						     [signed] Yours, Lenin.
                                                                 
------------
*  But  you're  not writing!  To waste yourself on the  whining of decaying
intellectuals and not to write - is  that not death for an artist,  is that
not a shame?