The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-05-30

MdAAu1 OOEhy (AleXey FeSnKOV) QdJeQ
Nov IA, 1913. 1t reveals to the Amer
lean worker an entirely new angle of
Lenin's soul and general attitude to-
wards life. The question Of God and
religion is what Lenin concerns him
self with in this letter, which is one Of
a collection Of Ss letters to Gorky
shortly to be published in Russia.)
To understand the spirit of this let
ter, one must be familiar with the
state Of mind of the Russian Intelli-
gentzia about the time the letter was
written. The social group had been
for over 80 years the main source Of
inspiration and leadership in the revo-
lutionary movement of Russia. Ger
tain sections Of the 1ntelligentzia have
very early attached themselves to the
labor movement, making the cause of
the workers their own
And then came the big crash, the I'M
successful revolution against Czarism
In 1905. The defeat of the revolution
had shattering effect upon the mo-
rale and revolutionary integrity of the
Intelligentzia. A wave of black des-
pondensy and passivity overlook and
conquered the minds Of that social
group. 1t developed later concerted
movement away from the "brutalities"
Of the class-struggle and onward to the
serene spheres Of God and religion.
1t was period Of Searching after
God" its participants being known as
God Searchers."
At the time leading writer's Of the
Russian Social-D Democratic Party have
very effectively analysed the economic
background Of this religious wave"
which was shown to be petty-bour-
geois revolt against the working-class
nature of the Russian revolution.
Looking backward one can now see
that the transformation Of the Rus
sian Intelligentzia from revolution
airy into a counter-revolutionary force
had begun as early as 1906.
The immediate cause of Lenin's let
ter were two articles by Gorky pub
lished at that time in the "Russkoye
Slovo" of Moscow and the "Retch" of
Petrograd, as a protest against the
production by the Moscow Art theatre
of a dramatization of Dostoyevsky's
novel, 1.-THE Possessed" The letter
follows:
Dear A. NJ (Alexey Maximovitch)
What are you doing? 1t is simply
dreadful, indeed!
yesterday read in the Reich your
answer to the howl in defense of
Dostoyeysky, and today arrived the
1iquidating newspaper in which ap-
pears the paragraph which was not
given in the Reich.
This paragraph reads as follows:
"'And it is necessary to put off the
searching after God for a time (why
for a time?) 1t is a useless occupa-
ton; there is nothing to search where
it cannot be found. Without sowing
there is nothing to reap. You have no
God, you have not yet mot yet!) Gre
ated Him. Gods are not sought; they
are created; life is not invented, it is
created
ut appears, then, that you are
against searching after Cod only for
a time!' Consequently you are against
the search after God only for the sake
Of substituting it by creating Cod
"Well, is it not terrible that you give
utterance to such thought?
"The search after God differs from
creating God, from dedication, no
more than a yellow devil differs from
a blue devil. To speak of the search
ing after God not for the purpose of
speaking against all sorts Of devils
and gods, against all sorts of spir-
itual decay (every little god is decay,
it does not matter whether it is a
clean, ideal, unsought-for little god
or whether it is created little god),
but for the purpose of preferring the
blue devil to the yellow devil is
hundredfold worse than not to say
anything at all.