Nice, June 12, 1932

Dear Comrade Nettlau,

I was in St. Tropez for a few days, but am back here now.

Your letter from Barcelona, May 20, received. It is fine that you can again be there and watch developments. I has also hoped for a chance to be able to visit our friends there, but inquiries made have brought no results.

As to the Fr. Arb. Stimme, I have really lost my former interest in it and I seldom read it now. The paper has no individual face. It is edited very badly and it has become a potpourri of conflicting views and attitudes.

I do not receive it regularly and I really look very seldom at it. Therefore I have not seen some of the things you refer to in your letter.

I have since stopped replying to what others write about me, even in our own press. It is useless and life too short for it. Therefore, why bother about what any on writes about you in the F.A.S. or anywhere else? You have your work to do and you are doing it, and that speaks for itself.

I don't know what Retap or any one else wrote about you in the F.A.S. But as to your previous views on the Revolution in Spain, I have read them as they appeared at the time, and I must say that I got the impression that you looked favorably upon the closer cooperation of our people with the less revolutionary elements in Spain.

You say that you wrote to me in February and received no reply, I suppose you refer to your letter concerning an article that appeared in the F.A.S. about your cooperation in the Probuzhdeniye. I did write you a reply, to the effect that an investigation of the Probuzhd. people etc. is being conducted by the Detroit Group. In view of that, I said, I preferred to await the results of that investigation. I have no heard any more of that matter since. I wonder why you did not receive my letter concerning it.

Incidentally, the other day I received the April/May issue of Prob. I suppose you sent it to me. Thank you for it. As I told you before, I know almost nothing of the Prob. People, but I find the magazine interesting and thoroughly anarchist.

Concerning Arshinov -- his change does not surprise me in the least. In fact, it is no sudden change, but a gradual "evolution" that could have been forseen long ago. Years ago I told him that his psychology is purely Bolshevik, and he became my enemy for it and never forgave me for it. As to his platform, I never considered it worth while even to discuss it: it was too dictatorial on its face, and I could not understand why other comrades should pay attention to the foolish talk and propositions Arshinoff of any one else makes. Some of our people even got very much excited about his "platform". They took the man and his "theories" entirely too seriously.

Well, now Atsh. shows that his psychology is indeed purely Bolshevik. He used to be with them and he belongs with them, and the sooner he applies for entrance into the Communist Part of Russia the better for every one.

I have no doubt that he will soon ask for Bolsh. for permission to return into their fold and he will be one of the fiercest hunters of his former