Written: Written August 16, 1898 Sent from Shushenskoye to Podolsk
Published:
First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 4.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 184-185.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
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Text
August 16
This week, Mother dearest, I received Anyuta’s letter of July 30. I received it on Monday, August 10, in Minusinsk where I had gone to have my teeth seen to.[2] I was very surprised to get this letter, which came, as it turned, out, by express train. Incidentally, the transfer of letters from this express train (which goes to Tomsk) to an ordinary train usually involves a loss of time. On Tuesday August 11, I received a Moscow newspaper for July 29 by ordinary train and the letter by express was sent on July 30, i.e., not much quicker.
I cannot send letters by express train from here; to do so I should need friends in Ob[3] to whom I could send letters for posting on the express.
Try once again sending a letter by express and we will see when it arrives.
Today I am sending my Webb translation to St. Petersburg. I have written that they should send my fees to you; if the écrivain does not know your address, inform him for this purpose.
There ought to be some news about my collected articles,
but there is none and Nadya and I are beginning to think it
a fiasco....
Manyasha, I think, is wrong to hesitate. It would be useful for her to live abroad and study in one of the capitals, and studying in Belgium is especially convenient. What subjects does she think of reading?
You see, I was right in postponing the report that Voprosy had been lost; the book has not been lost but has been delayed so long that the reason for sending it is no longer valid.
Yours,
V. U.
By this mail I am sending you a registered packet containing Negri, Tempeste, and the catalogue you asked for. The address is the same as in this letter. Acknowledge receipt.
At the same time as your letter I received news from Archangel that M.G. also shot herself (July 18) two days after she received news of N.Y.’s death. A terribly tragic story. And the wild slanders of some scoundrel by the name of Yukhotsky (a political exile! exiled to Verkholensk) played a major part in this finale. N.Y. was terribly shaken by them and disheartened. Because of them he decided not to accept help from anyone and he suffered terrible privations. They say that two or three days before his death he received a letter in which the slander was repeated. The devil knows what it all means! For people in exile, these “exile scandals” are the worst thing of all, but I would never have believed that they could assume such proportions! The slanderer was exposed a long time ago and condemned by all comrades, but I never thought that N.Y. (who had some experience of exile scandals) would take it so much to heart.
The day before yesterday I received Shakhov, Gumplowicz and Izvestiya (two issues, January and March); the delay of one mail day was the fault of our postman.
Yuly hopes to get out of Turukhansk soon. In Tesinskoye they are having a wedding and will soon be moving to Minusinsk.[1] Basil has got a job as a technician with a local industrialist.
Yours,
V. U.
[1] The wedding was that of G. M. Krzhizhanovsky and Z. P. Nevzorova.—Ed.
[2] Lenin was allowed to travel to Minusinsk to have his teeth treated; he stayed there three days, from the 10th to the 12th of August. Since there was no experienced dentist in Minusinsk, Lenin applied to the Governor of Yeniseisk for permission to go to Krasnoyarsk for a week to have his teeth treated. Permission was granted and at the beginning of September Lenin left Shushenskoye for Krasnoyarsk, where he stayed at the house of a Social-Democrat in exile, P. A. Krasikov. Lenin took advantage of the trip to work in Yudin’s library and to meet Krasnoyarsk Social-Democrats.
[3] Ob—a railway station on the left bank of the river of that name; as there was no bridge across the river at that time, express trains went only as far as Ob station.
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