Published:
First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 5.
Sent from Shushenskoye to Podolsk.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 198-199.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
Public Domain:
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Text
November 15, 1898
How are you managing to winter in Podolsk, Mother dearest? This is not a very merry winter for you—Mark has to live away from you, Mitya is chained to Podolsk. He did not answer my questions about how he has to do his army service—in the ranks or as an assistant surgeon? Is there any information about his case, when it will end and how? Or none at all? How is Mark keeping? Is he not miserable alone in Moscow or is he up to his neck in work at his office and his evening lectures (does he still give them?)?[3]
We have no news. The only change is in amusements— now that winter has come I go skating instead of shooting; I recall the old days and find that I have not forgotten how, although it is about ten years since I last skated. Nadya also wants to learn to skate, but I am not sure whether she will manage it.
Regards to all,
Many kisses,
Yours,
V. U.
I forgot to write to you by the last post that I had received Neue Zeit then. Yesterday I got a bill from A.M. Kalmykova. I have accumulated a debt of about eight rubles and still go on ordering and ordering. I cannot understand why I still have not had the fees for the translation I sent to St. Petersburg as long ago as August 15! If the money comes, please send fifty rubles or so to the book warehouse, and if it does not come by the time this letter arrives, I do not know what to do. If it is possible, it would be a good thing to send even ten rubles to the warehouse; as far as the fee for the translation is concerned, I have been told it will be paid in any case (there should not be any objections from the censors)—and so it is only a matter of time.
Last time I wrote to you I asked you to send the book to various acquaintances of mine but forgot that you do not know the addresses.[4] I do not know the Archangel addresses myself. Today at a guess I am writing to M. E. Grigoryev[1] at that sawmill where he works. I think you have had some correspondence with Archangel; would it not be better, then, if you were to send them to your acquaintances to be handed on? If that cannot be done, leave them until you get the addresses. The address of Lalayants is: Is. Christoph. Lalayants, House No. 11, corner of Bogoslovskaya and Krutoi streets, Voronezh. It would be a good idea to send a copy to the Samaran, who writes in Nauchnoye Obozreniye.[2] He is in St. Petersburg, but I don’t know his address.
Am I not loading you down too much with requests?
Wolfe’s are advertising a library of French classics at ten kopeks an issue. Have you seen what sort of an edition it is?
Yours,
V. U.
I was amazed to read that Labriola is being published in Russian! I can imagine in what distorted form!
Could it have been you who translated Labriola?
I read in Frankfurter Zeitung[5] a very interesting article about the Stuttgart Parteitag.[6] We are thinking of subscribing to that newspaper next year. Do you read any foreign newspaper?
[1] The letter has been lost.—Ed ,—Lenin
[2] This refers to P. P. Maslov.—Ed.
[3] This apparently refers to Mark Yelizarov’s teaching at evening and Sunday schools for workers.
[4] The letter mentioned here has not been found. It is known from the letter of November 11, 1898, that Lenin received the copies due to him as author of the book Economic Studies and Essays which he requested be sent to a number of comrades and acquaintances.
[5] Frankfurter Zeitung—a daily newspaper, organ of big German stockbrokers; published in Frankfurt am Main from 1856 to 1943. It reappeared in 1949 as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and is the mouthpiece of the West German monopolists.
[6] Stuttgart Parteitag—the Stuttgart Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party held October 3-8, 1898, which first discussed revisionism in the German Social-Democratic Party. A special statement, sent to the congress by Eduard Bernstein who was living in exile, was read; it contained an exposition and defence of the opportunist views he had earlier expounded in Die Neue Zeit in a series of articles under the general heading of “Problems of Socialism”. There was no unity among Bernstein’s opponents at the congress; fearing a split in the party, some of them, led by Bebel and Kautsky, tried to combine the theoretical struggle against Bernsteinism with cautious internal party practice; others (Rosa Luxemburg, Parvus), a minority, adopted a much more militant position and tried to get a more profound and extensive discussion and showed no fear of a split. The congress did not pass any resolution on this issue but from the discussion and from other resolutions it was clear that most of the delegates remained loyal to the ideas of revolutionary Marxism.
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