Published:
First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 8-9.
Sent from Shushenskoye to Podolsk.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 264-265.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
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• README
May 29, 1899
I have received your postscript to Mark’s letter.
You had not previously written to me about a proposal that I write a short course of political economy. I have decided to refuse the offer; it is difficult to write to order (in particular, it is difficult to compete with Bogdanov. Why not republish his book?[2]), and it would be difficult to finish it by autumn. In general, I want to write less and read more. Since my correspondence with the écrivain has come to a complete halt, please let him know of my refusal.
I have not yet started on Webb. I am still waiting for the original (of Volume 2) and the German translation (of Volume 2). If there is a delay it will not be my fault. There is more reason to fear a delay on the part of the écrivain, incidentally. Is the first volume in the press?
I learnt that a telegram had been sent me about the publication of the book only from your letter. I am writing to the Minusinsk post office asking them to search for the telegram. Was the address correct? You should write: “Minusinsk, to Shushenskoye by post, Ulyanov”, and pay seven or fourteen kopeks extra for postage. If you did not add “by post”, it is possible that the telegram is still lying there. In general, I have not noticed that the despatch of telegrams to this place is a hopeless undertaking; others have arrived in time. You should send them so that they arrive in Minusinsk on. Sunday or Wednesday evening and I will receive them on Tuesday or Friday morning.
I am sending the article on Sismondists that you asked for and the reply to Nezhdanov.[3] It would be most convenient to print the latter in the same Zhizn.[1] If, however, contrary to expectations Nachalo revives, I should prefer it in that journal.
I am now doing some reading and studying languages a little. In general I am doing very little work and do not intend writing anything.
I am very sorry the écrivain did not write anything to me about Gvozdyov. I wanted to curse him for all I was worth, but I saw that he was a contributor to the same journal and felt myself duty bound to be as gentle with him as possible. It would have been strange to squabble in the same journal. Perhaps the writer wanted to get rid of it— get rid of the “Gvozdyov school”, as I now call these things. I do not know this and, in general, I do not know what sort of fellow Gvozdyov is. It is difficult to judge from a distance.
Yours,
V. U.
May 30, 1899
I am sending you a registered package, Mother dearest, containing my article and a reprint of the article on the Sismondists that you asked for. I am writing in greater detail to Anyuta and Mark, from whom I received a letter this week. It was strange that their letter (dated May 14) was postmarked “Krasnoyarsk”. Was it sent by the Siberian express?
We here are all quite well and send regards to everybody.
Many kisses,
Yours,
V. U.
[1] If my answer to Struve has not yet been published, you might perhaps add this to it as a postscript and throw out my mention of a reply to Struve.[4]—Lenin
[2] This refers to A. Bogdanov’s Kratky kurs ekonomicheskoi nauki.
[3] The articles referred to are “A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism. (Sismondi and Our Native Sismondists)” and “Reply to Mr. P. Nezhdanov”, the latter having been published in the December (No. 12) 1899 issue of Zhizn (see Collected Works, Vol. 2, pp. 129–315, and Vol. 4, pp. 160–66).
[4] Lenin refers to the following sentence from the first paragraph of his article “Reply to Mr. P. Nezhdanov”: “As far as the-other questions are concerned, those raised by Mr. P. Nezhdanov in respect of the market theory and, in particular, of P. B. Struve’s views, I shall confine myself to a reference to my article in reply to Struve (’Once More on the Theory of Realisation’; the delay in its publication in Nauchnoye Obozreniye was due to circumstances over which the author had no control”) (see Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 160).
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