Written: Written December 10 or 11, 1909 Sent from Paris
Published:
First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 11.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 443-444.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
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Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova, Davydov’s House, Apt. 4, Bozheninsky Street, Devichye Polye, Moscow, Russia
Dear Manyasha,
I recently learned, quite by accident, that there is to be a congress of statisticians in Moscow at Christmas— or rather one of the sections of the congress of doctors and naturalists will be a congress of statisticians.[1] I have already heard the names of a couple of acquaintances who will be there (one from Moscow, the other from the provinces), and no doubt there will be more than two acquaintances there. It is extremely important to take advantage of this to get me the Zemstvo statistical publications. I urge you to try to find at least one statistician of your acquaintance at the congress and give him my address and my request to send me Zemstvo statistical publications: (1) on peasant and landowner farms—especially current statistics and house-to-house censuses; (2) handicraftsmen and industry; (3) on the law of November 9, 1906[2] and on the acquisition of commune lands by peasants. I think you may give my address direct. If they say that they cannot send them abroad, please give your address and I will send you the money, so that you can send the statistics on to me. They are absolutely essential to me. If it will be of any use I can write a brief appeal to the statisticians (I am sending one for you to use at your own discretion),[3] so that statisticians of your acquaintance can distribute it (or show it) to those from other towns, adding their own request (or trying to get consent) to send the publications.
Drop me a line if you find someone who can do it. If you do not, I shall write to you again.
The publication I wrote about last time is not called Izvestiya zemleustroitelnykh komissii (although I have heard that such a publication exists too) but Izvestiya Zemskogo Otdela (Ministry of the Interior). Is there any civil servant of your acquaintance who can acquire this work?
All the best to you, kiss Mother.
Yours,
V. U.
[1] The Twelfth Congress of Russian Naturalists and Physicians was held in Moscow from December 28, 1909 to January 6, 1910; a sub-section of statisticians took part.
[2] This refers to Stolypin’s decree of November 9 (22), 1909 “Supplement to Certain Provisions of the Operative Law on Peasant Landownership and Land Tenure”, which granted peasants the right to leave the communes and set up farmsteads. (For further details of Stolypin’s agrarian policy see Collected Works, Vol. 13, pp. 217–431.)
[3] The manuscript of Lenin’s note of request to the statisticians has been lost. Copies of it were made and distributed among statisticians; one copy was seized during a search at the house of Lenin’s sister Maria in 1909. The text of the copy was preserved in the records of the Department of Police.
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