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 531-532.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
Public Domain:
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Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova,
Shirokaya Street, 48, Apt. 24,
Petrograd,
Russia
Oulianoff,
Spiegelgasse, 14II,
Zürich I,
Switzerland
October 22, 1916
Dear Manyasha,
I received your two postcards dated August 29 and September 1 at the same time. Thanks very much for the trouble you have taken with the publishers and for the money you sent. Has the new publisher received the manuscript on modern capitalism?[4] Please let me know when he does. I regard this work on economics as being of exceptionally great importance and would especially like to see it in print in full. You write that the publisher wants to put out The Agrarian Question as a book and not as a pamphlet. I understand that to mean that I must send him the continuation (i.e., in addition to what I have written about America I must write what I have promised about Germany).[5] I will start on this as soon as I have finished what I have to write to cover the advance received from the old publisher.[1]
And so I take it that the new publisher has commissioned me to continue the agrarian question! If you have the chance, remind him of that. (I have not received the 500 rubles, but shall receive them in a day or two, of course; I do not think it is an advance, but payment for the manuscripts received.)
Is it at all possible (if an opportunity offers, not especially) to find out whether Granat included my article on Marx in the Dictionary?[2] I did not get the promised reprints. If he does not answer, can you find out from the library by taking out the volume for that letter?
I have sent you three suggestions for translation (three books—Kemmerer; Gilbreth; Hobson). If they are not suitable let me know and I will look for others. If suitable, you must make sure that an order is given and the suggestion accepted. Then I will start work. Perhaps Anya will undertake the translation of one of the books? Give Anya my very best regards and Nadya’s. I have sent you three postcards to M.T.’s[3] address and am now sending this to your address. Is it just as convenient? Nadya and I are still living in the same old way, quite quietly; the libraries in Zurich are better and it is more convenient to work. Many kisses from Nadya and me and regards to M. T. I am very grateful for the books you sent; we have also received the women’s journal.
Yours,
V. U.
[1] The old publisher was V. D. Bonch-Bruyevich.—Ed.
[3] Of the three postcards two have been lost and the third is published as Letter No. 259.—Ed.
[4] The book referred to was Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism which he wrote in the first half of 1916 and on July 2 sent via Paris to Parus Publishers in Petrograd; on Gorky’s initiative this publishing house put out a series of popular booklets on the countries of Western Europe during the First World War. The series was edited by M. N. Pokrovsky, who was in Paris at the time, and through him Lenin maintained contact with the publishers The manuscript did not reach Pokrovsky and a second copy had to be sent. In September 1916 Gorky wrote to Pokrovsky saying, “Lenin is really magnificent”. The Parus editors, however, protested strongly against Lenin’s criticism of Kautsky’s apostasy and made some substantial changes to the text—they removed the criticism of Kautsky’s theory of ultra-imperialism and distorted several of Lenin’s formulations.
Lenin’s book was first published in Petrograd in mid-1917 under the title Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism. (A Popular Outline) with a Preface by Lenin dated April 26, 1917.
[5] New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture. Part One. Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America is the full title of the part published. Lenin intended writing two further parts—on Germany and Austria— and started collecting material. During a search of his house at Poronin on August 7, 1914 three notebooks containing statistical analyses on the agricultural systems of Germany, Austria and Hungary were seized. The Central Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, C.C., C.P.S.U., is in possession of some of the material prepared by Lenin for the next part (on Germany). Lenin was unable to carry out his intention of writing Part Two, Germany.
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