V. I. Lenin

3

To:   HIS SISTER MARIA

Published: First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 11. Sent from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 68^b-69.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup: D. Moros
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive.   You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

I have not had a letter from home for a long time. How are you, Manyasha? They did write that you are going to school again.

You ought to force yourself to take a walk for about two hours every day. It is not worth while poring over your lessons so industriously—you will ruin your health.

What do you do apart from school work? What are you reading? Do you see M.I.?^[1] Is she going to the Crimea or not? And write to me, if it is convenient, about what happened to Klyuchevsky at the University. They say he delivered a lecture of some sort and then published a book. I have not seen even the title of the book—it would be interesting to know about it.^[4]

How is your new acquaintanceship proceeding?

Yours,
V. U.

I wrote a long time ago asking someone to find out about Volume III of Capital. It has been promised me (an acquaintance,^[2] whom Mark^[5] knows). Now I do not know anything. Will he fulfil his promise? Does he still promise or does he now refuse? I should like to know because it is not easy to get that book. Tell Mark this, please.

Regards to everybody.

Is Mother well? Kiss her for me.

I shall be expecting a letter from you.

Tell Anyuta^[6][3] I have been to Al. Andreyevich and it was a waste of time. He has received a promise and is waiting, but whether he will wait in vain or not, nobody knows.

Notes

[1] Did she get my letter?—Lenin

[2] It is not known who is referred to. It may have been R. E. Zimmermann (Gvozdyov), whom Mark Yelizarov knew in Samara, or it may have been V. A. Yonov.—Ed.

[3] Anyuta—one of the many pet names formed from Anna.—Ed.

[4] Lenin refers in this letter to a speech made by Klyuchevsky “In Memory of the Late Emperor Alexander III, May He Rest in Peace” which was published as a pamphlet. Students of Moscow University bought up several hundred copies and added to them mimeographed pages containing D. I. Fonvizin’s fable “The Intriguing Fox”; these were distributed as a “revised and supplemented edition”. A copy of this edition was presented to Klyuchevsky at a lecture and he was shouted and whistled down. Over fifty students were arrested and some of them were sent out of Moscow.

[5] The Mark referred to in this letter is = Mark Timofeyevich Yelizarov(1863–1919), = professional revolutionary, Bolshevik, Soviet statesman, husband of Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova-Yelizarova, Lenin’s elder sister. He joined the Social-Democratic movement in 1893, did Party work in St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Volgaside towns, took an active part in the First Russian Revolution and was one of the leaders of the railwayman’s general strike in 1905. He was many times arrested and exiled. After the October Revolution he became People’s Commissar of Railways and then a member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Trade and Industry.

[6] The Anyuta here referred to is Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova-Yelizarova (1864–1935)—professional revolutionary, leading figure in the Communist Party, Lenin’s elder sister. She joined the revolutionary movement in 1886 and the Social-Democratic movement in 1893. In 1898 she became a member of the first Moscow Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. From 1900 to 1905 she worked in the Iskra organisation and on Bolshevik illegally issued newspapers and was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper Vperyod. Between 1904 and 1906 she maintained contact with the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party which was abroad, and acted as treasurer to the St. Petersburg Committee. From 1908 to 1910 she was engaged in revolutionary activities in Moscow and Saratov and from 1912 to 1914 collaborated in the Bolshevik periodicals Pravda, Prosveshcheniye (Enlightenment) and Rabotnitsa (The Working Woman). She was arrested and exiled a number of times. In 1917 she was secretary to the editorial board of Pravda and editor of the magazine Tkach(The Weaver). From 1918 to 1921 she worked in the People’s Commissariat of Education. She was active in the work of founding the Lenin Institute and herself did research work there. She was the author of a number of reminiscences of Lenin.