Published:
First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 11.
Sent to Moscow.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
page 72b.
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.
• README
Salzburg, May 14 (2), 1895
I am making use of a two-hour stop at a small Austrian town (not far,[1] now, from my destination) to fulfil my promise to write on the way.[3]
This is my second day of travel abroad and I am practising the language; I have discovered that I am weak at this and have the greatest difficulty in understanding the Germans—or rather, I don’t understand them at all.[2] I ask the guard on the train a question, he answers and I don’t understand him. He repeats the answer more loudly. I still don’t understand, and so he gets angry and goes away. In spite of this disgraceful fiasco I am not discouraged and continue distorting the German language with some zeal.
Regards to all,
Yours,
V. Ulyanov
I shall probably not be able to write another letter very soon.
[1] A little over 24 hours.—Lenin
[2] Their pronunciation is so strange and they speak so quickly that I do not understand even the simplest sounds—Lenin
[3] On April 25 (May 7), 1895 Lenin went abroad on the instructions of St. Petersburg Marxists to establish connections with the Emancipation of Labour group and familiarise himself with the West- European working-class movement. Lenin visited Switzerland, France and Germany and returned to Russia in the autumn of 1895.
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