V. I.   Lenin

93

To:   HIS MOTHER AND HIS SISTER MARIA

Published: First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 8-9. Sent from Shushenskoye. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 271-272.
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.

Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova,
Cottage No. 3,
Town Park,
Podolsk,
Moscow Gubernia

August 7, 1899

I have received your letter of July 15, Mother dearest. A big merci for it and for carrying out my request in respect of Anatoly.^[1] I hope to see him again in a few days; they say he is very bad, the blood is flowing from his throat and he even coughs up pieces of lung.... The Governor was in Yermakovskoye and gave Anatoly permission to go to Krasnoyarsk, but now he himself does not want to go.

We are expecting visitors today—Gleb and his wife and Basil from Minusinsk. It is said that Gleb has received permission to move to the railway and take a job as engineer. He will, of course, take advantage of the offer to get together a little money for his journey home. It would otherwise be rather difficult for him and Basil to get away from here, even impossible in winter.

We have not put in any requests after all—it doesn’t seem to matter, we shall wait for January 29, 1900....^[2] If only we can get away from here at that time—where we shall be till then is not important.

E.E.’s health has improved. The Minusinsk people have had a good summer. A.M. has obtained a job in Minusinsk, I believe.

Many kisses for you and regards to all.

Yours,
V. U.

Manyasha,

I recently read Stammler’s book here, in German, and felt very dissatisfied with it. In my opinion it is learned nonsense and fruitless scholasticism. It would be interesting to know who praised it to you. It is true that Struve and Bulgakov, both of whom, like Stammler, take a stand on neo-Kantianism,^[4] praised it in Novoye Slovo. Stammler in my opinion is an excellent argument against neo-Kantianism. To attempt to fight Marxism armed with nothing but foolishly compiled definitions in the way Stammler does (he has never written anything but textbooks for students of Roman Law...) is too absurd an undertaking. It was correctly said in Neue Zeit (Cunow) that Stammler’s book is of negative significance.

A few days ago I received the April issue of Nachalo and read almost all of it. It is very interesting in general and the article “Out of Turn” in particular.

Webb (the original) we have still not received! It seems I shall have to postpone it till my return since I can get nothing done.

I have read P.N. Skvortsov on markets in Nauchnoye Obozreniye No. 7^[5]—in my opinion the article contains very little and the author’s point of view is not clear to me. My reply to Struve has still not been published^[3] — the devil knows, this is disgraceful and muddleheaded!

All the best,
V. U.

Notes

[1] The nature of Lenin s request in respect of A. A. Vaneyev is not known.—Ed.

[2] The date Lenin’s term of exile ended.—Ed.

[3] “Once More on the Theory of Realisation”, Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 74–93.—Ed.

[4] Lenin refers here to S. Bulgakov’s article “Zakon prichinnosti i svoboda chelovecheskikh deistvii”, and P. B. Struve’s article “Yeshcho o svobode i neobkhodimosti”, published in the May (No. 8) issue of Novoye Slovo for 1897. The two articles are a continuation of the polemics between Struve and Bulgakov over the philosophy of Kant, Stammler, Zimmel and others in the journal Voprosy Filosofii i Psikhologii for 1896 and 1897. Lenin spoke of Stammler in his “Uncritical Criticism” (Collected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 609–32) and also in a letter to A. N. Potresov dated June 27, 1899 (see Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 40).

[5] This was P. Skvortsov’s article “K voprosu o rynkakh (Po povodu zametki g. Petra Struve ’K voprosu o rynkakh pri kapitalisticheskom proizvodstve’)” published in Nauchnoye Obozreniye No. 7for 1899.