Published:
First published in 1930 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 1.
Sent from Geneva to Moscow.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 400-401.
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
December 10, 1908
Mother dearest,
Today we have at last settled up for the flat. Some of our things we are sending immediately by slow train. We are leaving on Saturday or on Monday at the latest. An apartment has been found for us—Avenue d’Orléans, 69 or 67, I will give you the exact address when I write from Paris.[3] You will now have to write to us through Manyasha. The apartment that has been taken is on the ground floor, three rooms, one for Manyasha.
I have just received a letter from Anyuta and have sent her a telegram: acceptez immédiatement seconde condition.[1] I am very glad that you have managed things without Znaniye and I think you must hurry up and sign a contract on the second condition. The important thing now is not to lose time, to make sure that we have a publisher bound by a formal contract and then speed up publication. If it is possible the contract should contain a point on immediate publication. (If you can, haggle for a larger number of free copies for the author, but do not make an issue of it.) By the way—I advise Anya when she signs the contract to be careful, and not to give her own name if she can avoid it, so as not to be responsible under the press laws (and not go to prison in the event of trouble; she should get advice on this from people who know about such things). Can a contract not be drawn up in my name, so as to leave Anyuta out of it altogether, i.e., not even mention her?[4]
I have sent you two letters to the wrong address. They have probably not been delivered to you since you do not say a word about them. Perhaps it would be advisable to apply to the post office, attach the envelope from this letter to your application and point out that the writing is the same, that the letters are from the same city and addressed to M. A. Ulyanova or A. I. Yelizarova, and that the only mistake is in the name of the street. I wrote Khamovniki, Sokolnichy Street instead of Obolensky Street. Have you received those letters? If you have not, I will repeat the addition I sent in one of them.[2]
I am sending a few more minor changes to Chapter Five. Please send me the proofs as they come off the press (all to be addressed to Mlle M. Oulianoff, Boulevard St.-Marcel 27, Paris), so that I can take a look at them. If the worst comes to the worst I would, entre nous, agree to the first condition, but the second is so advantageous and the opportunity of publishing it immediately, and in Moscow at that, is so attractive that we must seize that opportunity with both hands. As far as the author’s name is concerned, I do not insist—I don’t care what name it is, let the publisher choose one himself.
I embrace you fondly, my dear, and send very best regards to Anyuta. So do we all.
Yours,
V. Ulyanov
[1] Accept the second condition immediately (Fr.).—Ed.
[2] See Letter No. 173 and Note No. 263.—Ed.
[3] Lenin and his family had moved from Geneva to Paris because the newspaper Proletary was published there.
[4] Lenin’s book was accepted by the private firm of L. Krumbügel (Zveno Publishers). The contract was drawn up in the name of Lenin’s sister, Anna Ulyanova-Yelizarova, and signed by her.
The contract was for 3,000 copies at 100 rubles per printer’s signature, each signature being 40,000 letters, and 50 copies for the author (see her letter to the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 2-3 for 1930).
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