Published:
First published in 1930 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 4.
Sent from Paris to Saratov.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 465-466.
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
January 3, 1911
Dear M.T.,
Many thanks for your letter. One feels so cut off here that your stories of impressions and observations of the Volga (how I miss the Volga!) are manna from heaven. Your observations are of the greatest interest because they tell me about the various people you meet in the way of business and on journeys and because you made them without any preconceived aim. I was also very pleased to get your letter in the summer and I am very much at fault for not having found time to answer it, but that was because of moving from the seaside to Paris and from Paris to Copenhagen and Stockholm.
As regards my trip to Italy—it seems that it will not come off now (or in the near future). Finances (Anya asked me about them, by the way) do not permit it. I have not found a publisher.[1] I sent an article to Sovremenny Mir,[2] but apparently there are difficulties there, too; several weeks have passed and there has been no answer. Long journeys will have to be put off until better times. It is, of course, only a stone’s throw from here to Italy and you simply must pay a visit to Paris if you intend going to Italy. I suppose it is not for nothing that people say that if you have once been to Paris you will be drawn to it again.
Manyasha would certainly do better to take a longer rest in Saratov and not hurry off anywhere, it would be better in all respects.
Life here goes on as usual. Very little that is pleasant. The recent period has been so “squabblesome” that I must ask you to forgive me for unpunctuality in correspondence; I have not answered Anyuta, who told me of the unsuccessful talks with Lvovich,[3] and I have not written to Mother for a long time. Now at least you have almost the entire family gathered together, so please make my excuses, give my best regards to Anya and Manyasha and kiss Mother many times.
All the very best,
Yours,
V. U.
In Stockholm Mother told me about your fight with your boss. Since funds have gone up you must have won! Congratulations! Get rid of everything unpleasant!
Happy New Year! A Happy New Year to everyone!
Yesterday I received Zvezda No. 1 from Russia and today Mysl No. 1.[4] That is something to cheer me up! I hope you have seen it! It really is a pleasure!
[1] Lenin was trying to End a publisher for one of his works on the agrarian question—either “The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905–1907” or “The Agrarian Question in Russia Towards the Close of the Nineteenth Century” (see Collected Works, Vol. 13, pp. 217–431, and Vol. 15, pp. 69–147).
[2] It is not known which article Lenin refers to here. No article by him was published in Sovremenny Mir in that period. We have, however, the evidence of Bonch-Bruyevich that an article of Lenin’s was discussed by the editors (see Anna Ulyanova-Yelizarova’s preface to Lenin’s “Letters to Relatives (1910–1916)” in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 4 for 1930).
Sovremenny Mir (Contemporary World)—a literary, scientific and political monthly published in St. Petersburg from October 1906 to 1918.
[3] This apparently refers to talks on the publication of Lenin’s agrarian articles by G. F. Lvovich, who in 1905–06 published Lenin’s translation of Karl Kautsky’s Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Eine Antikritik (Bernstein and the Social-Democratic Programme. A Counter-critique). Lenin’s translation of part of the book was published under the title of K. Kautsky. Sbornik statei (Collection of Articles). The second edition stated that it was “Translated by Lenin”.
[4] Zvezda (Star)—a Bolshevik legal newspaper published in St. Petersburg from December 16 (29), 1910 to April 22 (May 5), 1912. The newspaper Nevskaya Zvezda was a direct continuation of Zvezda and was launched because of the frequent confiscation of the latter. These newspapers published about 50 of Lenin’s articles. Zvezda enjoyed great prestige among factory and other workers in Russia; it prepared the way for Pravda, the Bolshevik mass legal newspaper.
Mysl (Thought)—a legal Bolshevik monthly dealing with philosophical, economic and social problems; it was published in Moscow from December 1910 to April 1911—five issues in all. It was founded on Lenin’s initiative to combat the liquidators’ legal publications and to train advanced workers and intellectuals in the spirit of Marxism. The first four issues of the journal carried six articles by Lenin.
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