Written: Written January 7, 1914
Published:
First published in the Fourth Edition of the Collected Works.
Sent from Krakow to Vologda.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 509-510.
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 7
Dear Maria Alexandrovna,
A Happy New Year to you, Manyasha and Anya, with all best wishes for everything that is good.
We spent the European New Year’s Eve alone with Volodya sitting over plates of curds, and the Russian New Year’s Eve we shall not celebrate at all because Volodya is going away for a month or six weeks to work in a library.[1] I envy him a bit because our place is more like a backwoods village than a town and I miss people quite a lot. There is simply no one here to bother about and no one to take care of.
We do not seem to be able to make acquaintances among the local inhabitants.
Winter tried hard to get going here, Volodya went skating three times and tempted me to buy skates, but the weather suddenly turned warm, all the ice melted, and today, for instance, there is a real smell of spring in the air. Yesterday, too, was not at all like winter. Volodya and I went for a long walk in the country and it was fine.
That, then, is all our news. I embrace you fondly, Mother sends regards.
How are your eyes? Did Anya come as she intended to?
Keep well!
Yours,
Nadya
Mother dearest,
I embrace you fondly and wish you a Happy New Year— you, and Manyasha and Anya!
Yours,
V. U.
[1] In mid-January 1914, Lenin left Krakow for Paris where he spoke at a meeting of Bolsheviks on the intention of the International Socialist Bureau to interfere in the affairs of the R.S.D.L.P., then at two memorial meetings dedicated to the events of January 9, 1905; he also delivered a lecture on the “Question of Nationalities” in the Grand Hall of the Geographical Society. From Paris Lenin went to Brussels to attend the Fourth Congress of the Social-Democrats of the Latvian Area. He delivered there a report on behalf of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. in which he criticised the opportunist position of the Latvian Social-Democrats on questions of the struggle against the liquidators and took a firm stand against the conciliatory tendencies at the congress. He delivered a lecture to the delegates on the question of nationalities in which he outlined the theory and tactics of the Bolsheviks in this field. After the congress Lenin lectured on the same issue at Liege and Leipzig, returning to Krakow on February 6, 1914.
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