Published:
First published in 1930 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 4.
Printed from
the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 37,
pages 520-521.
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
Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova,
Grechesky Prospekt, ,17, Apt. 18,
Petrograd,
Russia
Wl. Uljanow,
Distelweg, 11,
Berne
November 14, 1914
Dear Anyuta,
I have received a letter from you and also from Mark, and, lastly, a postcard from Mother. Many, many thanks to everyone! I do not need any money at present. My incarceration was a very brief one,[1] only 12 days, and I was soon granted certain privileges, so that the “time” I did was very easy, the conditions and the treatment were good. Now I have had time to look round and settle down here. We are living in two furnished rooms, very good ones, and we eat in a neighbouring dining-room. Nadya feels quite well, so does Y.V., although she has aged badly. I have finished my article for the Granat Encyclopaedia (about Marx) and am sending it in a few days.[2] I had to abandon part (the bigger part, almost all) of my books in Galicia.... I fear for their safety.[3] It is very sad to watch the growth of chauvinism in a number of countries and to see such treacherous acts as those of the German (and not only the German) Marxists, or pseudo-Marxists.... It stands to reason that the liberals are praising Plekhanov again; he has fully deserved that shameful punishment.[4] Answer me as quickly as possible about how matters stand with the jour- nal.[5] Is there any possibility of starting it? If so, when? Does the post office accept responsibility for manuscripts sent by registered post? I embrace Mother fondly, send her many kisses and hope she keeps well; regards to all from all!
Yours,
V. Ulyanov
P.S. I have seen the disgraceful, shameless issue of Sovremenny Mir....[6] Shame! Shame!
[1] On August 7, 1914 Lenin’s apartment in Porpnin was searched by the Austrian authorities on receipt of false information accusing him of espionage. Lenin was ordered to report to the -6 gendarmerie in the district town of Novy Targ, where fie was arrested and imprisoned next day.
Polish Social-Democrats and members of the Austrian -6 Parliament came to Lenin’s defence and he was released on August 19. He obtained permission to leave Austria for neutral -7 Switzerland, arriving there on September 5, 1914.
[2] This refers to Lenin’s article "Karl Marx (A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism)”, written between July and November 1914 for Granat’s Encyclopaedic Dictionary. An abridged version of the article, signed V. Ilyin, was published in 1915 in Volume 28 of the dictionary. It was first published in full in 1925 in Marx, Engels, Marxism (see Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 43–91).
[3] Lenin s fears were fully justified. After he had left, the greater part of his books and papers fell into the hands of the gendarme- rie and were passed on to the General Staff in Warsaw. In 1954 some of this material was discovered in Poland and sent to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. and part of the documents hds been included in the Collected Works.
[4] During the First World War G. V. Plekhanov adopted a socialchauvinist stand by defending the Menshevik tactics of defencism; this met with favourable comments in the bourgeois press.
[5] The journal referred to is Prosveshcheniye, publication of which was to be resumed. In a letter to her sister Maria on April 11, 1915, Anna Ulyanova-Yelizarova wrote that it was intended to issue one or two numbers of the journal in summer. In a letter dated April 23, she wrote: "We shall speak about restarting the journal, or rather, of publishing a summer issue, so as not to lose the right to publish it, but so far we have not got down to it. Volodya simply thirsts for a journal and a newspaper of our own."
[6] In Sovremenny Mir No. 9 for 1914 there appeared an ultra-chauvinist article by N. lordansky entitled "Let There Be Victory!".
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