Published: Volume 37 by the Editors
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 553-554.
Translated/Edited: George H. Hanna and Robert Daglish.
Transcription/Markup: D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2008.
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(From the Files of the Moscow Gendarmerie)
During a search of the house of Lenin’s sister Maria Ulyanova on the night of February 28, 1901, six letters from Lenin were seized and placed in her dossier as “material evidence”. The flies of the Moscow Gendarmerie (Dossier of the Moscow Group of the R.S.D.L.P., No. 69, Volume V, 1901, sheet 101 (The dossier is now in the Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism—Leninism, CC., C.P.S.U.—Editor) contain the following entries concerning these letters.
1. A letter dated July 3, 1897, signed “Yours, V. U.” and beginning with the words “I have received your letter of June 10, dear Manyasha”, was found in an envelope addressed to Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (the mother of “Manyasha”). The letter contains a programme of Marxist studies, and among the source material mentioned are such Social—Democratic periodicals as Vorwärts and Neue Zeit.
2. A letter dated September 4, 1898, is signed “Yours, V. U.” but on the envelope the address of the sender is given as Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova. In this letter, which begins with the words “A few days ago, Mother dearest, I received your letter”, the following phrases are outstanding: (1) “As for sending books to Sergei Ivanovich, I must say that I do not know where he is. Perhaps lie is already in Srednc—Kolymsk”; (2) “Lyakhovsky wrote a few days ago—mostly about new exiles passing through Verkholensk”; (3) “Vas. Vas. (Starkey) is thinking of asking to be sent to Nizhneudinsk”; (4) “The Lepeshinskys are being moved to Kuraginskoye”; (5) “Apollinariya Alexandrovna wrote recently from Kazachinskoye”.
3. A letter signed “V. U.”, dated December 15, 1898, beginning with the words “I am sending Anyuta Y.M. ’s letter which he sent me with a request that I despatch it immediately”, in which the phrase quoted, and the initials “Y M.” in that phrase, are deserving of attention
4. A letter dated June 14, 1899, signed “Yours, V. U.”, begins with the words “This week there has been no news from home, Mother dearest”; the name of Prince Yegor Yegorovich Kugushev is mentioned in the letter; the author of the letter asks for a copy of his book on the development of capitalism to be sent to the aforementioned Kugushev
5. A letter by the same author dated “August 18, 1900, Paris”, addressed to M. A. Ulyanova; it contains the address: “M. Dr. Dubon, chat… Pour M Goukowsky, 8 Boulevard Capucines, Paris”.
6. A letter dated “October 20, Prague”, signed “V. U.”, addressed to Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova; it contains the address: “Herrn Franz Modraëek (for VI.), Smeiky, 27 Prag. Austria.”
Attempts to find these letters have not so far met with any success; it is possible that they were destroyed in one of the fires that occurred in the early days of the February Revolution.