Letter to Grigori Shklovsky, August 5, 1916

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Dear G. L.,

I don’t know whether you are in Berne. Please let me know directly you get this letter.

1) I have a request to you: I need to dispatch a manuscript in bindings: 100 sheets (not pages but sheets) just like this one (destination, same as Grigory’s).[1]

Please order two books of suitable format: you will get the manuscript in 5–6 days. I am in a terrible hurry with the dispatch (I have lost my own copy!) and therefore would very much ask you to hurry, and if you can’t do it, to reply as soon as possible, so that I could look for someone else through whom to arrange it.

2) Why do you say nothing about my papers? If you can’t manage anything (or if it’s inconvenient), do not hesitate to let me know. It isn’t worth while going to a lot of trouble over it!

3) Did you get a printed copy of the “paper” on the Ts. case[2] from Moor? This is essential. Don’t forget! We must get hold of it at all costs, or he may lose it, the scoundrel!

4) Why has there not been a money report for a long time? Or has there been such a windfall that you can’t add it up?

Greetings to all, from Lyuda on.

Yours,

Lenin

P.S. Please send us the POW letters,[3] after you are through: we must keep track of their state of mind, demands, opinions, etc.

  1. ↑ A reference to the mailing of the manuscript of Lenin’s Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism. For reasons of secrecy, such material was bound in specially prepared covers of other books.
  2. ↑ The person in question has not been identified.
  3. ↑ At the time, G. L. Shklovsky headed the Commission for Intellectual Assistance to POWs under the Committee of the RSDLP Organisation Abroad. The Commission operated in Berne, and Shklovsky kept Lenin informed of its activity and sent him the most interesting POW letters. The commission was set up on Lenin’s initiative and widely circulated Bolshevik literature on various aspects of the war and current events, established ties with POWs, and contacted revolutionary-minded men who helped to spread the Party’s Influence in POW camps.