Letter to Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, July 2, 1904

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Author(s) Lenin
Nadezhda Krupskaya
Written 2 July 1904


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First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 11. Sent from Lausanne to Kiev. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 361-362
Collection(s): Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya
Keywords : Letter, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova

July 2

Dear Maria Alexandrovna,

We received Manyasha’s letter the day before yesterday and yours yesterday. How glad I was! If only they will soon release Anya! I embrace you fondly, my dears. It is such a pity that you are both suffering from ill health. You absolutely must take a rest—the main thing is to get your lungs filled with fresh air; after all, Kiev is a city. The only thing is that in the north the summer is bad; Mother is living near St. Petersburg at the country house of some friends and complains of the terrible cold and the rain. I believe that there is everything conducive to rest at M.T.’s country place.

We are now on holiday, too. We have let our house and I am very glad we have, because keeping it clean and housekeeping in general took the whole day, there was sometimes such a hubbub at our place; the need to think about housekeeping all the time was a nuisance. If you go out for a walk, you are left without milk, if you are not up by seven o’clock you have the pleasure of going to town for meat, and so on. And in winter it was so cold. We shall now find something more convenient. In general I am dreaming of autumn, when I shall be able to sit down and work seriously. I am thinking of various ways of avoiding the constant turmoil; it is terribly tiring. We are now in Lausanne. It is already a week since we got away from Geneva and are now resting in the full sense of the word. We have left our work and our worries in Geneva and here we sleep 10 hours a day, and go swimming and walking— Volodya does not even read the newspapers properly; we took a minimum of books with us, and even those we are sending back to Geneva tomorrow, unread, while we ourselves shall don our rucksacks at four in the morning and set out for a two weeks’ walking tour in the mountains.[1] We shall go to Interlaken and from there to Lucerne. We are reading Baedeker and planning our journey carefully. In a week we have “recovered” quite considerably and have even begun to look healthy again. It has been a difficult winter and our nerves have been under such a strain that we cannot be blamed for taking a month’s holiday, although I am already feeling guilty about it. The weather is a bit doubtful, there is no rain, but the air is rather misty. For the time being that is all I have to write about us. Volodya and I have made an agreement not to talk about our work—work, he says, is not a bear and will not escape to the woods—not even to mention it, and, as far as possible, not to think about it.

I shall be writing to Manyasha, probably this evening, and in the meantime I embrace all of you fondly, my dears, and send you many kisses.

Yours,

Nadya

Mother dearest,

I will add just a few words. Very best regards to Manyasha and congratulations on her release. This summer you absolutely must rest. Please go and stay in the country somewhere. We are taking walks and having a good holiday. I embrace you.

Yours,

V. Ulyanov

  1. ↑ Krupskaya recalls the following in connection with this holiday.
    “At the end of June 1904, Vladimir Ilyich and I took our rucksacks and set off for a month in the mountains, following our noses. We spent a week or so in Lausanne to muster a little strength, and then set out for somewhere beyond Montreux; we found our way through the wildest forests to a place where some loggers told us how to reach the road and where to spend the night. Through Aigle we descended into the valley of the Rhone, went to Bex-les-Bains to an old school and college friend of mine, and then wandered along the Rhone for a long time—about 70 versts; this was the most tiring part of the journey. In the end we crossed the Gemmi Pass into Oberland, reached the foot of the Jungfrau, and then, with our legs aching and completely worn out, we stayed at Iseltwald on the Brienzersee for about a week and from there again took to the road through Interlaken and Zimmental back to the Geneva area. The winter of 1903–04 had been a particularly difficult one, our nerves were in a bad state and we wanted to get away from people and forget for the time being all business and alarms. The mountains helped us. The changing impressions, the mountain air, solitude, healthy tiredness and healthy sleep were a real cure for Vladimir Ilyich. His strength and vivacity and high spirits returned to him. In August we lived on Lac de Bret, where Vladimir Ilyich and Bogdanov evolved a plan for the further struggle against the Mensheviks.” Letter No. 151 __PROGRESS_COMMENT_
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