Letter to Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova, March 17, 1899

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Author(s) Lenin
Nadezhda Krupskaya
Written 17 March 1899


MIA-bannière.gif
First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 6. Sent from Shushenskoye. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 250-251
Collection(s): Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya
Keywords : Letter, Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova

Mlle Marie Ouljanoff,

Rue des Minimes, 40,

Bruxelles,

Belgique


March 17

My greetings will not arrive in time, dear Manya, they will be late, but I nevertheless send you many, many kisses. Thanks for the views of Brussels, although I do not want to think of foreign countries too soon, I do not even want to think about Russia. All I allow myself to think about is the summer. In her last letter to us, M. Al. wrote that she is coming to see us this summer with Anyuta, and today in a letter to Podolsk I plunged into a description of the charms of Shusha.[1] I even outlined a trip to Lake Perovo, where we shall catch crucians and fry them. You see, the Minusinsk crowd are asking to come to Shusha for the summer, and we are thinking of acquiring a horse, so that it will be easy to go everywhere. I have become quite a “patriot” and can talk with great enthusiasm about the Yenisei, the islands, the forest, etc. All the same I am sorry I am not a man; I should wander around a lot more. Although I should very much like to see you, I do not intend to tempt you with Shusha, because, speaking impartially, Shusha is a village like any other, and if I were asked today to choose between a place to spend the summer—near Moscow or in Shusha, I should choose the former.

Volodya is now greatly interested in Kautsky’s Agrarfrage and is writing a review of it.[2] So far I can only glance at the book and lick my chops. In general, we have quite a lot of books and the very abundance of them only makes one conscious of how much there is to be read and how little one reads. We are not yet receiving Nachalo, so far only that boring Russkoye Bogatstvo.

However, I must stop. Mother sends you kisses and congratulations. Volodya intends to write himself.

We received M. Al.’s photo in the last post. It is an excellent likeness, isn’t it?

Many kisses,

Yours,

Nadya

March 17

I apologise, dear Manyasha, that this time, too, I am writing very little, just adding my congratulations to Nadya’s. The fact is that today a lot of letters have to be written—to Turukhansk (the post goes once a month),[3] and then I have to send Anyuta a list of the misprints in the clean proofs she sent me.

We have very little news. There is a lull in literary activity—we keep waiting. Foreign newspapers write of events in St. Petersburg and Finland (judging by Frankfurter Zeitung) but what they write is inked over, so we know very, very little.[4]

All the best. Perhaps au revoir?

Yours,

V. U.

  1. ↑ The letter has been lost.—Ed.
  2. ↑ See Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 94–99.—Ed.
  3. ↑ Lenin wrote to Y. O. Martov in Turukhansk but their correspondence during exile in Siberia has been lost.
  4. ↑ The event referred to was a student strike that took place in thirty higher educational establishments in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Kiev, Kharkov, Riga, Tomsk and other towns.
    The disturbances in Finland were caused by the suspension of the Finnish Constitution on February 3 (15), 1899. Evidently the censor inked over the reports of these events published in Frankfurter Zeitung.
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