Letter to Nadezhda Krupskaya, July 9, 1919

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 9 July 1919


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First published in 1931 in Lenin’s Letters to Relatives. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 543-544
Keywords : Letter, Nadezhda Krupskaya

Krupskaya has the following to say about her correspondence with Lenin: “The letter of July 9, 1919 is the only private letter from Vladimir Ilyich that I still have. We did not live much apart. We carried on a considerable correspondence when Ilyich was in prison and during his first year of exile, when he was alone, also during my stay, in Ufa. In those days we wrote mostly in invisible ink and letters were destroyed as soon as they had been read. In 1919 I travelled on the propaganda vessel Krasnaya Zvezda for about two months. It was difficult to correspond in this period because of the constant movement of the vessel. But even those few letters I received from Ilyich were all, except one, destroyed, following the habit of underground work acquired in the past.” Another letter and a telegram sent by Lenin to the propaganda ship were discovered later (see Letter No. 270 and Telegram No. 269).

July 9, 1919

Nadya dearest,

I was very glad to hear from you. I sent a telegram to Kazan and, as I got no answer, sent another to Nizhny, and from there I today received a reply to the effect that the Krasnaya Zvezda is supposed to arrive in Kazan on July 8 and stay there for not less than 24 hours. In that telegram I asked whether it would be possible to give Gorky a cabin on Krasnaya Zvezda. He is arriving here tomorrow and I want very much to drag him out of Petrograd, where he has exhausted his nerves and gone sour. I hope you and the other comrades will be glad to have Gorky travelling with you. He is really a very nice chap, a bit capricious, but that is nothing.

I read the letters asking for help that sometimes come for you and try to do what I can.

Mitya has left for Kiev; the Crimea, it seems, is again in the hands of the Whites.

There is nothing new here; on Sundays we take a holiday at “our” country house.[1] Trotsky is better; he has left for the South and I hope he will manage all right. I am expecting an improvement from the substitution of Kamenev (from the Eastern Front) for Vatsetis.

We are giving Pokrovsky (M.N.)[2] two months’ leave for a rest; we want to appoint Lyudmila Rudolfovna Menzhinskaya as deputy commissar in his place (although it is not yet definite), but not Pozner.

I embrace you fondly and ask you to write and to telegraph more often.

Yours,

V. Ulyanov

N.B. Obey the doctor’s advice: eat and sleep more, then you will be fully fit for work by winter.

  1. ↑ Lenin here refers to Gorki, near Moscow, where he spent any leisure time he had. Lenin first went there on September 24 or 25, 1918. At first he spent his days off there but later, on the insistence of his doctors, he lived there for some time, although even during this period of rest he continued working hard.
    Towards the end of 1921 Lenin’s health deteriorated seriously. On December 6 he was granted leave of absence and spent the time in Gorki. During his illness (May 23-October 2, 1922) he lived in Gorki and went there on a visit for a few days in early December. From May 15, 1923 to his death on January 21, 1924, Lenin lived in Gorki, leaving there only on rare occasions.
    The place is now called Gorki Leninskiye and a Lenin Museum was opened there on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death.
  2. ↑ M. N. Pokrovsky was at that time Deputy People’s Commissar of Education of the RSFSR—Ed.
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