V. I.

Lenin

Dear Comrade, I should very much like to go to Zurich for two or three
weeks to work in the libraries on a piece of research. [1]
My wife also. So far we have no papers, but hope soon to
get them. The question is whether we shall be able to overcome
the financial difficulties. I would very much ask you to reply
frankly and without exaggeration to the following questions:

(1) What net income can there be (i.e., for me) from a lecture? Minimum and maximum? The subject: “Two
Internationals”: the growing division and rupture with the social-chauvinists throughout the world. Is it possible
to increase the income by giving two lectures, and by how
much? [2] (2) Will the local comrades help the two of us
to get cheap accommodation?
(3) How much will it cost to have a room (for two, even if with a single bed) per week ? The cheapest, preferably in a worker’s family?
(4)
Dinner in a canteen, if there is one (here we pay 65 centimes
in a students’ canteen)?
(5) Morgenkafee and coffee in the evening, because, of course, we cannot do our own
housekeeping in Zurich?

The cost of the journey will be 7x4=28 francs; extra expenditure on living in another town? That is the question.
The room situation here is bad. Do you happen to know a
worker’s family which could reliably promise to put us up
cheap?

I shall be very grateful for a frank reply, but without
any wild promises.

Beste Grüsse , Yours, Lenin

P.S. Are there any cheap self-service food counters or the like, and what are the prices?

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Notes:
[1]
A reference to Lenin’s work on his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism .

[2]
In Zurich, Lenin read two lectures: on February 17, 1916, “Two
Internationals”, and on February 26, 1916, “‘Conditions of Peace’
in Connection with the National Question”.