V. I.

Lenin

93

To:   HIS MOTHER AND HIS SISTER MARIA

Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, Cottage No. 3, Town Park, Podolsk, Moscow Gubernia

August 7, 1899

I have received your letter of July 15, Mother dearest.
A big merci for it and for carrying out my request in respect
of
Anatoly. [1]

I hope to see him again in a few days; they say he is very bad, the blood is flowing from his throat
and he even coughs up pieces of lung.... The Governor was
in Yermakovskoye and gave Anatoly permission to go to
Krasnoyarsk, but now he himself does not want to go.

We are expecting visitors today—Gleb and his wife and Basil from Minusinsk. It is said that Gleb has received
permission to move to the railway and take a job as engineer. He will, of course, take advantage of the offer
to get together a little money for his journey home. It would
otherwise be rather difficult for him and Basil to get away
from here, even impossible in winter.

We have not put in any requests after all—it doesn’t seem to matter, we shall wait for January 29,
1900.... [2]

If only we can get away from here at that time—where we
shall be till then is not important.

E.E.’s health has improved. The Minusinsk people have had a good summer. A.M. has obtained a job in Minusinsk,
I believe.

Many kisses for you and regards to all.

Yours,

V. U.

Manyasha, I recently read Stammler’s book here, in German, and
felt very dissatisfied with it. In my opinion it is learned
nonsense and fruitless scholasticism. It would be interesting to know who praised it to you. It is true that Struve
and Bulgakov, both of whom, like Stammler, take a stand
on
neo-Kantianism, [4] praised it in Novoye Slovo . Stammler
in my opinion is an excellent argument against neo-Kantianism. To attempt to fight Marxism armed with nothing but
foolishly compiled definitions in the way Stammler does
(he has never written anything but textbooks for students
of Roman Law...) is too absurd an undertaking. It was correctly said in Neue Zeit (Cunow) that Stammler’s book
is of negative significance.

A few days ago I received the April issue of Nachalo and read almost all of it. It is very interesting in general
and the article “Out of Turn” in particular.

Webb (the original) we have still not received ! It seems
I shall have to postpone it till my return since I can get
nothing done.

I have read P.N. Skvortsov on markets in Nauchnoye Obozreniye No.
7 [5] —in my opinion the article contains very little and the author’s point of view is not clear to
me. My reply to Struve has still not been published [3]

—

the devil knows, this is disgraceful and muddleheaded!

All the best,

V. U.