Note: Dated from November 3, 1900.

9.
3/XI [1900, Munich].
Yesterday I received your letter, dear P.B., and today I sent a note to my sister [A.I. Yelizarova]. I have passed on the letter to Vera Ivanovna [Zasulich].
Lest I forget: Please let me know in whose name you sent the pillow and the English book here 1).
I still have not received them.
If you sent them *postlagernd* 2), how – simply *postlagernd*, or *Banhofpostlagernd* 3), or otherwise? Vera I[vanovna Zasulich] could not answer me, and I kept waiting for your letter, but there is not a word about it. And, not knowing in whose name it was sent, I cannot make inquiries. Please ask Vera Pavlovna 4) to scribble me a couple of words about this, and forgive me generously for pestering you again and again with these trifles.
As for the article on Liebknecht 5), truly, we already do not know what to do.
After all, your article turned out to be magazine-sized: 8 pages (according to Vera Ivanovna Zasulich], such as in «Nakanune» 6), small font, i.e., about 8,000 letters per page) this is 64,000 letters – if you then take the large font of «Nakanune» – that is about 50,000 letters!
Our newspaper will be in *Vorwärts* 7) format, also in 3 columns.
A column is about 6,000 letters – that means half of your article will take up an entire newspaper page – plus another column!
This is extremely inconvenient for the newspaper, not to mention the inconvenience of splitting up an article like your article on Liebknecht.

I will calculate all this more precisely when your article arrives. We will try our best to place it in the newspaper, but if it turns out to be impossible due to size, then would you be so kind as to allow us to publish it as a brochure as an appendix to the newspaper? (If

V.I. LENIN – P.B. AKSELROD.

P. B. AKSELROD.

you write something special about Liebknecht for the magazine). Now the brochure «May Days in Kharkov» 8) (50,000 letters) is being typeset, then the newspaper will be typeset, and then your brochure about Liebknecht, and for the newspaper, if necessary, write an obituary with reference to the brochure. What do you think about this?
I repeat: all this is only speculation – it is necessary to calculate accurately and, I will do this upon receipt of your article, and I will write to you immediately.
I shake your hand firmly and wish you more than anything to fully recover soon.
Best regards to your family.

Yours, Petrov.

1) It is all about the same English magazine left by A.I. Yelizarova at Axelrod's for Vladimir Ilyich. As for the pillow, perhaps this is the very pillow about which N.K. Krupskaya tells in her memoirs: Akim, the brother of Liber-Goldman, who was in charge of the newly established illegal printing house of *Iskra* in Kishinev, sent a copy of some brochure published in Russia, sewn into a pillow. The pillow was sent in the name of a certain Dr. Lehmann, who, not understanding what was going on, initially refused to accept the package and only after the alarm raised by the editors of *Iskra* received it and delivered it to the editors. But perhaps this is not a "conspiratorial," but an ordinary pillow that Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova left for Vladimir Ilyich, since, according to her, he lived very simply and needed the most ordinary things.
2) *Postlagernd* – Poste restante.
3) *Banhofpostlagernd* – to be called for as baggage at the train station.
4) Vera Pavlovna Axelrod-Gurevich, daughter of P.B. Axelrod.
5) Only a small article by Axelrod "Wilhelm Liebknecht" was published in No. 1 of *Iskra*.
See note 8 to letter 2.
6) «Nakanune» – «On the eve». *Nakanune. Social-Revolutionary Review. Published once a month in the format of one to two printer's sheets.*
Under this title, a newspaper was published in London with the close participation of old Narodniks – E.E. Lazarev, E.A. Serebryakov and other members of the "Free Russian Press Fund" founded in London by the old Tchaikovites. The newspaper was published during 1899-1902. From January 1899 to February 1902, 37 issues were published (including several double issues).
The direction of this organ was sharply hostile to social democracy and Marxism in general.
The size of the newspaper «Nakanune» is indeed as Vladimir Ilyich indicates, approximately about 50 thousand letters (49600).
7) «Vorwärts» ("Forward") – the central organ of the German Social Democratic Party, which is still published today, has been published since 1890.
8) "May Days in Kharkov" see below, p. 295.
Lenin Miscellany III.