V. I.

Lenin

34

To:   HIS MOTHER AND HIS SISTERS MARIA AND ANNA

December 10, 1897

According to my estimate, Mother dearest, this letter should arrive by Christmas. I have decided to send it off
by the first post and not wait until Sunday (I am used to
writing to you on Sundays). I have received a letter from
Gleb in which he says he has submitted an application for
permission to come to me for ten days during the holidays.
I hope he will get permission. It will give me great pleasure.
They have written from Tesinskoye that Zinaida Pavlovna
has been sentenced to three years’ exile in northern gubernias, and that she is asking to be sent to Minusinsk
District. [1]

I believe Nadezhda
Konstantinovna [2] intends to do the same, although her sentence is not yet properly
known; it will probably be very much the same.

I kiss you warmly, Yours,

V. U.

I hope that Mitya will be free by the time you receive this letter. They are not likely to hold him
long. [5]

Anyuta,

I am now reading the French translation of Labriola’s
Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History . It is a
very sensible and interesting book. [3]

The idea came to me that you ought to translate it. (The original is in Italian
and Kamensky in Novoye Slovo says that the French translation is not very good. You would, of course, have to get
the original.) The book is in three parts: (1) In Memory
of the Communist Manifesto, (2) Historical Materialism (the biggest part) and (3) Appendix: The Manifesto of the
Communist Party (translated into French by Laura
Lafargue). It goes-without saying that only the second part is
suitable for translation, and not all of that (I have not yet
finished reading it). If something is left out, it will not by
any means detract from this extremely clever defence of
“our doctrine” (Labriola’s expression). I am writing to
St. Petersburg this very day to find out whether the writer
proposes using this material for the journal. You can either
get his opinion from N. K. (I am writing to her) or propose
directly to him that you start the translation. [6]

V. U.

Manyasha, I received your letter of November 24 and the second
issue of the Vyatka Returns . Earlier I received the
Ulozheniye and
Ustav [7] —I do not remember whether I acknowledged them.

You say that “goods for Minusinsk are still not being accepted from Moscow”. Perhaps they will soon be
accepted. Mark could probably find out. Books are no longer
urgent. Perhaps you can send them with someone coming at Christmas or with the
girls [4] who intend to come here (I am writing to Mother about them) or, eventually, with
someone else. If things are sent to Krasnoyarsk the delay
is, in any case, tremendous. If any book is needed for work,
I shall write and it can be sent by post. We had better wait
a while before using the carrier’s office.

Savchenko’s book, it seems, is Peskovsky’s.

Programma domashnego chteniya has arrived; I have looked at it, it is dull and I do not want to write a review.

Wolfe’s little publication starts quite well and is fabulously cheap.

I have ordered Seignobos. I do not intend to order Ziber
yet. If I get some money I shall probably order it, too.
Kalmykova’s bookshop gives me a discount of 15 per cent,
so I order books from there; it is convenient, too, because
it saves you trouble.

All the best,

V. U.

---
Notes:
[1]
Zinaida Pavlovna Nevzorova.— Ed .

[2]
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya.— Ed .
— Lenin

[3]