V. I.

Lenin

44

To:   HIS MOTHER AND HIS SISTER ANNA

March 8, 1898

This week, Mother dearest, I do not think I have had a single letter from you. From this I gather that Mitya is
still inside, and that is very sad.

I do not know now whether this letter will find N.K.
in Moscow. In case she is still there I am adding one forgotten
request. Send me one of our sets of chessmen; it turns out
there are some players among our comrades in Minusinsk and I have once already recalled old times most enjoyably.
I was wrong in thinking Eastern Siberia an outlandish place where no chessmen would be needed. There are all
kinds of places in Eastern Siberia.

Life goes on as usual. From Tesinskoye they write that
E.E. has had her allowance stopped—“mothers are not regarded as members of the family” (a new interpretation!).
They have also reduced Prominsky’s allowance from 31 rubles to 19 a month. Anatoly has at last “rescued” his
wife after a lot of trouble. Yuly writes from Turukhansk
that he is living tolerably well—not the kind of fellow to
lose heart, fortunately.

Yours,

V. U.

I am enclosing a letter for Nadezhda Konstantinovna.

Please send me as much money as possible with her; if she has already left, send it to Yelizaveta Vasilyevna’s
address. There may be fairly heavy expenses, especially
if we have to set up house for ourselves, so I am going to
make my debt a good round sum and raise another internal
loan. By autumn I shall probably receive enough for my translation to cover my debts— I believe more than five hundreds . [1]

Anyuta,

I should like to ask you to get me some English textbooks. I asked for something to translate and have received
the
Webbs’ [2] big book. I am afraid I may make mistakes.

I need (1) an English grammar, especially syntax , and especially a section on idioms. If N.K.has not got a Nurok
(I think she had one but I do not know if it was hers), send
me yours (or Manyasha’s) at least for the summer, unless
you (or Manyasha) need it. The only thing is that I do not
know whether Nurok will give enough on this question.
If you could get a good textbook of English it would be a
very good thing.

(2) A dictionary of geographical and proper names. They
are very difficult to translate and transcribe from English
and I am very much afraid of making mistakes. I do not know whether suitable dictionaries exist. If there is no
information in The Book about Books or in some other reference work or catalogue, perhaps there is some other source
from which you could find out.

If you have a chance to find out and to get something (in this case I do not grudge money, for the fee will be a
large one and I must make a good job of the first attempt)—
but there is no need to take any particular trouble; I shall
get the German translation and will be able to refer to it.

Yours,

V. U.

What do you think about summer? Will Mitya be allowed to go to Kokushkino? Are you thinking of, staying there
or not?

Moscow is a rotten town, isn’t it? It is a rotten place to
live in and a rotten place to publish books in—so why stay
there? I really was surprised when Mark informed ,me that
you were against moving to St. Petersburg.

---
Notes:
[1]
The italicised phrase is in English in the original.— Ed .

[2]
Lenin received Book I of the Webbs’ The History of Trade Unionism . In the course of a few months he translated the book
and wrote a number of commentaries to the Russian translation.
When Nadezhda Krupskaya arrived in Shushenskoye they worked
together on the translation of the first volume of the book.