V. I.

Lenin

1908

158

To:   HIS SISTER MARIA

Her Excellency Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova, Pavlovskaya Street, 6, Apt. 16, Peterburgskaya Storona, St. Petersburg, Russia

January 14, 1908

Dear Manyasha, I am sending you the copy of
Obrazovaniye [4] that I brought with me by mistake. I don’t think I owe you any
more books, do I? If I do, please let me know.

We have been hanging about in this damned Geneva for several days
now [5] .... It is an awful hole, but there is nothing we can do. We shall get used to it. How are you?
Are you freezing? Is Mother well? Please kiss her for me
and give my regards to Anyuta, and to Mitya, too, if he
has not yet left.

Yesterday I wrote to Lev Borisovich about an article [1] and asked him to obtain for me the minutes of the Third
Duma (the officially published verbatim reports and also
the announcements, questions and bills brought before the
Duma). These can only be obtained through acquaintances.
Please make an effort to see that someone agrees to get them
for me, and send them all , missing nothing. Please send
me also all the trade union journals that are still being
published in Russia (in St. Petersburg, and Moscow as well)
—buy them immediately . From the sum I am to receive from
the publisher on January 4, please get 50 rubles from

Yelizaveta Vasilyevna and send me everything new that the Mensheviks publish (if they do) and so on. I have
ordered Tovarishch ( Nash Vek ) [6] for myself from January 1
and will also keep track of new publications. If L.B. is
too lazy or too busy to write, please find out his answer
(to my questions) and let me know. By the way, I need an
answer about Granat (History of Russia); has a contract
for my article [7] been concluded with him or has it fallen
through? Let L.B. reconnoitre and inform you.

All the very best, Yours,

V. Ulyanov

Tournez s’il vous plait . [2]

Have you sent my papers and Nadya’s? If not, please send them as soon as possible by registered post. I need my
papers in order to get my permis d’établissement. [3]

My address: VI. Oulianoff. 17. Rue des deux Ponts. 17.
(Chez Küpfer) Geneve.

---
Notes:
[1]
This letter has been lost.— Ed .

[2]
Please turn over (Fr.).— Ed .
— Lenin

[3]
Residence permit (Fr.).— Ed .

[4]
Obrazovaniye (Education)—a monthly literary, popular scientific,
social and political journal published legally in St. Petersburg
from 1892 to 1909. Articles by Social-Democrats were published
in the journal between 1902 and 1908.

[5]
After the defeat of the First Russian Revolution, Lenin was hunted
by the tsarist police and had to leave Kuokkala in November 1907
and move to Oggelby (near Helsingfors). In accordance with the
decision of the Bolshevik centre to transfer the publication of the
newspaper Proletary to Geneva, Lenin left Oggelby. He stayed
in Stockholm for a few days and arrived in Geneva on January 7,
1908. This was his second period of exile abroad, which lasted
until April 1917.

[6]
Tovarishch (Comrade)—a bourgeois daily published in St.
Petersburg from March 15 (28), 1906 to December 30, 1907 (January 12,
1908), actually as the organ of the Left Cadets. Nash Vek (Our
Age) was published in January 1908 in place of Tovarishch .

[7]
The article referred to is Lenin’s “The Agrarian Question in
Russia Towards the Close of the Nineteenth Century”, which he wrote
for the Granat Brothers Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Because of
the censorship the article could not be published at that time.