V. I.

Lenin

191

LENIN AND KRUPSKAYA TO LENIN’S SISTER ANNA

May 26, 1909

Dear Anyuta, I received your letter a few days after I had sent a letter
to Mother in Alupka.

I have received the book and find that it has been nicely
published. There were no fewer misprints at the end than
at the beginning and the proof-reader’s ignorance of foreign
languages is obvious (the English “A New Name for Old
Ways of
Thinking” [1] has been so distorted that it is ridiculous), [3] but that is an inevitable and insignificant
shortcoming. On the whole I am satisfied with it. Everyone
complains of the price—and rightly so. In future we shall
have a point in the contract about the price as well as the
number of copies. I was hard pressed by the publisher and
would, in any case, have agreed to any terms, as long as
the book was published.

The publisher has not yet sent any money and I am beginning to be afraid that he will swindle
us. [4] I have written to Peres. Will you also please write to the
publisher—three or four weeks have passed and he promised
to pay in a week. (You absolutely must get a promissory
note for the remaining sum.) Please send me the five hundred rubles that are in the bank (Crédit Lyonnais, Agence Z,
Avenue d’Orléans, 19. Mr. Oulianoff. Current account No.
6420) since I cannot rely on the publisher.

Things are bad here— Spaltung , [2] or rather, there will
be one; I hope that in a month or six weeks I shall be able
to give you exact information. So far I can do no more than
guess. [5]

Manyasha is swotting hard. She is quite well and will probably pass her examinations. What will happen then, I
do not know. I think she wants to go home.

We have not yet decided when we shall go to the seaside
or where we shall go. [6] But this summer we shall go for
certain.

Many kisses for Mother and all the best to you.

Yours,

V. Ulyanov

Dear Anya, You asked in your last letter why I do not write. All this
winter I have been in a state of utter melancholy, the time
has been frittered away, I could not work properly and so I
was in no fit state to write. If Manyasha had not written
about Volodya and Volodya about her I should have given
you all the details about them both as I did before, but
apart from that there is nothing to write, we are just jogging
along. Every time they wrote I told them to give you my
regards but I don’t suppose they did. I shall try and write
soon, but in the meantime I send many kisses to you and to
dear Maria Alexandrovna from myself and from Mother.

Yours,

Nadya

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Notes:
[1]
Stepanov apparently did not look at it at all....— Lenin