V. I.

Lenin

18

To:   THE EDITOR OF PRAVDA

Dear Colleague, You remind me again about the address of a friend. You
have already asked me once for this address, and T sent it
to you. It was added by me—I well remember—at the very end of a long letter. Look this up if you can. But
perhaps it is simpler to repeat the address: Herrn Kurt
Lauschner, Beuthen (Ober-Schlesien). Piekarerstr. 19/III,
Germany. Inside it is essential to add: for Herr Hörsing:
Für Herrn Hörsing (there are two Beuthens in Germany, therefore it is necessary to specify
“Ober-Schlesien”)... [1] has arrived. Many thanks. Dansky’s manuscript has also
arrived. I am extremely surprised that today, when I had
from you both Pravda and a packet of reactionary papers,
I did not receive Thursday’s Nevsky Golos . But I, for a
number of important reasons, very much need to have
Nevsky Golos directly it appears. If it does not appear,
please don’t be too lazy to send me two words about it at once. It is extremely important for me to know as soon
as possible whether it appeared on Thursday, August 23 (as Nevsky Golos promised on August 17), and, if it did
appear, to get a copy. By the way, I sent you a long time
ago a list of issues of Zvezda, Nevskaya Zvezda, Pravda
and Zhivoye Dyelo missing from my files. You still don’t
reply whether you can send them. Yet one mutual friend told me the other day that you have files of Zvezda and
Nevskaya Zvezda . Let me know, please, whether you have
kept the list I sent, and whether you can send me the missing issues. I take advantage of this opportunity to
congratulate Comrade Vitimsky (I hope it will not be difficult
for you to pass this letter on to him) on the remarkably fine
article in Pravda (No. 98) [2] which I received today. The
subject chosen was extremely topical, and was splendidly
worked out in a brief but clear form. In general it would
be useful from time to time to recall, quote and explain in
Pravda Shchedrin and other writers of the “old” Narodnik
democratic movement. For the readers of Pravda— for the
25,000—this would be appropriate and interesting, and also it would throw light on present-day questions of
working-class democracy from another point of view, and in
other words.

What is the circulation of Pravda? Don’t you think it might be useful to publish monthly statistics, even briefly
(circulation, name of town and district)? What could be the
arguments against publishing them? If there are no special
considerations, it seems to me that you should publish.

I almost forgot. We have had a number of complaints from various places abroad that neither when subscriptions
are sent, nor when money is sent for particular issues,
does Pravda arrive. I don’t get it regularly now myself.
This means undoubtedly that something is wrong in the dispatch department. Please take the most energetic steps
you can. Look yourselves at the letters from abroad about
subscriptions, and get the matter cleared up. Send one copy
of Pravda and Nevskaya Zvezda to the following address:
Frl. Slutzky: Katherinenstr. 8 g. H.II (bei Worte), Halensee, Berlin.