V. I.

Lenin

Cracow, February 27, 1914

Dear Colleague, I have long since received your book, Immigration and Labour , [1] and have been looking for your address to send
you my thanks. But it proved far from easy to find your
address. I got it only today, and hasten to express my gratitude to you for sending me the book. I have already
written an article [2] about it, and on the basis of it, in our
St. Petersburg Social-Democratic newspaper Pravda , and
intend to write again. I believe that this work provides a
mass of valuable material for the study of capitalism, being
at the same time something of an application of the best
methods of our Zemstvo statisticians on Western soil.

The comrade who sent me your address (Mr. John Ellert)
has written to tell me that you could use your influence
to help obtain all kinds of material from the Bureau of
the Census in Washington. May I, therefore, ask you to do
me a favour, provided of course that this will not give
you too much trouble or interfere with your work.

When I made a study of American agricultural statistics (Vol. V. Agriculture — Census of 1900 ) in Paris,
I found a great deal of interesting matter. Now, in Cracow, I am
unable to obtain these publications. Cahan, editor of the
Jewish socialist paper in New
York, [3] who was over here a year ago, promised to have them sent, but has apparently
forgotten to do so.

They say that when requested by the right people the
American Bureau of the Census will send its publications
free of charge even to foreign countries. If that is so, could you put in a word? (I could send the Bureau of the Census
library my books, The Development of Capitalism in Russia and the Agrarian Question . [4] ) What I need most is
Agriculture , Vol. V, Census of 1900, and the same volume of the Census of 1910 (if that is not yet out, then the
bulletins).

If that is impossible, would you be so kind as to send a
postcard to Mr. John Ellert (c/o Novy Mir . [5] 140. East
4th Street, New York)—I shall send him the money to buy the things I need most.

I thank you once again for the book, and hope you will pardon the trouble.

With Social-Democratic greetings,
N. Lenin (V. Ulyanov )

Address: Wl. Uljanow. 51. Ulica Lubomirskiego. Krakau (Galizien). Austria.