V. I.

Lenin

489

To:   INESSA ARMAND

Dear Friend, Nadya’s passports [1] are no good at all. (Her health is poor; the weather’s bad, we can’t go to
the mountains.) You ask my advice about Graber. In my opinion, no
arrangements should be made with him (after the way he let us down in
1915 [2] ) either about the composition of the Editorial Board or
obligatory publication of our articles, as this would mean disgracing
ourselves by acting a comedy. Without long, many-months experience at
contributions (yours or Abramovich’s or both—regularly, one or another
occasionally) I don’t think any serious agreement is worth talking
about. We must look 10 times now “before we leap”.

The letters to the prisoners of war concerning the questionnaire
did not reach them. I wrote to Malinovsky once, suggesting a
simple programme: place of residence; trade; occupation; age; attitude to
the war, and so on. I got no reply. Obviously the censors don’t let it
through! Best regards to Popov from me and Nadya. Will you be able to send
him dried crusts, etc., direct or through somebody?

All the best!

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
This refers to travel documents which Krupskaya had obtained for
Armand, who was planning to go to Norway.— Ed .

[2]
At the beginning of the war Graber adopted an internationalist stand
and attended the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences, yet when Vandervelde
arrived in Switzerland in 1915 to campaign for the re-establishment of the
Second International, Graber delivered a message of greetings to him on
behalf of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland.