Dear friend!

I am writing to you in response to the pisema1y I received from you today regarding the conversation on the telephone.

I cannot hide from you that I am very disappointed. In my opinion, everyone should have one thought now: to jump. And people are "waiting" for something!..!!

I am sure that I will be arrested or simply detained in England if I go under my own name, for it was England that not only confiscated a number of my letters to America, but also asked (its police) Pope in 1915 whether he corresponds with me and whether through me he does not communicate with the German Socialists.

Fact! So I cannot move personally without very "special" measures.

And the others? I was sure that you would go immediately to England, for only there can one find out how to get through and whether the risk is great (they say that through Holland: London - Holland - Scandinavia the risk is small), etc.

Yesterday I wrote you a postcard from the road2, thinking that you are undoubtedly already thinking and have decided to go to Bern to see the consul. And you answered: I hesitate, I will think....

Quant to moi je n'y comprends rien, mais absolument rien...1*

At such moments as now, one must be resourceful and adventurous. One must run to the German consuls, invent personal cases and get a pass to Copenhagen, pay Zurich lawyers: I'll give you 300 frs. if you get a pass from the Germans....

Of course, my nerves are shot to pieces. You bet! To endure, to sit here...

Probably you have special reasons, your health may not be good, etc.

I'll try to persuade Valya to come (she came to us on Saturday after not having been here for a year!). But she has little interest in the revolution.

Yes, I almost forgot. This is what can and must be done immediately in Claran: to look for passports (a) from Russians who would agree to give theirs (not to say that for me) to another person to leave now; (b) from Swiss women or Swiss men who could give a Russian one.

Anna Evgenyevna and Abram should be compelled to go to the Embassy, take a pass (if they do not give it, to complain telegraphically to Milyukov and Kerensky) and go or, if they do not go, to give us an answer on the basis of words (not words): how the pass is given and taken.

I shake hands.

Yours2*.

There are many Russian rich and non-rich Russian fools, social-patriots, etc., in (and around) Klaran (and around). (Troyanovsky, Rubakin, etc.) who should ask the Germans for a pass - a wagon to Copenhagen for various revolucioners.

Why not?

I can't do it. I am a "defeatist."

But Troyanovski and Rubakin + K° can.

Oh, if I could teach these bastards and fools to be intelligent...!

You'll say, perhaps, that the Germans won't give the carriage. Let's bet they will!

Of course, if they find out that this idea comes from me or from you, the matter will be ruined....

Are there no fools in Geneva for this purpose?...?

Published (with bills) - Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 49, с. 404-406.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 4462 - autograph.

1* As for me, I understand nothing here, yes, absolutely nothing (French).

2*Lenin's signature - stroke

1The letters of I.F. Armand have not survived.

2On the way from Chaux-de-Fonds on March 5 (18), 1917, where Lenin was giving an essay on "Will the Russian Revolution follow the path of the Paris Commune?", he sent a postcard to I.F.Armand (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 49, p. 403).