V. I.

Lenin

Comrade M. N. Pokrovsky

Comrade M. N., I congratulate you very much on your success. I was
extremely pleased with your new book, Russian History in Brief Outline . The presentation and approach are original.
It reads with tremendous interest. I think it ought to be translated into the European languages.

Let me make a small remark. To turn it into a textbook (and it should become one), it needs to be supplemented
with a chronological index . This is what I mean: do it
approximately in this way (1) a column of dates; (2) a column
of bourgeois assessments (briefly); (3) a column of your ,
Marxist assessment, with references to the pages of your book .

Pupils should know both your book and the index , so that there should be no superficiality , so that they should
know the facts , so that they should learn to compare the
old science and the new. What’s your opinion about this
supplement?

December 5

With communist greetings, Yours, Lenin