V. I.

Lenin

542

To:   MAXIM GORKY

6/XII.

Dear A. M.:

I am very sorry to write in haste. I am terribly tired.
I’ve got insomnia. I am going away for treatment.

I have been requested to write to you: would you write to Bernard Shaw asking him to go to America, and to Wells
who is said to be in America now, to get them both to help
us in collecting aid to the starving?

It would be a good thing if you wrote them.

The starving will then get a bit more.

The famine is very bad. [2]

Make sure to have a good rest and better treatment. [1]

Regards, Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
On the envelope Lenin wrote: “To P. P. Gorbunov, with the
request to send this on to Berlin for Alexei Maximovich Gorky (from
Lenin) {return the envelope with Gorky’s signature).” On the other
side of the envelope Maxim Gorky wrote: “Received 24.XII.
M. Gorky .”— Ed.

[2]
In reply to Lenin’s letter, Maxim Gorky said that he had
written to H. G. Wells, who was in America, asking him to have
a talk with the organisations and persons concerned about
helping the famine-stricken. He wrote: “I have no reply from
Wells, but I am sure that my letter found him in America,
because he quoted extracts from my letter in one of his articles...”
(V. I. Lenin and A. M. Gorky, Pisma, vospominaniya, dokumenty (Letters, Reminiscences, Documents), 2nd ed., 1961, pp.
184–86).