[23 August 1916]

To the Librarian

Dear Sir!

I request you to extend the loan period of the book I have taken out (Marx and Engels: "Correspondence", Volume I²) until 1 October 1916.

With deep respect,

Vl. Ulyanov, journalist

Tschudiwiese.
Flums (Canton St. Gallen)**

Printed from the text of "Revue européenne des sciences sociales" (Geneva), Vol. XI,
1973, N 29

Translated from the German

* On the postcard V. I. Lenin wrote:
"M-lle Sophie Popoff
Hotel de Belfort.
Paris
16. Rue Sophie Germain. 16."

** On the face of the postcard V. I. Lenin wrote:
"Zentralstelle für soziale Literatur"
Zurich
Seilergraben. 31 and his address: Wl. Ulianow
Flums (Kt. St.-Gallen)
Tschudiwiese.

¹ The present-day Centre for Social Literature, in whose reading room Lenin worked from 12 March 1916 on the recommendation of Fritz Platten, is called the Swiss Social Archive in Zurich; address: Neumarkt, 28.

² V. I. Lenin refers to Volume I of the correspondence of K. Marx and F. Engels, published in Germany in September 1913; the edition consisted of four volumes under the title "Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx. 1844 bis 1883", herausgegeben von A. Bebel und Ed. Bernstein. Vier Bände, Stuttgart, 1913 ("The Correspondence of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx from 1844 to 1883", edited by A. Bebel and Ed. Bernstein. Four volumes, Stuttgart, 1913). The first volume of the "Correspondence" covers the period from 1844 to 1853.

Lenin began working on the "Correspondence", which includes about 1500 letters, immediately after its publication.

The Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CPSU Central Committee holds a handwritten notebook of 76 pages, containing a synopsis of the four-volume edition of the "Correspondence" (about 300 letters of Marx and Engels), extracts from 15 theoretically most important letters, and a brief thematic index to the synopsis. All four volumes of the "Correspondence" on which Lenin worked have also been preserved, with his markings (underlinings, marginal lines, NB) in the text and on the margins of the volumes, made with coloured pencils and black ink.

V. I. Lenin's manuscript containing the listed materials was published in 1959 by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CPSU Central Committee as a separate book under the title "Synopsis of the 'Correspondence of K. Marx and F. Engels. 1844—1883'". In 1968 a second edition of this book appeared.

The synopsis of the "Correspondence" served Lenin as a literary source for many years; he used it until the very last days of his life. The synopsised letters of Marx and Engels, including those from Volume I of the "Correspondence", were used by Lenin in a number of his articles and works: "The Correspondence of Marx with Engels", "Karl Marx", "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination", "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism", "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", "‘Left-Wing’ Communism: an Infantile Disorder", "On Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov's Notes)", and others.