171. TO HIS SISTER ANNA (original) (raw)

V. I. Lenin

171

To: HIS SISTER ANNA

Published: First published in 1930 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya No. 1. Sent from Geneva to Moscow. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers,1977, Moscow,Volume 37, page 395.
Translated: The Late George H. Hanna
Transcription\Markup: D. Moros
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive. You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source. • README

November 8, 1908

Dear Anyuta,

Today I received postcards from you and Mother with the new address. Did you get my letter addressed to Presnya, 44,4? I am afraid to send a big manuscript to your private address or any other except that of some publisher. If you can find me such an address, I will send the manuscript immediately. In the meantime I shall await an answer to this letter. Incidentally, if the censor turns out to be_very_ strict the word “_popovshchina_” can everywhere be changed to “fideism” with a footnote to explain it (_Fideism_is a doctrine which substitutes faith for knowledge, or which generally attaches significance to faith).[1] This is for emergencies—it is to explain the nature of the concessions I am making.

All the best, many kisses for Mother.

Yours,
V. Ulyanov

Notes

[1] In the first edition of Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy the word “fideism” was used instead of popovshchina, a derogatory Russian term for “clericalism”, although “popovshchina” remained unchanged in a number of places. Lenin also suggested changing the word to “Shamanism”; his sister Anna, in a letter dated January 27, 1909, replied by saying, “’Shamanism’ has come too late. Anyway, is it any better?” The explanatory note was given in the Preface to the first and subsequent editions (see Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 19).