256. To THE PRESIDIUM OF THE PETROGRAD SOVIET[1]
Dear Comrades,
In my opinion, to provide scientists with an extra room for a study, and for a laboratory, in Petrograd (a city exceptionally well off as regards apartments) is really and truly no sin. You should even have taken the initiative yourselves.
I strongly request you to get this thing moving and, if you disagree with me, to be kind enough to drop me a few words immediately, so that I see where the obstacle is.
With communist greetings,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
October 21
[1] This letter was written in response to Maxim Gorky’s appeal to the All-Russia Commission for Improving Scientists’ Living Conditions, in which he mentioned certain cases when scientific workers had been obliged to share too large a part of their flats with new tenants. Gorky was then chairman of the Petrograd branch of the Commission.