Lot 1052

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Description:

VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN
(1870 - 1924) Russian revolutionary, author, lawyer, political philosopher, creator of the Soviet Communist Party, leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and founder of the USSR. As head of the Bolsheviks, he led the Red Army to victory in the Russian Civil War, then established the world's first socialist state. Lenin's theoretical and philosophical contributions to Marxism produced Leninism, the theory and practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat, led by a revolutionary vanguard party. Very rare A.L.S. "Lenin", also signed "Ulyanov" in the text and again on the transmittal envelope, 1p. 8vo., [Zurich, Jan. 16, 1917] in German to "Herrn Berger", also in Zurich. In full: "Dear Comrade! Comrade Bronski will be coming to see me tomorrow, Wednesday, 7 1/2 PM. Please come along. Address: Ulianov to Spiegelgasse 14, 2nd floor (at Kammerer's) Zurich 1 (a few steps from Eintracht). With kind regards, Lenin". Sold with the original transmittal envelope bearing two Zurich postmarks, Jan. 16 and 17, 1917, addressed by Lenin with his proper last name "Ulyanov" in the return address portion on verso. Two pieces, both in fine condition. Lenin's The Revolution of 1917: From the March Revolution to the July Days identifies "M. G. Bronski" as having been born in 1882, a Polish Social Democrat and Bolshevik who represented Polish Social Democracy at the Kienthal Conferenceand and later was a member of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat for Finances of the USSR. Coincidentally, it would be Bronski who would only a few weeks hence, on March 3rd, rush to the same apartment to breathlessly exclaim that Tsar Nicholas II had abdicated and that the long-awaited revolution had arrived (Lenin: A Biography Robert Service, London, 2000). The recipient of the letter is unknown - a long-shot guess would be Victor Berger, the head of the American Socialist Party and a firm supporter of Lenin. Berger would be tried and convicted of violating the Espionage Act.

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July 22, 2011 11:30 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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