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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Letters

Lessons from Lenin to get through this crisis

A figures of Vladimir Lenin seen inside a closed shop.
Keith Flett quotes from Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: ‘But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on.’ Photograph: Sergei Mikhailichenko/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

On Wednesday evening, the start of Passover, when Jews celebrate the exodus from slavery in Egypt, at the Seder (dinner) table there was an empty chair. This symbolises the absence of Elijah the prophet from the meal. When many Britons sit down for Easter Sunday dinner this weekend, perhaps they could also put an extra chair at the table. It would show solidarity with those who can’t join their families because they are doing what is required to contain the coronavirus epidemic.
Monty Goldin
London

• If Lenin is going to be quoted in the Guardian (Coronavirus crisis has transformed our view of what’s important, 8 April), may I suggest this from One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904), which hopefully underlines how the world will change once we are through this: “But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on.”
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London

• Intrigued to read of the ozone-layer hole of “record dimensions” over the north pole, but I wonder if it’s a 7-inch or a 12-inch one (Record-size hole opens in ozone layer above the Arctic, 7 April).
Dr Paul Somerfield
Plymouth

• Please tell Lucy Mangan (And another thing, G2, 9 April) that I have the complete 18-disc box set of Due South if she’d like to borrow them.
Dr Quetta Kaye
London

• When it comes to online shopping, have we become a nation of “have slots” and “have nots”?
Mary Bowden
Harrow, London

• Play sand, last week, £50 for 100kg from educational suppliers. This week £200-plus. Profiteering?
Rachel Twiselton
Poole, Dorset

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition

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