Written: Written on December 20, 1902 (January 2, 1903)
Published:
Published on January 1, 1903 in Iskra No. 31.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 41,
page 70.2.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Copyleft:
V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
© 2004
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Text
The leaflet of the Don Committee, which we reprint, sums up some remarkable events and gives them a highly correct and striking assessment, drawing practical conclusions which Social-Democrats will never tire of repeating. It was published in 6,500 copies and sent to various towns of Russia in December.
{1} The leaflet “To the Citizens of All Russia” was issued by the Don Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. in November 1902 in connection with the strike in Rostov from November 2 to 25 (November 15-December 8).
It refuted the official report in Pravitelstvenny Vestnik (Government Herald) about the Rostov events, which described the workers as an “unruly crowd” with crude demands allegedly of an exclusively economic character. The leaflet gave a true picture of the strike, which was expressly political, and described the fierce reprisals of the tsarist troops against the workers and their families. It called on the workers to respond with revolutionary action to the violence of the tsarist government. The leaflet ended with these words:
“Let the fire that has flared up on the Don spread in a terrible conflagration, let the rifle salvoes be echoed by mighty demonstrations, let the groans of the victims be amplified by thunderous protest, let citizens everywhere, as unanimously as in Rostov, pass the death sentence on the autocracy, which is oppressing the country!
“Long live the coming revolution!”
The leaflet was published in Iskra No. 31 on January 1, 1903, with an editorial introduction by Lenin, and was also issued in a special reprint.
On the copy of the leaflet received by the Iskra Editorial Board, there is also the following in Lenin’s hand: “Set up i n b r e v i e r right away and issue in a special reprint: Special impression from No. 31 of ‘Iskra’\thinspace”, together with a calculation of the number of letters and instructions to the type-setters. p. 70
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