Written: Written after December 22, 1904 (January 4, 1905)
Published:
First published in 1934 in Lenin Miscellany XXVI.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 41,
pages 133.2-134.1.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Copyleft:
V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
© 2004
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Text
Letter from St. Petersburg (pp. 1–6{1} )
From the Editorial Board. The conclusion at which the St. Petersburg correspondent arrives is completely in line with our own in the article: “Time to Call a Halt!” (Vperyod No. 1){2} The Mensheviks have shown themselves to be completely unwilling to work together, submitting to the majority, and now that the institutions set up by the Second Congress have been disorganised and they have frustrated the convocation of a third congress, the Party has no other means of fighting them except a break. The earlier and more complete this break with the disorganisers, the....{3}
From the Editorial Board. The conclusion of our St. Petersburg comrade fully bears out the correctness of our own conclusion (Vperyod No. 1, “Time to Call a Halt!”). We advise all committees and organisations of the majority to exercise firmness in removing the disorganisers as soon as possible so as to have a chance to work, instead of engaging in squabbles.
{1} The pages of the letter. —Ed.
{2} See present edition, Vol. 8, pp. 35–39.—Ed.
{3} Here the MS. breaks off. The text is crossed out by Lenin.—Ed.
{4} This is the initial variant and the final text of the “Note by the Vperyod Editorial Board to the Letter of Their St. Petersburg Correspondent”, which has not been found. It was apparently to have gone into the newspaper’s issue No. 4 or No. 5, but the January 9, 1905 events must have crowded out the other reports, and then the letter was too old to print.
Vperyod—an illegal Bolshevik weekly, published in Geneva from December 22, 1904 (January 4, 1905) to May 5 (18), 1905. Eighteen issues appeared, with the printing of 7,000 to 10,000 copies. It was organised and run by Lenin, who had also proposed the newspaper’s name. On its Editorial Board were V. V. Vorovsky, M. S. Olminsky and A. V. Lunacharsky. The paper’s correspondence with local committees in Russia and its reporters was handled by N. K. Krupskaya. Lenin defined the content of the paper as follows: “The line of Vperyod is the line of the old ‘Iskra’. In the name of the old Iskra, Vperyod resolutely combats the new Iskra” (see present edition, Vol. 8, p. 130). Lenin not only wrote the leading articles but also a great number of notes, and edited many reports. He wrote some of the articles together with other members of the Board (Vorovsky, Olminsky and others). The MS.s of various authors which have been preserved show the heavy editing and extensive insertions made by Lenin, who always read the page proofs. Even when he was engrossed in the work of the Third Congress in London, he found the time to read the page proofs of No. 17. Issue No. 18 appears not to have been read by him in view of his departure from London to Geneva. More than 60 articles and notes by Lenin were carried in Vperyod, and some of its issues—such as Nos. 4 and 5, dealing with the January 9 events and the start of the revolution in Russia—were almost entirely done up by Lenin.
The Third Congress passed a special resolution with a vote of thanks, noting the outstanding p art played by Vperyod in the struggle against the Mensheviks, for the restoration of the Party principle, in the raising and elucidating of the tactical questions brought out by the revolutionary movement, and in the struggle for the convocation of the Congress. Under a decision of the Third Congress, Proletary was published as the Central Organ of the Party and a direct successor of Vperyod. p. 133
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