Published:
Proletary, No. 13, August 22 (9), 1905.
Published according to the text in Proletary.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1972,
Moscow,
Volume 9,
page 190.
Translated: The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius Katzer
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2004).
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From the Editors. We reply to the comrade’s questions: 1) yes, it will both lead and govern, pending convocation of a popular constituent assembly; 2) in circumstances in which this participation will ensure the possibility of “a relentless struggle against all counter-revolutionary attempts, and also of defence of the independent interests of the working class” (from the resolution of the Third Congress); 3) the Third Congress resolution on insurrection speaks clearly of the necessity “to explain to the proletariat by means of propaganda and agitation not only the political significance but the practical-organisational aspect of the impending armed uprising”. This means that the political consciousness of the masses must be developed, and the political significance of the uprising must be made clear to them. That, however, is not enough. The masses must be called upon to begin an armed struggle and at once to arm and organise in contingents of the revolutionary army. Further, we must tell the author of the letter that an explanation of the resolutions of the Congress and the Conference regarding a provisional revolutionary government is given in a pamphlet by N. Lenin, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. Finally, we can say with reference to the split that the author’s indignation is perfectly justified. We advise him to work for general recognition of single rules for Party organisations, and to do that regardless of all intellectualist plaints of both the fist from above and the fist from below, work towards that end not secretly, not through intrigues, or by founding new groups or a new party, but openly, directly, within the framework of any R.S.D.L.P. organisation.
[1] The present article is a reply to a letter from A Worker from Dvinsk. The writer posed the following questions to the Editorial Board of Proletary, with reference to the decisions of the R.S.D.L.P.’s Third Congress: 1) “What role will be played by a provisional government; will it guide or rule the country, or do neither? 2) Under what circumstances is participation of proletarians in a provisional government possible? 3) What is all this agitation and propaganda about an insurrection?”
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