Published:
First published in 1925.
Sent from Geneva to St. Petersburg.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1974,
Moscow,
Volume 34,
pages 293-294.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
D. Moros
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2005).
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January 29, 1905
Dear friend,
I have a great favour to ask you: please give Rakhmetov a scolding, yes, a good sound scolding. Really, he acts towards us like the Osvobozhdeniye people[2] or priest Gapon[3] towards the Social-Democrats. I have just been looking at the table of our correspondence with Russia.[4] Gusev sent us six letters in ten days, but Rakhmetov two in thirty days. What do you think of that? Not a sign of him. Not a line for Vperyod. Not a word about the work, plans and connections. It’s simply impossible, incredible, a disgrace. No. 4 of Vperyod will come out in a day or two, and immediately after it (a few days later) No. 5, but without any support from Rakhmetov. Today letters arrived from St. Petersburg dated January 10, very brief ones. And no one arranged for good and full letters about the Ninth of January![5]
I have had no reply whatever to my letter to Rakhmetov about literary contributions![1]
Neither is there anything about the Bureau and the congress.[6]Yet it is so important to hurry up with the announcement concerning the Bureau and with the convening of the congress. For heaven’s sake, don’t trust the Mensheviks and the C.C., and go ahead everywhere and in the most vigorous manner with the split, a split and again a split. We here, carried away by enthusiasm for the revolution, were on the point of joining with the Mensheviks at a public meeting, but they cheated us again, and shame fully at that. We earnestly warn anyone who does not want to be made a fool of: a split, and an absolute split.
[1] See present edition, Vol. 8, pp. 43-46.—Ed.
[3] Gapon, Georgi Apollonovich (1870–1906)—a priest, agent provocateur in the service of the tsarist secret political police. On the eve of the revolution of 1905–07, acting on the instructions of the Department of the Police, he organised the Association of Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg, which was subsidized by the Department of the Police and the St. Petersburg secret political police. Provoked the procession of St. Petersburg workers to present a petition to the tsar on the Ninth of January, 1905 ^^(see Note 281)^^. Escaped abroad, where he had close ties with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. He returned to Russia and resumed contact with the secret political police. Exposed as an agent provocateur, Gapon was killed in accordance with a sentence passed on him by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
[4] The tables of correspondence with Russia were compiled by N. K. Krupskaya, who kept a record of all the correspondence.
[5] The Ninth of January 1905—“Bloody Sunday”, the day on which, by order of the tsar, a peaceful procession of St. Petersburg workers was shot down. The workers, led by the priest Gapon, were marching to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the tsar. This cold-blooded massacre of unarmed workers started a wave of mass political strikes and demonstrations all over Russia under the slogan of “Down with the autocracy!” The events of January 9th precipitated the revolution of 1905–07.
[6] The reference is to the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., preparations for which were in hand.
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