V. I. Lenin

Plan for a Lecture “Revolutionary Upsurge of the Russian Proletariat”^{1}

Published: Published before June 13, 1912 in an announcement of the lecture put out by the Paris section of the R.S.D.L.P. Organisation Abroad. Printed from the text of the announcement.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 41, page 254.2.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2004 Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
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1. 1. The Lena events{2} and May Day in Russia. Mass strikes and their role.
2. 2. Revolutionary upsurge quite natural; its forerunners and prospects.
3. 3. Importance of the mass strike in modern revolutions. Experience of 1905.
4. 4. Liberalism and democracy confronted by another revolution.
5. 5. Why did the Cadets declare war on “revolutionary sentiments” and condemn the idea of “the need for another revolution in Russia”?
6. 6. A new situation in the current revolutionary upsurge. Political parties, Third Duma, elections. The peasantry and the new democratic intelligentsia.
7. 7. “Freedom of coalition” and slogans in a popular revolution: struggle for a republic, an 8-hour working day, confiscation of all landed estates.

Notes

{1} The plan was printed in the text of an announcement issued by the Paris section of the R.S.D.L.P. Organisation Abroad. It said:

Comrade L e n i n will give a lecture on the “Revolutionary Upsurge of the Russian Proletariat” at Alcazar Hall 190 Avenue de Choisy on Thursday, June 13, 1912.

The questions listed in the plan are dealt with in a number of Lenin’s works written in 1912, especially in his article “Revolutionary Upswing” (see present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 102–09).

The text of the announcement was reproduced in the journal Istorichesky Arkhiv (Historical Archives) No. 2 in 1955. p. 254

{2} A reference to the fusillade of unarmed workers at the Lena gold mines in Siberia on April 4 (17), 1912. News of the tragedy aroused the working class of Russia, and the country was swept by demonstrations, meetings and protest strikes. The Social-Democratic group in the Duma tabled a question to the tsarist government ever the Lena fusillade. The tsarist Minister Maklakov gave this brazen reply: “That’s how it was, and that’s how it will be in the future!” This intensified the indignation of the workers. Up to 300,000 workers took part in the protest strikes against the Lena fusillade, and they merged with the May Day strikes involving   up to 400,000 workers. Lenin wrote: “The Lena shootings led to the revolutionary temper of the masses developing into a revolutionary upswing of the masses” (see present edition, Vol. 18, p. 103). p. 254