Published:
Novaya Zhizn, No. 13, November 15, 1905.
Published according to the text in Novaya Zhizn.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1965,
Moscow,
Volume 10,
pages 50-51.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2004).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README
According to Soviet Historian E.H. Carr, he disputes Lenin’s authorship of this document in The Bolshevik Revolution Volume 1. Specifically, Carr explains that Trotsky (who would soon be president of the Soviet) seems to claim authorship of the document as well. Furthermore, he explains that Lenin was never a member of the executive committee, and he claims that the sole source material LCW used was from an "obscure author" in a book of reminiscences.
The MIA is not able to confirm or deny these claims. Such scholarly critiques are worthy of consideration and deserve serious research to either confirm or deny.
Citizens, over a hundred thousand workers have been thrown on to the streets in St. Petersburg and other cities.
The autocratic government has declared war on the revolutionary proletariat. The reactionary bourgeoisie is joining hands with the autocracy, intending to starve the workers into submission and disrupt the struggle for freedom.
The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies declares that this unparalleled mass dismissal of workers is an act of provocation on the part of the government. The government wants to provoke the proletariat of St. Petersburg to isolated out breaks; the government wants to take advantage of the fact that the workers of other cities have not yet rallied closely enough to the St. Petersburg workers, and to defeat them all peacemeal.
The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies declares that the cause of liberty is in danger. But the workers will not fall into the trap laid by the government. The workers will not accept battle in the unfavourable conditions in which the government wants to impose battle on them. We must and shall exert every effort to unite the whole struggle—the struggle that is being waged both by the proletariat of all Russia and by the revolutionary peasantry, both by the Army and by the Navy, which are already heroically rising for freedom.
In view of the foregoing, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies resolves:
(1) All factories that have been shut down must immediately be reopened and all dismissed comrades reinstated. All sections of the people that cherish freedom in reality, and not in words only, are invited to support this demand.
(2) In support of this demand, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies considers it necessary to appeal to the solidarity of the entire Russian proletariat, and, if the demand is rejected, to call upon the latter to resort to a general political strike and other forms of resolute struggle.
(3) In preparation for this action, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies has instructed the Executive Committee to enter into immediate communication with the workers of other cities, with the railwaymen’s, post and telegraph employees’, peasant and other unions, as well as with the Army and Navy, by sending delegates and by other means.
(4) As soon as this preliminary work is completed, the Executive Committee is to call a special meeting of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies to take a final decision with regard to a strike.
(5) The St. Petersburg proletariat has asked all the workers and all sections of society and the people to support the dismissed workers with all the means at their disposal—material, moral and political.
[1] At the meeting of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies held on November 13 (26), 1905, Lenin spoke of measures to counteract the lock-out organised by the capitalists in reply to the eight-hour day which the workers had introduced by their own decision. He moved a resolution on the basis of which the Executive Committee of the St. Petersburg Soviet on November 14 (27) took a decision on measures against the lock-out. Lenin stressed the significance of that decision in the article “The Provocation That Failed” (see pp. 52-53 of this volume).
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