V. I.

Lenin

Letter to the Editors of Proletarskoye Dyelo

Comrades, We have changed our minds about submitting to the Provisional
Government’s decree ordering our arrests, for the following
reasons.

From the letter of Pereverzev, the former Minister of Justice,
published on Sunday in Novoye Vremya , it became perfectly clear that the “espionage”
“case” of Lenin and others was quite deliberately framed by the party of the counter-revolution.

Pereverzev has openly admitted that he took advantage of
unconfirmed accusations to work up (his actual expression) the
soldiers against our Party. This is admitted by the former
Minister of Justice, a man who only yesterday called himself a
socialist! Pereverzev is gone, but whether the new Minister of
Justice will hesitate to adopt Pereverzev’s and Alexinsky’s
methods, nobody can venture to say.

The counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie are trying to create a new
Dreyfus case. They believe in our “espionage” as much as the leaders of Russian reaction, who framed the Beilis
case, [1] believed that Jews drink children’s blood. There are no guarantees of justice in Russia at present.

The Central Executive Committee, which considers it self the
plenipotentiary organ of the Russian democrats, appointed a
commission to investigate the espionage charges, but under
pressure from the counter-revolutionary forces dismissed it. The
Central Executive Committee refused to either directly confirm
or to revoke the warrant for our arrest. It washed its hands of
the case, virtually delivering us to the counter-revolution.

The charges of “conspiracy” and “moral incitement” to revolt preferred against us are of a very
definite nature, but no precise indictment of our alleged crime
is brought either by the Provisional Government or by the
Soviet, both of which know full well that it is sheer nonsense
to speak of “conspiracy” in referring to a movement like that of July 3–5. The Menshevik and S.R. leaders
are simply trying to appease the counter-revolution that is already bearing down on them too, by delivering a number
of our Party members to the counter-revolutionaries in compliance with their demand. At present there can be no legal
basis in Russia, not even such constitutional guarantees as
exist in the orderly bourgeois countries. To give ourselves up
at present to the authorities would mean putting ourselves into
the hands of the Milyukovs, Alexinskys, Pereverzevs, of rampant
counter-revolutionaries who look upon all the charges against us
as a simple civil war episode.

After what happened on July 6–8, not a single Russian revolutionary can harbour constitutional illusions any
longer. Revolution and counter-revolution are coming to grips in
a decisive fashion. We shall continue to fight on the side of
the former.

We shall continue to aid the proletariat’s revolutionary
struggle as far as we can. The Constituent Assembly alone, if it
meets, and if its convocation is not the handiwork of the
bourgeoisie, will have full authority to pass judgement upon
the Provisional Government’s decree ordering our arrest.

N. Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
Beilis case—the trial of the Jew Beilis, staged for provocative
purposes by the tsar’s government in 1913 in Kiev. Beilis was falsely
accused of the ritual murder of Yushchinsky, a Christian boy (the
murder was actually committed by the Black Hundreds). The
government’s aim was to stir up anti-Semitism and take advantage
of anti-Jewish pogroms to divert the people’s attention from the
revolutionary movement growing throughout the country. The
trial aroused public indignation. In a number of towns, workers
held protest demonstrations. Beilis was acquitted.