V. I.

Lenin

Revolutionary Riga’s Ultimatum

The German newspapers, which usually devote much attention to events in
the Baltic provinces, have reported the following instructive fact. Things are
happening at the Riga Polytechnic, as they are at all other higher educational
institutions: student assemblies have turned into political meetings. The
students are organising into a combatant force of the revolution. The liberal
bigwigs are turning up their noses and muttering under their breath about the
weakness of the government. But in Livonia, things have gone so hard with the
landed gentry that they have energetically set about organising armed protection
for their estates, with out relying on the government, which cannot do anything
with the peasants, or the workers, or the students. The Baltic barons are
organising civil war in earnest: they are hiring whole squads, arming them with
good magazine rifles, and posting them about their extensive estates. And now it
turns out that part of the members of the German student corporations in the
Baltic provinces have joined such squads! Naturally, the Lettish and Russian
students have not only proclaimed a boycott against these Black Hundreds in
student uniform, but have even appointed a special commission to investigate
the participation of students in the landlord Black-Hundred bands. Two members
of this commission were sent into the countryside to gather information from the
peasants. Both were arrested by the government and sent to prison in Riga.

The Lettish and Russian students then rose. They called a huge meeting which
passed a vigorous resolution. The head of the Polytechnic, who had been invited
to attend, was called upon to take immediate measures to secure the release of the arrested. The resolution ended with a direct ultimatum: if within
three days the arrested persons were not released at the time fixed, the
students, with the aid of the Riga workers, would use every means in their power
to effect that release.

The Governor was away from Riga at the time, for he had gone to St. Petersburg
to obtain the powers of Governor General. The acting Governor funked, and
diplomatically wriggled out of the situation. He summoned (so the Vossische Zeitung of October 20, N. S., reports) the head of the Polytechnic and the
two arrested students, and asked the latter whether they were aware that their
actions were unlawful. They, of course, replied that they saw nothing unlawful
in them. The acting Governor, a Riga newspaper is said to have stated, then
urged them to refrain from such unlawful acts, and—set both free.

“Inthe eyes of the students,” the correspondent, who feels for the Baltic
barons, gloomily adds, “and in the eyes of the masses who stand behind
them, the government has bowed to the ultimatum. And even a non-partisan must
have gained the same impression.”

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