V. I. Lenin

The Potemkin has appeared off
Feodosia. {1} It has restocked its food supply and has sailed for an
unknown destination having seized a Russian merchant ship with a cargo of cattle. It is reported that it has also obtained some coal from a British
merchant ship. There is no question at all of surrender. The Potemkin
has set itself the task of sparking off an uprising in all the coastal
cities. Here is the text of a manifesto which the Potemkin is
circulating (according to a report by a German newspaper from Bucharest).

“Toall civilised citizens and to the working people! The crimes of the
autocratic government have exhausted all patience. The whole of Russia, burning
with indignation, exclaims: Down with the chains of bondage! The government
wants to drown the country in blood, forgetting that the troops consist of sons
of the oppressed people. The crew of the Potemkin has taken the first decisive step. We refuse to go on acting as the people’s
hangman. Our slogan is:
freedom for the whole Russian people or death! We demand an end to the war and
the immediate convocation of a constituent assembly on the basis of universal
suffrage. That is the aim for which we shall fight to the end: victory or death!
All free men, all workers will be on our side in the struggle for liberty and
peace. Down with the autocracy! Long live the constituent assembly!”

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Notes:
{1}
A reference to the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin , which
broke out on June 14 (27), 1905. The ship entered Odessa, just then in the
grip of a general strike, but no use was made of the favourable conditions
for joint action by the workers and sailors. The Bolshevik organisation in
Odessa had been weakened by arrests, and was not united. The Mensheviks
were opposed to an armed uprising and tried to restrain the workers and
sailors from offensive operations. The tsarist government sent the whole of
its Black Sea Fleet to crush the Potemkin mutiny, but the sailors
refused to fire at the insurgent ship, and their commanders were forced to
withdraw the fleet. After sailing the seas for eleven days, the
Potemkin , short of food and coal, made for Rumania and there
surrendered to the Rumanian authorities. Most of its sailors remained
abroad. Those of them who returned were arrested and committed for trial.

The Potemkin mutiny failed but the fact that the crew of a
major warship had gone over to the revolution was an important advance in
the struggle against the autocracy. Lenin said the uprising was an
“attempt to form the nucleus of a revolutionary army ” (see present edition, Vol. 8, p. 562).

p. 169