V. I.

Lenin

Thespecial correspondent of Le Temps , a highly reputable conservative
paper, wired the following to that paper from St. Petersburg on September 21
(8):

" Thenight before last a group of 70 persons attacked the Riga Central
Prison, cut the telephone wires and, using rope ladders, made their way into the
prison yard, where after a stiff engagement two prison warders were killed and
three seriously wounded. The demonstrators then freed two political prisoners
who were to be court martialled and expected to be sentenced to death. During
the pursuit of the demonstrators, who managed to escape, except for two who were
arrested, one policeman was killed and several others wounded."

Andso matters are moving ahead! Despite the incredible and utterly
indescribable difficulties, headway is being made in the matter of getting
armed. Individual terrorism, bred of intellectualist impotence, is gradually
becoming a thing of the past. Instead of spending tens of thousands of rubles
and a vast amount of revolutionary energy on the assassination of some
Sergei [1] (who probably did more to make Moscow revolutionary-minded than
many revolutionaries), on assassinations “in the name of the
people”—military operations together with the people are now
commencing. It is by engaging in such operations that the pioneers of armed
struggle become fused with the masses not merely in word but in deed, assume
leadership of the combat squads and contingents of the proletariat, train in the
crucible of civil war dozens of popular leaders who, tomorrow, on the
day of the workers’ uprising, will be able to help with their experience and
their heroic courage thousands and tens of thousands of workers.

Hailthe heroes of the Riga revolutionary contingent!
May their success serve as encouragement and example to

Social-Democratic workers throughout Russia. Long live the pioneers of the
people’s revolutionary army!

Seehow successful the venture of the Riga revolutionaries was even from a
purely military standpoint. The enemy losses are three killed and probably five
to ten wounded. Our loss is only two men, who were probably wounded and thus
taken prisoner by the enemy. Our trophies are two revolutionary leaders rescued
from prison. This is indeed a brilliant victory!! It is a real victory, scored
in a battle against an enemy armed to the teeth. It is no longer a plot against
some detested individual, no act of vengeance or desperation, no mere
“intimidation”—no, it was a well thought-out and prepared
commencement of operations by a contingent of the revolutionary army, planned
with due regard for the correlation of forces. The number of such contingents
of 25 to 75 men each can be increased to several dozen in every big city, and
frequently in the suburbs of a big city. Workers will join them in hundreds; it
is only necessary to begin extensive propaganda of this idea immediately, form
such contingents, supply them with all sorts of weapons, ranging from knives and
revolvers to bombs, and give these contingents military training and education.

Fortunately,the time has passed when revolution was “made” by
individual revolutionary terrorists, because the people were not
revolutionary. The bomb has ceased to be the weapon of the solitary “bomb
thrower”, and is becoming an essential weapon of the people. With
the improvements in military materiel the technique of street fighting
is also changing, and necessarily so. At present time we are all (and very
wisely so) making a study of how to put up barricades and defend them. Though
this old work is useful, we must not overlook the newest developments in
military weapons. The progress made in the use of explosives has resulted in a
number of innovations in gunnery. The Japanese proved stronger than the Russians
partly because they were able to make much better use of explosives. Extensive
use of high explosives was one of the characteristic features of the recent
war. And the Japanese, now recognised throughout the world as experts in
military matters, have now adopted the hand bomb , which they used with
such telling effect against Port Arthur. Let us learn from the Japanese! Let us
not lose heart because of the grave set-backs that have attended attempts to transport large
quantities of arms. No failures can sap the energy of those who feel and
actually see how intimately they are bound up with the revolutionary class, and
realise that truly the whole people has now risen in defence of their immediate
objectives. Bombs can be manufactured anywhere and everywhere. They are now
being produced in Russia on a far larger scale than any of us know (and every
member of the Social-Democratic organisation undoubtedly knows of more than one
instance of such workshops being set up). They are manufactured on an
incomparably larger scale than is known to the police (and the latter
undoubtedly know more than the revolutionaries in each separate
organisation). No force will be able to stand up to contingents of a
revolutionary army armed with bombs, contingents that one fine night will launch
simultaneously several such attacks as the one in Riga, and will be
backed—and this is the last and most important condition—by the
rising of hundreds of thousands of workers who have not forgotten the
“peaceful” 9th of January, and who long for an armed
January 9.

Mattersin Russia are obviously heading towards that. Consider reports in the
legal newspapers about bombs being found in the baggage of peaceful steamer
passengers. Read about the hundreds of attacks on the police and the
military, about the scores killed on the spot and the scores seriously
injured during the last two months. Even correspondents of the treacherous
bourgeois Osvobozhdeniye , which is so busy condemning the
“mad” and “criminal” advocacy of insurrection, admit that never before have tragic events been so imminent as they are now.

Towork, comrades! Let each stand at his post! Let every workers’ circle bear in
mind that any day events may require that it take a leading part in the final
and decisive battle.

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Notes:
[1]
Sergei —the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich
Romanov, the tsar’s uncle, Governor General of Moscow and one of the most
reactionary representatives of the tsarist autocracy. Assassinated by the
Socialist-Revolutionary Kalyaev on February 4 (17), 1905.