Lenin: Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman












V. I.

Lenin



Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman


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Published:

Proletary, No. 24, November 7 (October 25), 1905.

Published according to the text in Proletary.


Source:

Lenin
Collected Works,

Progress Publishers,

1972,

Moscow,

Volume 9,

pages 436-437.


Translated: The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius Katzer


Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala


Public Domain:



(2004).

You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
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• README




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Today, November 3 (New Style), the news arrived by telegraph that N. E. Bauman,
veterinary surgeon and member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, has
been murdered in Moscow by the tsar’s soldiers. A demonstration was held at his
graveside, at which the widow of the deceased, also a member of our Party,
delivered a speech calling on the people to rise in arms. We are unable as yet
to give a detailed biography of our fallen comrade. For the time being, we shall
merely enumerate the main events in his life. He started work in the
Social-Democratic organisation in St. Petersburg in the nineties. He was
arrested, spent twenty-two months in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and was then
exiled to Vyatka Gubernia. He escaped from his place of exile, went abroad, and
in 1900 participated in the organisation of Iskra. From its very
inception he was one of the principal practical leaders of this enterprise,
making frequent secret visits to Russia. He was arrested in February 1902 in
Voronezh (betrayed by a doctor) in connection with the organisation of
Iskra, and was imprisoned in Kiev. In August 1902, he escaped together
with ten other Social-Democratic comrades. He was a delegate of the Moscow
Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. to the Second Congress of the Party (under the
assumed name of Sorokin). He took part in the Second Congress of the
League[1]

(under the assumed name of Sarafsky). Following this he
became a member of the Moscow Committee of the Party. He was arrested on June
19, 1904, and was held at Taganka Prison. He must have been released. from
prison only a few days ago.

May the memory of this fighter in the ranks of the Russian Social-Democratic
proletariat never die! May the memory



of this revolutionary, who has fallen in the first days of the victorious
revolution, live for ever! May the honours paid to his remains by the
people who have risen in revolt be a pledge of the complete victory of the
uprising and the complete destruction of accursed tsarism!

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The murder of N. E. Bauman clearly shows how correct the Social-Democratic
speakers in St. Petersburg were when they described the Manifesto of October 17
as a trap, and the conduct of the government after publication of the Manifesto
as provocative. What are all these promised liberties worth, so long as power
and armed force remain in the hands of the government? Is not this
“amnesty” actually a trap, when those who are released from, prison
are shot down in the streets by Cossacks?




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Notes





[1]

The Second Congress of the “League of Russian Revolutionary
Social-Democracy Abroad” was held on October 13-18 (26-31), 1903 in
Geneva. It was convened by demand of the Mensheviks, who wished to contrapose it
to the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. Expressing himself against the congress
of the League Abroad, Lenin wrote, “A League congress at present
will provide everything for a squabble but nothing for practical pur

poses, i.e.,
for work abroad” (see Collected Works, Vol. 34, “Letter to
G. D. Leiteizen”,
October 10, 1903).




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