V. I.

Lenin

Resolution of the Executive Committee of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies on Measures for Counteracting the Lock-Out Adopted on November 14 (27), 1905 [1]

According to Soviet Historian E.H. Carr, he disputes Lenin’s authorship of this document in The Bolshevik Revolution Volume 1.
Specifically, Carr explains that Trotsky (who would soon be president of the Soviet) seems to claim authorship of the document as well. Furthermore, he explains that Lenin was never a member of the executive committee, and he claims that the sole source material LCW used was from an "obscure author" in a book of reminiscences.

The MIA is not able to confirm or deny these claims. Such scholarly critiques are worthy of consideration and deserve serious research to either confirm or deny.

Citizens, over a hundred thousand workers have been thrown on to the streets in St. Petersburg and other cities.

The autocratic government has declared war on the revolutionary proletariat. The reactionary
bourgeoisie is joining hands with the autocracy, intending to starve the workers
into submission and disrupt the struggle for freedom.

The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies declares that this unparalleled mass dismissal
of workers is an act of provocation on the part of the government. The
government wants to provoke the proletariat of St. Petersburg to isolated out
breaks; the government wants to take advantage of the fact that the workers of
other cities have not yet rallied closely enough to the St. Petersburg workers,
and to defeat them all peacemeal.

The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies declares that the cause of liberty is in
danger. But the workers will not fall into the trap laid by the government. The
workers will not accept battle in the unfavourable conditions in which the
government wants to impose battle on them. We must and shall exert every effort to
unite the whole struggle—the struggle that is being waged both by the
proletariat of all Russia and by the revolutionary peasantry, both by the Army
and by the Navy, which are already heroically rising for freedom.

In view of the foregoing, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies resolves:

(1) All factories that have been shut down must immediately be reopened and all
dismissed comrades reinstated. All sections of the people that cherish
freedom in reality, and not in words only, are invited to support this
demand.

(2) In support of this demand, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies considers it
necessary to appeal to the solidarity of the entire Russian proletariat,
and, if the demand is rejected, to call upon the latter to resort to a
general political strike and other forms of resolute struggle.

(3) In preparation for this action, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies has
instructed the Executive Committee to enter into immediate communication
with the workers of other cities, with the railwaymen’s, post and telegraph
employees’, peasant and other unions, as well as with the Army and Navy, by
sending delegates and by other means.

(4) As soon as this preliminary work is completed, the Executive Committee is to
call a special meeting of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies to take a final
decision with regard to a strike.

(5) The St. Petersburg proletariat has asked all the workers and all sections
of society and the people to support the dismissed workers with all the
means at their disposal—material, moral and political.

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Notes:
[1]
At the meeting of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’
Deputies held on November 13 (26), 1905, Lenin spoke of measures to counteract
the lock-out organised by the capitalists in reply to the eight-hour day which
the workers had introduced by their own decision. He moved a resolution on the
basis of which the Executive Committee of the St. Petersburg Soviet on November
14 (27) took a decision on measures against the lock-out. Lenin
stressed the significance of that decision in the article “The Provocation That
Failed” (see pp. 52-53 of this volume).