V. I.

Lenin

Ourappeal to all Russian Social-Democrats to organise the collection of exact
figures on the elections in the worker curia has not been futile. We have
already received replies to 93 of the questionnaires we distributed among t.he
St. Petersburg comrades. These 93 questionnaires were distributed by districts
as follows: Peterburgskaya Storona, 7; Vasilyevsky Ostrov, 22; Vyborg, 18;
Moscow, 18; City, 28. We ask comrades to expedite the dispatch of the remaining
forms to help make our information complete, particularly for the big
factories. We shall then publish the full figures.

Fromthe provinces we have the returns for six factories in Ekaterinoslav
Gubernia. We give these in tabulated form to show the comrades what kind of
information the Party needs and what conclusions we should draw from the
experience of the first Party elections in the worker curia.

| Name of factory | No. of work- ers | No. of dele- gates | Party af- filliation of delegate elected | Number of votes cast: | Number of votes cast for: |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| S.D. Bolsh. | S.D. Mensh. | S.R. | Non- party | Right |
| Esau works | 350 | 1 | S.D. Mensh. | 130 | – | 112 | 15 | – | 3 |
| Locomotive Repair Shop | 2,700 | 2 | S.D. Mensh. | 800 | – | 650 | – | – | – |
| Locomotive Depot | 700 | 1 | S.D. | 230 | 230 | – | – | – |
| Nail Factory | 700 | 1 | S.D. Bolsh. | 250 | 250 | – | – | – | – |
| Pipe-Rolling Works | 850 | 1 | S.D. Mensh. | 200 | – | 195 | – | – | 5 |
| Bryansk Rolling MIII | 4,350 | 4 | S.R. | 1,100 | – | 300 | 800 | – | – |
| Total, 6 factories | 9,650 | 10 | 6 S.D. 4 S.R. | 2,710 | 250 | 1,257 | 815 | – | 8 |
| | | | | | 230 |
| | | | | | 1,737 |

Ofcourse, we do not know how typical these figures are, and to what extent the
conclusions to be drawn from them can be applied to the whole of
Ekaterinoslav Gubernia. In order to draw final conclusions we must obtain
complete data.

Forthe time being there are two points we can mention. The percentage of
workers taking part in the elections is not high. Evidently, Social-Democratic
activity is not thorough enough and does not reach the masses in their
entirety. On the whole, less than one-third of the total number of workers took
part in the elections. The. lowest percentage is at the Tubing Works—200
out of 850, i. e., less than one-fourth. The highest is at the Esau Works: 130
out of 350, i.e., more than one-third.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries competed with us at two factories: Esau and
Bryansk. At the latter, the Socialist-Revolutionaries defeated the Mensheviks! The biggest factory elected four Socialist-Revolutionary delegates.

Thus,the preliminary figures for the South (very incomplete, it is true)
confirm the conclusion we drew about the North: the Socialist-Revolutionaries are beating the Mensheviks , for the edification
of the opportunists, it might seem, or else to teach a lesson to people who with
unpardonable thoughtlessness brush aside revolutionary bourgeois democracy and
hanker after liberal-monarchist bourgeois democracy!

The Socialist-Revolutionaries account for 40 per cent, i.e., two-fifths, of the
total number of delegates (10). But the number of votes cast for the
Socialist-Revolutionaries was less than one-third of the
total—815 out of 2,710. It is worth noting that, despite their victory at
the biggest factory, the proportion of votes obtained by the
Socialist-Revolutionaries was smaller than the proportion of delegates. This
shows how groundless and unsupported were the assertions of St. Petersburg
Socialist-Revolutionaries that their share of votes must have been larger than
that indicated by their share of delegates. Such assertions must not be made
without documentary statistical evidence of the number of votes cast at each
factory.

Wehope that comrades all over Russia will continue to collect information along
the lines indicated, so that the Party as a whole may form a clear and definite
idea of the results of its campaign, and learn to understand the causes of its
relative failures.

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