V. I.

Lenin

Eighteen years ago, in 1894, the working-class movement in
St. Petersburg was just being born in its modern, mass form illumined by
the light of the Marxist teaching.

The seventies had affected a quite insignificant top section of the
working class. The foremost representatives of the working class revealed
themselves even then as great leaders of the workers’ democratic movement,
but the masses were still slumbering. Only in the early nineties did
they begin to awaken, and at the same time there began a new and
more glorious period in the history of the entire democratic movement in
Russia.

Unfortunately, we must confine ourselves here, in our small parallel,
to one aspect of one manifestation of the working-class movement, namely,
the economic struggle and economic “exposures”.

At that time, in 1894, a very few circles of the foremost workers were
heatedly discussing plans for organising factory exposures. A weighty
statement by the workers them selves, addressed to their fellow-workers and
pointing out the more glaring abuses of power by capital, was an
exceedingly rare occurrence at the time. Speaking of such things publicly
was out of the question.

But the awakening mass of the workers was able to take up the factory
exposures addressed to it, despite all difficulties and in the face of all
obstacles. The strike movement was growing, and the connection
between the economic struggle of the working class and other, higher forms
of struggle was developing irresistibly. The vanguard of Russia’s
democratic movement was awakening, and ten years later it showed itself in its full stature. It is to this force alone that
Russia owes the rupture of the old shell.

Those who recall the first factory exposures which the advanced workers
of St. Petersburg addressed to the masses in 1894 will find it most
interesting and instructive to compare them with the factory exposures made
by Pravda . This little comparison of one manifestation of the
workers’ struggle clearly shows the growth of its entire scope,
its breadth and depth, its strength, etc.

At that time there were a mere five or six factory exposures, secretly
circulated by workers in several dozen copies.

Today there are tens of thousands of copies of the daily
Pravda , each making several exposures relating to the most diverse
fields of labour.

At that time there were a mere five or six so-called “circles”, which
discussed—in secret, of course—the state of affairs in the factories,
with some Marxist intellectual or other participating, and decided on the
subject of the points to be “published”.

Today there are hundreds and thousands of workers’ groups springing up
spontaneously, discussing their vital needs and taking their letters, their
exposures, their appeals for resistance and unity, to Pravda of
their own accord.

In a matter of eighteen years, the workers have advanced from the first
signs of activity, from a most timid beginning, to a movement that is a
mass movement in the most exact sense of the term.

We must unfortunately limit ourselves only to parallels of
factory exposures. But they, too, show the great path travelled, and the
goal to which this path leads.

Eighteen years are a short span in the history of a whole class which
is destined to accomplish the greatest task in the world—the emancipation
of mankind.

The greater part of this path has been travelled in the dark. But now
the road has been reached. Forward with courage and determination!

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