Date: 1913
Source: ru:PSS/v23

A year has passed since the first issue of Pravda was published. It emerged as a workers’ newspaper, born out of the famed April–May upsurge of the labor movement in Russia in 1912.

Despite unimaginable hardships and relentless persecution, Pravda endured and gained strength—indeed, a “stable” workers’ newspaper is hardly conceivable in modern Russia—thanks to the unwavering support of the working class. Pravda was not merely a workers’ paper in name; any newspaper could claim that title. But Pravda truly embodied the essence of a workers’ paper: in its orientation, in the constituency it served among the working masses, in the content it consistently delivered—and especially in the sheer volume of worker correspondence it received (1,783 worker letters in the first 99 issues, totaling roughly five thousand over time)—and, finally, in the broad-based support it enjoyed from workers at large, and from worker organizations in particular.

We have already pointed out in Pravda (see Nos. 80 and 103 for 1912)[10] how extraordinarily significant are the contributions made by worker groups in the form of monetary donations to support Pravda. This significance far transcends mere financial assistance—even though such financial backing from workers is always crucial and indispensable for the improvement of the newspaper.

But the contributions of worker groups are no less, if not more, important in their moral, educational, and organizational implications for all conscious workers, for the entire working class of Russia.

By accustoming themselves to properly sustain their workers’ newspaper—not only through subscriptions and distribution, but also through regular contributions—workers thereby forge even closer bonds around the newspaper of their own orientation; they organize themselves into a unified, ideologically cohesive whole; and they gauge the progress of their own awakening by reviewing the donation reports from one factory or another, near or familiar. Thus, we cannot stress enough the urgent need to expand and cultivate, by every possible means, the custom of consistent (preferably small, yet steady) group contributions and collections for the workers’ newspaper.

As the published reports reveal, prior to the launch of Pravda, more than four thousand rubles had been collected—donated by 500 worker groups via the newspaper Zvezda{53}. From the day our newspaper began publication until April 10, according to the donation reports printed in Pravda during this period, a total of 3,932 rubles and 42 kopeks had been received. Of this sum, 79.9 percent came from proletarians of various categories; 20 percent from diverse groups of the intelligentsia; and just 1/10 percent from the peasantry. The funds were distributed across the following regions: St. Petersburg—66.3 percent (2,605 rubles and 81 kopeks), of which only 10 percent originated from the intelligentsia; Moscow, Vladimir, and Kostroma—4.6 percent, with donations from the intelligentsia occurring only in the Moscow region. (It should be noted here that the relatively small share of these three regions in Pravda’s donations, among other factors, can be attributed to the fact that collections were also being held for the Moscow newspaper{54}. The funds sent directly through our newspaper amounted to just over two thousand rubles, of which 70 percent went to these three regions, while 25 percent flowed to the St. Petersburg region. Once again, the political maturity of St. Petersburg’s workers became evident—they actively participated in the establishment of the Moscow newspaper as well.) The Urals, Siberia, the Baltic region, and Poland—10.3 percent; Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav—4.4 percent; and from all corners of the globe—from Finland, Western Europe, and beyond—14.5 percent.

These figures speak with compelling clarity about who truly owns the newspaper, on whose resources Pravda has depended, and to what extent the paper remains firmly rooted in the working masses.

The achievements of Pravda in its first year of existence in this regard are nothing short of remarkable. To avoid tiring the reader with endless numbers, let us present the data on the number of group contributions to Pravda not by month, but by quarter of the year (that is, by three‑month intervals).

Thus, we see that in its very first year of existence, Pravda garnered the support of more than a thousand worker groups and laid the foundation for a workers’ newspaper serving the principal industrial region of Russia—the Moscow Central District.

It goes without saying that the financial backing provided by a thousand worker groups to Pravda signifies the broader, far‑reaching support of countless additional worker groups—signifying the consolidation and unification of tens of thousands of workers around Pravda. Undoubtedly, the number of groups making monetary contributions is many times smaller than the number of groups that read Pravda and counted themselves among its friends, those who aided the newspaper with their letters and correspondence, who helped spread its reach, introducing it to new circles of workers, to fresh layers of toiling people, and so forth.

The working class has raised up an entire vanguard of “advanced” workers—those who, armed with a Marxist worldview and resolutely opposed to liberal vacillation, brought their own workers’ newspaper to life in the capital and laid the groundwork for a second workers’ newspaper in the heart of industrial Russia. What the advanced, conscious workers have accomplished for Pravda and for the Moscow workers’ newspaper enables us to judge with absolute certainty the immense work carried out by workers to enlighten and organize their own class. For Pravda and the Moscow newspaper, though important components, remain but a part of this great undertaking.

Through united, concerted efforts and tireless, persistent labor, the advanced workers—emboldened by the successes of their first year with the workers’ newspaper—will now continue the noble task of enlightening and uniting ever-wider masses of the proletariat around the ideas of Marxism!

Pravda, No. 93, April 23, 1913

Printed from the text of the newspaper Pravda