V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v38;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

1 The second page of the manuscript of this article has been preserved. Judging by the content of the fragment, the article was written by V. I. Lenin in connection with the speeches in No. 3 of the journal *Nasha Zarya* for 1914 by the liquidators F. Bulkin and L. Martov, directed against the Bolsheviks. V. I. Lenin subjected the speeches of Bulkin and Martov to sharp criticism in a number of his articles (see *Collected Works*, Vol. 25, pp. 131–134, 167–170, 183–206, 321–352).

LETTER TO G. L. SHKLOVSKY

[1914, April, later than 25]

Dear G. L.,

I have just sent you a letter when I received your postcard.

I am sending the article.¹ Show it to Samoilov and make it legal (tell the whole story in the third person — “they”, “the workers” do this, while I, Samoilov, only saw it and am relating it).

Think it over three times, so that it is legal, so that Samoilov cannot be prosecuted. Legality... *² You see that I have already crossed out much that is illegal.

I have no time to finish it completely. You will easily do this when translating it.

Printed from the text of a facsimile published in the catalogue *Autographen aus verschiedenem Besitz*. Marburg, 1963, p. 171, Plate 44.

¹ The article in question is “May Day and the Working-Class Movement in Russia” (see the following document).

² Here the manuscript breaks off.

MAY DAY AND THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA ¹

[1914, April, later than 25]

On behalf of the workers of Russia I send greetings to the Swiss workers and ardent wishes for further successes in the struggle for socialism.

The Swiss workers have long enjoyed fairly complete political freedom, and it is difficult for them to imagine the extent to which the workers of Russia are deprived of rights. The electoral law for our State Duma [is a cruel mockery of the rights of citizens] is distinguished [by this law the workers are locked up]. The workers are placed in a special workers’ curia and the deputies to the Duma from the workers are elected not by the workers themselves, but by the landowners and priests! Needless to say, the majority everywhere is ensured by law (through the appointment of the number of electors) for the reactionaries. And yet the workers send only Social-Democrats [candidates of the illegal party] to the Duma.

How is this possible? The workers elect all the electors as Social-Democrats and all the electors, except the party candidate, refuse to take part in the elections. The workers [Social-Democrats] force the reactionary landowners to elect Social-Democrats to the Duma!!

[Without any trial] Workers in Russia are arrested by the tens and hundreds for participation in the working-class movement and [without trial] are exiled administratively. But the workers of Russia nevertheless [who were the first to break down arbitrary rule and lack of rights in Russia by the great all-Russian strike and revolution of 1905] continue [even now their revolutionary] struggle with such force that no persecution is [able] capable of holding them back.

Our administration closes legal workers’ unions [the government] without any trial [arbitrary rule ... the most *]. And yet the workers again and again found unions. [The majority of class-conscious workers in Russia defend their illegal party, the R.S.D.L.P., with all their might, in every way covering up their illegal revolutionary work through legal forms of movement.] At the present time [For example, now!] insurance funds are being introduced everywhere in Russia, and the workers elect only trusted men, “Pravdists”, to the boards. The word Pravdist means a supporter of the *Pravda* group. That is the name of the first legal Marxist daily newspaper in Russia, founded on April 22, 1912, at the time of the tremendous upsurge of strikes caused by the Lena massacre of April 4, 1912. The government suppressed *Pravda*; the workers founded *Severnaya Pravda* of the same trend. That too was suppressed: *Rabochaya Pravda* was founded. After countless suppressions, fines, confiscations, *Put Pravdy* is still appearing, which on April 22 (O.S.), 1914, celebrates the second anniversary of the workers’ daily newspaper in Russia.

The class-conscious workers in Russia, as I have convinced myself, both in the Vladimir Gubernia, where I was elected, and in St. Petersburg, where I am a member of the Duma,² ardently support Social-Democracy [their illegal party, the R.S.D.L.P., and advance a threefold slogan of revolutionary struggle]. In Russia even the bourgeoisie—both the Cadets and the Octobrists, monarchist, moderate parties hostile to revolution—now recognise the probability and inevitability of a new revolution. So great [is the lack of rights and arbitrary rule everywhere, so] strongly is discontent growing everywhere, so desperate is the ruin of the peasantry and the starvation of millions of peasants.

But of all the classes of Russian society, only the proletariat openly raises the banner of full democratic transformations [revolution and propagates it among the masses of the people. The threefold revolutionary slogan which I encountered everywhere in Russia among the class-conscious workers is as follows: 1) a democratic republic; 2) confiscation of the landed estates for the benefit of the peasants; 3) an eight-hour working day. The first two slogans are prompted by the fact that without political freedom and the overthrow of the power of the serf-owning landowners (who trample on all laws in Russia, having a majority both in the State Duma and in the State Council) the workers see no way out to a broad class struggle for socialism].

The Swiss workers are already waging their class struggle broadly and freely, preparing forces for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. And on May Day, the world holiday of the workers and the day of the review of their [revolutionary] forces, I send our brothers, the Swiss workers, ardent greetings on behalf of all class-conscious workers of Russia.

Aufruf an die Schweizer Arbeiter *

Printed from the text of the journal *Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte*, 1966, No. 3, pp. 412–414.

¹ The article “May Day and the Working-Class Movement in Russia” was written by V. I. Lenin for the pre-May Day issue of the newspaper *Berner Tagwacht* for 1914, where it was intended to be published under the signature of F. N. Samoilov, a deputy of the Fourth State Duma. In his letter of April 25 (N.S.), 1914, G. L. Shklovsky informed V. I. Lenin that the editor-in-chief of *Berner Tagwacht*, R. Grimm, had approached F. N. Samoilov, who was in Berne for treatment, with a request to write an article on the position of the Bolshevik faction in the Duma, and asked Vladimir Ilyich to write this article for Samoilov. Lenin wrote the article and sent it to Shklovsky with the instruction to show the article to Samoilov and to think it over “three times” in order to make it legal. In connection with this assignment, apparently, a number of sentences and words were removed (in the present collection they are enclosed in square brackets).

² — Appeal to the Swiss workers.