V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v25;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

ONLY NOW can we sum up some of the results of the “press day” of April 22.

The second anniversary of the Pravda became a day of reckoning of Marxist forces.

On that day all class-conscious workers came to the aid of their working-class organs. And from coppers hundreds and thousands of rubles were collected.

The last report on the sums received on working-class press day was published only on June 14, in No. 15 of Trudovaya Pravda. The “press day” was thus spread over nearly two months.

“Better late than never,” many comrades wrote when sending in their mite after April 22.

Resolutions poured into the editorial office in such numbers that it was impossible not only to print them all, but even to enumerate them.

But they did their work; they convinced us that we are on the right path and that the vast majority of the workers are rallying to the slogans of consistent Marxism.

As is known, the liquidators declared the second anniversary of the Pravda-trend newspapers to be a “press day” for their newspaper as well. At the time they raised a great hue and cry to prove their right to join the press day on April 22. Even then they proposed a federation, suggesting that the collections be divided equally. April 22 showed that the liquidators’ newspaper had spoken of “federation” and “equal rights” too soon.

The workers of the city of St. Petersburg completely rejected “joint collections.” This appeal of the liquidators’ newspaper met with some response only among a section of the students and in some factories in the provinces.

These sums from joint collections had almost no effect on the final totals of donations for press day. In No. 34 of Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta, of June 13, an attempt was already made to compare the collections for its own newspaper and for Put Pravdy. We say “attempt” because the comparison made by Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta cannot by any means be regarded as final and complete. And if we were to wait for Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta to make such a complete comparison, we would have to wait till doomsday, for it is extremely advantageous for the liquidators to operate with general figures, without going into a detailed analysis of these sums, without ascertaining from whom this money came.

That is why we have to undertake the detailed analysis of the liquidators’ reports as well.

Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta arrives at very comforting conclusions: first, that the “Pravdists” have behind them not quite three-fifths of the class-conscious workers of Russia; second, that the preponderance of the “Pravdists” is strong only in St. Petersburg, while in the provinces, on the contrary, the supporters of Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta predominate.

First of all we must make a small addition to the final sum of our collections as taken by Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta from the issue of Trudovaya Pravda of June 11. That issue gave the total up to June 1, but since Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta takes the total of its collections up to June 10, we, for the sake of correctness of comparison, will include the report of sums received from June 1 to 10, published in No. 15 of June 14 of this year. Moreover, the totals of June 10 were not quite accurate, because some small receipts from the provinces were included in the St. Petersburg total.

After making all these corrections we get the following final sums, which we shall use in our further calculations:

At first glance the difference is not too great, and it would seem to prove that Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta actually has two-fifths of the class-conscious workers. But as soon as we break up these figures into receipts from workers and from non-workers, the picture changes radically.

The appeal of Put Pravdy on “working-class press day” was responded to throughout Russia by:

1,915 workers’ groups, which collected for its fund 16,163 rubles 71 kopeks.

The appeal of Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta was responded to by:

588 workers’ groups, which collected 5,651 rubles 78 kopeks.

Put Pravdy received from non-workers 1,842 rubles 53 kopeks, and Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta received from non-workers 6,062 rubles 02 kopeks, i.e., more than from workers.

These figures of collections for working-class press day reveal the same picture as was given us by the calculation of collections and groups from January 1, 1914. Of the total number of workers’ groups that responded to “working-class press day,” only a little more than one-fifth belong to the liquidators’ newspaper. And yet the liquidators did everything possible to change the relation of forces in their favour on working-class press day. They did not succeed. Four-fifths of the class-conscious workers are for Pravdism—this fact, deduced from the figures for the entire two years of existence of the legal newspapers, has been confirmed by working-class press day.

Let us now pass to the state of affairs in St. Petersburg and the provinces. In St. Petersburg the number of collections (groups) for the Pravdist newspaper was 1,276, yielding 10,762 rubles 46 kopeks; for the liquidators’ newspaper—224, yielding 2,306 rubles 27 kopeks. The difference is so striking that even the liquidators do not dare to deny the preponderance of the “Pravdists” among the most advanced, energetic, organised and politically experienced proletariat of the capital.

But they lay claim to the provinces.

“In the provinces,” wrote Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta, “we see a phenomenon opposite to that in St. Petersburg; in the provinces Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta alone collected more than the Pravdist organ.”

Here is an example of deception to which we particularly recommend the worker comrades to give their attention. It is true that the Pravdists in the provinces collected 6,325 rubles 28 kopeks, and the liquidators 6,409 rubles 12 kopeks. More! Is that not so? Well, now, please look at the following figures.

In the provinces the Pravdist newspaper received from 639 workers’ groups 5,401 rubles 25 kopeks, and from non-workers 924 rubles 03 kopeks.

The liquidators’ newspaper received from 364 workers’ groups 3,345 rubles 51 kopeks, and from 78 non-workers’ groups and individuals 3,004 rubles 89 kopeks.

Yes, in the provinces the liquidators undoubtedly predominate, only not among the workers, but among the well-to-do “friends and sympathisers.”

The liquidators acted very simply: to prove their “preponderance” in the provinces they added the money of their bourgeois friends to the workers’ coppers, and thus “crushed” the Pravdists!

This may be a clever trick, but, gentlemen, by doing this you have proved not your preponderance in the provinces, but only that you are no less divorced from the provincial workers than from those of St. Petersburg.

In the work of building a working-class press and a working-class cause, it is not the money of wealthy “friends” that must, can and should be taken into account, but only the independent activity of the workers themselves.

In the work of building a working-class newspaper and a working-class cause, the fact that the liquidators received almost as much from non-workers as from workers (5,115 rubles and 5,651 rubles) is, in our opinion, not a plus but a minus—an additional proof of the close connection of liquidationism with the bourgeois intellectual milieu.

For our part, we are only proud that our “iron fund” consists almost entirely of workers’ coppers, which in six weeks collected over 16,000 rubles for their newspaper.

How was this sum made up? Workers of what trades and what districts, and to what extent, helped to build a consistently Marxist newspaper?

The answer is given by the following table, which is also a most characteristic document on the state of the present-day working-class movement.

Here is this table of receipts for Put Pravdy according to industries (trades). [See table on p. 423. Ed.] At the head come, of course, the metalworkers. Greetings to you, comrades!

In St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg is at the head of the working-class movement of recent years. While the proletariat in some (now not many) places in the provinces is still unable to awake from the heavy slumber of the period 1907–1911, and in other places is only taking the first steps to range itself alongside the St. Petersburg proletariat, the latter has developed tremendous activity, responding, like a sensitive barometer, to all events connected with the working-class movement. The St. Petersburg proletariat occupies the first place—even Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta will hardly dare to deny this.

And this is how the St. Petersburg proletariat responded to “working-class press day.”

Here the collections for Put Pravdy were made by 1,276 groups, which contributed 10,762 rubles 46 kopeks; for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta, 224 groups contributed 2,306 rubles 27 kopeks.

* The total does not tally. Obviously there is a misprint in the list of groups for St. Petersburg in the source. Ed.

By the number of groups, the liquidators in the working-class movement of St. Petersburg constitute not one-fifth, but one-seventh of the class-conscious workers, and their collections in relation to the sums collected by the Pravdists amount to a little more than one-sixth.

These data show that the St. Petersburg proletariat, which is at the head of the working-class movement, has in the mass turned away from the liquidators and is upholding the old, undiluted slogans.

Even among the printers, this sole refuge of the liquidators among the organised workers, nearly five times as much was collected for the “Pravdist” press as for the liquidators’ (966 rubles 34 kopeks for Put Pravdy as against 201 rubles 21 kopeks for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta).

The same is shown by the data on the collections of the metalworkers. Here 5,075 rubles 49 kopeks were collected for Put Pravdy, and 1,283 rubles 66 kopeks for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta. Again four times as much, which, in view of the existence of a union, was proved by the constant defeats of the liquidators at elections, at general meetings, etc.

The liquidators’ affairs are even worse among the other trades in St. Petersburg. While the woodworkers contributed 1,014 rubles 73 kopeks to Put Pravdy, Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta received from them only 38 rubles 14 kopeks.[74]

More than once the liquidators’ publications trumpeted that the most backward masses, who do not understand the serious questions of the movement, are following Pravda. In the just-published June issue of Nasha Zarya, the over-zealous liquidator, Mr. A. Gorev, asserts that the collections and resolutions supporting Pravda “come from those strata of workers who are being drawn into the sphere of interests and disputes of Social-Democracy for the first time in the history of the Russian working-class movement,” from the milieu of the backward, unenlightened youth and the undeveloped workers.

Do the liquidators, gentlemen, really dare to include among these “strata” the metalworkers and printers, who have always been in the front ranks of the working-class movement? Of course, Mr. Gorev has no proofs whatever in support of his argument; he proceeds from subjective conclusions. Let him keep them. We, on the other hand, have proved by irrefutable figures that even among such advanced trades as the printers and metalworkers of St. Petersburg, the liquidators constitute barely one-fifth.

We cannot give here comparative figures of collections for all the other trades, as that would take up too much space. We shall therefore give the general data for all these trades.

Apart from the trades enumerated, Put Pravdy received from workers 3,700 rubles, and Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta 500 rubles (figures rounded off). These are donations from clerks, tailors, leather-workers, textile workers, bakers, etc., workers employed in small-scale industry.

Here, too, seven times as much was collected for Put Pravdy as for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta. There is not a single trade that gave more to Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta than to Put Pravdy. Even office employees and clerks collected 273 rubles 11 kopeks for Put Pravdy, while for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta office employees and clerks (data of Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta) together collected 262 rubles 32 kopeks; clerks alone gave 238 rubles 11 kopeks to Put Pravdy.

Let us also give a list of the enterprises that most actively supported their working-class newspaper:

1) Novy Aivaz Works—791 rubles 37 kopeks (for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta 464 rubles 67 kopeks); 2) Putilov Works—335 rubles 46 kopeks (for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta—59 rubles 38 kopeks); 3) St. Petersburg Metal Works—273 rubles 36 kopeks (for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta—116 rubles 92 kopeks); 4) Tube Works—243 rubles 80 kopeks (for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta—113 rubles 41 kopeks); 5) Siemens-Schuckert—229 rubles 26 kopeks; 6) Ericsson Factory—228 rubles 82 kopeks (for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta—55 rubles 13 kopeks); 7) Parviainen—183 rubles 93 kopeks; 8) Stary Lessner Works—168 rubles 30 kopeks; 9) Franco-Russian Works—148 rubles 82 kopeks; 10) Novy Lessner Works—116 rubles 25 kopeks; 11) Cable Works—112 rubles 62 kopeks; 12) Siemens-Halske—104 rubles 30 kopeks; 13) Obukhov Works—91 rubles 02 kopeks; 14) State Paper Mill—79 rubles 12 kopeks (for Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta—54 rubles){149}.