Various German newspapers have published a distorted version of the telegram I sent on Monday, March 19, to Scandinavia to individual members of our party who were departing for Russia and had requested my advice concerning the tactics which social-democracy should pursue.

I telegraphed the following:

"Our tactics: complete distrust, no support for the new government; we suspect Kerensky in particular; arming of the proletariat – the only guarantee; immediate elections to the Petrograd Duma (city council); no rapprochement with other parties. Telegraph this to Petrograd."

I sent this telegram on behalf of the members of the Central Committee abroad, and not the Central Committee itself. I spoke not of the Constituent Assembly, but of elections to the municipal bodies. Elections to the Constituent Assembly are as yet only an empty promise. Elections to the Petrograd City Duma could and should have been held immediately if the government is truly capable of implementing the promised freedoms. These elections could have helped the proletariat to organise and consolidate its revolutionary position.

Written in March, later than the 6th (19th), 1917.

Published on March 29, 1917, in the newspaper *Volksrecht* No. 75

First published in Russian in 1949 in the 4th edition of V. I. Lenin's Collected Works, Volume 23

Printed according to the newspaper text  
Translated from the German