Comrades!

I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th; the situation is utterly critical. It is now abundantly clear that any further delay in launching an uprising is tantamount to death itself.

With all my might, I urge my comrades that everything now hangs by a thread—that the questions at hand cannot be resolved through mere deliberations or congresses (not even Congresses of Soviets), but only by the people themselves, by the masses, by the armed struggle of the masses.

The bourgeois onslaught unleashed by the Kornilovists, and the ousting of Verkhovsky, demonstrate that there is no time to wait. At all costs—this very evening, this very night—we must arrest the government, disarm (and, if they resist, defeat) the Junkers and others.

We cannot afford to wait!! We risk losing everything!!

The immediate price of seizing power is the defense of the people—not of congresses, but of the people, of the army, and above all of the peasants—from the Kornilovist government, which had driven out Verkhovsky and was plotting a second Kornilovist coup.

Who should seize power?

That is irrelevant for now: let the Military Revolutionary Committee{131} “or some other body” take it—and let that body declare that it will surrender power only to the true representatives of the people’s interests, of the army’s interests (immediately proposing peace), of the peasants’ interests (land must be taken without delay, and private property must be abolished), and of the hungry.

All districts, all regiments, all available forces must mobilize immediately and dispatch delegations without delay to the Military Revolutionary Committee, to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, urgently demanding: under no circumstances are we to allow Kerensky and his gang to retain power until the 25th—absolutely not; we must resolve this matter today, without fail, either this evening or tonight.

History will never forgive revolutionaries who could have won today—and who will surely win today—yet risk losing much tomorrow, risking losing everything.

By seizing power today, we do not take it against the Soviets; rather, we take it for them.

The seizure of power is an act of insurrection; its political aims will become clear only after it has been accomplished.

To wait for a hesitant vote on October 25 would be fatal—or merely a formality. The people have both the right and the duty, in such matters, not to decide by ballot, but by force; in the critical moments of revolution, the people have both the right and the duty to send forth their own representatives—even their finest representatives—rather than to wait for them.

This has been proven by the history of every revolution, and it would be an unforgivable crime for revolutionaries to miss the moment, knowing full well that the salvation of the revolution, the offer of peace, the deliverance of Petrograd, the end of famine, and the transfer of land to the peasants all depend upon them.

The government is wavering. We must crush it at all costs!

To delay the uprising is to court death.

Written on October 24 (November 6), 1917.

First published in 1924.

Printed from a typewritten copy.