The preceding lines had already been written when I received, at 8 o'clock in the evening on Tuesday, the morning Petrograd newspapers with an article by Mr. V. Bazarov in *Novaya Zhizn*, Mr. V. Bazarov claims that "a leaflet has been circulated in manuscript about the city, speaking in the name of two prominent Bolsheviks against the uprising."

If this is true, then I ask the comrades into whose hands this letter cannot fall before noon on Wednesday to print it as soon as possible.

It was written not for publication, but only for discussion with party members by correspondence. But if those who do not belong to the party and have been ridiculed a thousand times by it for their contemptible lack of character—the heroes from *Novaya Zhizn* (who voted for the Bolsheviks three days ago, for the Mensheviks yesterday, and almost united them at the world-famous unification congress)—if such subjects receive a leaflet from members of our party agitating against the uprising, then silence is impossible. One must agitate *for* the uprising. Let the anonymities crawl completely into the light of day and receive the punishment they deserve for their shameful wavering, if only in the form of mockery from all conscious workers. I have at my disposal only an hour before sending this letter to Petrograd, and therefore will note in only a few words one "trick" of the pitiful heroes of the headless "Novaya Zhizn" movement. Mr. V. Bazarov attempts to polemicize with Comrade Ryazanov, who has said—and said correctly a thousand times—that "the uprising is prepared by all those who create among the masses a mood of desperation and indifference."

The pitiful hero of a pitiful cause "objects":

"Has desperation and indifference ever been victorious?"

Oh, contemptible fools from *Novaya Zhizn*! Do they know of examples of uprising in history when the masses of oppressed classes were victorious in desperate struggle without being driven to desperation by prolonged suffering and the extreme sharpening of all kinds of crises? When these masses were not seized by indifference to various lackey pre-parliaments, to the empty game of revolution, to the reduction by Liber dans of the Soviets from organs of power and uprising to the role of empty talking shops?

Or perhaps the contemptible fools from *Novaya Zhizn* have discovered among the masses indifference... to the question of bread? to the prolongation of the war? to land for the peasants?

Written October 17 (30), 1917

Published November 1, 2, and 3 (October 19, 20, and 21), 1917 in the newspaper *Rabochiy Put*, nos. 40, 41, and 42

Printed from the newspaper text