V. I. Lenin

The Example of the Petrograd Workers [1]

The newspapers have already reported that the
Petrograd workers have begun the intensive mobilisation and
dispatch of the best workers to the Southern Front.

Denikin’s capture of Kursk and advance on Orel fully explain this energetic action of the Petrograd proletariat, whose
example must be followed by the workers of other industrial
centres.

The Denikin gang count on sowing panic in our ranks and making
us think only of defence, only of the matter in hand. The foreign
radio shows how zealously the French and British imperialists are
helping Denikin, how they are helping him with armaments and
hundreds of millions of rubles. The foreign radio proclaims to the
whole world that the road to Moscow lies open. That is how the
capitalists would like to frighten us.

But they will not succeed in frightening us. The deployment of
our troops has been carefully planned and strictly carried
out. Our offensive against the chief source of the enemy’s
strength steadily continues. The victories recently won—the
capture of 20 guns in the Boguchar area, the capture of the
village of Veshenskaya—indicate the successful advance of
our troops to the centre of the Cossack area, which alone enabled
arid still enables Denikin to organise a serious force. Denikin
will be smashed as Kolchak has been smashed. They cannot frighten
us and we shall bring our cause to a victorious conclusion.

The capture of Kursk and the enemy’s advance on Orel required the provision of additional forces in order to repel him
there. By their example the Petrograd workers have shown that they
have correctly understood this task. Without hiding the dangers
from ourselves, and without in any way minimising them, we say:
Petrograd has shown that we do have additional forces. In order to
repel the attack on Orel and to launch an offensive against Kursk
and Kharkov, the best proletarians must be mobilised, over and
above the forces we already have at our disposal. The fall of
Kursk constitutes a serious danger; never has the enemy been so
near to Moscow. In addition to the previous army forces, we are
dispatching new contingents of advanced workers capable of
changing the mood of the retreating units to ward off this
danger.

Among our troops in the South, deserters who have returned to
the ranks occupy a prominent place. Most of them have returned
voluntarily, under the influence of the propaganda which has
explained where their duty lies and shown them how serious is the
threat that the power of the landowners and capitalists will be
restored. But the deserters do not hold out, they lack staunchness
and quite often they begin to retreat without fighting.

That is why it is of prime importance to strengthen the army by
a new influx of proletarian forces. The unstable elements will be
given strength, morale will be raised, a turning-point will be
reached. As has continually happened in our revolution, the
proletariat will support and guide the wavering sections of the
working population.

For a long time now the Petrograd workers have had to bear much
greater burdens than the workers of other industrial centres. The
Petrograd proletariat has suffered more than the proletariat in
other localities from famine, the perils of war and the withdrawal
of the best workers for Soviet duties throughout Russia.

Yet we see that there has not been the slightest dejection, not
the slightest diminution of energy among the Petrograd workers. On
the contrary, they have become steeled, they have found new
strength and have brought new fighters to the fore. They are
excellently fulfilling the duty of a leading contingent, sending
aid and support where it is most needed.

When such fresh forces go to reinforce units of our army that
have wavered, the mass of the working people, the soldiers of
peasant origin obtain new leaders from among their own kind, from
the more developed, more politically-conscious, and more
staunch-minded working people. That is why such help to our
peasant army gives its a decisive superiority over the enemy, for
in his case it is only landowners’ sons who are sent out to
strengthen his peasant army, and we know that this “strengthening” has ruined Kolchak and will ruin
Denikin.

Comrade workers! Let all of you set about the new work after
the example of the Petrograd comrades! More energy for activities
in the army, more initiative and boldness, more emulation so as to
equal the Petrograders, and victory will be won by the working
people, the landowner and capitalist counter-revolution will be
beaten.

N. Lenin

P.S. I have just learned that from Moscow also some dozens of
the most devoted comrades have left for the front. Following
Petrograd, Moscow has taken action. Following Moscow, all the rest
should take action.

N. L.

October 3, 1919

Endnotes

[1]
This article was written in connection with the beginning of the
mobilisation of the Petrograd Communists for the front. During the
foreign military intervention and the Civil War there were a
number of such mobilisations. Lenin wrote, “We concentrated
our best Party forces in the Red Army; we mobilised the best of
our workers; we looked for new forces at the deepest roots of our
dictatorship” (see present edition, Vol. 33, “How We
Should Reorganise the Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection”).

In view of the difficult situation on the
Southern Front the plenary meeting of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.), held
September 21 and 26, 1919, resolved to mobilise Communists and
send the best Party and working-class people to the front. The
Party Central Committee in its letter published in Bulletin of the
C.C., R.C.P.(B.) No. 0, September 30, 1919 pointed out that
Communists should be sent to the front from those institutions
where they might be replaced by non-party workers, women and
ex-servicemen disabled in the Civil War. The Communist Party
appeal met with a warm response among the working people. The
Petrograd Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) decided to mobilise 1,200
Communists for the Southern Front. That same day the first group
of mobilised Petrograd Communists left for the front, the second
group on the following day and the third on October
2. Mobilisation continued during the following days. On October 2,
Lenin sent a telegram of greetings to the Petrograd work- ers in
which he praised them for energetic measures in rendering
assistance to the Southern Front. Between September and November
the Petrograd Party organisation dispatched for the front over
4,000 Communists, of whom 1,800 were assigned to leading posts in
the army.