Approximately in the same days when the 4th “Letter from Afar” was written, but probably after the writing of this letter, Vladimir Ilyich began to write an article under the title "The Revolution in Russia and the Tasks of the Workers of All Countries." According to Vladimir Ilyich's plan, this was supposed to be, apparently, an appeal to the international proletariat on behalf of the Central Committee of our party.
The article remained unfinished and has not yet been published. We are publishing it from the copy preserved in the copying book, which we described in the general preface to the published documents.

6.

LENIN.
REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND THE TASKS
OF THE WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES.

Comrade Workers!

The foresight of those socialists who remained true to socialism and did not succumb to the fumes of the wild, bestial war mood has been justified. The first revolution, born of the worldwide robber war between the capitalists of different countries, has broken out. The imperialist war, that is, the war for the division of plundered booty between the capitalists, for the strangulation of weak peoples, has begun to turn into a civil war, that is, a war of workers against capitalists, a war of workers and the oppressed against their oppressors, against tsars and kings, against landlords and capitalists, a war for the complete liberation of humanity from wars, from the poverty of the masses, from the oppression of man by man!

The Russian workers have been given the honor and happiness to be the first to begin the revolution, that is, the great, the only legitimate and just, war of the oppressed against the oppressors.

The Petersburg workers have defeated the tsarist monarchy. In a heroic struggle against the police and tsarist troops, having started an unarmed uprising against machine guns, the workers won over the majority of the soldiers of the Petersburg garrison to their side. The same thing happened in Moscow and other cities. Abandoned by his troops, the Tsar had to surrender: he signed the abdication

LENIN. ---- REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND THE TASKS OF THE WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES.

from the throne, both for himself and for his son. He proposed to transfer the throne to his brother Mikhail.

Thanks to the tremendous speed of the coup, thanks to the direct help of the Anglo-French capitalists, thanks to the insufficient awareness of the entire working and popular masses in Petersburg, thanks to the organization and preparedness of the Russian landlords and capitalists, they seized state power in their hands. In the new Russian government, the "Provisional Government," the most important places - the chairmanship, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the military - went to Lvov and Guchkov, Octobrists, who with all their might helped Nicholas the Bloody and Stolypin the Hangman to strangle the revolution of 1905, to shoot and hang workers and peasants who were fighting for land and freedom. Less important ministries went to the Cadets: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Milyukov, the Ministry of Public Education to Manuilov, the Ministry of Agriculture to Shingarev. And one completely unimportant little place, the Ministry of Justice, was given to the Trudovik Kerensky, a windbag, who is needed by the capitalists to calm the people with empty promises, to deceive them with ringing phrases, to "reconcile" them with the landlord and capitalist government, which wants to continue the robber war in alliance with the capitalists of England and France, a war for the seizure of Armenia, Constantinople, Galicia, a war so that the Anglo-French capitalists keep in their hands the booty that they took from the German capitalists (all the colonies of the Germans in Africa), and at the same time take away from the German capitalists the booty seized by these robbers (part of France, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, etc.).

Of course, the workers could not trust such a government. The workers overthrew the tsarist monarchy, fighting for peace, bread, and freedom. The workers immediately felt why Guchkov, Milyukov and Co. managed to take the victory away from the working people. Because the Russian landlords and capitalists were well prepared and organized; because on their side is the power of capital, the wealth of both the Russian capitalists and the richest capitalists in the world, the English and the French. The workers immediately understood that in order to fight for peace, for bread and for freedom, the working classes, the workers, soldiers and peasants, must

LENIN COLLECTION.
organize themselves, rally, unite separately from the capitalists and against them.

And the Petersburg workers, having defeated the tsarist monarchy, immediately created their organization, the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, immediately began to strengthen and expand it, to create independent Soviets of Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. A few days after the revolution, the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies numbered over 1,500 deputies from workers and from peasants dressed in soldiers' uniforms. This Soviet enjoyed such confidence from railway employees and the entire mass of the working population that it began to turn into a real people's government.

And even the most faithful friends and patrons of Guchkov-Milyukov, the most faithful watchdogs of Anglo-French robber capital, Robert Wilson, an employee of the richest newspaper of the English capitalists, The Times, and Charles Rivet, an employee of the richest newspaper of the French capitalists, Le Temps, even they, showering the Soviet of Workers' Deputies with furious abuse, were still forced to admit that there are two governments in Russia. One is the "universally" recognized (that is, in fact, recognized by all rich people) government of landlords and capitalists, Guchkovs and Milyukovs. The other is the government of workers and peasants "not recognized" by anyone (from the wealthy classes): the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, striving to establish Soviets of Workers' and Soviets of Peasants' Deputies throughout Russia.

Let us see what both these governments say and do.

1. What does the government of landlords and capitalists, the government of Lvov - Guchkov - Milyukov, do?

This government is handing out the most lavish promises left and right. It promises the Russian people the fullest freedom. It promises to convene an all-national Constituent Assembly, which would establish the form of government in Russia. Kerensky and the Cadet leaders declare themselves supporters of a democratic republic. In terms of theatrical revolutionary fervor, the Guchkovs and Milyukovs are unsurpassed. Advertising is working at full capacity. But what are their deeds?

Promising freedoms, the new government was in fact conducting negotiations with the tsarist family, with the dynasty, about the restoration of the monarchy. It proposed that Mikhail Romanov become regent, i.e., a temporary tsar. The monarchy would have already been restored in Russia if the workers had not prevented Guchkov and Milyukov, workers who organized processions in Petersburg and wrote on banners: "Land and Freedom! Death to Tyrants!",—who, together with cavalry troops, gathered in the square in front of the Duma and unfurled banners with the inscription: "Long live the socialist republic in all countries!"

An ally of Guchkov and Milyukov, Mikhail Romanov, realized that in such a state of affairs it was wiser to refuse, until the Constituent Assembly elected him to the throne, and Russia remained—temporarily—a republic.

The government left the former tsar at liberty. The workers forced his arrest. The government wanted to give all command of the army to Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov. The workers forced his removal. It is clear that the landlords Lvovs-Guchkovs would tomorrow conspire with Romanov or with another landlord, were it not for the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

The government announced both in its manifesto to the people and in Milyukov's telegram to all representatives of Russia abroad that it remains faithful to all international treaties concluded by Russia.

These treaties were concluded by the overthrown tsar. The government does not dare to publish these treaties, firstly, because it is bound hand and foot by Russian, English, and French capital; secondly, because it fears the people, who would tear Guchkov and Milyukov to pieces if they knew that another 5, another 10 million Russian workers and peasants are to be slaughtered in the war for the sake of conquering Constantinople, for the sake of strangling Galicia, etc.

What, then, are the promises of freedom worth, if the people cannot know the truth about what treaties of the landlord-tsar the capitalists want to spill more and more soldiers' blood for?

What are the promises of all sorts of freedoms and even a democratic republic worth to a people threatened with starvation and who are to be led blindly to the slaughter so that Russian, English, and French capitalists can rob German capitalists?

LENIN MISCELLANY.

At the same time, the government of Guchkov and Milyukov directly suppresses any attempts by Russian workers to come to an agreement with their brothers, the workers of other countries: neither the newspaper "Pravda", which again began to appear in Petersburg after the revolution, nor the Manifesto of the Central Committee of our party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, published in Petersburg, nor the appeals of deputy Chkheidze and his group are allowed out of Russia by the government!!

Workers and peasants! You can rest assured: you have been promised freedom—freedom for the dead, who have perished from hunger and been slaughtered in the war!

The new government has not said a word in its programs about land for the peasants, nor about raising wages for the workers. No date has yet been set for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. No elections to the St. Petersburg City Duma have been scheduled. The people's militia is placed under the command of zemstvos and city self-governments, elected according to the Stolypin law only by capitalists and the wealthiest landlords. Governors are appointed from among the landlords—that's your "freedom."

2.

What does and what should a workers' and peasants' government do?

[The manuscript breaks off here.]