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Lunacharsky on Lenin

Section II epigraph

Science tells us that often the stars that shine in the sky no longer exist there for a long time. But we don't care that they don't exist, because they give us light as before. The same phenomenon exists in social life. Engels, when Marx was gone, said that humanity had fallen head and shoulders, but Marxism remained alive, helped Lenin to create, and will help others to create. So is Lenin. Such a social force cannot die, it is such a focus, such a node of a huge social current, such an aspiration of thought and will, that if there is no material carrier of this phenomenon, then the collective must be put in its place. As Lenin said: one cannot, the collective can. But this collective must be centered around the same core. Therefore, when we say "without Lenin", we immediately say: "and with Lenin."

Back in Geneva
The article "Again in Geneva" was written by A. V. Lunacharsky during his stay in Geneva in November-December 1927, on the eve of the opening of the 4th session of the Preparatory Commission for the League of Nations Disarmament Conference. For the first time the text of this article was published on December 13, 1927 in the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" No. 284.

My young readers!

Of course, you still don't know what a memory is. I don't mean to say that you never remember your yesterday or maybe your childhood. But you need to live for a decent amount of decades in order to fully understand what the memory of the past is.

That's when, after a very long period of time, 10-20 years, you come to some city that has witnessed major experiences in your life, then a completely peculiar phenomenon appears in the mind.

You may be in a completely satisfactory position, not at all regretting the past and not finding it better than your present. And yet, all of a sudden, when you walk through the squares, streets and lanes of such a half-forgotten city, when it rises before you in reality, suddenly something shifts inside you, and next to those who walk and drive around the city now, they rise before you. those who are absent from you, perhaps no longer living on earth - the past grows before you against the backdrop of reality and grabs you tightly by the heart.

These memories are always accompanied by some kind of bittersweet feeling. It is as if you see yourself in a much younger double, and as if with almost complete reality you experience, next to real experiences, those that have long passed. And this unexpectedly brightly resurrected past always seems pleasant, dear, always seems like some kind of friend who has returned from a far, far away journey, where this friend almost died or was almost completely forgotten. And at the same time, such a memory always has its own bitterness - not only because a person is growing old, but simply due to some especially immediate clarity of the nature of time and its running.

At such moments, death and life are intertwined into a kind of black-red tourniquet and encircle your heart with it.

But what I and some friends experienced in Geneva is extremely significant.

If my first meeting with Ilyich took place in Paris, 1 then our acquaintance there had an almost cursory character, namely in Geneva I had to work most intensively hand in hand with our brilliant leader. It was here, in my presence, that the diverging lines of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks began to take shape, it was precisely here that the physiognomy of our proletarian, revolutionary, Marxist policy came to light more and more clearly.

If even earlier I was a Left Social Democrat, a Bolshevik, because I defined myself while still in exile, 2 I can still say that it was in Geneva that I came into contact with real great Party work and real creative Party thought. 3

That is why the few years (1904-1905) that have passed in this boring philistine city left such a burning mark on my mind, and that is why the memories swirled so much when I again found myself in Geneva.<…>

On Plainpalais (Plainpalais), a huge square-beam located closer to the outskirts of Geneva, a folk fair crackled and buzzed with an American foxtrot, puzzle carousels, etc.

How on purpose! Just such a fair took place in Geneva when I first came here, prompted by Ilyich's insistent letter, in order to take part in the editorial board of the Vperyod newspaper. 4

On the day of my arrival in the evening, if I am not mistaken, there was the first meeting of our editorial staff. I then met Galerka-Olminsky, the late Vorovsky, Bonch-Bruevich, who was then our administrator and financier, Mandelstam-Lyadov, and finally, Nadezhda Konstantinovna.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna, despite the fact that she was hardly older than the other members of the group close to Ilyich, played the role of our party mother. She was always calm, restrained and knew everything, followed everything, gave advice in time, and everyone reckoned with her to the extreme.

After the first meeting (and perhaps the second), Olminsky, leaving with me from the small room where we handed over our articles to Ilyich, said with admiration: “It seems to me that we will always work together. I like that we don't have selfish people. And what a charm Ilyich, how he knows how to lead without unnecessary aplomb.

Indeed, our work has always proceeded amicably.

There were few Bolsheviks in Geneva, we were, in essence, a close group, squeezed on all sides by emigration and students, who for the most part marched under the banner of the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries.

We dined in a small canteen, which was kept by the wife of Comrade. Lepeshinsky. Both spouses belonged to the closest Leninist company.

They played chess there, looked at Lepeshinsky's very well-drawn witty cartoons, argued, shared news, learned to appreciate and love each other. More or less extensive meetings of Bolsheviks sometimes gathered there. After working at the editorial office or some small meeting, Ilyich and I quite often went for a walk to Arva.

The canteen of Lepeshinsky was located near the Arvsky bridge. We walked sometimes along the Arva, and sometimes we crossed the bridge and went deeper into the road between hillocks and groves. It was the most precious watch for me. Ilyich was often more intimate than usual during these walks, which Vorovsky and I took together or together.

Vladimir Ilyich, as a rule, could not stand even close people to his personal experiences. He was above all a politician, so hot, so inspirational, so inspiring. He turned this policy for everyone who approached him into the center of life. Ilyich did not like to talk about individual people, to give them characteristics, to indulge in some kind of reminiscence. He thought of the near future, of the blow to be struck, of the defense to be organized, of the bond to be found and maintained.

But in these conversations, walks, Vladimir Ilyich sometimes touched on the more intimate aspects of the issue. With sadness, bitterness, but also, no doubt, with love, he spoke of Martov, with whom inexorable politics led him on different paths. With beautiful and apt words he characterized Plekhanov, for whose mind he always showed the greatest respect. Funny and subtly outlined the political and human profile of Dan. He spoke about various methods of journalism and popularization.

And the conversation was best conducted when Vladimir Ilyich turned to general questions, argued about the foundations of materialism, or made guesses about the timing and pace of the further movement of the revolution in various countries. I am sure that if I had been more perceptive and, having come home after these walks, immediately wrote down everything that I heard from the lips of the revolutionary genius, I could now present you, my young Komsomol readers, with an interesting book. But I realized too late, like many others. When you live and fight next to such a person, you do not always understand the exact meaning of almost every word that he utters.

Ilyich at that time was not very fond of speaking in public. After all, all sorts of rallies and discussions took place in Geneva almost every day. There were many vociferous speakers, popular among the student youth, who were not so easy to deal with due to the crackling emptiness of their phraseology, adapted, however, to the average university intelligentsia. Vladimir Ilyich often considered it simply a waste of time to speak at such meetings and talk with some Dan or Chernov. However, he encouraged my performances; it seemed to him that I was just adapted for this, in fact, secondary activity. Before my speeches, some of which were successful and which slightly shook the better part of the students and moved some people to join us, Ilyich always gave me parting explanations.

Things changed somewhat after January 1905 and with the approach of the first revolution. Here Vladimir Ilyich believed that it was necessary to recruit and recruit people even abroad. His speeches became much more frequent. Since then, we have performed together with him and shared our task. I remember two or three thrashings that Ilyich gave me because I did not expound some idea at length enough, or even went rogue in some respect. But he himself always, after delivering a speech against Martov or Martynov, coming down from the stage, came up to me and asked: “Well, how did you shout out to yourself? Hooked, it seems? Did everyone say what you need?

<...> Geneva is a boring city, there were always bad theaters, unimportant concerts, unless anyone came here to tour. And the very course of life of the Genevan philistines was similar to the course of the watches they made. As for us, we were usually cheerful. Many of us were in great need, almost all of us survived fairly and were well aware that much would have to be endured in the future, but in general, in the Russian colony, especially in its Bolshevik circles, an elevated and, I would say, joyful mood reigned. I think that this mood for us Bolsheviks was at least largely determined by Ilyich himself.

He was always cheerful, he always had a magnificent vitality. Perfectly aware of all the dangers, threatening troubles, shortcomings, etc., he nevertheless always remained true to his optimism, which was dictated, on the one hand, by a confident Marxist forecast, and, on the other hand, by the amazing temperament of the leader.

I remember in Geneva one evening or even a night of a real paroxysm of fun. It was for Shrovetide. At this time, the international student body and even the hard-working Swiss are usually overwhelmed by a wave of fun. So it was this time too. A group of Bolsheviks with Vladimir Ilyich got into the very whirlwind of Maslenitsa dances and fuss. I remember how, putting their hands on each other's shoulders, a string of young people in several hundred people with songs and laughter jumped up the stairs and around the cathedral. I remember very well Vladimir Ilyich, who twisted his cap back and indulged in fun with the real spontaneity of a child. He laughed, and living lights flickered in his sly eyes.

Now, leaning on the railing of the Arve bridge, I watch how the muddy waters of the Arve still run under it; Revolutionary thought and revolutionary deeds ran in the same noisy and fast stream when I arrived in Geneva. They rushed somewhere towards the great historical rivers, somewhere into the huge historical sea and carried their great tribute there. This tribute was great, not because Geneva could be considered an exceptionally powerful revolutionary center - in general, emigration abroad played only a role that was supportive of the labor movement - but because for that moment Geneva turned out to be the most suitable place for creating Iskra first. , [^5] and then the journals that followed it, led by the greatest theoretician and critic of the party.<...>

[1927]

Lenin was in Paris, Zurich, Bern on November 19–25 (December 2–8), 1904, to read an essay on the inner-party situation.

The meeting between Lenin and Lunacharsky in Paris took place on November 19 (December 2).


A. V. Lunacharsky was in exile in the Vologda province from February 2, 1902 to May 15, 1904.
A. V. Lunacharsky was in Geneva from December 1904 to the middle of 1905.
Vperyod, an illegal Bolshevik weekly newspaper; published in Geneva from December 22, 1904 (January 4, 1905) to May 5 (18), 1905. 18 issues have been released. The organizer and direct leader of the newspaper was VI Lenin. By decision of the Third Congress of the RSDLP, instead of the newspaper Vperyod, the newspaper Proletary began to be published as the Central Organ of the Party.

More than 60 articles and notes by V. I. Lenin were published in the Vperyod newspaper.

London convention
The memoirs were published in the journal "30 days" in 1930 in connection with the 25th anniversary of the III Party Congress. A. V. Lunacharsky was a delegate to the congress and delivered a report on the armed uprising. “Vladimir Ilyich,” he later wrote, “gave me all the main theses of the report ... In my speech I proceeded from the most precise and detailed instructions of Vladimir Ilyich” (“Proletarian Revolution”, 1925, No. 11 (46), p. 54).

By the spring of 1903 the positions of both sections of the Social Democratic Party—the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks—began to be more and more clearly defined.

There were fewer and fewer members of the Party who continued to assume that the split had taken place over "minor" points, over "insignificant" disagreements - regarding the first paragraph of the Rules, the distribution of seats in the editorial board, etc.

It became more and more obvious that Lenin's intuition had by no means deceived him and that Menshevism was taking shape as the opportunist wing of the Social Democratic Party.

The events of January*, the tremendous growth of the working-class movement, the militant-revolutionary mood that seized the proletariat—all this made the Bolsheviks expect great events, to try with all their might to give a conscious form to the spontaneously maturing workers’ movement and to help it grow to the most militant forms.

* Имеется в виду «кровавое воскресенье». —Ред.

The Mensheviks, by no means denying that there was a great political upsurge in Russia, they assumed that the working class would play a secondary role in it, that the main role would belong to the liberals, that history had left them to speak, and that the best possible end to the next political upsurge would be once the transfer of power to the liberal bourgeoisie, at least in the form of a more or less "decent" constitutional monarchy. Menshevism would be satisfied that in "decent, constitutional Russia" its party would occupy a respectable place on the extreme left benches of this or that parliament.

In their eyes, we were almost arsonists. We pushed the proletariat towards "unrealizable dreams", towards "risk deeds".

In this way we tore the fate of the revolution, compromising its bourgeois character, which, in the opinion of the Mensheviks, had to be emphasized and protected.

For our part, we considered all the tactics of the Mensheviks as undermining the confidence of the proletariat in its own strength, demagnetizing its ranks, inciting the proletariat to self-denial, to abandon the first role that, in our opinion, it will certainly play in the forthcoming revolution.

We were surprised and annoyed that Plekhanov, who coined the famous phrase "the revolution will win in Russia as a workers' revolution or not at all," found himself in the ranks of these limited interpreters of Marxism.

We recalled with irony and a certain sadness that the main theoretician of Menshevism was the same Martov who once wrote: “with a slow step, a timid zigzag”, etc., a march that now perfectly characterized him and his brethren .

But if it became more and more obvious that the two flanks of the newly united party would soon meet as direct enemies, then in principle the matter remained extremely uncertain.

Of course, the Mensheviks had their own organizations both abroad and in Russia, the Bolsheviks had their own, but there was also a common party central committee, elected at the Second Congress and which in general had a Menshevik character.

In this situation, it was decided to convene a convention in London in the month of May in order to accurately determine the boundaries that separate us. one

It was clear to Lenin that there could be no question of any reconciliation.

It must be said that a rather large number of delegates were elected to the congress (from 29 committees), among whom were the Mensheviks.

The congress was preceded by negotiations, the result of which, thanks to the efforts of Lenin, turned out to be the most favorable from the point of view of our foreign Bolshevik attitude to the matter.

The convention was convened in London. I went there as a representative of our central body, as a member of its editorial board.

We arrived in London together with comrade. Vorovsky and settled with him.

Neither I nor he had been to London until then, and the huge, highly original city gave us all - and the atmosphere of that petty bureaucratic family in which we fell, and the view of the streets on weekdays and holidays, and its theaters, zucchini - a huge food for our observations.

During all the time free from the meetings of the Congress (there were not so many of them, it is true), we rushed around London, saturating ourselves with impressions, and even now what I know directly, vividly, from my own experience about England, is based mainly on the sharpness of those impressions. .

Lenin also accompanied us very often.

We often had breakfast and lunch together, visited museums and theaters together. As far as I remember, he not only spoke English better than we did, but he also knew London much better.

He was always cheerful and cheerful, looked at the tasks of the congress as extremely important, led a firm and definite line, knew where he was going, knew that he was moving straight and decisively towards the revolution.

As always, the enormous historical work that Vladimir Ilyich did did not prevent him from being a charming, cheerful person and an excellent conversationalist, a sweet and attentive comrade. Often at night, lying in bed in our little room on the top floor of the clerk's house where we lived, Comrade Vorovsky shared our London impressions for a long time. We devoted most of the conversation to reviews of the great man with whom we had the opportunity to work together.

Many important decisions were adopted at the congress, which predetermined the whole physiognomy of Bolshevism.

First of all, the congress firmly established that we were advancing towards the revolution, that this revolution would have the character of a civil war, fighting in the streets, that the party must not only lead the proletariat and the insurgent soldiers politically, but also be able to lead technically—as I put it in my report. about an armed insurrection (this report was entrusted to me by Lenin), the party must now work out among its midst not only teachers of the revolution, but also its military officers.

The second important decision was the rejection of any formal flirtatiousness with the liberals. Instead of the slogan of the immediate convocation of a constituent assembly, we established the demand for the creation of a revolutionary provisional government.

Particularly important was the line that Lenin firmly pursued, despite some objections to the policy of using the mass peasant movement.

Already at the Third Congress, Lenin definitely distinguished in this respect our tactics and the tactics of the Mensheviks: the Mensheviks strove to pursue a line towards an alliance with the bourgeoisie, so that the proletariat would turn out to be the tail of the bourgeois-liberal forces.

Meanwhile, we were heading towards an alliance with the peasantry, towards placing the proletariat at the head of the revolutionary, working people's forces advancing towards a decisive victory.

The congress gave a prophetically correct characterization of the Mensheviks; attitudes were also established towards other supposedly revolutionary forces—liberals, Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc.

Everyone was put in their place, everyone received their assessment. In relation to all the social forces with which we had to play the great revolutionary game, the Party was placed in quite definite relations.

The Bolsheviks emerged from the congress very strong, with firm principles of principle and quite powerful organizationally.

[1930]

The III Congress of the RSDLP was held in London on April 12-27 (April 25 - May 10), 1905. It was prepared by the Bolsheviks and took place under the leadership of Lenin. The Mensheviks refused to take part in the work of the congress and convened their own conference in Geneva. At the congress, the fundamental questions of the revolution unfolding in Russia were discussed: about an armed uprising, about a provisional revolutionary government, about the attitude towards the peasant movement, and others

From the memories of Lenin in 1905

Three memoirs about Lenin are published under this general heading: " January 9 and Lenin's emigration ", " Lenin as an editor ", " From the memoirs of Lenin in 1905 ".

I
Nothing has contributed more to understanding the meaning of the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks than the events of January 9th.<…>

We all knew very well that things were not calm in Russia, that spring waters were swelling, that one could expect one or another event, but even for us, the most revolutionary wing of the Social Democracy, the January events were a surprise.

The entire emigration came into unheard-of excitement. On the one hand, of course, all hearts trembled with mournful anger, but at the same time, the whole future prospect loomed with distinct clarity. First of all, of course, Vladimir Ilyich himself drew all the appropriate conclusions. His keen mind, armed with Marxist analysis, allowed us, one might say, in the first days, if you like, even in the first hours, to comprehend the whole event. Under his leadership, we understood that this would be the end of all prejudices regarding autocracy, not only for the St. Petersburg, but for the all-Russian proletariat, the boundary beyond which the history of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat begins, no longer in circles and groups, but in its entire mass.

... Vladimir Ilyich also brought to the fore the other side of events, he noted with particular interest that passionate need to take up arms that seized the St. Petersburg proletariat when the tsarist soldiers met his petition with volleys. “This includes both points,” said Vladimir Ilyich, “the self-armament of the working class and any intensification of agitation in the ranks of the troops.”

The Mensheviks immediately began to snort at us, intensified talk immediately began about Blanquism, Jacobinism, about a superficial, "military-technical" attitude towards the revolution, etc. the proletariat and the state machine, in turn, seemed to us worthy of contempt.<…>

We continued to think and talk about the need to raise the question of direct revolutionary struggle, the overthrow of the autocracy by the use of general strikes and armed uprisings, and when the time came, at the Third Party Congress, it became completely clear that the Bolsheviks acted as direct revolutionaries in the proper and precise sense. of this word, as supporters of a popular uprising, which must be technically prepared, into the element of which maximum consciousness must be introduced.

[1927]

II
Undoubtedly, Vladimir Ilyich was the most prominent worker, not only in terms of his political preparedness, in terms of his authority, in terms of his industriousness, journalistic acumen, in terms of the amount of work and the number of results that this work gave. 1 "Forward" and "Proletary" 2 - these were primarily Vladimir Ilyich's organs. Most of the articles were written by him. Most of the correspondence, revisions, and notes were written by him.<…>

Vladimir Ilyich seethed politically. He was looking for something to rely on, what fact. He hurried that the news from Russia be deciphered as soon as possible, and greedily pounced on them. And right now, a little news, a summary of what was happening in the country, gave him reason for wonderful generalizations, and he immediately unfolded in front of us what it meant.<…> We followed the Russian events extremely intensively. We shared all the newspapers among ourselves, but Vladimir Ilyich checked everything, and thus he read his portion, and besides, all our portions. We read the European mail and the Menshevik press in exactly the same way. We tried to subtract and find in them those definite features that Lenin was waiting for, who understood where the Menshevik line was heading.

Often the articles were discussed beforehand. This also happened with articles written by Vladimir Ilyich himself and by us. Often Vladimir Ilyich asked what proposals we had on topics, we made our proposals, he shared his own. Each title and briefly outlined topic was subject to discussion. The one who proposed the topic of the article developed the main theses, his main positions; others disputed, objected, Vladimir Ilyich too. There was a lively conversation. At certain moments, Vladimir Ilyich said: well, go sit down and write.<…>

The article was not always collectively discussed before it was written, but it was always collectively discussed before it was printed. It was possible to do this, because the organ was weekly, there were not so many materials and it was possible to treat them with extreme care. It often happened that during the secondary reading, the article changed to a significant extent. There were many moments when an article was originally written by Orlovsky or Olminsky, but in the end it became the work of Vladimir Ilyich. He changed it so much, scribbled, altered, inserted large pieces that often later the editors of reprints were at a standstill, whose article it was.

And indeed, he has his own manner, and therefore it was often possible to distinguish the intellectual literary manner of Orlovsky or Shchedrin, which smelled of Olminsky's ironic wit, which are not characteristic of Vladimir Ilyich, although by other signs the article was clearly written by Vladimir Ilyich. His slogans, strong expressions, his manner of repeating, turning around a well-known thesis in this way and that, in order to drive it into the head of the reader and us, were remarkable.

The work was done collectively. Any article belonging to this or that author was always corrected by Vladimir Ilyich, who inserted this or that phrase and changed the end. True, he suggested doing this to the author himself, and it happened that, on his instructions, the author himself did this, but for the most part this last purge took place in such a situation when Vladimir Ilyich came every half an hour and asked: what, will you ever give materials or do not give? And since there was no time, in the end Vladimir Ilyich got down to business. He wrote extremely quickly in his large, sweeping, but very clear handwriting, he immediately took the material to himself and immediately made the necessary corrections. If it was too late and it was impossible to read, then with full confidence we transferred the article to the set.

There were also cases when Vladimir Ilyich's articles were revised. Of course, there were not many such cases ...

Vladimir Ilyich was a man in this respect without any outward gait* of a leader. He was a leader because he understood faster than anyone else, developed an idea more widely than others, was able to express it more strongly, worked faster, and all these magnificent qualities of a journalist made him the first without any dispute. But he had absolutely no external ambition, resentment, desire to show off in the first place. He listened with unusual meekness to Olminsky's remarks that some phrase was not composed in Russian, that it was syntactically incorrect, and sometimes not politically strong enough. He often redid it himself, looking for better expressiveness, and when he was shown a successful form, he accepted it with great pleasure.

* Here - manners (fr.). —Ed.

<…> Revolutionary events and a big strike 3 found me in Italy. 4 Vladimir Ilyich forced me to give up all sorts of illnesses and leave for Petersburg. He sent such a telegram because he himself came to St. Petersburg 5 after the announcement of the constitution, 6 and there, as you know, in addition to becoming the head of the Bolshevik organization, he also became the head of Novaya Zhizn. 7 He called me there.<…>

When I arrived, not only was there a struggle, but some confusion was felt in the Bolshevik part of the editorial office. They were embarrassed by the fact that strange fiction, symbolic poems, all kinds of romantic rubbish took their place in the newspaper. When I arrived, it also seemed to me that this was in no way to be tolerated, that it was a big political newspaper, which we consider as our new central organ, and suddenly there was such a curious convoy of acrobats and clowns. But Vladimir Ilyich stood on ceremony, because he knew that Gorky was connected with Minsky, 8and Minsky with other little Minskys. He said that it was embarrassing to do this, to climb like a cuckoo into someone else's nest and throw out the chicks. Nevertheless, we did just that. At the first or second editorial meeting, the question was raised point-blank that we cannot run a newspaper in this form.<...> The newspaper was conquered by us, and the last issues were written in the Leninist spirit; and our editorial life has already begun to take shape, similar to how our life in Switzerland proceeded.

We began to arrange editorial meetings, articles were discussed; it was a daily newspaper, it had a lot of material, which could not be carefully reviewed; and by the way, Vladimir Ilyich several times said this: the devil knows, is it good that we have such a large newspaper, you can’t hug it all in a day and it can be difficult to read it, you won’t get to all the corners. If we were to publish a smaller newspaper and more suitable for the workers, perhaps it would be better... But Vladimir Ilyich’s longing that it was impossible to hold the newspaper in his hands the way he their place, was soon resolved by the intervention of the police, because the "New Life" was closed. But when it was already closed, immediately after the arrest of the Petersburg Soviet, we began to move on to other newspapers, of a smaller type.9 <…>

When we moved to smaller newspapers, the scene changed. Novaya Zhizn was published at a good time, when, in essence, more or less complete freedom of speech prevailed. And just like that, things went downhill. This was already after the December armed uprising in Moscow, and we were already threatened with a clear reaction. At that time, small newspapers were published, and the task was to defend their positions against Menshevism. Vladimir Ilyich firmly held the matter in his hands, and every line was visible here.<…>

By this time also belongs the elaboration of more essential things than articles, the elaboration of our Party resolutions. The situation was such that it was necessary to weigh very much. On the one hand, it was possible to fall into phraseology that defended the positions of romantic radicalism, which did not provide grounds for direct revolutionary action, and on the other hand, Menshevism was at that time moving towards liquidationism. From the line led by Vladimir Ilyich, ostensibly the middle line, but in fact the only revolutionary line, it was possible to jump in one direction or the other. The resolutions that we worked out during the negotiations with the Mensheviks just before the Stockholm Congress, at the Congress itself, and after it, when splits and disagreements began in the Central Committee, were of great importance*.

* More on this on pages 107–108. —Ed.

These resolutions were worked out by Vladimir Ilyich's special method, which he used even later, when I was no longer a member of the Central Committee, and then the editors of the Central Organ and the Central Committee met together, and I do not know how much later, after our victory, he used this method. But at that time he loved this method. And this method was literally a teamwork method.

There were twelve or fourteen of us. Vladimir Ilyich said: let's work out such and such a resolution. He himself gave his outline, offered to break it into such and such paragraphs, such and such a general idea, and we began to jointly edit. Vladimir Ilyich or someone else proposed the first formula. It was discussed from the point of view of how it would be better to turn it, literally from word to word. As soon as a formula succeeded, it was subjected to great criticism on the part of Vladimir Ilyich, whether misunderstandings were possible, whether there would be any perplexities on the part of others, they looked for a more precise formula, and when someone found it, Vladimir Ilyich said: it was well said , let's write it down. And she was recording. So it went to the end, the editors still re-read and immediately edited, and it was literally impossible to say to whom this or that word belonged, one expression or another. Everyone laid out the formula that came to his mind.

Generally speaking, I must say that Vladimir Ilyich gave his employees a fairly wide freedom of expression and, so to speak, external design. Yes, and he also treated the choice of topics broadly.

But the same cannot be said about the political line. Where he felt a deviation from the correct political line, he was merciless and did not agree to any concessions.

Comrades, I can say, although this does not perhaps apply to the editorial methods of Vladimir Ilyich, but rather to the methods of general political leadership: he was very fond of instructing someone to speak, together with him to give theses. I had a lot of such theses, but, to the greatest regret, all this perished due to moving. But what I had left, I, of course, transferred to the appropriate storage facilities.

It happened very often that Vladimir Ilyich took a blue or red pencil and wrote several theses on a piece of paper and said: can you develop them in the form of a report, do you agree or not? They answered him: well, I will take it into account, and I will say so. He did this often, both at conferences and conventions. Therefore, very often his employees and associates made their reports, in which the arguments were given by Vladimir Ilyich.

A very interesting detail, and if more such theses could be found, they would now show that such a work, which does not refer to the name of Ilyich, bore the mighty stamp of his genius, his insight, his ability to construct the main theses.

[1931]

III
Whenever someone asks me to report something from my reminiscences about Lenin, I cannot forgive myself that somehow, in some order, even the most conspiratorial one (since we are talking about times that are not safe for records), I did not keep any diary, did not make any notes that would help later than my memory. A huge number of the most interesting personal negotiations, all kinds of meetings and collective works, during which I observed Lenin very closely, all kinds of events in which we were participants in one way or another together, which allowed me to observe the accomplishment of his historical mission, have passed, leaving in me only a pale trace, sometimes not even amenable to chronological definition.

I will try to briefly share with the readers that most important thing that has been preserved in my memory about Lenin's participation in the events of 1905, known not from literature, but from the testimony of my own eyes and ears.

Of the great events of 1905 abroad, I lived close to Lenin on January 9th. Recently I have already written a short article, which is part of a series of my general memoirs of the great year 1905, where I describe the impressions made on the editors of Vperyod and the Bolsheviks surrounding it by the news of January 9, Lenin's responses to these grandiose events.

There was then a rather long break in my personal and living relations with Lenin. Shortly after our return from London, where the congress was taking place*, I went to Geneva with the permission of the editors to Italy because of the terrible overwork from the big political work on the congress and on the tour of all the emigre colonies with all kinds of reports and disputes, and in connection with the generally shaken health. I settled in Florence and from there I only corresponded with the editors, sometimes receiving personal letters or orders for articles from Vladimir Ilyich.

* III Congress of the RSDLP. —Ed.

Already in Florence the tumultuous events of autumn found me. At the end of October or at the very beginning of November, I received a categorical telegram from Lenin from St. Petersburg about my immediate departure to Russia, precisely to St. Petersburg, where I was needed as a member of the editorial board of the large newspaper Novaya Zhizn.

Of course, I immediately left and on the very first day after my arrival in St. Petersburg I appeared at the editorial office.

At first, my direct meetings with Lenin took place almost exclusively on the basis of intensive work in the newspaper. Vladimir Ilyich felt in general extremely excited, cheerful, and was in the most fighting mood. But, of course, the danger of the situation, the considerable precariousness of the gains won, did not escape him.

Vladimir Ilyich, of course, carried on a very versatile and ebullient work, since both St. Petersburg and Moscow, and a number of provincial cities lived an intense life between the revolutionary upheaval and the impending reaction, often shedding blood and igniting the fires of Black-Hundred pogroms and listening with trepidation to rumors about the fate of the eastern army, 11 which the government was trying to dissolve, so that its receding avalanche would not merge with the diverging waves of workers' revolution and peasant revolts.

I personally also had a lot of work, both literary and propaganda, but in relation to the huge facets of Lenin's activity at that time, my work came into contact - at first, I repeat, - only in newspaper work.

Vladimir Ilyich attached great importance to Novaya Zhizn. It must be remembered that this large legal newspaper sold more than 50,000 copies. Until then, the Bolsheviks had never had such a circulation.<…>

I must note that Vladimir Ilyich, not only in relation to Gorky, whom he then - as always - loved and highly appreciated, but also in relation to Minsky and even to any relatively small intellectual fry who got into Novaya Zhizn, behaved with extreme tact and caution. At the same time, he laughed merrily at the various antics of some of our employees, so unusual for us, and often repeated:

- It's really a historical curiosity!

However, just shortly after we completed the internal purge of Novaya Zhizn, this newspaper, which had acquired an extremely large number of subscribers and readers and began to play a very important role not only in St. Petersburg, but also in the country, was closed. Here the twilight of our work has already come. Subsequently, not wanting to be left without an organ, we began to replace one newspaper with another - or rather, one title with another, and each of them did not remain long in the title of our legal central organ.

Vladimir Ilyich all the time continued to be the editor-in-chief and, as before, followed all the departments with the greatest attention.<…>

Of course, the editorial office of the newspaper was at the same time the point where the largest amount of the most diverse news converged and from where it was easiest to survey the battlefield.

During all this time, Lenin was, of course, a life-giving figure, the brain and heart of these newspapers, and as before in Vperyod and Proletariat, working collectively and amicably with great intensity, we experienced great pleasure from this always lively, resourceful, flaming leadership. The extraordinary quickness of quick wits, the ability to suddenly compare several facts that seemed very heterogeneous, separate from each other, the amazing speed of maneuvering, the accuracy of formulations - that's what amazed us in our leader.

I have already said that at first my contact with Lenin was limited to work in the newspapers. But that was only at first. Then came some events that allowed me to get in touch with the work of Lenin in other areas.

For reasons mainly of a conspiratorial nature, Vladimir Ilyich avoided extensive public speeches throughout 1905, which did not prevent him from speaking quite often at closed meetings of a party nature, even if quite numerous. His only public appearance before the general public was an energetic political speech delivered by him on May 22 (9), 1906 12at a meeting in the house of Countess Panina under the pseudonym Karpov. I was not at this meeting and I speak about it from the words of the comrades present. They said that it was spread around the hall with lightning speed that this unknown Karpov was none other than the famous Lenin. Therefore, Vladimir Ilyich was received with unceasing ovation. His speech was incessantly interrupted by loud applause, and he was greeted with the same endless ovation.

Lenin's influence through the then apparatus of the Bolshevik part of the Social Democracy was, of course, very great. It was strengthened by a large resonator, which was the legal newspapers in his hands.

However, it must be said frankly that the working class was not at that time clearly organized in any way, despite the presence of the Petersburg Soviet and a number of provincial soviets. Likewise, the party still had a very fragile apparatus. Therefore, events proceeded to a much greater extent by chance than, say, during the preparations for the October Revolution and especially after October ... To this must be added the lack of unity in the Social Democratic Party, which, however, was still considered to be something whole. This largely paralyzed her influence.

Meanwhile, events were moving with great rapidity. Repeatedly Lenin pointed out to us that the revolution was in the greatest danger.

As everyone knows from his public speeches, articles, etc., Lenin already at that time attached great importance to drawing the peasant masses in the villages and the soldiers of the army into the revolution, especially the eastern army, which was dissolving at that time.

However, observations of the agrarian uprisings and their character, the failure of such heroic attempts as the Sveaborg and Sevastopol military uprisings, 13 proved to Lenin and the entire Central Committee that this ally of ours was still quite weak. Not for a single moment, of course, did this induce the Bolsheviks to change their line towards a firm alliance of workers and peasants to the implementation of the slogan of the time, which was given by Lenin: "Democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants."

The majority of the Mensheviks (Martov, Martynov, Dan) took extremely opportunist positions, trying to turn the Soviets and the entire working class into a simple auxiliary army for the bourgeoisie, which, in their opinion, was called to power by history itself.

In the midst of these disputes, the government felt strong enough to arrest the first composition of the Petersburg Soviet on December 16 (3).

This arrest and the apparent incapacity of the St. Petersburg proletariat, exhausted by the previous struggle, for a truly formidable general strike shocked everyone, including, of course, Lenin. Even then I remember Lenin's deeply troubled look, his anxious speeches. He was like a captain on the deck of a ship surrounded by thunderclouds.

As is known, the December uprising, condemned by many Social Democrats (Plekhanov, for example), found the most complete sympathy in the Bolsheviks and their leader. Lenin considered this attempt, in the face of the government's offensive, to transform the movement into a higher form quite legitimate and quite natural. I remember those endlessly disturbing and gloomy days. News from Moscow did not always arrive on time. The position did not seem entirely clear. Lenin greedily swallowed every line of messages that came in, every word of the comrades who came from there.

I still have the impression that the Bolshevik apparatus proper in St. Petersburg, under the leadership of Lenin, did everything in its power to help the Moscow uprising, at least to cut off communications between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Much depended on this at the time.

I was not a direct participant in those groups singled out by the Bolsheviks, which were to use all their efforts to strike on the Nikolaev railway, or, in any case, to sort out the route. The unrest on the road was huge, the way was sorted out, but our strength was insufficient. The Semyonovites rolled into Moscow and predetermined the defeat of the heroic workers of Krasnaya Presnya.

If we in St. Petersburg had more organizing forces, more influence from the proletariat, then, of course, it would be possible to create brighter prerequisites for the further course of the movement than what was created by several days of Moscow street fighting.

In this situation, great changes also took place in the mood of the Mensheviks.

In any case, this circumstance made it possible to reach an agreement, which was dictated by a situation common to all, which threatened the revolution.

After the closure of Novaya Zhizn and Nachalo 14 , an attempt was made to create a single newspaper, which was called the Northern Voice. At the same time, lengthy negotiations began between the Bolshevik and Menshevik centers in order to reach an agreement.

It was here that I often began to meet Lenin and observed him in this phase of the development of our Party as a tactician and strategist in intra-Party battles.

I presided over most of these meetings, but the line of our party was led almost exclusively by Lenin. He only from time to time entrusted individual speeches or statements to someone. Mainly, however, he fought the Mensheviks, and the main goal of this struggle was to force the Mensheviks to take a truly revolutionary position, to take a certain, however, very significant, minimum of actions of a decisive nature.

Some of us, considering it very important to reach an agreement as soon as possible, were ready to make some concessions. But Lenin did not want to change one iota of the pre-set framework for a possible agreement.<…>

At these meetings, we did not come to a definite conclusion. Only the material for the agreement was prepared. Then the material thus created was discussed at separate conferences: at the Bolshevik conference in Tammerfors and at the Menshevik conference, I don't remember where it took place.

As is well known, the result was a unified Central Committee and a unified editorial board of the Central Organ.

Almost immediately thereafter, the failure of the December uprising again changed the political situation. At first, the Bolshevik center (and, above all, Lenin himself) did not regard the Moscow victory of the government as a fact so decisive as to change the basic revolutionary tactics of the party and the proletariat. On the contrary, Lenin took the standpoint of the need to restructure the purely combative nature of our struggle. If I am not mistaken, that big party Bolshevik meeting took place on Vasilyevsky Island, at which Lenin first spoke about the need for guerrilla warfare against the government, about the organization of triples and fives, which, in the form of heroic groups, would disorganize the life of the state and would give, such Thus, in a scattered formation, a gigantic rearguard battle, throwing it over like a bridge to a new upsurge of the revolution.

Subsequently, there were moments when workers and old revolutionaries, vexed by the need to retreat, full of revolutionary fervor, at various meetings and conferences, were divided almost in half between the tactics recently proclaimed by Lenin himself and the new course, which he gradually began to take, the course of preserving the illegal to the party in all its inviolability, to a certain saving of strength, to the need to use all legal possibilities, the remnants of the freedom of the Duma tribune, etc.

We, who continued to be under the impression of the revolutionary events and really failed to understand in time the radical change in tactics to which the events obligated, took the wrong path, which later led some of us out of our party, and forced others to return to it with a guilty head and recognize all the wisdom of Leninist tactics.

As for the Mensheviks, they faded, repented of their revolutionary passions, lost faith in revolutionary possibilities. Among them, the same colors of betrayal, in which the flood had dressed their liquidationist wing, had already begun to appear like plague stains.

But the inertia of the ongoing negotiations for an agreement, a certain veil of the processes that were taking place, on the one hand, in our party, and on the other hand among the Mensheviks, were still strong enough that, in the midst of these disputes I am describing, attempts to unite the party continued. Chief among them was the Stockholm Congress.

The fourth, so-called unity congress of the party does not fall within the scope of this article, since it falls outside the chronological framework of 1905, but the transition to it was the electoral campaign, which in its very spirit is closely connected with the type of work that we conducted in 1905.

During the election campaign, I had to accompany Lenin very often. I think at least ten meetings we spoke together. In most cases, according to a predetermined plan, I set out our main platform. We fought fiercely with the Mensheviks. Although the congress was supposed to be united, everyone understood that depending on the number of votes at this congress, the united party would receive one or another physiognomy.

Lenin told me then: “If we have a majority in the Central Committee or in the Central Organ, we will demand the strongest discipline. We will insist on the subordination of the Mensheviks to Party unity in every possible way. So much the worse if their petty-bourgeois nature does not allow them to go along with us. Let them take upon themselves the odium of the break in the unity of the Party,* acquired at such a high price. Of course, under these conditions, they will take away far fewer workers from this united party than how many of them they brought there.

* They incur hatred for breaking the unity of the party (odium is Latin for hatred). —Ed.

I asked Vladimir Ilyich: “Well, what if, after all, we are in the minority after all? Are we going to unite? “Depends on the circumstances. In any case, we will not allow the association to be turned into a noose for ourselves, and in no case will we allow the Mensheviks to lead us on a chain.”

This shows how difficult the debate was. Every extra vote in Petersburg itself, which was destined to later become Leningrad, was very important. The same struggle, of course, was carried on everywhere.

Even now I remember with the greatest admiration the battles of that time in a heated revolutionary atmosphere. Even the general feeling that the tide of revolution was beginning to fall did not obscure the happy possession of genuine revolutionary, genuine Marxist tactics.

[1930]

On March 13, 1931, A. V. Lunacharsky delivered a lecture on "Lenin as an editor" at the courses of Marxism. In 1960, the lecture was published in an abbreviated form in the book Lenin as a Journalist and Editor under the title Lenin as an Editor.

The full text of the transcript is stored in the archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism.


"Proletary" - an illegal Bolshevik weekly newspaper: the Central Organ of the RSDLP, created by the decision of the III Congress of the Party. V. I. Lenin was appointed executive editor. The newspaper was published in Geneva from May 14 (27) to November 12 (25), 1905. A total of 26 issues were published. Proletary continued the line of the old, Leninist Iskra and retained full continuity with the Bolshevik newspaper Vperyod. Lenin wrote about 90 articles and notes for the newspaper.
We are talking about the All-Russian political strike in October 1905, during which the proletariat of Russia created the first mass proletarian political organizations in world history - the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.
In the summer of 1905, Lunacharsky left Switzerland for Italy (Viareggio, Florence).
V. I. Lenin came from emigration to St. Petersburg on November 8 (21), 1905
We are talking about the tsar's manifesto "On the improvement of the state order." Nicholas II, frightened by the growth of the forces of the revolution, issued a manifesto on October 17, 1905, in which he promised "civil liberties" and a "legislative" Duma.
Novaya Zhizn is the first legal Bolshevik newspaper; published daily from October 27 (November 9) to December 3 (16), 1905 in St. Petersburg. The official editor-publisher of the newspaper was the poet N. M. Minsky, a representative of the symbolist-decadent trend, and the publisher was M. F. Andreeva. A. M. Gorky actively collaborated in the newspaper and helped her financially. With the arrival of V. I. Lenin from exile in St. Petersburg, the newspaper began to appear under his direct supervision. The composition of the editorial board and staff has been changed. Thus, Novaya Zhizn became, in fact, the Central Organ of the RSDLP. It contained 14 articles by V. I. Lenin. Among the employees of the newspaper were: M. S. Olminsky, V. V. Vorovsky, A. V. Lunacharsky, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich.
Minsky N. - see previous comment.
Instead of the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which was closed by the tsarist government, the Bolsheviks organized the publication of a new legal newspaper, which came out under various names: Volna, Vperyod, Ekho. In July 1906, the legal Bolshevik newspaper was closed down by the government.
The IV (Unity) Congress of the RSDLP was held in Stockholm on April 10–25 (April 23–May 8), 1906.

The article "From the Memoirs of Lenin in 1905" was first published in the journal Proletarian Revolution 2, 3, 1930.


This refers to the Russian troops that participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. On September 27 (October 10), 1905, V. I. Lenin wrote in the article “Bloody Days in Moscow”: “The Manchurian army, judging by all the information, is extremely revolutionary, and the government is afraid to return it, and it’s impossible not to return this army, under the threat of new and even more serious uprisings” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 11, p. 317).
About this rally - see: Lenin V.I. Poln, coll. cit., vol. 13, p. 91, 92, 93–94.
In 1905–1906 a wave of peasant uprisings took place in Latvia, Poland, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus. As a result of these speeches, in August 1905, the All-Russian Peasant Union arose. Lenin wrote: “It was a truly popular, mass organization, which, of course, shared a number of peasant prejudices, yielding to the petty-bourgeois illusions of the peasant (as our socialist-revolutionaries are yielding to them), but unconditionally revolutionary in its basis, capable of applying truly revolutionary methods of struggle. ”(Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works, vol. 12, p. 334).

The armed uprising in Sevastopol began on November 11 (24), 1905 and lasted 5 days.

The uprising in the fortress of Sveaborg (near Helsingfors) began on the night of July 17 (30) to July 18 (31), 1906. July 20 (August 2) the uprising was crushed.


"Nachalo" is a daily legal Menshevik newspaper: published in St. Petersburg from November 13 (26) to December 2 (15), 1905

Stockholm convention
Memories under this title were published in 1926 in connection with the 20th anniversary of the IV (Unification) Congress of the RSDLP in the journal Proletarian Revolution. In 1930 they were included in the book From Underground Circle to Proletarian Dictatorship.

A. V. Lunacharsky was among the Bolshevik delegates at the congress, he delivered speeches in defense of the Leninist agrarian program and on the question of an armed uprising.

Iask the reader not to treat this short article as a sketch of the Stockholm Congress. This would require a lot of preliminary work. The article that I am writing at the request of the editors of the journal represents only the personal impressions of one of the participants in this congress, moreover, insofar as they were retained in his memory.

* * *

The idea of ​​the need for rapprochement in the essence of the RSDLP, which had finally been torn into two parties, arose quite naturally. True, by the time negotiations between the two factions intensified, there were already two undercurrents in the party. One continued not only to say, but also to think that the revolution was advancing progressively. After all, even at the congress itself, even after the December defeat, faith in an immediate new revolutionary wave was still strong. At that time, she also owned Vladimir Ilyich himself.

As for the Mensheviks, some of whom, as is well known, later jumped to liquidationism, even before December, in the autumn of 1905, they were inclined to think that the revolution was on the wane.

However, both those who thought that new victories were ahead of us, and those who believed that a retreat had begun, equally understood how important it was to rally all the working ranks both for advancement and for organized self-defense. Hence a long series of negotiations in which they were looking for ways to unite.<…>

I personally heard such considerations from the lips of Plekhanov. Perhaps partly under his influence, the leading Mensheviks thought the same way.

At the same time, however, it must be said that both factions had hope for a majority at the Stockholm Congress. It was assumed that the congress would acquire an appropriate coloring, and then the matter of unification would become easier.<…>

The most important questions on the order of the day, as you know, were the revision of the agrarian program, the question of the Duma and the armed uprising. On these three pillars stood the whole problematic building of the association.

The first issue was the agrarian question. There were several agricultural programs. Lenin and the group of Bolsheviks who supported him considered it necessary to declare all the land nationalized in the event of the victory of the revolution. On this nationalized land, of course, peasant farming was to develop in its natural development. Lenin was not afraid of the strengthening of statehood, because he firmly believed that the workers' and peasants' government that emerged from the depths of the revolution would be able to prevent a reaction. The nationalization of the land was, in his opinion, the natural end of the bourgeois revolution as such, for he considered private ownership of land to be a remnant of the feudal system.

The Mensheviks at that time had little faith in the final victory of the revolution. Therefore, they immediately, in the so-called municipalization program, adopted some kind of half-way point of view. It was neither a direct transfer of land to the peasants, as happened during the French Revolution, nor the nationalization of the land. This confusing program was later, in the course of the work of the congress, even more confusing.<…>

There were many speakers on the agrarian question, but, in essence, the center of gravity was reduced to the struggle between Plekhanov and Lenin. Lenin expounded his ideas first. The main idea of ​​his report was that in the countryside it was necessary, first, to destroy all traces of the landlord regime, for which purpose it was necessary to strive to create revolutionary peasant committees there, and by this he wanted to draw the peasantry as deeply as possible into the revolutionary struggle and creativity. Fighting in this way for real land, the peasant could most easily abandon all his monarchical prejudices and staunchly stand for the final political revolution, for the most democratic form of the republic. It was clear to everyone that Lenin was aiming for a very consistent revolutionary government in which the Socialists would actually predominate or have enormous influence.

Lenin's report was bright, ardent and convincing, as always, full of faith in the revolution. When I remember him now and compare him with the much more resolute positions taken by Lenin after 1917, I see that they are organically intertwined. Only eleven years later, Lenin, already in the light of the revolution, managed not only to go further in general, but also to shed light on the conditions of the workers’ and peasants’ revolution with extraordinary classical clarity, with its problems of completing the agrarian revolution of the small peasantry and initiating communist construction. In the light of these subsequent events, it becomes clear what a tremendous foresight was in Lenin's position at the Stockholm Congress.

The complete opposite, even in the very manner of speaking, in all style, as well as in essence, was Comrade. John, aka Maslov.

Some rumpled, shabby, indecisive and sluggish, he ascended the podium and began to literally mumble his speech. When shouting "louder" he slightly raised his voice, and then again fell into muttering. From time to time he stopped, as if he did not have enough factory, and for quite a long time he hung helplessly on the podium. His speech, as it was delivered, seemed to me not an answer to Lenin, but an incident to clearly show the difference in the very temperaments of the fighting parties.

Following this, G. V. Plekhanov appeared in all the charm of his artistic word and in all the splendor of his authority. He spoke a little like an actor and even somewhat disappointed our provincial audience. <...> Plekhanov, in his speech at the Stockholm Congress, as far as I remember, proved that the peasant is a rebel, because he burns the landowners' estates, but then he is immediately ready to kneel before the tsar father, that he is a slave and a statesman, that we will never reach a truly consistently revolutionary government hand in hand with him, that even less can we hope for any gaps in the direction of socialism if we are for nationalization, and only speaking in essence , we will serve to strengthen the statehood, which in no case will be ours, perhaps even directly reactionary.

I will not dwell on further vicissitudes of speeches about the agrarian program, less vivid speeches, moreover, have vanished from my memory.<…>

I remember well Lenin's idea, which I later developed in my speech in response to Plekhanov. Plekhanov kept imagining that by seizing power Lenin meant almost a personal dictatorship. Lenin responded indignantly to this idea and clearly dissociated himself from all Blanquism. He didactically taught Plekhanov what he was talking about the seizure of power by the broad masses of workers and peasants. But, apparently, for Plekhanov it was some kind of unfamiliar music. He saw only two prospects: if the seizure of power, then the seizure of power by conspirators; if the revolution, then some kind of constituent assembly, from which emerges a motley figure, at best, of a bourgeois-democratic government.

As a result, the Mensheviks passed their resolution, but introduced various amendments and corrections to it.

Then the congress proceeded to an assessment of the general state of the revolution and, in connection with this, to the tactics that were prescribed for the revolutionary party at the moment. the starting point of their semi-liberal heresies. They again put forward the slogan of support for the opposition bourgeoisie and even began to emphasize that the liberal bourgeoisie, although it is a bourgeoisie, is still liberal, Westernist, and civilized. The peasantry, with its unwashed snout, can at any moment turn out to be a stronghold of the autocracy.<…>

The resolution on the current situation was drawn up by Lenin, who involved me and 2-3 other comrades in this work. It was filed under our names. But she collected only Bolshevik votes.

The battle continued on the basis of another resolution, which was supposed to specifically highlight the issue of an armed uprising. Krasin acted as speaker on this issue. Taking into account the sharpened attitudes towards the question of an armed uprising on the part of the Mensheviks, Krasin very carefully and carefully pointed out the difference between our view of an armed uprising and any putschism. I remember that Cherevanin's speech, which referred to the fact that we were not ripe for the revolution, and demanded purely political and even psychological preparation, was brilliantly answered by Yaroslavsky. He spoke like a man who has sniffed genuine gunpowder, really close to the real practice of the so-called technical preparation for an uprising, as well as to the preparatory work in the army. It was on this point that I had to make my main speech at the congress. I ridiculed the idea of ​​seizing power imposed on us by Plekhanov. He said that for our time such a seizure of power can only be seen in operettas and that we Bolsheviks have nothing in common with the operetta prospects of a conspiratorial adventure.<…>

The congress ended with a striking definition of two irreconcilable positions, and yet there was an attempt at organizational reconciliation. Vladimir Ilyich, Stalin, Krasin and other leaders of our faction, after extremely painful debates, nevertheless insisted on the need for a united Central Committee of the Party, although they perfectly understood that we would not succeed in united work. Nevertheless, the mood of the party was such that it was impossible to take responsibility for the break. It was decided in practice, in practice itself, to show that the Mensheviks, in their efforts to get rid of Bolshevism as soon as possible, are inevitably pushing us towards declaring our own independence.

We were perfectly aware of our solidarity and clarity of our ideas and knew that Menshevism would not swallow us up and could not digest us.

The Stockholm Congress had already brought forward a large phalanx of such strong, clear-thinking people on the part of the Bolsheviks that, despite all the cultural brilliance of Plekhanov’s argumentation, no majority of the Mensheviks could, I think, hide from the eyes of an attentive observer the infinitely greater proportion of Bolshevik revolutionaries.

We left the congress not disappointed, not defeated, but triumphant.

[1926]

The overthrow of autocracy. A few memories

The memoirs were first published on March 11, 1927 in Nasha Gazeta and Evening Kyiv, as well as in the Red Panorama magazine No. 11.

Later they were published as part of the collection Lunacharsky A. V. Memories and Impressions. M., 1968.

The overthrow of the autocracy did not take us by surprise. The general course of the war and what reached us in relatively free and windswept neutral Switzerland from Russia greatly strengthened in us, Social Democrat emigres, the hope of an imminent explosion of the revolution.<…>

“When the Russian autocracy swayed and when the February revolution took place, Vladimir Ilyich began to strive for Russia ... Vladimir Ilyich understood how the revolution was robbed, that the revolution was made, of course, by the workers, relying on the soldiers, and the bourgeoisie received power.”

("Lenin and the RCP")

Nevertheless, the fall of the autocracy happened so easily, the rotten fruit fell off the branch so quickly that, of course, the joyful suddenness of this event cannot be denied. For us emigrants, it was, of course, a bright holiday. Everyone congratulated each other, everyone was immensely happy and tried to infect the French and German Swiss with this happiness. I myself had to make several presentations in Russian and French, where, completely possessed by violent revolutionary joy, I sang real hymns in honor of the beauty of the Revolution, which came to our country not only to radically change its entire fate, but also to throw its revolutionary energy into the service of the world revolution.

On the second or third day after the revolution, we, the then group of Vperyodists, decided to submit ourselves to the leadership of the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, and I went to Lenin on purpose with this statement.

All small disagreements, and especially various emigrant scum, flared up and burned out in an instant in the bursting flame of the revolution, and the next thought was a passionate question: how can we be, how can we get there, to our homeland? And one had to get there at all costs, not only because one wanted to live or die where great revolutionary events took place, but also because the keen eye of Vladimir Ilyich noticed from afar and in his public “Letters to the Homeland” * reflected the possibility perversions of the revolution. Do not allow it to freeze on social-patriotic and, in essence, deeply bourgeois positions, to use all your strength to ensure that its flame is inextinguishable and that power passes into the hands of the proletariat! This desire turned into some kind of mad melancholy. We could not find a place for ourselves, we rushed into all the cracks through which, it seemed to us, we could leave peaceful Switzerland and reach the place of revolutionary battles.

* Refers to Lenin's Letters from Afar. —Ed.

All means were tried, but the countries of the Entente huddled together as an impenetrable wall. Not a single émigré, tuned in to the tuning fork of Kienthal or Zimmerwald, and even more so leftists, should not be allowed into revolutionary Russia! Here Vladimir Ilyich announced to us the possibility, through the mediation of the Social-Democrats of German Switzerland, of obtaining passage to Russia through Germany.

"... Lenin is grandiose, Some kind of yearning lion, setting off for a desperate battle." (From a letter to A. A. Lunacharskaya)

A cloud of controversy arose. Some, naive moralists, talked about the fact that it was not ethical to use such permission at all, and gave away the social-patriotic and petty-bourgeois spirit that lived in them. Others declared that, although this is permissible in itself, our enemies will be able to interpret it at random and utterly compromise us in the eyes of the working masses.

Vladimir Ilyich, all sort of resilient and as if blazing with inner fire, hurriedly, with the power of elemental instinct, striving for revolution like iron to a magnet, answered with a kind of carefree grin on this occasion: “What do you imagine that I could not to explain to the workers the permissibility of stepping over any kind of obstacles and entangled circumstances in order to come to them and fight together with them, win or die together with them?

And when we listened to these words of the leader, we understood that our class would not condemn us.<…>

I did not arrive with Ilyich, but on the next train 1 and was not present at that great picture, which is now depicted in the artistically powerful monument to Ilyich in Leningrad: Ilyich in an armored car, throwing an almost furious appeal into the crowd: “Do not think that you have made a revolution , the revolution has not yet been made. We came to finish it together with you!”

[1927]
Arrival of Lenin. A few memories
These memoirs were first published on April 16, 1926 in Krasnaya Gazeta No. 87.

The news of the coup 1 found me near Geneva. I immediately went to Zurich to have a talk with Vladimir Ilyich and, putting aside all the petty disagreements that still remained between the Leninists and the Vperyod group, simply, without reservation, offer him all my strength.

“The October proletarian revolution turned out to be possible, because in Russia the proletariat, working in a concentrated industry, had support in the peasantry, who were pushed to the revolution by the poor and lack of rights. It turned out to be possible because we had the RCP party forged by history.”

(“On the characteristics of the October Revolution”)

And immediately the main concern for all of us became - to secure the opportunity to travel to Russia.

Of course, Vladimir Ilyich was the most resolute in this regard. I was only at one meeting in Zurich, where there was a corresponding dispute. At that time, it became clear that the hopes of the optimists for a passage through the Entente countries turned out to be empty. Grimm, one of the leaders of the Swiss Social Democracy, 2 who took a great part in the whole affair, guaranteed the possibility of passage through Germany. But a fairly large number of intermediate types were found. They feared that they would be compromised in the eyes of the masses if they took such a slippery slope to return home.

At the meeting I'm talking about, Vladimir Ilyich resolved precisely these considerations. With a smile on his face, confident, calm and cold, he declared: “You want to assure me that the workers will not understand my arguments about the need to use any road in order to get to Russia and take part in the revolution. You want to assure me that some slanderers will succeed in misleading the workers and assuring them that we old, experienced revolutionaries are acting to please German imperialism. Yes, this is for chickens to laugh at.

This short cry, imbued with granite faith in one's unity with the working class, I remember reassured many. Negotiations proceeded with great rapidity and ended without any preliminaries. I am very sorry that my family circumstances did not allow me to go with the very first train with which Lenin traveled. We solemnly saw off this first echelon of Bolshevik emigrants, who were on their way to fulfill their world historical role in a country engulfed in a semi-revolution. We all burned with impatience, in the spirit of Lenin's famous Letters from Afar, to push this indecisive revolution forward. Lenin rode calm and joyful.

When I looked at him, smiling on the platform of the departing train, I felt that he was internally full of such thoughts: “Finally, it finally came, what I was created for, what I was preparing for, what the whole party was preparing for, without which our whole life was only preparatory and unfinished.”

When we arrived in Leningrad by the second train, we had already met Lenin there at work. It seemed that he arrived not 10 or 12 days ago, but many months. He already, so to speak, has grown into work. We were told with admiration and surprise about his first appearance in the city, which later received his name. A colossal mass of workers came out to meet him. But the Bolsheviks were not yet a majority even in the Soviet. But the instinct of the masses told them who had arrived. The people have never met anyone like that.<...> When Lenin at the first meeting declared that it was necessary to break off all unity with the Compromisers, when he launched all those brilliant tactics that his party later carried out, as if by music - not only elements wavering among Social Democrats, but even people from a very old Bolshevik milieu faltered. I think,

We, the second emigrant train, joined this work. Happy were those whose revolutionary instinct led them at once along the paths of Lenin!

[1926]

This refers to the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917.
As soon as Lenin learned from the Swiss newspapers about the revolution in Petrograd, he immediately began to make attempts to leave Switzerland for Russia. One of the plans for returning home was to travel through Germany. Negotiations with the German envoy in Switzerland on the passage of Russian political emigrants through Germany were started by the Swiss Social Democrat, federal adviser Robert Grimm, but due to his refusal on March 19 (April 1) to conduct further negotiations on the return of political emigrants until the approval of the Provisional Government of Russia, the case was transferred to the leftist Zimmerwaldist, the secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Platten, who brought it to the end. The departure took place on March 27 (April 9). March 31 (April 13) Lenin arrived in Stockholm with a group of emigrants and on the same day left through Finland to Russia.

Lenin and October
The memoirs were published in the Krasnaya Niva magazine, 1924, No. 44.

Iam not in a position to write in any detail here on this subject. I can only sketch a few individual strokes.

Everyone knows that Lenin, the proletarian and soldier masses - that's who were the founders of October. Rarely, at such a historical moment, all the greatness and all the power of the individual was revealed to such a huge extent, when he was the real spokesman for the masses. The most experienced revolutionaries, the most zealous followers of Ilyich, both before the announcement of the uprising, and during the dramatic events in Moscow, and during the offensive of Kerenskyism on Petrograd, felt dizzy and breathless. But Vladimir Ilyich was completely calm. The political storm, the unheard-of risk, surpassing all human strength, seemed to be the atmosphere in which he was destined to breathe. Each of his letters, each of his articles at the time when he called for revolution, hurried with the offensive, breathed both courage and courage.

This spectacle inspired calm in others, and if anyone became shy, if it seemed to anyone that the line taken by Ilyich was too steep, then not only Ilyich pulled up such a weakened one, but immediately some delegation of one or another part of the workers appeared with assurances of his readiness to follow the party to the end, with an appeal not to weaken.

When I look back at these days, this peculiar chord first of all emerges in front of me: absolutely steadfast leaders, going in practice towards the most radical goals and full of unity with them, and no less great, of course, the St. Petersburg masses.

The leaders and the masses were up to the task they had undertaken, and it is a great historical justice that Petersburg is now called Leningrad.

Out of these days, charged to the highest tension with will and energy, then a seven-year ribbon of great events unfolded, first with Lenin, then without Lenin, but under his unlowered banner, and this scarlet golden ribbon of events will stretch further until the final victory.

[1924]

Smolny on a great night

The article was first published on November 7, 1918 in the journal "Flame" No. 27.

The entire Smolny is brightly lit. Excited crowds of people scurry along all its corridors. Life is in full swing in all the rooms, but the greatest human tide, a real passionate blizzard, is in the corner of the upper corridor: there, in the very back room, the Military Revolutionary Committee met.

When one finds oneself in this whirlpool, one sees from all sides heated faces and hands reaching out for this or that directive or for this or that mandate.

Orders and appointments of tremendous importance are made right there, dictated on the typewriters chattering incessantly, signed with a pencil on their knees, and some young comrade, happy with the order, is already flying into the dark night in a frenzied car. And in the very back room, without leaving the table, several comrades send their orders, like electric currents, in all directions to the rebellious cities of Russia.

I still cannot remember this stunning work without amazement and consider the activity of the Military Revolutionary Committee during the red October days one of the manifestations of human energy, proving what inexhaustible reserves it has in the revolutionary heart and what it is capable of when it calls for effort. thunderous voice of the revolution.

The meeting of the Second Congress of Soviets began late in the White Hall of the Smolny. 1 The Communists have this special feature: you will not often meet among them people seething with passion, sometimes reminiscent of frenzy and even hysteria; with enormous energy and internal burning, they are usually outwardly calm, and this calmness comes to the fore just on the most risky and bright days.

The mood of the audience is festive and solemn. Great excitement, but not the slightest panic, despite the fact that the battle around the Winter Palace is still going on and news of the most disturbing nature is brought every now and then.

The speeches of the communists are received with stormy enthusiasm. What an unceasing storm of applause met with the long-awaited announcement that Soviet power had at last penetrated the Winter Palace and that the capitalist ministers had been arrested.<…>

Vladimir Ilyich feels like a fish in water: cheerful, working tirelessly and having already managed to write somewhere in the corner those decrees on the new government that someday will become - we already know now - the most significant pages in the history of our century.

I will add to these cursory touches my reminiscences of the first appointment of the Council of People's Commissars. This took place in some little room at the Smolny, where the chairs were covered with overcoats and hats, and where everyone crowded around the dimly lit table. We chose the leaders of a renewed Russia. It seemed to me that the choice was often too random, I was always afraid of too much discrepancy between the gigantic tasks and the people chosen, whom I knew well and who seemed to me not yet prepared for this or that specialty. Lenin waved me away in annoyance and at the same time said with a smile:

- For now ... we'll see there, we need responsible people for all posts; if they don't fit, we can change it.

How right he was! Some, of course, changed, others remained in place. How many there were who, not without timidity, set about the assigned task, and then turned out to be quite up to its height. Some, of course, - not only from the audience, but also from the participants in the coup - were dizzy before the grandiose prospects and difficulties that seemed invincible. More than anyone else, Lenin peered at gigantic tasks with amazing balance of soul and took them up with his hands in the same way that an experienced pilot takes on the steering wheel of an oceanic giant-steamboat.

You remember, like some special music, like some special psychological smell, this explosive atmosphere of that time. Whoever experienced this will never forget it, for that Smolny will remain the center of his life. I am sure that someday Smolny will be considered a temple of our spirit, and crowds of our descendants will enter it with reverence, for whom every crumb of memories of the days whose anniversary we celebrate will seem like a treasure.

[1918]

The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was held on October 25–26 (November 7–8), 1917 in St. Petersburg. The congress opened on October 25 at 10:40 am. evenings. Lenin was not present at the first meeting, as he was busy leading the uprising (at that time, detachments of the Red Guard, sailors and the revolutionary part of the Petrograd garrison stormed the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was located).

At four o'clock in the morning on October 26 (November 8), the congress heard a report about the capture of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisional Government and adopted Lenin's appeal "To the Workers, Soldiers and Peasants!", which proclaimed the transfer of power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. On behalf of the Bolshevik faction, A. V. Lunacharsky read out the appeal. The second session of the congress opened on October 26 (November 8) at 9 pm. Lenin delivered a report on peace and land. The congress approved the historic decrees on peace and land written by Lenin. The congress formed the government - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by V. I. Lenin.
 

 From October memories

These memoirs were first published on November 7, 1928 in Krasnaya Gazeta No. 260.

It is always very scary to recall something from conversations with Vladimir Ilyich, not for oneself personally, but for publication. Still, you do not have such a vivid memory that every word, which, perhaps, at that time did not attach maximum importance, was imprinted in the brain, like an inscription carved into a stone, for decades, and meanwhile refer to what it said great mind, allowing for the possibility of some kind of distortion, very terrifying.

However, on the eleventh anniversary of October, I would like, rummaging through the memories that swirl around this bright point in the life of every Bolshevik revolutionary, to find and, if possible, clarify what I heard from the great leader in those gigantic days.

It was on the day the first Council of People's Commissars was formed. I was told that the Central Committee of the Party, in selecting the composition of the government, decided to entrust me with the People's Commissariat for Education. The news was exciting, even frightening by the enormous responsibility that was thus placed on my shoulders.

Much later, quite by chance (we were all swamped with all sorts of work at that time), again in the corridors of the Smolny, I met Vladimir Ilyich himself. He beckoned me to him with a very serious face.

“I must say two words to you, Anatoly Vasilyevich. Well, I don't have time to give you all sorts of instructions about your new duties now, and I can't say that I had any completely thought-out system of thoughts regarding the first steps of the revolution in education. It is clear that a lot of things will have to be completely turned over, reshaped, launched along new paths. I think you definitely need to have a serious talk with Nadezhda Konstantinovna. She will help you. She thought a lot about these questions and, it seems to me, outlined the right line ... As for higher education, Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky should be of great help here. But with all the reforms, in my opinion, you need to be very careful. The matter is extremely complex. One thing is clear: every effort must be made to expand access to higher educational institutions to the broad masses, especially the proletarian youth. Apparently, with a certain caution, of course, it will be necessary to use scientific forces for what the British call "University extension".one

I attach great importance to libraries. You must work on this matter yourself. Call the librarians. A lot of good things are being done in America in this area. The book is a great power. As a result of the revolution, the craving for it will greatly increase. It is necessary to provide the reader with both large reading rooms and the mobility of the book, which must itself reach the reader. We will have to use mail for this, to arrange all kinds of forms of movement. For the whole bulk of our people, in which the number of literate people will grow, we will probably lack books, and if we do not make the book volatile and do not increase its circulation many times over; then we will have a book hunger.

I hope that I will soon find a moment to talk with you more about this and to ask you about the work plans that are being determined in front of you and what kind of people you can attract. Now you yourself know what time it is: even for the most important business you can find, and even then with difficulty, some ten minutes. I wish you success. The first victory has been won, but if we do not gain a whole series of victories after this, then it will be bad. The struggle, of course, has not ended, but is only at the very, very beginning.

Vladimir Ilyich shook my hand warmly and, with his confident, quick gait, went to one of the numerous offices at that time, where new ideas and a new will of the newly born proletarian state were swarming and building.

I transmitted my first conversation with Vladimir Ilyich on public education in the form of a direct speech from his lips. This does not mean, I repeat, that all this was printed in my memory and that I am transmitting Vladimir Ilyich's words like a good gramophone. No, to my great regret, but I tried to recreate these words with the utmost accuracy for my memory. As far as I can imagine, I haven't omitted a single word of any significance, and certainly haven't added.

[1928]
 

From the memories of the front

The memoirs of A. V. Lunacharsky about a trip to the front in the Tula fortified region were first published on February 23, 1928 in Krasnaya Gazeta No. 53 (evening issue) and in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper No. 46.

During almost the entire civil war, I almost continuously broke away from my People's Commissariat and, as a representative of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, went to different fronts. It was my duty to cover the various Red Army units of the general political situation. It goes without saying that during this time I have accumulated a lot of memoirs, which, perhaps, will someday be printed by me.

There were terrible days of Denikinism in its greatest bloom. Denikin's army took Orel. Moscow was extremely unsettled. Even very staunch military communists admitted the possibility of further successes of our enemies, although the Latvian division had already made its maneuvers, which were one of the reasons for the subsequent rollback, in general, Denikin's army, which undoubtedly melted in its parts.

Traveling around the fronts, I visited the Tula fortified area.<…>

When I returned from Tula, I immediately, as usual, went to Vladimir Ilyich to tell him about all my impressions. I told him about the Tula fortified region and about the intense activity of the comrades who were entrusted with watching over it. Vladimir Ilyich, of course, perfectly understood the extreme gravity of our situation at that time. After listening to everything, he somehow darkened slightly, frowned, and, without looking at me, said:

“Yes, the Tula fortified region is serious, there you need to defend the approaches to Moscow. It is very important not to drop the mood of the population itself. Serious control is needed not only so that treason does not creep into the district, it is also necessary to maintain cheerfulness in time. Don't you think, Anatoly Vasilyevich, that it would be best for you to return to Tula? You know, so they don't feel abandoned. Tell them, both the military, and the workers, and the townspeople, about the general political situation, inspire them with more vigor. And I would ask you to return from there only if the Denikinists roll back.

This kind of assignment should have been interpreted, of course, as follows: return if you defend Tula, and if you don’t defend it, then it doesn’t seem particularly interesting whether you can return, since it is necessary to defend this position in the full sense of the word to the last drop of blood . So I understood Vladimir Ilyich and on the same day I went back to the Tula fortified region.<…>

[1928]

Lenin in the Council of People's Commissars

These memoirs were published in Krasnaya Gazeta No. 17 and Evening Moscow on January 21, 1927.

Under Lenin, the Council of People's Commissars was efficient and fun. I must say that the spirit of strict routine and cheerfulness, which testifies to strength and confidence, has taken root in the Council of People's Commissars very firmly. But, of course, Lenin remains Lenin.

“It’s a great happiness to remember how in the same room, at the same table, at the same common business, I had a chance to sit with this amazing person ...”

("Lenin as a scientist and publicist")

“When the time comes, the very personality of Vladimir Ilyich, Lenin the man, will become the subject of careful and loving study. What is biographical in him, what is intimate in him, is also of great human value.”

(Foreword to the book "Lenin and art. Literature, music, theater, cinema, art")

Already under him, external methods of considering cases were established: extreme strictness in determining the time of speakers, whether they were their own speakers or speakers from outside, whether they were participants in the discussion. Already under him, extraordinary conciseness and efficiency were required from each speaker. A kind of condensed mood reigned in the Council of People's Commissars, it seemed that time itself had become denser, so many facts, thoughts and decisions fit into every given minute. But, at the same time, there was not the slightest smell of bureaucracy, the game of high-ranking, or even the tension of people doing overwork. More than ever, under Lenin, this work, with all its responsibility, seemed easy.

And this "Leninism" extended to all members of the Council of People's Commissars. They worked hard, worked cheerfully, worked with jokes.

Lenin began to laugh good-naturedly when he caught someone in a curious contradiction, and behind him the whole long table of the greatest revolutionaries and new people of our time laughed - either at the jokes of the chairman himself, who was very fond of joking, or of one of the speakers. But immediately after this stormy laughter, the same cheerful seriousness set in again, and just as quickly, quickly, a river of reports, an exchange of opinions, and decisions flowed.

You should have seen how Lenin listened. I do not know a face more beautiful than that of Ilyich. A seal of extraordinary strength rested on his face, something leonine lay on this face and on these eyes when, looking thoughtfully at the speaker, he literally absorbed every word when he subjected the same speaker to a quick, well-aimed additional interrogation.

Although there were many first-class bright minds in the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin usually worked through all questions faster than others and came to a complete solution. However, in this there was not the slightest desire, so to speak, to artificially show their superiority. If someone suggested a suitable solution, Lenin quickly grasped its expediency and said: "Well, dictate, you have said it well."

Lenin became angry, especially in the Council of People's Commissars, extremely rarely. But he got angry. He did not choose his expressions. Words flew from his lips, such as: "Soviet dignitaries whose mind has gone beyond reason", "rotozey", "bungling" and other unpleasant definitions that sometimes come across in his papers, telegrams, telephone messages, etc.

But no one has ever been offended by Lenin's "bloom". A communist or generally a strong Soviet person who takes offense at Lenin is some kind of bad taste and even just an incredible figure.<…>

[1927]

Parting
These memoirs of A. V. Lunacharsky were first published in 1971 in the book “Literary heritage, vol. 80. V. I. Lenin and A. V. Lunacharsky. Correspondence, reports, documents” under the title “From unpublished memories of V. I. Lenin”.

Ilearned about the death of Vladimir Ilyich with a significant delay. On the day of January 9*, I was supposed to make a report in the morning at the Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR on the eradication of illiteracy and at 7 o'clock to speak at a large meeting of university students in the Ziminsky Theater with a characterization of the significance of the events of January 9, 1905. I arrived at the Bolshoi Theater at the beginning of 12 o'clock for a report and was surprised to note that while I was going up the stairs a crowd of comrades from the stage of the theater had densely tumbled towards me. Everyone's faces were upset and some were crying. My heart sank immediately, and I realized that something serious had happened. I went up to Comrade Lepeshinsky, whose eyes were full of tears, and asked her what was the matter. It was from her that I learned that Vladimir Ilyich had died the night before. Shaken by this news, I went home and did not even know what to do, for in the first minute a kind of peculiar apathy overwhelmed me first of all. Meanwhile, it turns out that they called me in the People's Commissariat for Education and the Kremlin, and in the end they even sent a car for me.<…>

* January 9, Art.  - 22 January a.d. Art.- Ed.

I went to MK. The comrades were just beginning to gather there. I was instructed to speak instead of 7 o'clock at 4½ in the same Ziminsky theater in order to devote the speech mainly to the event that shocked everyone.<...>

The comrades suggested that I come to the Paveletsky railway station in the evening in order to spend the night with them at the teacher’s coffin and accompany his body to Moscow.<…> I went straight to the Zimin theater. The people gathered slowly, not, of course, because there were no hunters to enter the hall, but because there were too many of them, and, as usual, the matter dragged on with the passage of the masses into the theater. At 57 o'clock someone in the hall began to read aloud a bulletin about the death of Vladimir Ilyich, which had been published a few minutes earlier. Prior to the meeting, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee called me to arrange for a thorough photographic and cinematographic recording of all the circumstances relating to the death and burial of Vladimir Ilyich. I immediately got in touch with Comrade Kadomtsev, head of the Goskino, and found out that various film organizations agreed to create a single committee for the creation of a corresponding historical film and to hand over all the proceeds from its exploitation to a special fund named after Ilyich. I told Kadomtsev that the filmmakers he would send to Gorki could contact me in case of any misunderstanding, as I would be there all night.

The meeting began. It was difficult to talk about Vladimir Ilyich, as always at a time of too great upheavals. What I said was written down in shorthand and, it seems, involuntarily resulted in a speech of sufficient enthusiasm, since V. V. Mayakovsky, whom I met immediately after the end of my speech, shook my hand warmly and said: “Well spoken.” The mood of the assembled students was extremely solemn and deeply clouded.

I arrived at the Paveletsky railway station, as agreed, by 9 o'clock. The train manager told me that the special train would not leave until 10, but that it had already been served. I entered the almost empty car, there was only Comrade Narimanov, one of the chairmen of the Central Executive Committee of the Union, and some of his closest associates. But very soon after me came comrades from the Central Control Commission - Gusev, Shkiryatov, Kiselev, the poet Demyan Bedny also came with them. The train actually left at 11 o'clock and ran for half an hour, so we had more than two hours to talk.

The conversation revolved, of course, around Vladimir Ilyich and was full of memories of him.<…>

When we arrived at the station, it turned out that there were quite a few of us. In addition to the delegation from the [Central Committee] of the party, which included me, there was also a delegation from its Moscow organization, from the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, all the members of the Central Control Commission present in Moscow, the delegations of both congresses of Soviets, 1 person in total, I think 40, if not 50 There were also some people's commissars who came on their own initiative, including Comrade Krasin. 3 or 4 carts were sent to the station, about 16 people. I relied on my strength and went along with the majority on foot.

I had long ago freed myself from attacks of heartache, which had previously prevented me from walking far, and therefore I hoped even now to walk safely 4 versts. But, apparently, the impression of the death of the teacher was too strong, and after walking several hundred steps, I felt a strong pain in the aorta. I had to, without saying a word to any of my comrades, let them all pass ahead of me and very slowly and carefully set off on their further journey. I had to stop every hundred or fifty steps. In view of this, I arrived late in Gorki, but on the other hand I experienced several solemn minutes, which somehow merged for me with all the impressions of that night. The night was very cold, but windless. It wasn't cold at all. An extraordinarily bright moon shone, so that the whole vast plain was spread out in a bluish-silver veil, as far as the eye could see. The road was paved and paved. Several times I met peasants who widened and rammed this road to carry the coffin the next day. You walk, and for a long time behind you hear the rustling of shovels and restrained, as if in a church, the speeches of the workers. So alone, in the middle of an immense field, under this calm cold moon, I could remember well, think over and somehow adapt to the enormous grief that has fallen on all of us.

The road to Gorki goes in big zigzags. When I got to the highway, I didn't know which way to turn. I met a little boy, and I asked him without much hope of an exact answer: "Do you know where to go to Lenin's dacha?" But the boy immediately told me very precisely and in detail how to get there. Not far from the cottage you enter the forest. At first it looks like an ordinary, rather neglected forest, then it turns into a very long alley of fir trees, perhaps a mile away. There are some cottages along the way. Electricity burned brightly above them. Several times I thought that this was the dacha in which the great dead man lies, but it turned out that I was mistaken. Finally I got to Gorki. Lenin lived in the central house of a whole group of buildings. Here, obviously, some big landowner lived and lived with great luxury. The central house seemed like a real palace with a majestic colonnade. Its slightly heavy, but still empire-slender bulk under the pale blue light of the moon seemed a worthy mausoleum. You enter the house through a wide staircase. Since I was very late, all the comrades had already seen Vladimir Ilyich by this time and were sitting wherever they could, on chairs, sofas, just on the floor. There were also peasants from among the representatives of the congresses, and there were also some delegates from the Eastern peoples. Absolute silence reigned. Who spoke, spoke in a whisper. Comrade Belenky of the GPU, who in all the last months was, so to speak, head of Vladimir Ilyich's bodyguards, gave orders. Tov. Belenky showed me where to go to the body. This is on the second floor, where one enters by a fairly large staircase, first into a room, just as elegant as the hall on the ground floor, hung with old paintings, all mainly in the style of the thirties, then into the room where Vladimir Ilyich rests. This not very large oval room was by this time already covered with evergreens, conifers, palms and laurels. Vladimir Ilyich was lying in a brown jacket, unusually calm, and his face immediately struck me. <...> I was unconsciously afraid that I would see him as some kind of stranger, but instead, our Lenin, our Ilyich, lay on the table, absolutely the same as he was before of his illness, only not smiling. And he had a lively, sly and affectionate smile. But, of course, we had to see him and serious. This is how it lay on the table. A majestic, imperious, strong face, with the same beard and trimmed mustache, closed eyes, but such that it seemed that they were about to open. And the hands were placed on the chest, one clenched into a fist, the other naturally and calmly, slightly bent at the fingers, they also seemed completely alive.<…>

A guard of honor was organized, changing every ten minutes. I had to be one of the first on guard, and I had the opportunity to peer into this unforgettable face for a long time. When I finished guarding, Nadezhda Konstantinovna came out of her room. She began to tell very curious and significant things about Vladimir Ilyich. Some of them I want to share here.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna said: “I do not think that even in these difficult last months Vladimir Ilyich felt unhappy. From the time he got the opportunity to read, he read newspapers with great interest, choosing what was especially important to him. He especially loved all the factual and ... articles that have agitational significance. Lately I've been reading fiction. They brought him a large pile of books, and he selected for himself only the things of Jack London, which he asked to be read aloud to him. Political interest prevailed all the time over all the rest. Vladimir Ilyich took a deep interest in the peasant conference. 2 I read everything related here. I was excited about the discussion. 3<...> He was interested in what was written about him, read greetings, wishes for recovery. He apparently took great pleasure in recognizing the bond-love between himself and the masses. Life gave him some undeniable joys. He loved nature very much, he liked to go hunting. I traveled with some comrade Mikhailov and got great pleasure, although sometimes I got overtired.<…> He loved children very much. When children came to him, he rejoiced. And the children, not understanding his serious illness, treated him simply, without any fear or embarrassment.”

For the entertainment of Vladimir Ilyich, a room cinema was arranged. He willingly agreed to watch this movie with Nadezhda Konstantinovna and his sister after dinner, but it did not give him much pleasure. He laughed ironically and waved his hand. Indeed, the program of these film evenings in Gorki was, according to Nadezhda Konstantinovna, below any criticism. Rarely, rarely, did a bit of a chronicle or a more or less revolutionary production evoke some approval from Ilyich, but, believing that all his family members were very interested in this movie, he himself, with hasty courtesy, always agreed to sit and watch. Until recently, he did not experience physical suffering after the second blow. The improvement was undeniable, especially with regard to the legs. The first time Vladimir Ilyich decided to take a walk himself, he drove absolutely everyone out of the room,

We spent the night somehow.<...> Early in the morning everyone got up and started talking about how and to whom to take out the coffin ... Everyone sought the honor to go through at least one line with the coffin of Vladimir Ilyich.

At the beginning of the tenth hour the procession started. It turned out that I walked most of the way with the peasants and peasant women of neighboring villages.<...> It is clear that they came, attracted by the great word of Lenin, and completely ignorant people. This time 4 fingers were done superbly, and we soon arrived at the station.<…>

From the Paveletsky railway station to the House of the Unions is approximately 6 versts. I was surprised at Nadezhda Konstantinovna, who walked both large pieces - from Gorki to the railway and from the station to the city center. Maria Ilyinichna and Anna Ilyinichna walked on either side of her.

Both in Gorki and during the journey, even from airplanes, cinematographic and photographic shootings were made. They were produced immediately upon the establishment] of the robe in the midst of the hall blazing with chandeliers covered with fleur. The guard of honor was again set up, and an endless, ever denser procession, one might say, of a whole people, stretched out.<…>

We are talking about the XI All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which was held in Moscow on January 19–29, 1924, and the II Congress of Soviets of the USSR, which was held in Moscow on January 26–February 2, 1924.
Apparently, A. V. Lunacharsky is referring to the international peasant conference of representatives of the USSR and foreign organizations that took place on October 10-15, 1923 in Moscow, in the Andreevsky Hall of the Kremlin, who arrived at the Agricultural Exhibition. The opening of the exhibition took place in Moscow on August 19, 1923.
Despite his poor health, Lenin closely followed the events in the country and abroad. Nadezhda Konstantinovna regularly read newspapers to him. Lenin closely followed the course of the discussion that Trotsky and his supporters forced on the party in the autumn of 1923. The Trotskyists slandered the Central Committee, demanded the freedom of factions and groupings in the party, and offered to make economic concessions to international capital. The party gave a decisive rebuff to the Trotskyites.