Written: 20 July, 1918
First Published: First published in 1942 In Lenin Miscellany XXXIV; Published according to the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, page 544
Translated: Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert Daglish
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Online Version: Lenin Internet
Archive March, 2002
It is essential to move the maximum number of workers from Petrograd:
(1) some dozens of “leaders” (a la Kayurov)
(2) thousands of “rank and file”.
Otherwise we shall fall, for the situation with the Czechoslovaks is as bad as could be.
In such a situation it is silly to “sit tight” on the “wellbeing” of Petrograd and to “grudge” giving from there: let the Bolshevik majority in the Petrograd Soviet of Deputies even fall from 98 per cent (have you 98 per cent?) to 51 per cent! What does it matter!
We shall not perish even (even!) if in Petrograd the number of those not ours in the Soviet of Deputies goes up to 49 per cent (if ever this does happen). But we shall certainly perish owing to the Czechoslovaks unless we make desperate efforts to add hundreds and thousands of leading workers in order to convert the jelly into something solid. This is not an exaggeration but an accurate appraisal. You will be responsible for our perishing if you are miserly and keep back “for Petrograd”.
Greetings! Yours, Lenin
P.S. Reply!
July 20, 1918