Published: First published in Russian in 1973.
English version: Moscow, Progress Publishers 1978.
Translated: From the Russian by Fainna Glagoleva
Transcription\Markup: Sam Berner and David Walters
By Way of Introduction
V. I. Lenin. The Story of His Life
Joy
Winter Evenings
A Summer’s Day
The River Boat
At School
Worries 8
Father Dies
March 1st
Farewell, Simbirsk!
The Meeting at Kazan University
A Road Is Chosen
Beyond Nevskaya Zastava
The First Book
Four Leaflets
Nadezhda Konstantinovna
You Can’t Silence Us
Cell No. 193
The Green Lamp
I’ve Come to You for Advice”
The Events of May
At Vaneyev’s Bedside
Freedom Again!
The Spark Will Kindle a Flame
Lenin
The Bolsheviks
The Massacre ...
The Red Flag at Sea
Secret Meetings
Enforced Exile
A Meeting in Stockholm
Longjumeau Village
Declaring War on War
Home for Good
A Time of Loss
All Power to the Soviets
A Green ,Study
The Stoker of Engine No. 293
A Strange Retreat
Another Secret Address
On the Eve
At the Smolny
The Beginning
The Capture of the Winter Palace
The First Decree
The White-Columned Hall
Thus Did They Live
What We Don’t Know We’ll Learn
A Hard Lesson
Moscow
The Revolution’s First Steps
In the Villages
Invasion
Three Deadly Bullets
The Difficult Years
A Day in Sokolniki
Bitter Losses
“I Am a Son of the Working People...”
State Property
“In the Merry Month of May”
The YCL
Dreams and Deeds
A Year of Great Hardship
The Meaning of NEP
’When the Ice Rang
The Beacon
New Year’s Eve
The Battle Continues
The Autumn of 1923
Love of Life
Rise, Comrades!
Cherry Blossoms
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
I was a teacher in a small village in the twenties. Nearby, on the high bank of the quiet Shakha River, was the village of Gorki. A manufacturer named Ganshin had once had an estate there. The younger Ganshin, a student at the time, was responsible for Lenin’s book What the “Friends of the People” Are and How ‘;They Fight the Social-Democrats being printed here in secret in 1894.
I learned of this from an elderly local teacher who had seen Vladimir Ilyich, then a young man of twenty-four, come to Gorki.
The teacher took me to Gorki and acted as my guide. “Here’s where we walked down this path, and this is the bench on which Vladimir Ilyich and his student friend Ganshin sat. Ganshin was in charge of printing Lenin’s book then.”
This was an exceptional book and especially its conclusion, which read as a prophecy: “…The Russian worker, rising at the head of all the democratic elements, will overthrow absolutism and lead the Russian proletariat (side by side with the proletariat of all countries) along the straight road of open political struggle to the victorious communist revolution.”
This visit made an unforgettable impression on me.
I began a serious study of everything connected with the life and work of Vladimir Ilyich as a young man.
My first book, entitled The Beginning, deals with Lenin’s work in creating the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, an organisation which was to lay the foundation for the party of Russian Social-Democrats and, later, the Russian Communist Party. Naturally, the tsarist government could not stand for Lenin and his comrades-in-arms conducting a struggle against the tsar and the capitalist system under their very noses. That was why Lenin and so many of his comrades were arrested, jailed and exiled to Siberia.
I set out for the village of Shushenskoye near the Yenisei, a great Siberian river. Here Lenin spent nearly three years in exile. Far on the horizon were the white-capped Sayan Mountains. I followed all the roads and paths Lenin had traversed while in exile here. I read all the articles and the books he had written in Shushenskoye. I was stunned by the scope of work Vladimir Ilyich had undertaken and completed in exile. He formed a detailed plan for creating a party. To this, end it was imperative that a secret Social-Democratic working-class newspaper be founded.
I next wrote a book about a year of Lenin’s life in Shushenskoye. I called it A Wonderful Year. Although the events described in it cover only one year of his exile, it was wonderful in the scope and importance of the work done, in plans and changes. This was a very happy year in Lenin’s life, for his betrothed, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, came to Shushenskoye and they were married there. She was a fine, intelligent and charming young woman, a revolutionary who had also been exiled.
This exalted world of revolutionary action, thought and emotions in which they lived captured my imagination. I was unable to part with this theme.
That is how Three Weeks of Rest, my next book, came into being. This was the story of Lenin’s journey to Ufa to take’ leave of his wife after his term of exile was up, though hers was not. He would then be going abroad to begin publication of the famous Party newspaper Iskra.
Vladimir Ilyich never sought rest or relaxation. His life was a life of toil for the Party, the people and the revolution. There was never a day’s respite, never a moment’s idleness for him.
Thus it was that I wrote three stories about Vladimir Ilyich as a young man before I undertook my most important book V. I. Lenin. The Story of His Life.
I was beset by doubts. Would I be able to achieve the goal I had set myself, and tell the young reader of this great man?
I am very grateful for the help and advice I received from my colleagues, editors and Party workers. I was always aware of their warm support and, most important, I know that a biography of Lenin, written simply and with love, was needed. This was how I wrote the book.
Maria Prilezhayeva
February 19
JOY
Skylarks trilled over the quiet town of Simbirsk on the Volga, where the river makes a sharp bend. The river had just cleared of ice. The streets and gardens were filled with the chirping of birds and the birches swayed in the wind. There was the joy of spring in the air.
There was great rejoicing in the Ulyanov home that day. The sun poured in through the windows, and the whistles of the river boats were clearly heard, for the house overlooked the Volga.
As the mother bent over her newborn son’s cradle she wondered, “What will you be when you grow up? What does life hold in store for you?”
The infant’s father, Ilya Nikolayevich, entered. “Hello, dearest,” he said to his wife. The elder children, Anna and Sasha, were ‘with him. Anna had dark eyes and curly hair. She was six years old and Sasha was four. They went up to the cradle, their eyes wide with wonder. “This is your new brother, children,” their father said.
“How small he is,” said Anna.
“He’ll get bigger in time,” her father replied.
“What’s his name?” Sasha asked, rising on tiptoe to get a better look.
“Let’s name him Volodya,” said his mother.
“Yes, Vladimir is a fine name,” her husband agreed.
This was on April 22, 1870. Vladimir Ulyanov, the child who was born in the town of Simbirsk on the Volga that day, grew up to be the great Lenin.
WINTER EVENINGS
The years passed swiftly. Volodya was now eight. There were three more children in the family. His sister Olya and his brother Mitya were both younger than he.
And now there was the littlest of all, newborn Maria. Three boys and three girls, a fine family.
Anna and Sasha were at school, while Volodya was still being tutored at home in preparation for grammar school. He learned much from his tutor, but still more from his mother, Maria Alexandrovna. She seemed to know about everything, including stories about the tropics and the northern countries, about the intelligent St. Bernard dogs that rescued lost climbers in the Alps, about Napoleon’s war against Russia and the great Battle of Borodino.
There was no end to Mother’s fascinating stories in the long winter evenings as they sat around the table. Volodya loved those evenings. There were the frost-covered windows, his mother’s voice and the soft rustling of pages as they read.
The evenings before Christmas were especially fun. Then the table would be piled high with coloured paper. The children were busy cutting and pasting, making paper baskets and chains for the fir tree.
Ilya Nikolayevich was working in his study. Maria Alexandrovna shut the door tightly, so that the children’s voices would not disturb him.
They were all at work on a glorious paper chain of pink, blue, gold and yellow links. Soon the candles on the tree would be lit.
“Let’s go and see the tree,” Volodya said.
“Let’s!” said Olya.
“Me, too,” said little Mitya.
“Let’s hold hands and form a chain,” said Anna.
It was spooky in the large, dark parlour. The moon filtered in through the icy tracings on the windows, casting white beams on the floor. The tree stood tall and mysterious, giving off a strong scent.
“Let’s explore the whole house,” said Volodya.
They were all a bit tense. The house, unusual in the dark, was still new to them, for they had but recently moved. Here was Mother’s room, with a curtain instead of a wall to separate it from the small hall. A night light burned on the chest of drawers. Maria was asleep in her cradle. The moving chain of children tiptoed round it.
They climbed the narrow stairs to their rooms. The moon was brighter and stronger here.
Still holding hands, the children went through the upstairs rooms and returned down the narrow stairs.
The door to Father’s study opened. “Ah, and here is my troop!” he cried, folding them all in his embrace. He noted that the children seemed more quiet than usual. They were still holding hands. Ilya Nikolayevich did not know that they had been exploring the house as a moving chain. But something about the way they looked made their father say, “My dears, always be as close to each other as you are now.”
A SUMMER’S DAY
Summer’s golden days were upon them. The summers in Simbirsk were hot and dry. Apples ripened in the many orchards.
There was an orchard behind the Ulyanovs’ house, too. Though not very large, it had many fruit and shade trees. There was an avenue of silvery poplars, great elms and acacias that flowered so abundantly that that corner was called the Yellow Bower.
It was seven o’clock in the morning. A sunbeam slipped through the window and onto the pillow. Volodya awoke. He opened his eyes and jumped out of bed. After some quick setting-up exercises he splashed some water on his hands and face and ran out into the orchard. It was great to be the first one out and to pick up the apples that had fallen during the night. Then he could treat the rest of the family to them.
Everyone in the Ulyanov household rose early. Sasha and Volodya had the chore of filling the barrels with water from the well. The sun-warmed water was used to water the flowers. If they hadn’t filled the barrels in the evening, they would fill them the first thing in the morning.
Then the samovar was set out on the breakfast table, Mother reminded them at breakfast that today was their French day. That meant only French was to be spoken at the table. Tomorrow would be their German day.
Naturally, it would have been simpler to speak Russian at all times, but Maria Alexandrovna felt that one should know several languages.
“What will you do after breakfast?” Olya asked Volodya.
“Whatever Sasha does.”
As usual, Sasha sat down to read. He always read serious books, for he was interested in chemistry and the natural sciences. He had made himself a laboratory in a shed and a nature study corner with a hedgehog and squirrel.
Summer was fun. You could take a book, find a shady corner in the orchard and just forget about the rest of the world. The only sounds until lunch were the birds chirping in the trees and the humming of Mother’s sewing machine coming from the open window. Mother was forever sewing for her brood of six. She had taught the girls to sew, too.
After lunch, having spent the morning reading, Olya said to Volodya, “Let’s go out and play.”
When the sun had left the yard they would play croquet on the lawn. Volodya and Ilya Nikolayevich were the ones who argued most heatedly. They laughed the most, too. The games were always fun. Meanwhile, the sun would be rolling towards the west. Evening would soon be upon them.
“To the Sviyaga, troop!” Father would call.
The entire family would then go down to the Sviyaga to bathe. It was a quiet stream, flowing between green banks.
The sky was still pink from the sunset, though the first bright star had already appeared as Volodya and Sasha walked on ahead towards home.
“What are you thinking about?” Volodya asked.
“About many things. See that star? How did it get there? And how did life begin on Earth? And why are we here? What is the meaning of our lives?”
Volodya listened to his brother in silence, his own thoughts rushing on. “Yes, why are we here? What is our purpose? It’s so interesting to be alive, to think, to ask questions and to discover the answers. To do things. Sasha is so very clever. I want to be like him.”
THE RIVER BOAT
A double-deck steamer stood at the pier. The portholes and the polished brass glittered in the sun. The captain was shouting orders through a megaphone as he stood on the bridge.
“We’d better get on board. It might pull away suddenly,” Volodya worried.
Father checked their tickets and baggage. Each one of them carried a basket or bundle. Soon after they had got aboard, the whistle gave off two deep blasts and one high-pitched shriek. The wheels began to turn, churning up the water. They were on their way to Kazan. From there it was forty miles by carriage to the village of Kokushkino where they would spend the summer.
Simbirsk was fading in the distance. Soon all they could see of it was its red roofs. After they reached the bend in the river the town disappeared completely.
A flock of noisy gulls accompanied the steamer. Volodya tossed them some bread and then ran to inspect the engine room. The shiny copper boiler shuddered from the pent-up steam inside. The pistons shot back and forth. Spurts of steam escaped through the valves with a loud hiss. The stoker, naked to the waist, was black with grime. Sweat trickled down his back as he fed coal into the firebox.
Its wheels turning rhythmically, the steamer was chugging up the Volga. The passengers promenaded on deck, enjoying the beautiful view. Ilya Nikolayevich came out of his cabin carrying a chessboard. He had carved each of the attractive wooden chessmen himself, and no two were exactly alike.
“Feel like playing?” he said to Volodya.
His father never gave in to him, even though Volodya was only nine. However, Volodya was no baby, for he would be taking the grammar school entrance examination in August. His carefree days would soon be over.
“My dear sir, what do you say to being checked?”
“My distinguished opponent, I don’t like that at all,” Volodya replied and moved his knight.
“Aha! That was tricky. We’ll move this pawn then.” “But we’ll gallop away from your pawn and….”
The wind ruffled Volodya’s chestnut hair. The sun on the water was blinding.
“You know, it’s beastly hot in the engine room,” he said and frowned. “It smells of oil there. The stoker’s drenched. Can’t anything be done to make it easier on him?”
His father was silent. Sasha, who had just joined them, said, “The owner doesn’t care how hard the stoker works.”
“But that’s not fair!” Volodya exclaimed.
“So many things in life are not fair.”
The boys looked at their father.
“You always stand up for fairness, Father,” said Sasha.
Just then the whistle blew long and loud, greeting a steamer that was coming towards them, and the boat began to rock.
AT SCHOOL
In August 1879 Volodya was to take the first-grade entrance exams. The grammar school, a two-storey brick building, stood in the centre of the town, not far from the Volga. Volodya would spend the next eight years here.
First, however, he would have to pass the exams. The teachers sat at a long table. The boys were called on in turn. Volodya walked confidently up to the blackboard. He had no trouble in answering the questions put to him. He was asked to do a problem on the board and solved it quickly. He received excellent marks in every subject. “Volodya’s been accepted! He’s a schoolboy now!” his brothers and sisters shouted when he returned. They made a great fuss over him. He tried on his new uniform and admired the shiny brass buttons. He would start in the first grade the next day. His mother gazed out the window, thinking that there were two boys at school now, Sasha and Volodya. And Anna was at a girls’ school. How time flew! The children were growing up quickly.
In the evening the hanging lamp with the white shade was lit in the dining room. The children sat around the table, doing their homework. Five-year-old Mitya had no homework to do. He was busy drawing a steamer with a smoking stack and row upon row of high waves. Volodya was soon through with his work, which was simple the first day of school. He then made a paper grasshopper and went off to find some string. Hop, went the grasshopper, right onto Anna’s book.
“Stop it, Volodya. Don’t be naughty.”
He yanked at the string and the paper toy disappeared. A moment later there it was, hopping onto Sasha’s notebook! The children giggled. This would go on until someone caught the grasshopper and broke the string.
“Be still,” Anna said to Volodya.
That was easier said than done. Volodya was full of mischief. “Mitya!” he called softly to his little brother. “See my horns? I’m going to butt you!”
As Volodya’s waggling fingers came closer, Mitya jumped down, shrieking with laughter, and hid under the table.
“Volodya, come into the study,” said his father, appearing in the doorway.
Volodya, still flushed with excitement, followed Ilya Nikolayevich into the study. It contained a large desk and a bookcase set against one wall with an oval table and a sofa against the other.
“Sit down. I want you to sit quietly for a while,” Ilya Nikolayevich said and resumed his work. As far back as he could remember, Volodya had always been impressed by his father’s study. His father, the director of the region’s State schools, had many responsibilities. In the cold and mud of autumn and in the dead of winter he would travel for hundreds of miles to inspect the village schools. There was probably not a single elementary school in the whole of Simbirsk Province to which his father did not journey, helping the teachers wherever he went. At home there were his reports and articles on education to be written and schedules to be drawn up. His father’s working day began early in the morning and ended late at night.
“Well, that will be all for today,” Ilya Nikolayevich said, putting a sheaf of papers into a folder. “As the saying goes: work first, play after. And don’t annoy others,” he added in a stern, yet gentle voice. “Now, tell me about school. How did you like it?”
Volodya proceeded to tell him about his first day at school.
They could hear music coming from the parlour and both headed there softly. It was dim in the room. Mother was playing the piano by candlelight. The music was as bright and cheerful as a summer’s day. They sat down in a corner of the sofa and listened.
WORRIES
When Volodya was in the junior forms his father worried about him. He was a very bright boy, but would he ever learn perseverance and discipline? In time his father saw what a serious student he had become. For one, his parents set him a good example at home, where everyone respected the labour of others.
His brother Sasha had graduated from Grammar school with a gold medal and had entered St. Petersburg University. On the day of his departure he and Volodya had gone to the high bank of the Volga, a favourite spot of theirs. The sky was boundless here and the view magnificent.
“What qualities do you value most?” Volodya had asked.
“Work. Knowledge. And honesty,” Sasha had replied. Then, after a moment’s thought, he had added, “I think Father is a good example of what I mean.”
Sasha’s words came back to him now. Ilya Nikolayevich had left on a trip to the outlying village schools. He should have long since returned, but there was still no word of him.
Volodya was studying in his small upstairs room. Adjoining it was another room just like it. This was Sasha’s room, now empty, for his brother had left for the University nearly three years before. Anna was also in St. Petersburg, studying at the Higher Women’s Courses. Volodya missed them both, but Sasha especially.
“Enough moping,” he said to himself. “There are things to be done.”
Having done his homework, he prepared the books he would need for the next day, a habit he had acquired from the start. Then he spent the evening reading.
Volodya’s teachers did not know that he had been reading the books of such revolutionary democrats as Dobrolyubov, Pisarev, Belinsky, and Herzen, learning things he would never learn at school. These books opened his eyes to the injustices of the existing social system.
Volodya raised his head from his book and looked at the clock. How quickly the hours had passed! He would go down and spend some time with his mother.
She was not alone. Ivan Yakovlev, his father’s friend and colleague, was in the dining room. He was a Chuvash by nationality and was an inspector of the schools for Chuvash children. Yakovlev was a great patriot of his small people, oppressed by the tsarist government.
“Ilya Nikolayevich is a most noble person. He never tries to please his superiors, and he’s really concerned about making things better for the people,” he was saying. “He has done so much for the Chuvash and Mordva peoples. He was responsible for so many schools being opened for our children.”
“I don’t know what’s detained him. I’m so worried,” Maria Alexandrovna murmured.
Music drifted into the room. It was his sister Olya playing a piece by Chaikovsky. They were silent as they listened.
But what was that? The sound of sleighbells? Yes, they were getting closer. Volodya jumped up. His mother rose quickly, an expectant smile on her face.
“Volodya! Children! Father’s back!”
Now they all heard the sleighbells passing under the window, then stopping by the gate. Soon Ilya Nikolayevich entered in a sheepskin coat. There were icicles in his beard.
Everyone helped him off with his coat. The children brought him his jacket and slippers. They set the table and each tried to help him to something. Ilya Nikolayevich was touched. He stroked his beard awkwardly and said, “Ah, it’s good to be home after an icy journey like that!”
When the first rush of greetings was over and the redness caused by the frost had left his father’s cheeks, Volodya thought that his father looked pale and drawn. And sad. Ivan Yakovlev seemed to have noticed this, too.
“Is there any bad news, Ilya Nikolayevich?” he asked.
A deep furrow crossed his father’s high brow. “I’ve just come from a village in the steppe, a most desolate spot. The schoolhouse is in the centre of the village, buffeted by all the winds. There’s tiny room for the teacher. She has neither newspapers nor books to read. And there’s no firewood. Imagine, no wood for the schoolhouse in winter! And all because the teacher didn’t toady to the rich village elder. He’s out for her blood, and there’s no one to defend her.”
“But surely you did!” Volodya exclaimed.
“Yes, I did. And then I rode off, while she remained behind, alone again. The elder has the entire village under his boot. The peasants dare not even speak up. They have very little land of their own, because the landlords own it all. By January the poor families have no grain left.”
Ilya Nikolayevich began pacing up and down. He unbuttoned his collar, for he felt short of breath. His eyes were unhappy.
“Dearest, you’re so tired,” Maria Alexandrovna said. “What you need is a good rest.”
“Not at all, I’m still as strong as an oak,” he said. “And there’s a whole forest of young oaks coming up,” he added, putting his arm around his son. Like his father, Volodya had high cheekbones and a high forehead. He was pleased at his father’s embrace, but shy, and so only smiled in return.
FATHER DIES
The winter holidays would soon be over and Anna would return to her studies in St. Petersburg. She had come home for the holidays, but Sasha had not, for fare for two was very expensive.
Anna had missed her home and family and now rejoiced at every little thing, even at the potted plants in the dining room and in the parlour and at the sight of the old piano. Now Mother was not the only one who played. Olya was becoming very proficient. Volodya kept close to his elder sister all during her stay. They would sit on the sofa in the parlour and talk in the gloom, without lighting the lamp. Sometimes Olya would join them to listen to Anna’s stories of life in St. Petersburg.
“When will our turn come to study there?” both Volodya and Olya wondered.
That day, January 12, 1886, they were talking in the parlour as usual.
“Children, come and have your tea!” Mother called. They rose and tiptoed past their father’s study, as they had always done since childhood.
Father was very busy. He was writing his annual school report, working on it from dawn to dusk. Every day school inspectors and teachers would call on him to discuss the curricula and progress reports.
Volodya glimpsed his father’s back through the open door. He was sitting at his desk, leaning his cheek on his hand. “Father never spares himself,” Volodya thought.
It was warm and cosy in the dining room. The samovar came to a boil and whistled softly on its tray, dispersing his anxious thoughts. Once again he felt content and happy. Anna resumed their talk. She said that Sasha had all the makings of a fine scientist. In time Volodya would also enter the University, Olya would perhaps grow up to be a pianist, for she had made great progress and was a dedicated and hard-working girl. Mother had taken Father a glass of tea and now sat at the table knitting and listening to their talk. A short while later their father appeared in the doorway of his study. He looked at them intently, then turned and went back in.
“Something’s wrong. He’s not his usual self,” Volodya thought anxiously.
“I’ll go and look in on Father,” Maria Alexandrovna said suddenly. She put down her knitting and hurried into the study.
“Children! Anna! Volodya!” she cried.
Their father was lying on the couch, his eyes clouding over. He was shaken by chills.
They ran for the doctor. Doors slammed. There was worried whispering.
An hour later the children lost their father.
They set his coffin in the parlour. Maria Alexandrovna stood beside it in silence. The girls wept. Volodya struggled to keep back his tears. “Father, dearest Father, how shall we live without you?” each of them lamented.
Many people came to pay their respects. These were teachers, students and friends. Volodya had always known that his father was working hard to bring education to the people, but only now did he fully realise how much he had done for the common good.
Ilya Nikolayevich was buried on a bright, frosty day. The trees, covered with hoarfrost, stood as silent sentinels. Red-breasted bullfinches flew from branch to branch, sending down sprays of silvery snow. Walking in front of the pall-bearers were Ilya Nikolayevich’s pupils. They carried the wreaths.
“Farewell, Father,” Volodya said. “I shall never forget you.”
MARCH 1st
One day, when his father had still been alive, Ivan Yakovlev had brought a Chuvash youth to see Volodya.
“Would you tutor him?” Yakovlev had said. “The Chuvash people need educated men and women.”
Volodya had agreed to study with Okhotnikov, refusing to accept payment for these lessons. Now, after his father’s death, Volodya put all his efforts into their lessons, as a remembrance of his father, who had done so much to bring education to the Chuvash children.
“He was a great man. He did so much for the people,” Okhotnikov said of Ilya Nikolayevich.
Volodya was beginning to ponder ever more often over the question of how one was to live for the good of one’s people. He was gladly tutoring a peasant’s son, yet more could certainly be done. He was coming to understand that the revolutionaries were the true defenders of the people. However, Volodya did not know exactly what revolutionary work consisted of. He was against the bureaucratic, unjust school rules. He did not believe in God. He thought a great deal about the injustices of life, where the rich were idle and had everything, and the poor worked themselves to death and had nothing. And he did not like the tsar, who was a despot. But how did one fight against all this?
Did Sasha ever think about these things in St. Petersburg, or was he far removed from politics, engrossed only in his studies? Volodya did not know.
The events of March 1, 1887 were like a bolt out of the blue to Volodya, his mother and even to Anna, who had always been so close to Sasha.
Classes had just ended that day. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, there was a messenger awaiting Volodya outside the school building. He had been sent by Vera Kashkadamova, a teacher and an old family friend.
“She says you’re to come to her house immediately!”
She was waiting for Volodya, looking pale and nervous as she handed him a letter. It was postmarked St. Petersburg.
A group of students had attempted to assassinate the tsar, Alexander III, on March 1st. The attempt had failed, and all of them had been arrested. His brother Alexander Ulyanov was one of the group.
Volodya was thunderstruck. He thought of Sasha, tall and slim, with his large, dreamy eyes. His talented, intelligent brother Sasha. And his sister Anna. She, too, had been arrested.
A year had not yet elapsed since their father’s death. Their mother was still in mourning. She did not weep when she learned the news. Instead, she left them instructions for running the household in her absence and prepared to leave for St. Petersburg that very day. Volodya’s heart ached to watch her silent movements.
He was now the eldest one at home. His youngest sister Maria was only eight.
“Let’s play, Volodya,” she would say. “Why don’t you ever laugh any more?”
He forced himself to play with her, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Sasha, my dear, dear brother, what will they do to you?” The thought gave him no peace.
The final school examinations began in May. Both Volodya and Olya were graduating that year. They went for their exams in stony silence and waited until they were called upon. The teachers were amazed at their knowledge. Both of the Ulyanov children were at the top of their classes. Meanwhile, the local paper had carried the news of Alexander Ulyanov, son of the recently-deceased director of the State schools, who had dared to… .
Volodya was on his way to his next examination. The street was full of the wild chattering of birds, of spring bustle and joy.
He noticed a group of people standing around a lamp-post. A sheet of paper had been pasted to the post. Everyone was reading it. There was one of his father’s colleagues. At the sight of Volodya the man turned and walked off quickly. The crowd melted away before him. Slowly, Volodya approached the post. He read the public notice and the world turned dark before his eyes. The five students who had taken part in the assassination attempt had been executed. Sasha had been executed.
Notices of the execution had been posted all over town.
A dread silence greeted Volodya as he entered the school auditorium where the examination was to be held. He was the first of his class to solve all the problems in geometry and trigonometry. In silence he handed in his notebook and left.
Volodya headed for the high bank of the Volga. The spring-flooded river was rushing its deep waters to the Caspian Sea. A small tugboat was pulling a barge. All was still and calm. What had they done to Sasha!
A week later Maria Alexandrovna returned home from St. Petersburg. Her hair was completely white.
FAREWELL, SIMBIRSK!
Nearly all of their Simbirsk acquaintances closed their doors to the Ulyanovs and tried to avoid any chance meeting. When Maria Alexandrovna went out, people in the street would hurriedly cross over to the other side in order not to have to greet the mother of an executed man.
But she walked on proudly, her head held high. She never wept, she never spoke of Sasha. How greatly Volodya admired her for her strength and pride.
Volodya’s graduation day neared. His teachers argued as to whether they had the right to award the brother of an executed man a gold medal. However, he had passed all his exams with flying colours. Finally, they decided to award him the medal he had earned.
“Volodya should go on to study at the University,” his mother said to Ivan Yakovlev, their old family friend. “But they won’t accept him in St. Petersburg now, will they?”
“No, they won’t. There’s no sense in even applying.”
The few true friends they had in Simbirsk were Ivan Yakovlev, Volodya’s pupil Okhotnikov and the school-teacher Vera Kashkadamova. The family’s grief had brought them all closer together.
Shortly after, a small notice appeared in the local paper: “Moving. Will sell house and orchard, grand piano and furniture. Moskovskaya Street, the Ulyanov house.”
Their home soon came to resemble a railway station, with the front doorbell pealing constantly. Prospective buyers stamped through the rooms, knocking on the walls, inspecting the furnishings, staring openly at Maria Ulyanova and whispering to each other. She stood by the door, pale and solemn in her black dress, with a piece of black lace pinned to her white hair. How Volodya wished he could rush up to her and shield her from those hostile, impudent stares. He tried to be as self-controlled and strong as she.
His thoughts revolved constantly around his elder brother. “Sasha, you hated the tsar. You wanted to kill him. You thought that would change things in the country, that it would give the people a better life. Six years ago revolutionaries assassinated Alexander II. Has anything improved since then? Not at all. A new tsar took the former tsar’s place. Are things any better under Alexander III than they were under Alexander II? Not one bit. That means your way of fighting is wrong. There must be another road.”
Meanwhile, the front doorbell never stopped ringing. Buyers came to look and finger, and carry away their new possessions.
There was no buyer for the piano.
Volodya stroked its polished top. “You’re a part of our life and our happy times,” he said to it.
And so the old piano accompanied the family to their new home in the city of Kazan.
THE MEETING AT KAZAN UNIVERSITY
Volodya thought that at Kazan University he would have greater freedom than he had had as a pupil of the Simbirsk grammar school. He was sorely mistaken. The University supervisors were always informed of each student’s actions and words. They were on the watch to see if anyone had spoken out against the tsar, the government or Inspector Potapov. Inspector Potapov was a coarse, hulking man with leaden eyes. The supervisors would report to him on each student. Potapov compiled lists of those of whom the supervisors did not approve. Such students were usually expelled without further ado. This was especially true in the case of the poorer students. It was becoming ever more difficult for a poor student to continue his studies, since the tuition fee had been increased several times.
Life at Kazan University was as bleak and depressing as life in prison. Indeed, at the time all of Russia resembled a huge prison.
On December 4, 1887, the Kazan papers carried the news of student riots in Moscow. A secret appeal was circulated among the students of Kazan University: “Stand up for your rights!”
At noon the call went out: “We’re meeting in the auditorium!”
A crowd of students rushed down the long corridors to the auditorium. Volodya Ulyanov was in the lead. They streamed into the sombre hall.
“Comrades!” the chairman of the impromptu meeting said. “Let us pledge to support each other and fight for our rights. We demand freedom and justice!”
Just then the bearded, top-heavy figure of Inspector Potapov appeared. “In the name of the law, I demand that you disperse immediately!” he bellowed.
“Get out! Down with him!” the students shouted.
Potapov stalked out. Soon the Rector appeared. The noise died down. The Rector was handed a petition. It read, in part: “Life in Russia has become unbearable. The life of the students has become unbearable!”
“Please be calm,” the Rector said, trying to pacify the excited young men.
“Do you refuse to meet our demands?” the students persisted. “Comrades, let’s leave the University as a sign of protest. Hand in your student cards.”
One card was placed on the table, then a second, and a third. The students were flinging down their student cards. There were ninety-nine in all.
Volodya Ulyanov was one of them. That same evening he was expelled from the University.
That night the police came to his house and arrested him. Several days later Vladimir Ulyanov was banished to the village of Kokushkino, where he was to be kept under constant police surveillance.
A ROAD IS CHOSEN
It was a cold and bitter winter in Kokushkino. The small house offered poor protection against the cold. At night the wind howled in the chimney. The snowdrifts reached as high as the windows. It was sad and lonely here.
Volodya spent the better part of each day reading. Chernyshevsky was his favourite author. His revolutionary ideas fired Volodya’s imagination. Chernyshevsky analysed the existing social order in Russia most clearly. The tsar, the high-ranking officials, the factory owners and landlords ruled the country, while the workers and peasants led miserable lives. He revealed these social injustices and proved that struggle and revolution were the only solution. Volodya read and reread his books, each time discovering something new.
He now saw the way ahead more clearly. Volodya’s thoughts were many, as were his plans. What was his goal in life? The revolutionary struggle. He wanted to devote his life to the struggle against the tsar and the rich, to bring freedom and happiness to the people.
Yes, his one goal now was the revolutionary struggle. But he would have to have some means of earning a living. He simply had to complete his education and acquire a profession.
That spring Volodya applied for readmission to the University. His application was refused. Late that summer his mother sent a similar request to the Minister of Education. The minister declined. Then Volodya himself applied to the minister and was again refused.
If such was the case, he would study the entire university course by himself. And so, by studying independently the expelled student Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov completed the four-year course of the Faculty of Law in a year and a half and set out for St. Petersburg to take his bar examination.
The questions he was asked were difficult, indeed. The professors of the examining board listened to his replies intently. When they saw that he had a sound and extensive knowledge of law, their decision to pass him with honours, something none of the other students were granted, was unanimous.
Volodya, who, since he had become an adult, was called Vladimir Ilyich, was in excellent spirits. He had never been in St. Petersburg before and enjoyed spending his free time exploring the city with his sister Olya. She was also in St. Petersburg that year, studying at the Higher Women’s Courses.
Having passed his bar examination that day, he set out for Olya’s lodgings, hurrying to share his joy with her. His years of study had not been spent in vain. Now he would move to St. Petersburg and begin his real life’s work, work for the revolution.
His steps were quick and light. When he entered her room Olya was lying flushed and feverish in her bed. Her lips were parched, her hair dishevelled. She was delirious and kept grasping for something, crying out: “Mamma! Save me, Mamma!”
He took her hand, but she did not recognise him and tried to pull it away. Vladimir Ilyich took his sister to the hospital and then dispatched a telegram to his mother. While Maria Alexandrovna was on her way to St. Petersburg, Olya took a turn for the worse. She died on May 8, 1891, four years to the day after her brother Sasha had been executed.
Vladimir Ilyich and his mother followed Olya’s coffin to the cemetery. Maria Alexandrovna leaned on her son’s arm. Her face was a white mask. Yet, she did not weep.
Olya’s girlfriends covered her grave with flowers.
Having buried Olya, Vladimir Ilyich and his mother returned to Samara, where the rest of the family now lived.
The years he had spent in Samara had been important ones. He had prepared for his bar examination there and had begun his study of the works of Karl Marx.
Karl Marx, the great German scholar and revolutionary, had written a famous book called Capital. Jointly with his comrade-in-arms, Frederick Engels, he had written the Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx showed that the working class would triumph over the capitalists, taking all power into its own hands and setting up a new, communist society on earth. Vladimir Ilyich was stunned when he read this. The truth of Marx’s teachings was obvious. And so, his road had been chosen. He would never deviate from it.
Marx’s followers were called Marxists. Thus, Vladimir Ilyich became a Marxist. He joined a secret Marxist study group in Samara. Naturally, if his activities had become known he would have been arrested immediately.
After passing his bar examination, Vladimir Ilyich went to work as a trial lawyer in Samara. In many of his cases he defended the local peasants and poor people. He worked, continued his political studies and dreamed of leaving Samara for a large industrial city, preferably for one like St. Petersburg. He would have left Samara long before if not for his mother, who grieved so for her daughter Olya. Vladimir Ilyich tried to lessen her pain by his gentle, loving care.
In the autumn of 1893 the Ulyanovs finally left Samara for good. It was time for Mitya to enter the University, and so Maria Alexandrovna took both Mitya and Maria to Moscow.
His eldest sister Anna had married Mark Yelizarov, who had been a close friend of his brother Sasha during his student days in St. Petersburg. Mark and Anna had come to know each other then. Their common grief over Sasha’s death had brought them together. After they married they came to live with the Ulyanovs as part of the family. Now they moved to Moscow together with Maria Alexandrovna and the two younger children. Thus it was that Vladimir Ilyich, full of energy and revolutionary spirit, set out for St. Petersburg alone.
BEYOND NEVSKAYA ZASTAVA
Evening had fallen. The gas lamps shone dully on the streets of St. Petersburg. The few people in the street were hurrying to their homes.
Vladimir Ilyich was riding the horse-car. It rattled and screeched on the rails. The windows were frozen over. It was impossible to see through them. He had a long trip ahead of him, for he was on his way to a workers’ study circle on the outskirts of town, in the Nevskaya Zastava district.
When he had boarded the horse-car a small man in dark glasses had hopped on right after him. Vladimir Ilyich had noticed him on the stop. He had opened his newspaper and appeared to be reading, but Vladimir Ilyich noticed he was watching him. “He’s a police spy,” Vladimir Ilyich decided.
Vladimir Ilyich found a seat by the door. He raised his collar and began thinking of a way to shake off his shadow. He pretended to sleep, while actually he was blowing on the frozen pane, melting a little circle of ice to look out and not miss a certain stop. It was the only one at which he could escape from the police spy. Out of the corner of his eye he watched for it. It was the next one. They pulled up.
“Anyone getting off?” the conductor called.
No one replied.
The horses started up again. At that very moment Vladimir Ilyich got up and jumped off, running as fast as he could towards a courtyard that gave off onto another street. He could hear the loud clanging of the bell. It was the conductor signalling the driver to stop. By the time the horse-car pulled to a stop Vladimir Ilyich had reached the courtyard. He darted inside and turned to look out. The police spy had also jumped off and was looking up and down. However, the street was deserted.
Vladimir Ilyich emerged in an adjoining street and continued on his way to the study circle which was meeting at the home of Ivan Babushkin, a fitter at a mechanical plant.
There were many factories and plants in that part of town. The factory whistles blew at dawn. In the darkness the workers started out for their jobs. It was dark night again when they finally returned home. They led a hard and cheerless life. But people could not go on like that forever!
The workers had gathered at Babushkin’s house to discuss ways of bettering their lives. They had to gather in secret to make sure the police did not find out about their meetings.
That evening they had assembled again. They were expecting a lecturer named Nikolai Petrovich. Actually, this was Vladimir Ilyich.
Vladimir Ilyich had been lecturing at this and at other workers’ circles, because he wanted to teach the workers about Marx’s ideas. He wanted them to realise that they were the force that could change society. If the workers rose up against the factory owners and the tsar, no one would be able to put them down. But that meant they would have to organise. They would have to set themselves a goal and work towards it. There could only be one goal, that of taking all power into their own hands and setting up a state ruled by the working people.
It would be a wonderful state, a truly just society. Marx had called this society of the future a communist society.
THE FIRST BOOK
At the time Vladimir Ilyich lectured at Ivan Babushkin’s house, many other workers’ study circles were meeting in various parts of the city. The first thing Vladimir Ilyich had done upon his arrival in St. Petersburg had been to establish contact with the revolutionary Marxists there. “Comrades,” Vladimir Ilyich had said, “we must carry Marx’s teachings to the masses. We must unite with the workers and begin preparing for the revolution.”
Thus, a revolutionary organisation was formed. It was named the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Its central group was located in St. Petersburg. Soon there were similar groups in other cities.
Vladimir Ilyich did more than direct the work of the study circles. He spent much time, often working late into the night, writing. The book he was working on taught the workers how best to fight against the power of the capitalists and how best to organise their struggle. Later his comrades-in-arms, his fellow Marxists, had it printed in secret and distributed to every workers’ study circle.
It was late at night. The lights were out in the house opposite. Everything was black beyond the white organdie curtains on Vladimir Ilyich’s window.
He laid down his pen and rose. Three steps took him to the far corner of the small room. Pacing was a habit of his. “There is only one way. The Russian worker will take this straight road of open political struggle to the victorious communist revolution.” Vladimir Ilyich reviewed what he had written. His book called the Russian workers onwards to a communist revolution. No one had ever spoken out so boldly to the Russian workers before.
At the time Vladimir Ilyich was only twenty-four years old. He was still a very young man, but his knowledge was already great. And he firmly believed that the Russian workers would be victorious in their struggle.
FOUR LEAFLETS
There had been trouble at the Semyannikovsky factory. The workers’ pay was delayed before Christmas and there was a riot.
Gendarmes were searching the homes of the rioters and arresting them. They were handcuffed and taken to police stations.
“They’ll surely come for me, too,” said Babushkin.
Late that night there was a tap at the door. It was Vladimir Ilyich. He was covered with snow. There were even icicles on his eyebrows. He took off his coat and began pacing up and down the room, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “Tell me how it all began,” he said. “How did the workers act?”
Babushkin told him about the previous day’s riot. The factory store had been smashed and some workers had set fire to the porch of the manager’s house. Now the police were arresting workers by the dozens.
“A worker who understands the situation will never fight with his fists,” Vladimir Ilyich said. “We’ll write a leaflet about this.”
They sat down at the table, conversing in whispers, discussing the text of the leaflet. It would tell the workers that the time of struggle had come. No one could free them from their slavery if they did not do it themselves. But they had to organise, not fight with their bare hands.
It was very late. As Babushkin watched Vladimir Ilyich’s pen fly swiftly over the paper, his eyes drooped. He sat up with a start.
“You must be dead tired,” Vladimir Ilyich said. “Do go to bed. You have to go to work at dawn.”
Babushkin finally went to bed. Vladimir Ilyich began copying out the leaflet in large block letters, so that it would be legible to all. He made a second copy, then a third and a fourth. Suddenly the factory whistle blew. The piercing sound made the frozen panes rattle.
The working-class district of Nevskaya Zastava had begun another day.
“Time to get up,” Vladimir Ilyich said.
Babushkin opened his eyes. Was that Vladimir Ilyich sitting at the table? He looked at the four sheets of paper covered with block letters and instantly came to his feet.
“These have to be passed around among the workers,” Vladimir Ilyich said. “Too bad I had no time to make any more copies.”
They went out into the street together. The cold stars were still shining. White columns of smoke rose from the chimneys. The street was filled with a moving black mass of working people. The two men melted into the crowd.
Babushkin fingered the leaflets in his pocket. He would soon pass them on to his friends, who would read them and in turn pass them on.
“This is our first fighting leaflet. Good luck, Babushkin!” Vladimir Ilyich said.
NADEZHDA KONSTANTINOVNA
On a day in November, when the snow-covered trees in the Alexandrinsky Gardens looked like trees in a fairytale, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was walking up and down, glancing at the Public Library opposite. She was an attractive young woman in a short fur lined coat and a fur pillbox that sat jauntily on her head. She was clenching a rolled-up notebook in her small muff. The notebook was filled with facts and figures about the hard conditions of the working people.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna was employed in an office. She was also a teacher at an evening school for workers at Nevskaya Zastava. A factory worker who was one of her pupils had brought her the notebook. It contained much useful information for a leaflet.
A year had passed since that night Vladimir Ilyich and Ivan Babushkin had worked over the first leaflet. Now the St. Petersburg group of the League of Struggle was issuing hundreds of leaflets that were printed in secret on hectograph machines and circulated throughout the city.
And here was Vladimir Ilyich at last! He appeared in the doorway of the Public Library. Having spotted him, Nadezhda Konstantinovna hurried towards Nevsky Prospekt. They met there and walked down towards the Neva River. Vladimir Ilyich took her arm.
“Did you have a good day at the library?” she asked as she transferred the notebook from her muff to the sleeve of his coat.
“Excellent!” he replied, working the notebook higher up into his sleeve. “Has the information been checked?” “Yes.”
“Thank you!”
She turned to look at him. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her eyes shone. Vladimir Ilyich enjoyed her company. She was both sincere and serious. They had become acquainted soon after his arrival in St. Petersburg. Had it been as recently as that? Somehow, he felt he had known her all his life. Vladimir Ilyich liked to share his thoughts and plans with her. Besides, she was a real help to him in his work. They shared the same views and goals, they were both working for the same cause.
Suddenly, Nadezhda Konstantinovna felt him press her arm in warning. A man was following them. He had his collar up and looked very unpleasant.
Vladimir Ilyich began speaking in a louder voice, telling her that he had heard there was a shop on Ligovka that sold fur hats at very reasonable prices. The police spy was close behind them.
“Let’s part,” Vladimir Ilyich whispered.
They said goodbye and he turned off into the very first side street. For several minutes Vladimir Ilyich kept up a fast pace, then suddenly turned down a little lane. The police spy had not counted on this manoeuvre and continued on for a few moments. Vladimir Ilyich found himself outside a stately mansion. He could see the doorman’s empty chair through the glass doors. He darted inside, sat down in the chair and opened a newspaper lying nearby just as the police spy appeared. The man gazed up and down the street in perplexity. His quarry had simply vanished into thin air. Vladimir Ilyich chuckled to himself as he watched the man trudge off. But he would have to hurry, lest the doorman returned and found him there. He felt the notebook nestling comfortably in his sleeve. The danger had passed. He had to get home and down to work as quickly as possible.
YOU CAN’T SILENCE US
On December 8, 1895 the League of Struggle held its regular meeting in the home of Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. It was decided that the League would put out its own underground newspaper, to be called The Workers’ Cause. They had now gathered to discuss the articles for the first issue. Vladimir Ilyich had written the bold and militant editorial and the lead articles. The paper would be printed in an underground print shop on the outskirts of the city, near the Gulf of Finland.
The articles were entrusted to Anatoly Vaneyev, a student of twenty-three who was dedicated to the revolutionary cause. Vladimir Ilyich always assigned him the most important tasks. Vaneyev was to take the articles to the print shop the following day. Soon the workers would be reading their first newspaper.
It was late when the League members left the house.
Vladimir Ilyich stayed on for a while. He and Nadezhda Konstantinovna never had enough time to talk. They spoke of their comrades. Vladimir Ilyich was a very sociable person. He always found a good word for every comrade. They also spoke of the workers’ thirst for knowledge. There was Babushkin, for instance, an interesting, intelligent and talented man.
“Goodnight, Nadya,” Vladimir Ilyich said finally. “I’ll drop by again tomorrow.”
The streets were deserted. Here and there a street lamp gleamed dully. Vladimir Ilyich took a horse-car as far as the Public Library. The gardens, too, were deserted. The lindens were bent under the weight of the snow. A twig snapped, sending down a shower of powdered snow. Vladimir Ilyich was in excellent spirits.
He returned to the furnished room which he had recently rented. He had to keep changing his lodgings, because the police spies were constantly after him.
Vladimir Ilyich tiptoed in so as not to wake his landlady. He did not feel like sleeping and decided to do some research for his new book. He became immediately engrossed in the articles he was reading. When he looked at his watch it was nearly two a.m.
“Time to go to bed,” he said to himself, but kept on reading.
The bell rang at exactly two o’clock. Vladimir Ilyich wondered who it could be at such an unearthly hour.
Two men in civilian clothes entered. Bringing up the rear was a gendarme. “We have a warrant for your arrest,” he said.
The two men in civilian clothes began searching the room. They leafed through the books, turned over the bedding, looked up the chimney and into the stove.
Vladimir Ilyich stood silently by the wall.
He was thinking of his comrades. Had anything happened to them? Was he the only one to be arrested? And what about Nadya? Would this be the end of the battle? “No,” he said to himself, “you can’t silence us any longer. Hundreds of thousands of workers have joined our ranks. The entire working class of Russia will soon rise up.”
CELL No. 193
The cell had a small barred window high up near the ceiling, a plank bed, an iron table hinged to the wall and an iron chair. There was a pile of books on the floor. Reading was not prohibited. His sisters and Nadya had brought Vladimir Ilyich the many books he had requested. Nadya had not been arrested that night. His mother and sisters had arrived from Moscow as soon as they had learned of his arrest.
Today was Thursday, visiting day. Vladimir Ilyich put down his book and stood up with his back to the door. The warden kept peering through the peephole in the door. Now, with his back to the peephole, Vladimir Ilyich rolled a piece of bread into a hard, doughy lump. Then he made a hollow in it with his thumb. This was his inkwell. He filled it with milk and began writing between the lines of one of the books. As soon as the milk dried the words became invisible. He would return the book to his visitors today. Then Nadya or his sisters would hold the page over a lamp and the heat of the flame would make the writing appear, like a photograph being developed. Vladimir Ilyich was composing the text of a leaflet.
During the night of December 8th one hundred and sixty other members of the League of Struggle had been arrested. Still, the League carried on. The strikes and walkouts continued, led by League members. Vladimir Ilyich sent the strikers leaflets from his prison cell.
Keys jangled outside the door. The lock turned and the warden entered. Vladimir Ilyich picked up his inkwell and swallowed it. The warden came up to him, but could find nothing suspicious and so left, locking the cell door behind him.
Vladimir Ilyich quickly made another inkwell of bread and continued writing.
An hour later the cell door was unlocked again. This time Vladimir Ilyich was taken to the visitors’ room to see his fiancé. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was waiting for him on the far side of the double iron mesh screen. He could not take her hand. He could only nod. She smiled at him, though it was so depressing to see him in prison. However, he seemed to be in good spirits and that was what really counted.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna conveyed his family’s greetings. Everyone sent their love and wanted to know how he was. Then she got down to business, for they had to discuss their revolutionary affairs with the warden walking up and down in the aisle between the metal screens, listening to their every word.
“I’m sending back my sister’s books,” Vladimir Ilyich said. “And Maria’s book, too,” he added and looked at her intently.
Since he had stressed “Maria’s book”, it meant they were to look for the letter or leaflet in her book.
Meanwhile, he continued talking in riddles. “Do you know the number of my cell?”
“Certainly. It’s Number 193.”
Nadezhda Konstantinovna tried to think what the number “193” might mean. Yes, that would probably be the page on which to look.
The warden could listen all he wanted to. It would do him no good. He glanced at the clock on the wall.
How quickly the hour had passed! Neither of them wanted to say goodbye.
“I’ll be back again next Thursday, Volodya. Take care of yourself.”
Vladimir Ilyich was led away. He turned to look back at her. She stood there until he had disappeared behind the door.
The key turned in the lock. He was back in his cell, but still under the spell of their meeting. Nadya would be leaving the prison now. Perhaps she would be heading towards the Alexandrinsky Gardens.
Vladimir Ilyich paced on in the gloomy cell, thinking fondly of her.
THE GREEN LAMP
Vladimir Ilyich had been in the remote Siberian village of Shushenskoye for exactly a year now and had spent fourteen months in prison before being exiled. His term of exile would not be up for nearly another two years.
That day, May 7, 1898, Vladimir Ilyich did not follow his usual routine and did not proceed to work on his current book, The Development of Capitalism in Russia. This was a book about how the capitalists and rich peasants called kulaks were becoming more and more rich and powerful in Russia, while the workers and peasants were becoming poorer and more oppressed.
After dinner that day Sosipatych, a poor peasant from Shushenskoye, knocked at Vladimir Ilyich’s window. He was a thin, spry man in a worn fur hat and a threadbare coat. A shotgun was slung over his shoulder. “Vladimir Ilyich! Let’s go hunting,” he called.
Vladimir Ilyich was restless. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was to have arrived from St. Petersburg, but there was still no word of her. She, too, had been arrested for her revolutionary work and had been imprisoned in St. Petersburg. She was then banished to the city of Ufa, but as Ulyanov’s fiancée, she had been permitted to serve her sentence in Shushenskoye. She was on her way now. What could have delayed her so?
In order to dispel his restlessness, Vladimir Ilyich picked up his shotgun and went off with Sosipatych.
“Them’s a good pair of boots,” his companion remarked.
Indeed, they were perfect for tramping through the woods and marshes. The men were off to Lake Perovo, some ten miles from the village. There were so many ducks on the lake that the banks were white with feathers.
It was a glorious day. The sun was just right, with each leaf and blade of grass a fresh, transparent green. The meadows, too, were a velvety green. On the far horizon, rising white and pure, were the far-off Sayan Mountains, clearly etched against the light-blue sky.
“Now, see you don’t miss, Vladimir Ilyich. It’s bad luck to miss the first shot. So you take care now!”
Vladimir Ilyich raised his gun. It was a fine feeling to be standing there, listening to the sounds of the woods, to the birds singing and the woodpeckers drilling.
There was a rush of wings overhead as a large brown duck rose from the reeds and flew off, not ten paces away. Vladimir Ilyich pulled the trigger. He missed.
“Now, didn’t I warn you!” Sosipatych muttered. However, despite the bad omen, they had a good day’s hunting. Then they made a fire and brewed some tea in a soot-blackened kettle. Sosipatych was now in a better mood and tried to coax Vladimir Ilyich into spending the night by the lake. Though this sounded very tempting, something told Vladimir Ilyich to hurry back to the village.
Twilight had fallen. The herd had been driven home from the meadow. The cows were now being milked. One could hear the sound of streams of milk hitting the pails.
“There’s a light in your room, Vladimir Ilyich,” Sosipatych said.
Vladimir Ilyich had also noticed it. The two windows of his room in the corner house glowed green. A wave of happiness rose to his heart.
There on the porch was Nadezhda Konstantinovna, slim and graceful in her dark dress. She was leaning against the railing. Vladimir Ilyich ran up the steps.
“Nadya!” he cried.
“Volodya,” she said.
“Come and let me have a look at you,” Yelizaveta Vasiliyevna, Nadya’s mother, called from the house. “His bride’s come all this way to find him off gallivanting somewheres. Shooting ducks, if you please!”
A lamp with a green glass shade stood on the table. “The lamp is for you,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna said. “Green is easier on the eyes when you’re working.”
She had carried the fragile glass lamp all the way from Moscow, ten days and nights in the train, then by river boat, and finally over the bumpy roads in a horse-drawn wagon, holding it gingerly, fearful lest it be crushed. And she had brought it to Shushenskoye in one piece!
“I’VE COME TO YOU FOR ADVICE”
After the wedding the new family moved to different lodgings in a larger house on the bank of the Shusha River. Vladimir Ilyich had a study there with a large bookcase and a high lectern. The green lamp was placed on the lectern. The lights went out early in winter in the village houses, but Vladimir Ilyich’s green lamp glowed on far into the night.
He liked to write standing at the lectern. That is how he wrote The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Vladimir Ilyich was working on his book and simultaneously writing articles and doing translations from the English. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was a great help to him in his work. Besides, she had her own work to do, for she was writing a pamphlet about working women. She, for one, knew much about the life of the working people.
They liked to work together, he at the lectern and she at the table. They spent all their free time together, too, walking in the woods or along the bank of the Shusha, or going as far as the great Yenisei River. They were young and in love.
At noon one day Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s mother knocked at the door of the study. They had a caller. Vladimir Ilyich was very busy and did not want to interrupt his work on his manuscript. But since a poor peasant had come to him for advice, everything else had to be put aside. Yelizaveta Vasiliyevna asked the man to come in. Everything about him, his clothes, his very appearance, seemed faded, although he was not an old man.
“Won’t you sit down,” said Vladimir Ilyich.
The man sat down. He placed a jug tied up in a red kerchief at his feet.
“I’ve come to you for advice, Vladimir Ilyich.”
The man was from a distant village. It took him quite a while to explain who he was and where he was from. Finally, he got down to the reason for his visit. Theirs was a very poor family, and that was why his eldest daughter had hired out as a field hand to a rich peasant. He was to pay her twenty rubles for a year’s work. After she had worked there for eleven months her mother had fallen ill. There were so many younger children in the family that she had had to give up her job and come home to care for them. But her master had refused to pay her, saying that she had broken her contract and had not worked a full year.
“Does that mean the girl has slaved for nothing for nearly a year? Should we just leave it at that?”
“By no means!” Vladimir Ilyich said heatedly as he paced up and down. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll write to the district administrators and ask them to resolve the matter. Meanwhile, tell the kulak you’re taking the matter to court. That’ll put the fear of God in him.” Vladimir Ilyich stopped by the lectern. He took out a sheet of paper and had soon drawn up a complaint. It was very convincing. Vladimir Ilyich then told the peasant where to go, whom to see and what to say.
“The truth is on your side. Never forget that for a moment. And don’t give in. If they don’t honour this first complaint, come back again and we’ll go higher up. We’ll get the law behind us. Don’t forget, you’re in the right.”
The man was worrying his cap, thanking Vladimir Ilyich. Then he picked up the jug in the red kerchief and said to Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “Please take this butter. It’s a token of my appreciation, m’am.”
“By no means!” she said. “I couldn’t even think of accepting it.”
“No, we can’t accept the butter,” Vladimir Ilyich said firmly.
The peasant could not understand why they did not want to be paid. Strange people, these city folk. Hadn’t Vladimir Ilyich written the paper for him? Just for nothing?
The man left, carrying away a kind word in his heart for Vladimir Ulyanov, a political exile. Vladimir Ilyich left many fond memories in the hearts of the local peasants in his years of exile in Shushenskoye.
THE EVENTS OF MAY
The year before Vladimir Ilyich had been alone on May Day. This year Nadezhda Konstantinovna was with him. The exiles of Shushenskoye decided to celebrate May Day in the traditional revolutionary manner.
After breakfast that morning they put on their best clothes. Ivan Prominski, an exiled Pole, came calling. He, too, was dressed in his best: white collar, tie and all.
“May Day greetings!” he said.
Together the three of them set out to call on Oskar Engberg, an exiled Finn.
It was a late spring that year. There were still ice floes on the Shusha, crashing and piling up in their haste to reach the Yenisei. The sound of crunching ice hung over the river. Though the day was chilly, it had a holiday air. Everyone was in a festive mood.
At Engberg’s house they first sang a traditional workers’ May Day song.
In the merry month of May,
Grief, be banished from our way!
Freedom songs our joy convey.
Weshall go on strike today!
Then they sang another. After a while they set out for the meadow. There, out of earshot of the village and with nothing but the blue sky above them, they sang the old revolutionary songs.
The stirring words filled the meadow that May Day. It was a happy day. Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna sat up late into the night talking, dreaming of the future. Would the time ever come when, in a free Russia, the workers and all the people would be able to openly celebrate May Day with red flags?
The next day a column of dust rose on the road as a mounted police patrol thundered into Shushenskoye. Two gendarmes armed with sabres were escorting a police inspector who rode in a carriage. They drew up outside the Ulyanovs’ house.
“We’ve come to search the house!” the short, stocky inspector rasped and headed straight for the study and the bookcase.
There was illegal revolutionary literature as well as letters from revolutionaries and chemicals for invisible writing on the bottom shelf. If the police discovered this the couple’s term of exile would be prolonged. Perhaps by many, many years.
“Here,” Vladimir Ilyich said, carrying a chair over to the bookcase. “Where do you wish to begin?” As he spoke he nodded towards the top shelf. The short inspector was helped up by his men. He began looking through the books on the top shelf. There were hundreds of them and the inspector was going through every one.
Half an hour passed. Then an hour. He became tired and told his men to continue the search, while he sat down. He had become bored by just looking at the jackets of so many books, to say nothing of leafing through each and every one. Time crawled on.
Finally, the gendarmes reached the bottom shelf. The Ulyanovs’ fate hung by a thread.
Just then Nadezhda Konstantinovna said with a smile, “Those are all my schoolbooks. I’m a teacher, you know.”
“Ah, leave them,” the inspector said in disgust. He was hungry, and he needed a drink. The mission was a failure.
Yelizaveta Vasiliyevna entered the moment the police had gone. She had been sitting in the adjoining room, chain-smoking all through the search.
“All clear?” she asked in a whisper.
“All clear,” Vladimir Ilyich replied and laughed. “That was close.”
AT VANEYEV’S BEDSIDE
The postman called twice a week, bringing letters from friends and relatives. Exiled members of the League of Struggle were scattered over an area of from fifty to a hundred miles around Shushenskoye. Some were even farther away, buried alive in the frozen wastes of Siberia.
One day Vladimir Ilyich received a letter from his sister Anna. The barely visible mark on the envelope was a sign that it contained secret information. When he developed the invisible writing he saw it was an article copied from a newspaper. As he read on he began to frown. He did not like what he was reading. The title of the article was “Our Credo”.
His sister wrote that a small but very active group of people had come together to criticise Marxism. They insisted that the workers were not interested in politics, but in receiving higher wages and, therefore, did not need a revolution.
This sort of thinking was called Economism.
“What’s to be done?” Vladimir Ilyich wondered aloud. “They’re trying to convince the workers that they do not need to fight for a revolution.”
Nadezhda Konstantinovna knew his habit of thinking out loud and never interrupted him when he did. He would soon come to a decision. Indeed, after pacing up and down for a while he said, “We’ll call the comrades together and discuss this `Credo’. Then we’ll write our own views on the subject and see that the workers in the factories and mills learn of them.”
They sat down to write to their exiled comrades, asking each of them to think of a reason why he might be given permission to leave his village. They would then meet. But where? Shushenskoye was certainly the most convenient place, yet Vladimir Ilyich chose the village of Yermakovskoye, some sixty miles away. Anatoly Vaneyev, a dear friend and fellow League member, was in exile there. Anatoly had become very ill in prison and was now dying of tuberculosis.
That is why Vladimir Ilyich suggested they all meet in Yermakovskoye.
Vaneyev was propped up on his pillows. His face seemed paler than the sheets. He had become terribly thin and his large eyes had an unhealthy glow. But how happy he was to see them, to be taking part in the common cause! How badly he wanted to live, to go on working and helping his fellowmen.
They began by discussing the text of the “Credo”. Then they wrote their reply and entitled it “Protest by Russian Social-Democrats”. It began with the words: “Comrades, don’t listen to the Economists. Our only way is revolution!” This appeal from far-off Siberia would be sent to workers’ groups in every city.
Vladimir Ilyich stayed on with Vaneyev after the others had left. Anatoly was exhausted. His forehead was damp, his eyes sunken. Vladimir Ilyich sat by his bed, stroking his friend’s transparent hand. Vaneyev was dying as a result of his imprisonment in tsarist jails. Vladimir Ilyich spoke to him of their plans. Soon their term of exile would be over. Then they would organise a workers’ Marxist party. They’d have their own proletarian newspaper and they’d continue the fight against the tsarist regime.
Vaneyev hung on his every word. The August evening was getting ever darker. They could hear the soulful music of an accordion from afar.
“Thank you, Volodya,” Vaneyev whispered. His lips were parched from fever. “You’ve breathed new life into me. I know it will all be so.”
This was to be his last happy day.
Three weeks later Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna journeyed to Yermakovskoye again. They had come to bury Anatoly.
“Farewell, Anatoly,” Vladimir Ilyich said at his comrade’s graveside. “We pledge to carry on the revolutionary struggle.”
The first snow of the year was falling gently on the coffin.
Later Vladimir Ilyich had a bronze plaque made. The inscription on it read: “Anatoly Alexandrovich Vaneyev, political exile. Died September 8, 1899, aged 27. Rest in peace, Comrade.”
FREEDOM AGAIN!
Everything was in an uproar. There were suitcases, bundles and stacks of books in every corner.
Blue-eyed Pasha, a village girl who had been Yelizaveta Vasiliyevna’s helper in the house, was weeping bitterly. The Ulyanovs were leaving. Their term of exile had ended.
Before dawn on January 29, 1900, when the windows of Shushenskoye were still dark and no smoke was rising from the chimneys, when the predawn sky touched the earth beyond the last huts, two sleighs pulled up outside the house. Pasha scurried back and forth, wiping her eyes on a corner of her apron. Vladimir Ilyich began loading their belongings and books into the sleighs. Everyone helped.
“Come, let’s sit in silence for a moment before the journey,” Yelizaveta Vasiliyevna said, for that was an old Russian custom.
They all sat down.
“All right, time to go!” Vladimir Ilyich said a few moments later and was the first to rise.
It was a very cold day. He helped the women into two long sheepskin coats. Then he tucked them in and piled hay around them for warmth.
“But there’s no sheepskin coat for you,” Yelizaveta Vasiliyevna said anxiously. “You’ll be frozen!”
“Just thinking of being free will keep me warm. I don’t care how cold it gets.”
“At least take my muff to keep your hands warm.”
Vladimir Ilyich laughed, but took her muff and climbed in. They were off.
They were leaving Shushenskoye, never to see it again. The sky was getting lighter. A cloud turned pink. Slowly, the whole eastern edge of the horizon lit up. Then the sun rose.
Vladimir Ilyich was elated. This was his first morning of freedom. He had become very thin during the past months, waiting for his term to end, worrying about whether the authorities might not decide to prolong it.
Now all his thoughts were centred on resuming the work of the Party. In 1898, while Vladimir Ilyich had still been in exile, the First Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party had been held in the city of Minsk. Nearly all of the Party organisers had been promptly arrested by the police. The Party would now have to be re-established. A Party newspaper would be the first step towards achieving this. It would be an illegal, Marxist paper that would rally and unite all the progressive forces of Russia. Such were Vladimir Ilyich’s thoughts.
Mile after mile they sped on, stopping at the post stations along the way to change horses and have a meal.
It was a long journey to Minusinsk. From there it was over two hundred miles to the railway station of Achinsk. They were on the road day and night. The days were bright and sunny, with blue skies and frost-covered trees and sparkling snow. At night the moon lit their way. It was like a sailing ship in the vast skies, charting its course among the scattered stars. Even the sleighbells jingled more clearly at night.
They reached Achinsk at dawn on the fifth day.
The station bell was ringing. The train would soon be in. Chugging and puffing, the sooty engine pulled into the station. There was a short stop. Then the station bell clanged, and the train pulled out. The long-awaited day had arrived. A new life lay ahead.
THE SPARK WILL KINDLE A FLAME
“The spark will kindle a flame,” a line from a poem by Odoyevsky, a Decembrist poet sentenced to hard labour in Siberia by the tsar, was taken by Vladimir Ilyich as the motto for the first Party newspaper. He decided that Iskra (The Spark) would be a fitting name for their paper.
While in exile in Shushenskoye he had planned the newspaper from the first to the last page. The time had now come to start work on it. Vladimir Ilyich took up lodgings in the city of Pskov, for that was where he was allowed to live. Nadezhda Konstantinovna had been arrested later than he and her term of exile had not yet ended. That is why she was told to live in the town of Ufa until her term was over.
In Pskov Vladimir Ilyich began preparing the ground for the new Party paper. He travelled to various towns and cities, establishing contact with comrades who would write for the paper. They would also need people to distribute it. Iskra would not be sold at news-stands like any other paper. It was to be an illegal political newspaper. This meant that anyone possessing a copy would be arrested. Therefore, the paper had to be distributed in secret. Last but not least, they would need money to finance it. Vladimir Ilyich succeeded in raising the money too.
Now everything was ready. In four months’ time Vladimir Ilyich had moved mountains.
They still had to decide where Iskra was to be printed, for a paper that was against the tsar, the landlords, the factory owners and the police obviously could not be printed in Russia.
It was decided that the paper would be printed abroad. Nevertheless, everything connected with it would still have to be kept in complete secret. There would still be Russian police spies abroad.
Vladimir Ilyich obtained permission to go abroad, supposedly to improve his health. He first went to Ufa to take leave of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, for her term of exile would not be up for another nine months. Then he was on his way. Though he did not know it at the time, he would be abroad for five years.
There were many factories and still more print shops and bookshops in the German city of Leipzig, with its narrow streets and steep-roofed houses and churches. There was a man named Hermann Rau in Leipzig. He was about thirty-five years old and owned a small print-shop in a village nearby. There was only one printing press in the shop. A workers’ sports paper, various advertisements and booklets were printed on this huge, old-fashioned press.
Hermann Rau was a Marxist and a member of the German Social-Democratic Party. One day his friends in Leipzig told him a Russian Marxist had arrived in town. The Russian Marxists were going to put out a revolutionary paper. It was then decided that the first issue of Iskra would be printed in Leipzig.
Vladimir Ilyich was the Russian Marxist who had come to Leipzig. He rented a room on the outskirts of town and threw himself into his work. Then came the big day. He got up before the factory whistles blew. It was chilly in the room. December was damp and cold in Leipzig.
Vladimir Ilyich put the kettle on the spirit stove. He had a tin cup of scalding tea and, as was his wont, set out for Rau’s print shop which was a good six miles away. There was no horse-car here, so he had to walk both ways. Workers on foot and on bicycles were coming into the city. Peasants were bringing in their produce in wagons. The rows of houses soon ended. Ahead was a dark forest beyond a snow-covered field. Then the lights of a neighbouring village came into view. He spotted the windows of Rau’s print shop.
The shop, lighted by a kerosene lamp, consisted of one large room. The cumbersome old press took up half of the room. Sticks of firewood crackled in the iron stove. The flames cast moving shadows on the walls.
“This is a very special day,” Rau said to Vladimir Ilyich.
Vladimir Ilyich nodded. Yes, it was a very special day. Today, at last, the first issue was to be printed.
The typesetter lifted the heavy frame in which the type was set and carried it over to the press. Rau put his hand on the lever. The wheels began to turn. Then a sheet of newsprint rolled off the press. It was still damp. This was the first issue ofIskra .
Vladimir Ilyich picked it up. He had been dreaming of this day for so long. “Now we have our own workers’ revolutionary paper!” he thought. “Fly homeward, awaken the minds and hearts of our people, carry the call for revolution.” He read the name aloud: “Iskra.”
LENIN
The train was crossing Germany to Konigsberg. A young man was dozing in a corner of a third-class carriage. He had been dozing ever since they had left Munich. There was a large suitcase at his feet.
Konigsberg, an ancient town with a large fortress, many churches and red-tiled roofs, was a noisy port city on the Baltic Sea. There were ocean liners docked at the piers. One of the ships was the St. Margareta. The young German from Munich whistled contentedly as he headed for a small beer hall. The cellar was crowded, noisy and full of tobacco smoke. The young man found an empty seat and pushed his suitcase under the table. He ordered a dish of sausages and a glass of beer. He was eating very, very slowly. One might have thought he had all day. He was waiting for a sailor from the St. Margareta. He had come all the way from Munich to meet him, though he had never seen the man before. Whenever a new customer entered the young man would look at him intently and begin smoothing the right side of his hair with his right hand. Naturally, no one paid any attention to him. There was nothing very strange about a man smoothing his hair. However, this was the signal by which they were to recognise each other.
A sailor with a weather-beaten face entered. He looked around at the tables, noticed the man smoothing his hair and headed straight for him. He sat down at the table, felt for the suitcase with his foot and said, “It’s a mean wind blowing.”
“Not if it’s a fair one,” the man from Munich replied. “You’ve guessed, my lad. It is a fair wind.”
This was the password and the response. They were comrades-in-arms, working for the same cause and meeting here in the name of this cause. They spoke for a short while and then rose and left. Now the sailor was carrying the suitcase. No one had noticed the change, for it was of no concern to anyone. The two men parted at the first crossing. The young man from Munich headed back for the railway station and home, while the suitcase continued its journey across the Baltic Sea aboard the St. Margareta to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
The wind blew up towards night, raising great waves at sea, rocking the small ship. The waves rolled over the decks. The night was as black as pitch. They were six hours late in arriving in Stockholm. The Finnish ship Suomi was probably well on its way to Helsingfors by now.
“I’ve missed it,” the sailor thought unhappily.
Suddenly, he sighted the Suomi. The Finnish ship was still in port, working up steam. The storm must have held it up.
“Weigh anchor!” the captain of the Suomi ordered. The water churned under the screw.
“Hey! Wait! the sailor shouted, as he lugged the suitcase down the pier towards the ship. “I’ve a present for the first mate from his aunt in Konigsberg!”
The sailor was out of breath from running. The suitcase was very heavy. Meanwhile, the Suomi was slowly moving away from the pier. All their efforts had been in vain.
But wait! What was that? The captain had heard him. “Reverse!” the captain ordered.
“I’ve got some sweaters here from your aunt, Sir!” the sailor shouted to the first mate.
There was laughter in the crowd at the pier. Everyone was pleased to see the Suomi moving backwards for the first mate’s sweaters. The first mate took the suitcase from the sailor, waved to him cheerfully and carried it to his cabin. There he locked it safely away.
The suitcase continued on its journey.
It was raining hard in the Finnish capital city of Helsingfors. Water gushed from every rainspout. Streams of water rushed down the gutters.
The first mate of the Suomi walked quickly towards the car stop. What a downpour! He hoped the contents of the suitcase were dry. It was a regular flood, even for Finland, where it often rained. The first mate was on the lookout for the worker who was to have met him at the stop. But the Suomi had been several hours late in docking, and it was raining sheets. The streets were deserted. Had the worker from St. Petersburg waited in vain and finally left? What a disappointment that would be! There was the horse-car coming into view. The man was nowhere to be seen. Just then a man darted out of an archway across the street. He looked around and approached the first mate. It was the worker from St. Petersburg.
“I’m soaked to the skin,” he muttered. “What kept you so long?”
“We got caught in a storm. When are you leaving.,
“Today.”
“Good. I’ll send off a cable immediately.”
The worker nodded, took the suitcase and climbed aboard the horse-car.
Several hours later the suitcase was on its way again. This time it was travelling to St. Petersburg by train.
The train was speeding past bare fields, rain-drenched villages and boarded-up summer cottages. The man who was taking the suitcase on the last lap of its journey knew the countryside here well and did not look out of the window. He was reading a paper and waiting for his stop, which was Beloostrov Station. That was where the boundary line between Finland and Russia lay. There was always a customs check at the station.
At Beloostrov Station a customs official entered the compartment and said, “Luggage inspection.” The man opened his suitcase slowly.
Inside were a change of linen, an old plaid and a box of chocolates. The customs official rapped on the sides of the suitcase but found nothing suspicious.
Later that day the worker climbed the stairs of a brick house on Vasiliyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. The copper nameplate on the door read: “Dentist.”
The man rang the bell. Two long rings and a short one. That meant: don’t worry, it’s a friend.
The dentist opened the door. “Come in. We’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
This was a secret address, called so because revolutionaries could meet here in secret and in safety.
A young woman was waiting for the man in the dentist’s office.
“At last,” she said. She opened the suitcase and began tossing everything out of it. Then the worker pressed down on the bottom in a certain way and it opened just like a second lid. The suitcase had a double bottom which was packed tightly with issues of Iskra.
This is what had been transported with such difficulty and by so many people from Munich to Konigsberg, to Stockholm, to Helsingfors and, finally, to St. Petersburg!
The young woman transferred the newspapers from the suitcase to a large hatbox and fastened it securely. Then she left.
She would distribute the newspaper among the workers and the workers’ study circles on the outskirts of the city. She was but one of a whole network of Iskra agents. There were secret Iskra agents in all the large cities of Russia.
The newspaper opened the eyes of the workers and peasants to the injustice of their working and living conditions. Iskra taught them to fight against the tsarist regime, the landlords and the factory owners who exploited them.
The newspaper called on them to unite in a political party and prepare for the coming revolution.
A great workers’ revolutionary movement was gathering force in Russia, awakened to life by the workers’ newspaper Iskra.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the founder and editor-in-chief of Iskra, headed this mighty force.
Hundreds of ciphered letters came to him from all over Russia, from Russian workers and Iskra agents. Vladimir Ilyich replied to their letters.
Articles were sent in by workers from the factories and mills. These were printed in the newspaper. Besides the articles Vladimir Ilyich wrote for Iskra, he wrote books on politics and the revolutionary struggle. In December 1901 Vladimir Ilyich began signing his writings with the name Lenin. This was a name the entire world would soon come to know.
THE BOLSHEVIKS
The beautiful city of Geneva lies on the bank of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. At the time there was a very small two-storey house in the suburb of Secheron, not far from the lake. It had a tiny front garden and a tiled roof like all the other houses in the vicinity. There were blue shutters on the windows.
The “Ilyiches” lived here. That’s how the comrades fondly called Vladimir Ilyich and his wife.
The Ilyiches had lived in Munich at first. However, the Munich police soon got wind of Iskra and they had to leave. They went to London and put out the paper there for a whole year. Then it became dangerous for them to remain in England, too. A new home had to be found for Iskra. Their search brought them to the town of Secheron near Geneva.
“Why, this is excellent!” Vladimir Ilyich exclaimed when he had inspected the tiny house. There was a large kitchen downstairs and a narrow stairway leading to the tiny, cheerful upstairs rooms. “Wonderful. It’s quiet here, and I’ll be able to work in peace.”
Vladimir Ilyich had a tremendous amount of work to do, but the quiet soon ended. The people of the town noticed that the Russians who lived in the little house had many visitors. In July 1903 they began arriving in a steady stream. They would come alone, in twos and in threes. You could see at a glance that they were foreigners. They were dressed differently and they spoke a strange language. The language they spoke was Russian. They admired the sunny blue skies, the pretty shutters on the windows and the flower gardens in front of every house.
The people of Secheron were certainly surprised to see so many foreigners in their little town that summer. Naturally, they had no way of knowing that these were delegates to the Party’s Second Congress who were arriving in secret from all parts of Russia.
The delegates stopped by at Lenin’s house to discuss the questions on the agenda and to exchange opinions, for they knew that he was largely responsible for organising the Second Congress. Lenin had written many important articles in preparation of the Congress. They had been published in Iskra. He had written What Is To Be Done?, a book describing the ways of building a proletarian Marxist Party. He had drafted the Rules of the Party and the militant Party Programme.
“We want to achieve a new and better order of society,” Lenin wrote. “In this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work.”
Vladimir Ilyich had put much thought into this. He had planned the Party’s Programme while in exile. At the Congress he hoped to discuss the best and quickest means of achieving this new society.
The delegates left Geneva for Brussels, the capital of Belgium, where the Second Congress soon opened in secret in a large, dim flour warehouse.
The warehouse had been aired and swept, a wooden rostrum had been set up and benches placed against the walls. The large window was draped with red bunting. The delegates took their seats. Plekhanov was the first speaker. He had been the very first Russian to become a Marxist. He was a scholar who had written many books, explaining what Marxism was and what it stood for. This had been when Vladimir Ilyich was still a boy. Now Plekhanov inaugurated the Second Party Congress. He delivered a very moving speech.
The delegates listened to him attentively. Vladimir Ilyich experienced a feeling of deep contentment. He had dreamed of this Party Congress and of re-establishing the Party for so long. Now his dream was coming true.
Then the Congress got down to work. Practically from the start a struggle broke out, for there were some delegates who were against Lenin’s militant Party Programme. It seemed too new and bold to them, and they were frightened by this newness. They argued against Lenin’s proposals, but he defended his programme so well that the majority of delegates took his side.
The Congress discussed the Party Rules and Programme. Members of the Central Committee were elected, as was the editorial, board of Iskra. There was a bitter struggle over every point of the agenda. Lenin made a report that was both concise and convincing. There were 37 sessions in all and Lenin took the floor 120 times. Since the majority of delegates supported Lenin, they came to be known as Bolsheviks (”The Majority”). A Bolshevik was a person who stood for a workers’ revolution, for a Leninist programme, and for Lenin. Those who had split away from Lenin at the Congress came to be known as Mensheviks (”The Minority”). The Mensheviks stood for abandoning the revolutionary struggle. The Bolsheviks rallied round Lenin.
The Congress continued its sessions. Meanwhile, suspicious-looking characters were seen outside the warehouse. The Belgian police had got word of Russian revolutionaries having gathered there and had sent in a large number of police spies to keep an eye on things. Danger threatened. The entire Congress had to move to new quarters. It was decided to continue the sittings in London. In the end, Lenin triumphed. The Bolsheviks, his fearless and dedicated comrades-in-arms, were behind him.
It was drizzling that day in London, a rainy city. The streets were crowded with people carrying large umbrellas. The wind from the Channel would scatter the heavy clouds, the sun would come out for an hour or so, and the sky would be blue. Then it would start raining again. The Congress was just over. Lenin said, “Comrades, Karl Marx died here in London twenty years ago. I suggest we visit the great man’s grave.”
They all set out for the cemetery. It was located on a hill overlooking the city of soot-blackened buildings, dark roofs and smoking stacks.
There was a white marble tombstone on Marx’s grave, framed by bright green grass. A rosebush grew at the head. The blossoms were heavy with rain.
“Comrades,” Lenin said softly as he removed his hat, “Karl Marx is our teacher. Let us pledge to be faithful to his teaching. We shall never give up the struggle. Onwards, comrades, only onwards.”
THE MASSACRE
Three workers had been sacked at the Putilov Plant in St. Petersburg. A storm of protest followed. The workers of the plant said, “We demand our rights! Get rid of the foremen! They were the ones who got them sacked, and for no good reason!”
A strike followed. Every last man put down his tools. Then two other factories struck. By the next day 360 factories and mills were at a standstill. St. Petersburg seemed like a deserted city. Everyone was waiting to see what would follow.
On January 9, 1905, a Sunday, thousands of workers and their families came out into the streets. “We’re going to the tsar,” they said. “He’ll stand up for justice. He won’t let us starve.”
The Bolsheviks tried to talk them out of this, saying that the tsar did not care how hard their life was.
But the workers thought that the tsar was not aware of how bad things were, and that the moment he found out, he’d put everything right. The tsar would defend them against the bloodthirsty foremen and factory owners.
The workers had prepared a petition with their requests. That Sunday morning the procession moving towards the Winter Palace filled the streets and squares.
Gilded gonfalons and icons swayed over the heads of the crowd. The men, women and children prayed, for they had faith in the tsar.
But what was that? Troops were lined up at the crossing. There were bayonets affixed to their rifles. Officers in white gloves were out in front.
At the time Russia was fighting a war with Japan in the Far East. The Japanese had attacked Russia nearly a year before, and the Russian generals had been caught unawares. Russian troops were now suffering one defeat after another, with thousands of soldiers being slaughtered.
In St. Petersburg, however, the tsarist officers had brought out the troops against their own countrymen, against unarmed workers and their families. Troops were stationed throughout the city. What for?
“To keep law and order,” said a worker who was carrying an icon of the Virgin. “Because they don’t want a crush.”
The hulking mass of the Winter Palace came into view at the far end of the square, its hundreds of windows staring blindly at the procession. The snow around the palace was untouched. A solid line of soldiers with stony faces guarded the tsar’s residence. As the people approached, an officer raised his white-gloved hand. The soldiers shouldered their guns.
“Don’t point your guns at us, brothers!” the workers shouted. “We’ve come in peace to appeal to the tsar.” “Halt! Not another step farther!” the officer shouted.
“Stay where you are!”
There was confusion in the crowd. Those in the back rows could not see the soldiers and they kept pressing onwards.
“God save the tsar!” the crowd was singing.
“We’ve come in peace! We’ve come to see the tsar!” they shouted as they slowly advanced.
“Fire!” the officer commanded.
There was a dry crack, a strange, muffled sound. About twenty people in the front rows fell to the ground. “Fire!” the officer commanded again.
There was another burst of flame, another dry cracking,
sound.
“Fire!”
“Fire!”
“Fire!”
People fled in all directions. They hid in doorways. Many fell to the ground. The snow in front of the Winter Palace was soon covered with dead bodies. Then a cavalry detachment came charging into the square with sabres bared.
“They want to murder us!” the cry rose up.
“There’s your tsar for you!” a young Bolshevik shouted. “There’s the man you believed in! He’s a bloody beast!”
By now the workers realised this. No one but the tsar could have ordered the massacre. This killed the people’s faith in their ruler.
On Bloody Sunday, as January 9, 1905 came to be known, over a thousand workers were killed in St. Petersburg and over five thousand were wounded.
Towards evening of that day the workers began building barricades in the streets. They had risen up against the tsarist regime.
There was a street named Carouge on the outskirts of Geneva near the Arve River. Most of the Russian émigrés in Geneva had their lodgings on this street. Here, too, was the dining hall run by the Lepeshinskys, a couple whom Vladimir Ilyich had known when they had all been in exile in Siberia. All the Russian émigrés knew the place. It was a large hall on the ground floor with two large shop windows. Inside there were rows of long wooden tables and a piano. This was more than a dining hall, it was a meeting place for Bolsheviks. There were lectures and one could play chess or discuss current events here.
When the Geneva papers carried the news of Bloody Sunday, the émigrés flocked to the hall. Very little was said. They sat in silence, their faces drawn. The Bolsheviks realised that something great, something that had never happened before was taking place in Russia.
“We must get back home as soon as possible!” Vladimir Ilyich was thinking.
Then someone began to sing the workers’ funeral march, “A Victim of Dire Bondage”. Everyone rose and joined in.
“A revolution has begun in Russia,” Vladimir Ilyich said fervently.
His words were electrifying. The revolution was now close at hand. That evening Lenin wrote a stirring article for the newspaper Vperyod (Forward). This was the new Bolshevik paper, founded after the Mensheviks had seized control of Iskra.
Lenin wrote: “The uprising has begun. Force against force. Street fighting is raging, barricades are being thrown up, rifles are crackling, guns are roaring. Rivers of blood are flowing, the civil war for freedom is blazing up….
“Long live the revolution!
“Long live the insurgent proletariat!”
THE RED FLAG AT SEA
One day towards the end of summer the bell rang at the Ulyanovs’ house in Geneva.
“There’s someone to see you, Volodya,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna said, letting in a young man.
He had a round, open, boyish face and earnest blue eyes under black brows. “Please come in,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna said. “He seems like such a nice boy,” she thought. “What a kind, good face he has. He must have just arrived.”
There had been an unending wave of strikes in Russia, and Bolsheviks often travelled to Geneva to consult Vladimir Ilyich.
The young man followed her into the room. By the way he came to attention in the doorway one could guess he was a military man.
“Where are you from?” Vladimir Ilyich asked, smiling in welcome.
“Able-bodied Seaman Afanasy Matyushenko of the battleship Potemkin,” the young man reported.
Vladimir Ilyich came over to him swiftly and shook his hand.
“Nadya, this is the leader of the revolutionary crew of the Potemkin! I never expected you to be so young,” he added.
Half an hour later the enamel kettle was boiling on the spirit stove. There was a plate piled high with slices of freshly baked bread and a dish of fresh butter.
“Now, my dear Matyushenko, please tell us all about it,” Vladimir Ilyich said when the young man had appeased his hunger.
Afanasy Matyushenko told them the story of the Potemkin.
The Potemkin was a new ship, the biggest battleship in the Russian Navy. It was stationed at Sevastopol, with a crew of seven hundred and forty.
Russia had been swept by a wave of uprisings. In the villages the peasants were rising up against the landlords. The Russo-Japanese War continued, with the Russian forces sustaining heavy losses. An entire Russian squadron had been sunk in Tsushima Strait. Everything about the tsarist regime was corrupt and inefficient. The people despised their ruler, Nicholas II.
The commander of the battleship, a cruel and wilful man, was afraid that the revolutionary spirit gaining strength on the mainland would “contaminate” the crew of the Potemkin and so took the ship out to sea, supposedly for manoeuvres. He wanted to prevent the sailors from having any contact with the striking workers.
Early one morning the crew was awakened as usual. The men were assigned their duties for the day. A large number of the crew were to swab the decks. Soon the wind carried a foul smell from the upper deck. The men went up to investigate. There, hanging on hooks, were slabs of meat that were crawling with maggots. The men were sickened by the sight.
“So that’s the food we’re supposed to eat!”
“We won’t eat worms! Let the officers eat them!”
“Don’t you know they have their own provisions?”
When the signal for dinner sounded the crew went down to the galley. The cook was about to dish out their soup. There were dead maggots floating in it.
“We won’t eat it,” the sailors said.
A dead and menacing silence fell over the galley. The cook became frightened and went to fetch an officer. The officer fell upon the men. Then, just as suddenly, he became silent. He stared at their tense faces and went up to report the incident to the captain. Soon after the drums rolled, summoning the crew. The men dashed to the top deck and lined up on both sides of the ship. They were far out at sea, with blue water below and blue sky above them. Whitecaps riffled the surface of the sea. A herd of dolphins caroused nearby.
“I’ll teach you to mutiny aboard a warship!” the captain roared. “Who are the ringleaders?”
The men were silent. They stood stiffly at attention. The officers led an armed guard out on deck. The guard was lined up, facing the crew.
“Bring out the canvas!” the captain ordered.
That meant he had chosen the victims to be executed. He would point at a man and say: “You’re a ringleader!” And that would be that.
The canvas was brought up and rolled out on deck. It would be thrown over the victims. Whoever was under it would be shot without benefit of a trial.
The men stood in frozen lines. Death awaited each and every one of them. There was no escape. Standing there with the soft wind caressing their faces, they were staring at death.
Suddenly one of the men broke out from the ranks and shouted, “Brothers! How much longer do we have to take this? To arms, men!” He rushed towards one of the stacks of rifles. The man was Afanasy Matyushenko.
“Down with the captain!” Matyushenko shouted. “Down with the tsar! Long live freedom, comrades!”
The ranks broke as the sailors raced for the rifles.
The first mate hid behind a stack and took aim. His shot felled Vakulinchuk, a brave sailor and Bolshevik, the accepted leader of the crew.
“You’ll pay for that!” shouted Matyushenko and shot the officer.
The crew was enraged. Several of the most hated officers were shot and tossed overboard. The captain hid, but the men found him and tossed him overboard, too.
The Potemkin was free. But now what? Who would take command of the ship? Where were they to head for?
The sailors elected a shipboard committee, headed by Afanasy Matyushenko. They decided to sail for Odessa. The sailors raised their own revolutionary red flag instead of the tsar’s flag. These events took place on June 14, 1905.
The battleship Potemkin was proceeding at full speed under a red flag, heading for the port city of Odessa. The flag fluttered in the wind like a burning flame, like a beacon light, leading the sailors into battle for freedom.
The ship dropped anchor in the harbour. As night fell its searchlights cut through the gloom, skimming over the water and the dark, wakeful streets of Odessa. The ship’s guns were trained on the city, where numerous strikes had broken out. If only the crew of the Potemkin had come to the strikers’ aid by opening fire on the estates of the aristocracy and the rulers! But Vakulinchuk, the Bolshevik leader of the crew, had been killed, and the sailors were all very young and inexperienced.
Meanwhile, the tsar sent the following dispatch to Sevastopol: “The mutiny must be put down immediately!”
The entire squadron at Sevastopol was sent to Odessa to subdue the mutinied crew of the Potemkin.
On the morning of the fourth day the lookout on the Potemkin sighted masts and smoke on the horizon. First one ship came into view, then a second, and a third, with many more following. They were encircling the Potemkin. It was thirteen ships against one.
The alert sounded on the battleship. The sailors ran to their battle stations. What next?
The battleship sailed forth to meet the squadron. At Matyushenko’s order the signalman ran up the signal flags, spelling out the words: “The crew of the Potemkin asks the gunners not to fire.”
Suddenly a shout went up from thousands of men aboard the thirteen ships brought in to put down the mutiny. One of the ships signalled: “We’re joining you,” and headed swiftly towards the battleship.
The squadron commander, afraid lest all the crews mutiny, hastily ordered the ships back to Sevastopol.
Now two insurgent ships were flying the red flag in Odessa harbour. They were at anchor, but they did not try to capture the city. They seemed to be waiting for something. They hesitated. They did not know what to do.
By now there was very little drinking water left on the Potemkin. Their coal was running out. The sailors were restless. They wanted action, but did not know what to do.
The second ship did not hold out for long. Soon the red flag of the revolution was slowly lowered from its flagstaff.
The Potemkin raised anchor and set out for the open sea.
At the time, a messenger from Lenin was speeding on his way from Geneva to the rebel crew of the battleship. Lenin’s instructions were: “Induce the sailors to act swiftly and decisively. The city must be taken.” However, the Potemkin was far out at sea by the time the messenger arrived in Odessa.
Their drinking water was practically gone. They had to find a way out quickly and so sailed for Theodosia, another Black Sea port. They requested water, but the authorities refused them, saying they would not provide supplies for mutineers.
Once again the ship flying the red flag put out to sea, unconquered, but homeless. The men were anxious. What were they to do?
Towards evening of the eleventh day the battleship dropped anchor in a Rumanian port. These were foreign shores, foreign harbour lights, foreign houses.
By now there was no fresh water left, no coal, no bread.
The Rumanian Government said that if the crew surrendered the ship they would be given asylum and would not be deported to Russia.
And so, this was their last night aboard their cruiser. Farewell, you proud ship! For eleven days and nights you put terror in the hearts of the generals, the officers, the tsar and the rich of the land. You were faithful to your revolutionary flag. May your name go down in history!
SECRET MEETINGS
The Moscow-St. Petersburg Express was leaving Moscow. There were four minutes left till departure time. The passengers took their seats. Groups of people stood around on the platform. Two police spies waited outside the last car.
“Well, he hasn’t shown up,” said the first.
“He might slip in at the last moment. We don’t want to miss him,” said the other.
They kept a careful watch from under their lowered hats. Two more passengers arrived. One was rather stocky and had on blue glasses. He was carrying a suitcase and a brown travelling box, of the kind that were fashionable at the time. The other was a dandy in a loud chequered coat.
The man in the blue glasses was speaking. The police spies could riot hear what he was saying. They were on edge, for the man they were hunting for had not shown up.
Just then the train began to move. The man in the blue glasses hopped onto the step. The dandy remained on the platform. He had come to see his friend off.
“Well, that takes care of that,” said the first police spy. “The chief said he was going to leave for St. Petersburg today. But he didn’t after all. I didn’t see anyone who looked like him.”
He had taken a photograph from his pocket. The man on the picture had high cheekbones, a high forehead and fine eyebrows. His eyes seemed to be laughing.
“This Lenin-Ulyanov’s come from Geneva on account of all these strikes. We’re to bring him in at any cost, so we’ll come back again tomorrow,” he said and stuck the photograph into his pocket.
Meanwhile, the express was thundering through the starry night, belching smoke that caught on the treetops. Silent snow-covered forests stretched endlessly before them. The train sped on. The locomotive’s searchlights pierced the blackness, its wheels clattered on the rails.
Early the next morning in St. Petersburg the man in the blue eyeglasses hailed a cab. He was soon at his home near the centre of town. But was this really his home? It was a small room furnished with an iron bedstead covered by a threadbare blanket, a tiny table by the window and a chair. It was bleak and depressing.
The man removed his glasses and put them in his suitcase. Then he took several sheets of paper from his travelling box and sat down to write at the table.
An hour later there was a soft scraping at the door. A key was turning slowly in the lock. The door opened. Nadezhda Konstantinovna entered. She had on her fur-trimmed winter coat and hat and was carrying a muff.
Vladimir Ilyich jumped up. “Nadya, my dear!” he cried.
“Were they after you in Moscow?” she asked anxiously. “All the time,” he said and smiled.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna tried not to show him how worried she was and began unpacking his suitcase. She came upon the blue glasses.
“That’s my disguise,” Vladimir Ilyich said. “They helped me to slip out from under the very noses of the police spies.”
Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna had returned to Russia from Geneva illegally and were living in separate lodgings in St. Petersburg and using aliases. They had been meeting in secret and had very little time to spend together.
Vladimir Ilyich now hastened to tell her about the latest events in Moscow. He had gone there for the express purpose of discussing these events with his Party comrades.
The events in question had begun in October, when the Moscow railway junction went on strike. Then the Mos.. cow factories struck. No horse-cars or trams were running. The electric current was turned off. The water supply was shut down. All of working-class Moscow was on strike. Strikes had broken out in other towns and cities and had reached the rural areas.
In an attempt to stop the growing revolutionary movement the tsar had issued a manifesto in which he promised the workers more freedom. But this was a ruse. By now they knew they could not trust him. They had not forgotten the massacre outside the Winter Palace on Bloody Sunday.
And so at noon on December 7, 1905, another strike was called in Moscow. Troops were sent in to put down the strikers. That was when detachments of armed workers went into action. Barricades went up in the streets and squares, outsides the factories and mills.
The workers’ main forces were displaced in the working-class district of Presnya, where there were many factories. A Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was formed. The workers were now in power here.
Infantry and cavalry regiments, Cossack detachments and artillery were dispatched to Moscow. Heavy guns opened fire on Presnya. The workers’ wooden shanties and barracks burned like so much tinder.
The Presnya battles raged for ten days and ten nights. The people and the Bolsheviks fought valiantly, but the forces were too unequal and the uprising was finally put down.
Had the workers been right in taking up arms?
“No!” said the Mensheviks. “They should not have taken to arms,” said Plekhanov. Revolutionary battles were raging in Russia, but Plekhanov, the first Russian Marxist, was drifting farther and farther away from the Bolsheviks.
“The workers were right in resorting to arms,” said Lenin. “In this way the working class received its baptism of fire.”
Now, with the door of the little room securely locked, Vladimir Ilyich was telling Nadezhda Konstantinovna all about the Moscow uprising. She was the secretary of the Party’s Central Committee, in charge of arranging secret addresses, Party contacts and Bolshevik meetings. She was also Lenin’s closest assistant.
They remembered their dear comrade Nikolai Bauman, whose recent death was a sad loss to the Party. He had helped Lenin prepare the first issue of Iskra, he had helped smuggle the paper into Russia. The police had hounded him until he had finally been arrested and imprisoned, but he had escaped and continued working selflessly and fearlessly for the revolution. Then he had been imprisoned again.
Bauman had been released from prison in October 1905. During a workers’ demonstration several days later a hired assassin murdered him with a length of lead pipe.
Thousands of workers in Moscow attended the funeral of Nikolai Bauman, Bolshevik, revolutionary and hero. He was a fine, courageous man.
“Our Party’s strength lies in men such as he,” Lenin said. He rose and went over to the window. Nadezhda Konstantinovna came to stand by his side.
“Look, Volodya,” she said.
There was a man in a fur hat and a plaid scarf in the street opposite their house. He looked quite respectable, but it seemed st