Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

THE JUBILEE NUMBER OF ZIHNA261FROM MARXTO MAOGubernia—4.98 times and St. Petersburg—4.19. In MoscowGubernia in 1905 the number of workers on strike cameto 276,563, i.e., only a few more than in Livonian Gubernia,although the total number of factory workers in MoscowGubernia is five times as large as in Livonian Gubernia(285,769 against 53,917). We see from this how muchmore class-conscious, unanimous and revolutionary theLettish proletariat was in its activity. But we also knowthat its role of vanguard in the offensive against absolutismwas not limited to strike action: it was in the van ofthe armed uprising, it contributed most of all to raisingthe movement to the highest level, i.e., the level of an uprising.It succeeded more than any other in drawing theLettish agricultural proletariat and the Lettish peasantry⋆into the great revolutionary struggle against tsarism andthe landlords.Besides being one of the leading contingents of RussianSocial-Democracy during the revolution, the Lettish workers’party has proved to be in the front ranks too duringthe difficult period of counter-revolution. We learned fromthe report mentioned above that no special trend has arisenamong the Lettish Social-Democrats either of an infatuationfor revolutionary phrases our “otzovists”) or ofan infatuation for legal NOT opportunities FOR(like our liquidators,who reject the illegal Party and stand aside from the taskof restoring and strengthening the R.S.D.L.P.). The LettishSocial-DemocraticCOMMERCIALworkers have succeeded in settingabout the work of utilising all kinds of legal avenues: thelegal unions, various DISTRIBUTIONworkingmen’s associations, the Dumatribune, etc. Moreover they have not in the least “liquidated”the illegal, revolutionary Social-Democratic Party;on the contrary, they have everywhere preserved the workers’illegal Party units, which will uphold and continuethe traditions of the great revolutionary struggle, trainingby steady and persistent effort increasingly numerous andclass-conscious masses of combatants drawn from the younggenerations of the working class.There is no doubt that among the causes to which thesuccess of the Lettish Social-Democrats is due we mustassign the foremost place to the higher development ofcapitalism, both in town and countryside, the greater clarity