Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

214V. I. LENINPOSTSCRIPTThe above lines had been written when I received, ateight o’clock Tuesday evening, the morning Petrogradpapers; there was an article by Mr. V. Bazarov in NovayaZhizn. Mr. V. Bazarov asserts that “a handwritten manifestowas distributed in the city, in which arguments werepresented in the name of two eminent Bolsheviks, againstimmediate action”.If this is true, I beg the comrades, whom this letter cannotreach earlier than Wednesday noon, to publish it as quicklyas possible.I did not write it for the press; I wanted to talk to the membersof our Party by letter. But we cannot remain silent whenthe heroes of Novaya Zhizn, who do not belong to the Partyand who have been ridiculed by it a thousand times for theircontemptible spinelessness (they voted for the Bolsheviksthe day before yesterday, for the Mensheviks yesterday, andwho almost united them at the world-famous unity congress)—when such individuals receive a manifesto from membersof our Party in which they carry on propaganda against anuprising. We must agitate also in favour of an uprising.Let the anonymous individuals come right out into the lightof day, and let them bear the punishment they deserve fortheir shameful vacillations, even if it be only the ridiculeof all class-conscious workers. I have at my disposal onlyone hour before I send the present letter to Petrograd, and Itherefore can say only a word or two about one of the“methods” of the sad heroes of the brainless Novaya Zhizntrend. Mr. V. Bazarov attempts to polemise against ComradeRyazanov, who has said, and who is a thousand times correct