Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

406 NOTES123124125126Lenin uses the appellation Octobrist-Cadet to describe the bourgeoisProvisional Government formed at 3 p. m. on March 2 (15) 1917 byagreement between the Provisional Committee of the State Dumaand the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik leaders of theExecutive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’Deputies. The government was made up of Prince G. Y. Lvov(Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior), the Cadet leader P. N.Milyukov (Minister of Foreign Affairs) the Octobrist leader A. I.Guchkov (Minister of War and Acting Minister of the Navy) andother representatives of the big bourgeoisie and landlords. It alsoincluded A. F. Kerensky, of the Trudovik group, who was appointedMinister of Justice.The manifesto of March 4 (17) mentioned by Lenin later on wasoriginally drawn up by Menshevik members of the Petrograd SovietExecutive Committee. It set out the terms on which the Executivewas prepared to support the Provisional Government. In the courseof negotiations with the Duma Committee, it was revised by P. N.Milyukov and became the basis of the Provisional Government’sfirst appeal to the people. p. 287The telegram was sent to Stockholm, addressed to Lundström, aSwedish Social-Democrat, for communication to the Bolsheviksreturning to Russia from Stockholm and Oslo. It reached Petrogradon March 13 (26) and was read out by Y. B. Bosh at a meeting of theC.C. Bureau in Russia and, on the same day, at a meeting of theExecutive Commission of the Petrograd Party Committee. p. 292The letter was published in Volksrecht under the heading “Feststellung”(“Factual Note”), and began with the words: “Comrade Leninwrites....” p. 293The first four Letters from Afar were written between March 7 and12 (20 and 25), the fifth, unfinished letter was written on the eve ofLenin’s departure from Switzerland, on March 26 (April 8), 1917.As soon as the first news reached him of the revolutionary eventsin Russia and the composition of the bourgeois Provisional Governmentand the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Leninbegan work on an article for Pravda—he regarded the press as animportant vehicle of propaganda and organisation. “The press isnow the main thing”, he wrote to Alexandra Kollontai on March 3(16). “I cannot deliver lectures or attend meetings, for I must writedaily for Pravda,” he wrote to V. A. Karpinsky on March 8 (21),in reply to the latter’s invitation to deliver a lecture on the tasksof the Party in the revolution to Russian émigrés and Swiss socialistsin Geneva.The first and second “Letters from Afar” were sent to AlexandraKollontai in Oslo on March 9 (22) for forwarding to Petrograd.On March 17 (30) Lenin asked J. S. Hanecki whether the first fourletters had reached Pravda in Petrograd, adding that if they had not,he would send copies. The letters were brought to Petrograd by