Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

504 NOTES22revisionist elements. The newspaper carried out a great deal ofwork in propaganda for the decisions of the Third Congress of theParty and played an important part in organising and ideologicallyuniting the Bolsheviks. It consistently defended revolutionaryMarxism and worked out all the fundamental issues of therevolution which was developing in Russia. By highlighting theevents of 1905 Proletary helped to rouse the broad masses of theworking people to the struggle for the victory of the revolution.Proletary exercised great influence on the local Social-Democratic organisations. Some of Lenin’s articles in the paperwere reprinted in local Bolshevik papers and circulated in leafletform. Publication of Proletary was discontinued shortly afterLenin’s departure for Russia at the beginning of November 1905.The last two issues (Nos. 25 and 26) were edited by V. V. Vorovsky,but for them too Lenin wrote several articles, which were publishedafter his departure from Geneva. p. 42Proletary (The Proletarian) (Russian issue)—an illegal Bolsheviknewspaper published from August 21 (September 3), 1906 toNovember 8 (December 11), 1909 under the editorship of Lenin.Altogether 50 issues were put out. An active part in the work of theEditorial Board was taken by M. F. Vladimirsky, V. V. Vorovsky,A. V. Lunacharsky, and I. F. Dubrovinsky. The technical work washandled by Y. S. Schlichter, A. G. Schlichter, and others. The firsttwenty issues were prepared for the press and set up in Vyborg(printing from the matrices sent was organised in St. Petersburg; forpurposes of secrecy the newspaper carried the statement that it waspublished in Moscow). Eventually, owing to the extremely difficultconditions created for the publication of an illegal organ in Russia,the Editorial Board of Proletary, in accordance with a decision ofthe St. Petersburg and Moscow committees of the R.S.D.L.P.,arranged to have the paper published abroad (Nos. 21-40 wereissued in Geneva, and Nos. 41-50 in Paris).Proletary was in fact the Central Organ of the Bolsheviks.The bulk of the work on the Editorial Board was done by Lenin.Most of the issues carried several articles by him. Altogether over100 articles and items by Lenin on all vital issues of therevolutionary struggle of the working class were published inProletary. The paper devoted a good deal of space to tactical andgeneral political questions, and published reports on the activitiesof the C.C of the R.S.D.L.P., the decisions of conferences andC.C. plenary meetings, C.C. letters on various questions of Partyactivity, and a number of other documents. The paper was in closetouch with the local Party organisations.During the years of the Stolypin reaction Proletary played animportant role in preserving and strengthening the Bolshevikorganisations and combating the liquidators, otzovists, ultimatists,and god-builders. At the plenary meeting of the Party’s CentralCommittee in January 1910 the Mensheviks, with the help of theconciliators, succeeded in obtaining a decision to close down thepaper on the pretext of fighting factionalism. p. 42