Lenin takes his campaign for an insurrection beyond the Central Committee
As the Bolshevik party leadership continues to hotly debate Lenin’s calls for an armed insurrection, Lenin forcefully continues his campaign to orient the party toward the seizure of power. He writes a number of letters to different Bolshevik delegations and party committees, in this way circumventing the Central Committee and reaching toward the working class.
In a letter to the Petrograd City Conference from October 20 (October 7, O.S.), which was to be read in closed session, Lenin urges:
We must admit that unless the Kerensky government is overthrown by the proletariat and the soldiers in the near future the revolution is ruined. The question of an uprising is on the order of the day.
We must mobilize all forces to convince the workers and soldiers that it is absolutely imperative to wage a last, desperate and decisive fight for the overthrow of the Kerensky government.
In two other letters, dated October 21 (October 8, O.S.), for the Congress of Northern Soviets, which is scheduled to convene on October 23 (October 10, O.S.), Lenin makes similar points. Emphasizing the international significance of the seizure of power in Russia, Lenin writes in his letters to Bolshevik comrades attending the Congress:
Our revolution is passing through a highly critical period. This crisis coincides with the great crisis—the growth of the world socialist revolution and the struggle waged against it by world imperialism. A gigantic task is being presented to the responsible leaders of our Party, and failure to perform it will involve the danger of a complete collapse of the internationalist proletarian movement. The situation is such that, in truth, delay would be fatal.
Lenin, basing himself on the international situation, points to the…