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Written on July 12-14 (25-27), 1912 |
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Published according to |
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968
First printing 1963
Second printing 1968
Translated from the Russian by Stepan Apresyan
Edited by Clemens Dutt
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THE RESULTS OF SIX MONTHS' WORK . .
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187 |
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page 187
By founding a workers' daily newspaper, the workers of St. Petersburg have accomplished a major feat, one that without exaggeration can be called historic. The workers' democratic movement has rallied together and consolidated itself in incredibly difficult conditions. Of course, it is not possible to talk of the stability of the workers' democratic press in our country. Everyone knows very well the persecution to which working-class newspapers are subjected.
For all that, the founding of Pravda is an outstanding proof of the political consciousness, energy and unity of the Russian workers.
It is useful to look back and note some results of the six months' work of the Russian workers for founding a press of their own. Since January of this year the interest shown by working-class circles of St. Petersburg in their press has become fully evident and a number of articles dealing with a workers' daily has appeared in newspapers of all shades that come into contact with the world of labour.
page 624
[101] The article "The Results of Six Months' Work " was written in the first half of July 1912. Lenin's correspondence with Pravda concerning the publication of this article survived. In one of his letters to Pravda, Lenin asked the editors to print the article in four instalments, as separate feature articles, and agreed only to corrections made for censorship reasons. The article was published in the form suggested by Lenin. [p. 187]
[102] Lenin is referring to the Menshevik liquidators' threat to nominate their own candidates at the Fourth Duma election for the worker curia as a counter to the Bolshevik candidates. [p. 197]
[103] Appeal to Reason -- a newspaper published by the American Socialists, founded in Girard, Kansas, in 1895. It had no official connection with the American Socialist Party but propagated socialist ideas and was very popular among the workers. Among those who wrote for it was Eugene Debs. [p. 201]
page 625
[104] Gazeta-Kopeika (Kopek Newspaper) -- a bourgeois daily of the yellow press type, published in St. Petersburg from 1908. It was closed down in 1918. [p. 202]