Lenin Collected Works:
Volume 8

Preface by Progress Publishers

Volume 8 contains the works of Lenin written between January and July 1905, during the early period of the first Russian revolution. Most of the book consists of articles published in the underground Bolshevik newspapers Vperyod and Proletary.

The articles “The Autocracy and the Proletariat”, “The Fall of Port Arthur”, “European Capital and the Autocracy”, and “Debacle” give an analysis of the military defeat and political crisis of the autocracy and predict the inevitability of the revolution in Russia.

The articles “Two Tactics”, “Should We Organise the Revolution?", “New Tasks and New Forces”, “On the Provisional Revolutionary Government”, “The Revolutionary- Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry”, and “The Revolutionary Army and the Revolutionary Government” examine and develop the revolutionary tactics of the Bolshevik Party and expose and criticise the opportunist tactics of the Mensheviks.

Lenin's campaign against the splitting activities of the Mensheviks and for preparing the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.—the first Bolshevik congress—is unfolded in his articles “Time to Call a Halt!", “A Brief Outline of the Split in the R.S.D.L.P.", “General Plan of the Third Congress Decisions”, “Draft Resolutions for the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.", “The First Step”, “What the Bonapartists Are Up To”, “The Second Step”, and “Open Letter to Comrade Plekhanov, Chairman of the Council of the R.S.D.L.P."

A considerable part of the volume consists of documents pertaining to the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.—Lenin's reports and speeches at the Congress, and resolutions drafted by him on the armed uprising, on the provisional revolutionary government, on support to the peasant movement, on the events in the Caucasus, and on other questions.

The volume includes articles directed against bourgeois liberalism, such as “The Agrarian Programme of the Liberals”, “Political Sophisms”, “The First Steps of Bourgeois Betrayal”, "'Revolutionaries' in Kid Gloves”, and “The Struggle of the Proletariat and the Servility of the Bourgeoisie".

Fourteen articles and briefer items, published for the first time in the Collected Works of Lenin, are devoted to an analysis of the revolutionary events in Russia and to questions pertaining to the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

In his article “Revolution in Russia”, Lenin for the first time evaluates the events of January 9 as the beginning of the revolution and salutes the insurgent proletariat. His articles “The First Steps”, “The Eve of Bloody Sunday”, “The Number of Killed or Wounded”, “The Battles on the Barricades”, and “St. Petersburg After January 9" deal with the early days of the revolutionary struggle in St. Petersburg and with the growing political consciousness of the Russian proletariat.

In his “First of May” leaflet, Lenin sets forth the tasks of the proletariat and the peasantry in the revolution and calls for the preparation of the popular armed uprising.

The item “Conferences of the Committees” reports on the conferences of the local committees which went on record for the immediate convocation of the Third Party Congress. The article “From the New-Iskra Camp” exposes the systematic deception of the Party by the Mensheviks.

The documents “Resolution on the Armed Uprising”, “Speech on the Procedure of the Discussion of the Resolutions on the Relations Between Workers and Intellectuals Within the Social-Democratic Organisations”, “Resolution on the Publication of the Congress Proceedings”, and “Draft Resolution on the Events in the Caucasus” pertain to the materials of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

In the short article “The New Russian Loan” Lenin deals with the decline of the tsarist government's credit abroad due to the military defeats and the growing discontent within the country.