Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Nicolai Lenin, His Life and Work (1918).djvu/39

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

NICOLAI LENIN

horrors of capitalist rule, summon the workers to make a revolution, and fling into the face of this reactionary Duma that its members are scoundrels and exploiters!" (Applause.) "You had better introduce a 'Bill' stating that in three years' time we shall take you all, landlords and capitalists, and hang you on the lamp-posts. That would be a real Bill!" (Applause.) Such were the lessons in "parliamentarism" which Comrade Lenin would propound to the deputies, At first Comrade Badaeff and others used to find them rather queer. The entire parliamentary surroundings were weighing upon our comrades. There, in the hall of the Taurida Palace, where the Duma was meeting, all were sitting in magnificent frock coats, and the Ministers sat around in places of honor—and these poor deputies should all of a sudden break out in such nasty talk! Later on, however, our deputies assimilated the lessons, and Lenin's enjoyment was boundless when he saw our deputy, the simple mechanic Badaeff, come out on the rostrum in the Taurida Palace and tell all those Rodziankos, Volkonskies, and Purishkevitches all that he had been taught by the teacher of the working class, Comrade Lenin. (Applause.)

In 1912 a new life began. As soon as it became possible to publish here in Petrograd a legal paper, we migrated from Paris to Galicia in order to be nearer to Petrograd. At the January (1912) Conference, which took place at Prague, the Bolsheviks consolidated the ranks which had suffered so heavily at the hands of the counter-revolutionaries. The party came back to life again, and, of course, Lenin played a leading part. At the instance of the new central committee, Comrade Lenin and myself went to stay at Cracow. There we began to receive visits from comrades from Petrograd, Moscow, and other towns. Communication was established with Petrograd, and the arrangements

— 32 —