NICOLAI LENIN
ensigns were already sacking those offices. On the morning of July 18th Lieber took me to the military staff of the district to obtain redress in the matter of the sacking of the offices of the "Pravda." General Polovtseff, the head of the Staff, received me with great respect. He at that time did not know what to do with us. But an hour later the Bolsheviks were being arrested and massacred.
Then the persecutions started. Lenin and myself went into hiding. We had formerly decided to be arrested—such was still our faith in the Mensheviks and the Right Socialist Revolutionaries. But the party did not permit us to do so. We, therefore, decided to go in hiding ourselves. A week later Comrade Lenin told me: "How could we have been so silly as to think for one moment of trusting to this band and getting ourselves arrested? There is no other way but to fight this band ruthlessly." (Applause.)
***
In the same way as Comrade Lenin in July, 1917, wisely declared that there must be no attempt to seize power, so after the Korniloff rebellion—especially since the end of September, 1917, Lenin began urging the workers to seize power, or else it would be too late.
When, after that rebellion, the so-called Democratic Conference assembled at Petrograd, Lenin at first came out with an article on "Compromise," He invited for the last time the Mensheviks and Socialist Rvolutionaries to break with the bourgeosie, to renounce their policy of treason, and to come to a settlement with the working class with a view to action against the followers of Korniloff. But these two parties were rotten to the core. They had already sold their souls and could not accept Lenin's invitation. Thereupon Lenin sent a letter from his Finnish exile to the central committee of our party saying that the time had come to drop all procrastination, that it was necessary to surround the Alexandra Theatre (where the Democratic Conference was holding its sessions), to disperse all the scum there by force, and to seize power.
Our central committee at that time did not agree with Comrade Lenin. Almost everybody thought that it was too early, and that the Mensheviks and Socialist
— 42 —
