- Proletary
"Proletary" (The Proletarian) was an illegal
Russia nBolshevik newspaper edited byLenin ; it was published fromSeptember 3 ,1906 untilDecember 11 ,1909 . A total of fifty issues having appeared. Active participants in the editorial work were M. F. Vladimirsky, V. V. Vorovsky, I. F. Dubrovinsky, A. V. Lunacharsky. The technical side of publication was in the hands of A. G. Schlichter, E. S. Schlichter and others. The first twenty issues of the paper were edited and set up inVyborg (matrices were sent to St. Petersburg and the paper was printed there; for purposes of concealment the newspaper was date-linedMoscow ). Later, in view of growing difficulties in the way of publishing an illegal newspaper in Russia, theSt. Petersburg and Moscow Committees of theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party decided that publication of the newspaper should he organised abroad. Nos. 21 to 40 were published inGeneva and Nos. 41 to 50 inParis .Nos. 1 and 2 of "Proletary" appeared as the organ of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; Nos. 3 and 4 as the organ of the Moscow, St. Petersburg and Moscow District Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; Nos. 5 to 11 as the organ of the Moscow, St. Petersburg, Moscow District,
Perm andKursk Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; Nos. 12 to 20 as the organ of the Moscow, St. Petersburg, Moscow District, Perm, Kursk andKazan Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; from No. 21 onwards (from the time it moved abroad) it appeared as the organ of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.In practice, "Proletary" functioned as the central organ of the Bolsheviks. The main editorial work was done by Lenin, with most issues carrying articles by him (over a hundred in all) on questions of the revolutionary struggle of the working class. The newspaper gave prominence to questions of tactics and general politics; it published reports on the activities of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., the decisions of conferences and plenary meetings of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P., letters from the C.C. on various questions of Party work, and other documents. No. 46 published a supplement containing a notice of the extended meeting of the Editorial Board of "Proletary" held in Paris between
June 21 andJune 30 ,1909 , and also the resolutions of that meeting. The newspaper maintained close contact with local Party organisations.During the years of the Stolypin reaction, the newspaper played an important part in preserving and strengthening the Bolshevik organisations, in the struggle against the liquidators, and all other opportunists. At the plenary meeting of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P. in January 1910, the
Menshevik s succeeded, with the aid of the conciliators, in passing a resolution to close the newspaper "Proletary" under the pretence of fighting factionalism. [Vladimir Lenin , [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/jan/21.htm The Social-Democratic Election Campaign in St. Petersburg] , "Prostiye Rechi", No. 2.]References
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