Letter to Sergey Ivanovich Gusev, February 15, 1905

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Gusev, Sergei Ivanovich (1874–1933)—Social-Democrat, Bolshevik. From December 1904 to May 1905 secretary of the Bureau of the Majority Committees and the St. Petersburg Committee of the Party, then a leader of the Bolshevik Organisation in Odessa. From January 1906 a member of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP During the years of reaction (1907–10), came out against liquidationism and otzovism.

After the October Socialist Revolution, held positions of trust.

To Khariton

February 15, 1905

Dear friend,

Many thanks for the letters. Be sure to keep this up, but bear in mind this: 1) never restrict yourself to making a precis of letters or reports handed over to you but be sure to send them on (apart from your own letters) in full; 2) be sure to put us in direct touch with new forces, with the youth, with newly-formed circles. Don’t forget that the strength of a revolutionary organisation lies in the number of its connections. We should measure the efficiency and results of our friends’ work by the number of new Russian connections passed on to us. So far not one of the St. Petersburgers (shame on them) has given us a single new Russian connection (neither Serafima, nor Sysoika, nor Zemlyachka, nor Nik. Iv.). It’s a scandal, our undoing, our ruin! Take a lesson from the Mensheviks, for Christ’s sake. Issue No. 85 of Iskra is chockful of correspondence. You have been reading Vperyod to the youth, haven’t you? Then why don’t you put us in touch with one of them? Remember, in the event of your being arrested we shall be in low water unless you have obtained for us a dozen or so new, young, loyal friends of Vperyod, who are able to work, able to keep in contact, and able to carry on correspondence even without you. Remember that! A professional revolutionary must build up dozens of new connections in each locality, put all the work into their hands while he is with them, teach them and bring them up to the mark not by lecturing them but by work. Then he should go to another place and after a month or two return to check up on the young people who have replaced him. I assure you that there is a sort of idiotic, philistine, Oblomov-like fear of the youth among us. I implore you:fight this fear with all your might.

Yours,

Lenin