NOTES
[94] The reference is to the Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. groups abroad, held in Berne on February 27-March 4, 1915. Convened on Lenin's initiative, it was in fact a general conference of the Party, since neither a party congress nor an all-Russia conference could be convened during the war.
The Conference was attended by representatives of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, the R.S.D.L.P. Central Organ,
Sotsial-Demokrat, and delegates from R.S.D.L.P. (Bolshevik) groups in Paris, Zurich, Geneva, Berne, Lausanne and from the Baugy group. Lenin was delegated by the Central Committee and the Central Organ, directed the work of the Conference, and made a report on the main item on the agenda, "The War and the Tasks of the Party". The Conference adopted resolutions on war as drafted by Lenin.
[p. 158]
[95] Pravda -- a legal Bolshevik daily published in St. Petersburg. Founded in April 1912, on the initiative of the St. Petersburg workers.
Pravda was a popular working-class newspaper, published with money collected by the workers themselves. A wide circle of worker correspondents and worker-publicists formed around the newspaper. Over eleven thousand correspondence items from workers were published in a single year.
Pravda had an average daily circulation of 40,000, with some issues running into 60,000 copies.
Lenin directed Pravda from abroad, where he was living. He wrote for the paper almost daily, gave instructions to the editorial board, and rallied the Party's best literary forces around the newspaper.
Pravda was constantly persecuted by the police. During its first year of existence it was confiscated forty-one times, and thirty-six legal actions were brought against its editors, who served prison sentences totalling forty-seven and a half months. In the course of twenty-seven months
Pravda was banned eight times by the tsarist government, but reissued under the new names of
Rabochaya Pravda, Severnaya Pravda, Pravda Truda, Za Pravdu,
Proletarskaya Pravda, Put Pravdy, Rabochy, and Trudovaya Pravda. The paper was closed down on July 8 (21), 1914, on the eve of World War I.
Publication was not resumed until after the February Revolution. Beginning from March 5 (18), 1917,
Pravda appeared as the Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin joined the editorial board on April 5 (18), on his return from abroad, and took over the paper's management. On July 5 (18), 1917, the
Pravda editorial office was raided by military cadets and Cossacks. In July-October 1817
Pravda frequently changed its name as a result of persecution by the Provisional Government. It appeared successively under the names
page 474
of Listok Pravdy, Proletary,
Rabochy, and Rabochy Put. On October 27 (November 9) the newspaper began to appear under its former name --
Pravda.
[p. 164]