Historical Events of the Revolutionary World Movement

17 April 1912 LENA MASSACRE

Miners struck at the Lena gold fields in eastern Siberia to protest terrible working & living conditions. Strike leaders were arrested and troops fired on a peaceful strikers' march, killing over 200.

LENIN

"Lena shootings - Lenin pointed out - was an occasion to move the revolutionary mood of the masses in the revolutionary upsurge of the masses."

Bolsheviks in their newspaper "The Star" from April 19, 1912 wrote:

"Everything has an end - come to an end and patience of the country. Lena shooting has broken the ice of silence and - moved off the river popular movement. Moved off! .. All that was evil and pernicious in the present regime, all the ills suffering Russia - all gathered in one fact, the Lena events. "

STALIN

"The Lena shooting merely served as a signal.

The economic actions of the workers are being followed by their political actions.

The strikes over wages are being followed by protests, meetings, and political strikes in connection with the Lena shooting."

STALIN: Works, Vol. 2, 1907 - 1913

They are Working Well....

April 17, 1912

After the Lena shooting—strikes and protests all over Russia.

After the Lena shooting—strikes and protests all over Russia.

After Minister Makarov's "explanations" in the Duma—a demonstration in the capital of Russia.

The government wanted to drive Russia into the clutches of sanguinary "orders."

But Russia proved to be stronger than the government and decided to go its own way. . . .

Let us cast another glance at the history of the Lena events.

A strike of 6,000 workers was proceeding at the Lena goldfields. The strike was peaceful and organised. The mendacious Rech can, of course, speak of a "spontaneous riot" on the Lena (see No. 103). But we judge, not by what the mendacious Rech says, but by the "report" of the eyewitness Tulchinsky. And Mr. Tulchinsky asserts that on that day the workers behaved in an exemplary manner, that the workers had "no sticks or stones." And then the hellish conditions of labour in the goldfields, the very modest demands of the workers, their voluntary abandonment of the demand for an eight-hour day, the workers' readiness to make further concessions—all this is the familiar picture of the peaceful Lena strike.

Nevertheless, the government found it necessary to shoot down the workers, peaceful unarmed workers with their tobacco pouches in their hands and with petitions in their pockets for the release of their arrested comrades. . . .

Proceedings have not been taken against Treshchenko —is it not clear that he was acting on orders from above?

It has been decided to take proceedings against the workers and not against Treshchenko—is it not clear that somebody was thirsting for the proletariat's blood?

They wanted to kill two birds with one stone on the day of the shooting. First, to satisfy the voracious appetites of the Lena cannibals. Second, to intimidate the workers of other towns and localities, as much as to say— bear the yoke of capital uncomplainingly, otherwise we shall do to you what we did to the Lena workers.

The result was that neither of these objects was achieved.

The Lena cannibals have not been satisfied, for the strike in the goldfields is continuing.