p Organisation was what the Bolsheviks, the workers and all the people of the Urals needed above all else. At the outset of the 1905 revolution the Social-Democrats had a fairly well- developed network of local groups but they were dispersed, had poor communications and often found themselves acting independently under their various leaderships.

p In those days the revolutionary scene was changing so rapidly that it was imperative for us to exert every effort, not to spare ourselves, to grasp the political situation in depth and correctly assess each new event, exploiting the revolutionary ferment among the workers to lift the whole movement to a new level. And this was precisely the time when the local RSDLP committees could barely cope with their normal daily workload. Certainly they put out leaflets, led the workers in individual strikes and demonstrations, even occasionally formed combat groups—but they in no way represented the organisational force that was needed to support and direct all local political activity. We did not even have a Party headquarters in our area. That is why we in the Urals were in such desperate need of organisers, agitators and propagandists, experienced men who understood the local situation, could talk to the workers in their own language and pull the Party groups together.

p And that was why the Party Central Committee had sent us Yakov Sverdlov. Though he was young he was a tried and tested organiser with a firm hand and considerable practical experience.

p Shortly after his arrival in town he began to appear at study groups, at the homes of various Party members and at committee meetings. With his remarkable memory he could fix someone in his mind for years to come after only one meeting. I was often amazed by the ease and speed with which he could recall literally everything about a comrade he had last seen 10 or 12 years previously, without recourse to notes.

p Even in those days he had uncommon intuition and could go to the root of a man’s character, size up his abilities and give each of us the very task we could do best. He attended a few workers’ study groups and was soon urging the younger members into active Party work. Before long a reliable nucleus formed around him, a group of experienced underground workers released from prison in October and young Bolshevik organisers with close links among the workers.

p Sverdlov’s influence on our Bolshevik groups and on the growing revolutionary movement was the greater because he had already done a lot of organisational work as Comrade Andrei, and his practical experience was founded on extensive theoretical knowledge. He assiduously studied revolutionary theory and applied what he learned on practice, for he always maintained that life should be checked against books and books against life.

p From the first day of his revolutionary career Sverdlov took his lead from Iskra  [11•1  and the works of Lenin, Marx and Engels. He viewed all of Lenin’s articles in the Bolshevik newspapers Proletary (The Proletarian) and, later, Novaya Zhizn (New Life) as Party directives, tried to link them directly and profitably to our daily work and insisted that we do the same. He also had great regard for the Central Committee letters which we occasionally received in Ekaterinburg and later in Perm, usually written by Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife and closest collaborator, who for many years was the main channel of communication between the Central Committee and the local Party groups.

p Sverdlov had an unusually attractive personality. While in the Urals he often had to visit our members and certain workers in their homes; he was soon in great demand among the workers. On the evenings when he was expected the samovar would glisten, all would be tidy and spotlessly clean and the table would hold the best of the household’s meagre store. He always had a kindly word for his hostess and a joke for the children, and would help with the samovar and the stove.

p People valued his sincere and passionate conviction, for he was also sensitive and considerate, and respected the opinions of others. He was upright and truthful, never stooped to deceit, and took no pleasure in intrigues or political gamesmanship. He never promised anything lightly; his word, once given, was binding.

p He found his direction, his raison d’etre and his satisfaction entirely in his work for the people, in the name of the Party. He once wrote that when people are striving to fashion their lives anew one could not avoid being caught up in their struggle and deriving great pleasure from one’s own part in it. His attitudes became popular among his comrades, who turned away from petty egoism and began to work furiously, committing themselves utterly to the revolution.

p Sverdlov was good at cheering people up, at restoring both their 12 energy and that vital self-confidence and faith in their own abilities. He was trusted and was often asked to give advice on personal questions as well as on Party affairs.

p He was an irrepressibly cheerful person with tremendous joie de vivre. I lived and worked with him for 14 years and never once saw him gloomy, sullen or out of temper. He seemed immune to fatigue, dejection and confusion. Once, many years later, he was telling me and a group of close friends about his escape from exile in Narym, how he had almost drowned when his boat capsized on the River Ob during a storm. He was pensive for a moment, then smiled brightly, shook back his thick hair and said:

p ’And do you know what I was thinking about, with death staring me in the face? I was thinking that it could be worse—I mean, death did not seem so bad!’

p He was the centre of attention wherever he went. He was a hard taskmaster but work with him was enjoyable and effortless.

p At the beginning of October the whole country was gripped by a general political strike, which even reached to the Urals, making yet greater demands on us and on the entire Party. The autocracy staggered under this heavy blow, and the tsarist government, frightened out of its wits by the scope of proletarian unrest, was forced into making concessions. The only way the autocracy could protect itself was by issuing the Manifesto of 17 October 1905, which made a great show of granting civil freedoms to the people. Only the liberal bourgeoisie and the Mensheviks were enthusiastic about this document; the Bolsheviks and politically conscious workers understood the motive behind it, but we would have to explain to most of the workers and to the people as a whole exactly how fraudulent it was.

p On the following night the Ekaterinburg committee published a proclamation showing the Manifesto in its true light, sent agitators round the factories, agreed the slogans which were to go on the banners, and called a mass meeting.

p On the morning of 19 October there was unprecedented animation in the town. Excited crowds filled the main streets but, although there were no police in sight, public order was impeccable. The town’s central square was particularly crowded, for factory workers, a lot of students, a number of office workers and even some shop assistants had gathered there, prompted by the committee. Party activists rapidly constructed a makeshift platform. Andrei was there, naturally, and was the first to speak.

p He had not said more than a few words before a gang of thugs burst on to the square, brandishing clubs and using the most dreadful 13 language. They went straight for Andrei but did not get to him, because there was a guard around the platform and some of them were armed. Several shots were fired, which caught the attackers by surprise. They drew back and some actually ran away, because, though full of bravado, they were cowards at heart. But our men were timid and indecisive, so inexperienced that they had not expected to do any real fighting, so the ruffians collected themselves for another attack. Then a Cossack troop came rushing to their aid.

p That evening a meeting of the Ekaterinburg committee and the active Party nucleus was held.

p We found it hard to look one another in the face, and some even felt that all was lost after such a total defeat at the hands of the black hundred.  [13•1 

p This was the first time I had seen Sverdlov in such a situation. It was then that I clearly understood why we had accepted his authority so readily. He led the meeting and gave no sign of being even slightly disconcerted; he was calm and cheerful. The first thing he said was that it would be unforgivable to let occasional setbacks get us down—it would hardly halt the revolution if one of our meetings was routed.

p He pointed out our mistakes, saying that we had only ourselves to blame. The workers’ group from the Verkhny Isetsk plant, the strongest in Ekaterinburg, could have defended us, but it had arrived late due to our bad organisation. We would have to think about that. But his main point was that we had been badly lacking in preparation, determination and the ability to protect ourselves.

p Sverdlov was unusually collected and controlled at that time and helped us to calm down and regain our self-assurance. He would not permit anyone to panic and encouraged us to learn from our temporary setbacks. Indeed, the black hundred attack on a peaceful demonstration opened many people’s eyes and the discovery that the police and clergy had been in collusion with those thugs scandalised not only the workers but the public as a whole, including the intelligentsia and even members of the liberal bourgeoisie. There was a general desire to get to the bottom of what had happened, and our contacts with the ordinary people expanded as a result. The same thing was happening all over Russia.

p Sverdlov never lost an opportunity to speak at mass meetings. He did so almost every day, sometimes several times a day. He spoke to workers, to the urban middle class, even to shop assistants, for he 14 realised how attractive the idea of democracy was to the people at large. But the proletariat was, naturally, always his first consideration.

p His speeches always emphasised the connection between the workers’ daily struggle to improve their lot and the proletariat’s political conflict. He would also explain the Party’s political programme and eloquently urge his audience to prepare themselves for a decisive clash with the autocracy. He followed Lenin’s teaching on the transition from bourgeois to socialist revolution.

p Andrei seemed to become more popular with the workers every day; he was their favourite speaker at all big meetings and was expected to chair those gatherings too, which he did superbly well.

p The Third Party Congress in 1905 called on the Party to start planning for an armed uprising. We in Ekaterinburg also helped. We obtained our weapons from the Izhevsk armaments factory and transported them so secretly that none fell into police hands.

p The larger weapon consignments were entrusted to our bolder and more resourceful comrades. One of them once had to move a large wicker basket of arms which was too heavy for one person to lift. So he kitted himself out as a rich merchant and got a bridal costume for one of our girls. The ’happy couple’ piled the arms into the capacious sort of trunk that would normally contain the dowry of a merchant’s daughter, and then went to the station. They promised some porters a fine tip if they were careful with the trunk, saying that it was full of cut glass, silver and other valuable houseware. Our smiling comrades in all their finery followed the porters, arm in arm, and nobody ever suspected the kind of dowry that was in that splendid trunk.

p We reorganised our armed patrols to good effect; before long they were making short work of all black hundred attempts to break up our meetings.

p Throughout October and November 1905 Sverdlov largely confined his work to Ekaterinburg. The committee was also working hard, training workers and students as propagandists and agitators, forming strong patrols, encouraging trade union activity and organising a Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. Party membership increased, our strength began to impress the workers and the best, the most politically conscious among them, joined us.

p A network of study groups already existed in the town. The better ones were beginning to amalgamate. Under Sverdlov’s guidance they became a Workers’ University, sometimes also known as the Party School. It had 35 students drawn from the workers’ study groups and the Ural Mining College, and a curriculum which covered the programme and tactics of the Party, political economy and the 15 European labour movement, which was the speciality of Nikolai Baturin, one of the more indispensable teachers. Sverdlov gave lessons on the Party programme and tactics. The school offered propagandists a theoretical training that was firmly based on the realities of the contemporary political situation.

p Workers and artisans began to show increasing interest in trade union activity, which had been rare in the Urals before 1905. The committee did all it could to encourage that interest and helped to form more unions. Sverdlov felt he could not tell the workers often enough how much better equipped they would be to fight against capitalism once they were unionised.

In October 1905 the clash with tsarism was reaching a peak, and it was then that Soviets of Workers’ Deputies began to form in all parts of the country. Sverdlov founded the Ekaterinburg Soviet, calling a mass meeting and inviting all the factory workers to send representatives to the Soviet. He was its first leader.