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p As soon as he arrived in Perm Sverdlov began to rally the Bolshevik forces in Motovilikha, while also keeping an eye on Perm and on the Lysva, Chusovaya and Kizel factories. He was in control of the whole Urals organisation and under his supervision the preparations for the regional Party Conference made good headway.

p The day after his arrival he walked to Motovilikha with Misha Turkin, a young factory worker and RSDLP member. Sverdlov called 21 together five or six people there and directed each of them to re- establish his contact with members of the local Bolshevik organisations who had escaped arrest and to enlist new members from among those who had proved themselves during and after the Motovilikha rising.

p A few days later there was a larger meeting, where Sverdlov announced that a strong local underground organisation was to be formed. He drafted a plan then and there, describing the structure he had in mind and suggesting a suitable system of communications between members.

p There followed several brief meetings with Party members and young people with revolutionary potential. He gave detailed instructions to each, making sure that they knew how to talk to the workers, what to look out for and what issues to raise. Then he sent them out to all parts of the factory.

p After he had made contact with the Party activists in this way Sverdlov began to make himself known to the workers, visiting them at home, encouraging them, giving them confidence in themselves and in the coming victory of the proletariat.

p The organisation quickly picked up. New young Party members took the place of those who had been arrested and comrades from other towns converged on the area. Sverdlov’s arrival had re-invigorated the Motovilikha Bolsheviks.

p Our work in Perm was proceeding with equal success. Sverdlov supervised the Perm committee, keeping an eye on every aspect of its day-to-day activities. He formed a reliable core of staunch Bolsheviks there too and built up a viable underground organisation. In the spring of 1906 we set up a large underground press, with some 80 kilograms of type and a good stock of paper.

p At last the tremendous efforts of Sverdlov and numerous others were rewarded—it was time to unify the Ural Bolshevik movement. In February 1906 the first Ural Regional Conference was convened—a monument to their powers of organisation.

p About 25 RSDLP representatives attended—from Perm, Ekaterinburg, Nizhni Tagil, Ufa, Vyatka, Tyumen and elsewhere. I could not be there but 1 later heard from delegates that Sverdlov had, in effect, run the conference. He had tabled almost all the motions that were passed, motions based on Leninist principles and charged with a militant Bolshevik spirit, which had an immense effect on the local Party activities and served as guidelines for our agitators and propagandists. Even the subsequent years of reaction could not break the strong Bolshevik organisation that emerged from that conference.

p A new RSDLP Regional Committee was elected, which, under Sverdlov’s guidance and following Leninist precepts, was to devote 22 its energies to preparing the people for a new revolutionary upsurge.

p The Ural organisation was becoming increasingly vital to the Party as a whole. Indeed, when the First RSDLP Conference of Military and Combat Groups met in Finland in 1906, it used the funds of the Ural combat group, which were delivered by one of its members. The conference made considerable use of the experience of our combat group and of the rules of procedure agreed on in Perm and in the South Urals. At its close the Conference used money donated by the Ural Bolsheviks to publish its proceedings.

p Our unremitting fight against the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks took up a great deal of our time and energy in those days. The influence of the SRs in the Urals had been undermined during the 1905 revolution but the Mensheviks were in a different position. In the autumn of 1905, when the revolutionary fervour was at its height, a number of them had often given their support to the Bolsheviks but it took only a few setbacks to make them panic. Hard on their leaders’ heels they began to complain stridently that we should never have taken up arms. Discord and disorganisation were their entire contribution to our efforts; we disagreed with them on every fundamental issue.

p At that time it was essential that the strength of the proletariat should not be dissipated; we had to totally discredit the Menshevik ideology and wrest away from them the few local workers who were still under their influence. Our efforts, of course, depended on unity of spirit within our own organisation.

p But the Bolsheviks who had rallied around Sverdlov were so unanimous in their views, so firmly grounded in Leninist principles, that by the end of 1906 there was not one functioning Menshevik group in the Urals.

p For example, we beat them thoroughly in April 1906, when we had to elect a Perm delegate to the Fourth RSDLP Congress. The hustings were held out of town at a mass meeting. Voting was by a show of hands.

p There seemed no doubt that Sverdlov would be nominated but the Motovilikha workers protested against his candidature, pointing out that in the present situation there was a good chance that he would be arrested.

p Everyone who had worked with him had great faith in his organisational talent; only recently they had seen him rebuild a viable Bolshevik organisation in the area under extremely difficult circumstances. The Motovilikha workers carried the day and even Sverdlov had to agree, much as he wanted to attend the Congress and meet Lenin. So instead of Yakov Sverdlov they elected Yakovlev as their delegate—and I was Yakovlev.

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p It was obviously impossible for the Congress to be held on home territory—we were, after all, living under tsarism—so it was convened in Stockholm.

p It was not very easy to get there. I not only had to be continually on my guard against the secret police, who considered every Bolshevik fair game, but I also encountered all sorts of obstacles set up by the Mensheviks, who should themselves have had a hand in convening the Congress. And I could not decide what to take—I only possessed a simple cotton blouse, a cheap light coat and a head scarf. But my comrades outfitted me and I set off for my first rendezvous in Petersburg.

p As he saw me off, Sverdlov repeated over and over again that they were counting on me to stick by Lenin, not to miss a word he said, to listen to everything and remember everything, because when I came back I would have a lot of questions to answer. He also warned me to keep a sharp eye on the Mensheviks and their tricks.

p I got safely to Petersburg, but unpleasant things began to happen almost as soon as I arrived. It was a Menshevik-held rendezvous, and they would stoop to anything to assure themselves a majority at the Congress. I was met by a rather nasty person who kept tugging at his sparse gingery beard and spitting. On hearing that I was a Bolshevik, he announced that I could not go to the Congress with full discretionary powers and an effective vote; if I chose to attend, it would be with an advisory vote.

p I made it quite clear that this was not so and decided not to move until I was assured of this by the Perm Bolsheviks who had elected me.

p The answer was quick in coming and the Menshevik then had no choice but to tell me where the next rendezvous point was. It was in Helsingfors, and the Party name of my contact there was ‘Devil’.

p This ‘Devil’ turned out to be a wonderful comrade and a charming person, a firm follower of Lenin’s line. He made me very welcome and advised me to stay until some more people arrived, so that I would not have to go on alone. A small group of delegates gathered within the next couple of days.

p We were deep in conversation as soon as we boarded the boat for Sweden, and before long it emerged that apart from a woman called Sablina we were all novices—none of us had been abroad before. Possibly because she was more experienced—or, more likely because she was so charming—Sablina became the leader of our little group almost immediately. Her knowledge about Party affairs was staggering; she knew literally everything that was going on in every local organisation. I myself was amazed by how knowledgeable she was on the state of affairs in the Urals, by the inside information she obviously 24 drew on when asking about our Regional Conference and about Comrade Andrei. I simply could not resist finding out, when we were quite alone, how she had got all those details.

p ’But, Comrade Olga, aren’t you Klavdiya Novgorodtseva?’ she asked with a smile.

p I was completely taken aback, since I had told no one, not even our Devil, my real name.

p Sablina continued: ’l think it’s time I introduced myself. My name’s Nadezhda Krupskaya.’

p That brought everything into focus—this was Lenin’s wife, companion, helpmate, the object of Sverdlov’s high esteem, whose letters had guided our work like beacons. That meeting was the beginning of a very long friendship between us.

p I learned from our talk that both she and Lenin knew about Sverdlov’s activities in our area and followed them with interest, discovering what they could from people who had met him in the Volga region or in the Urals.

p The time seemed to fly on that short journey to Stockholm. We had just missed the opening of the Congress; it was in progress when we arrived. It was there, in Sweden, that I finally saw Lenin for the first time.

p It was a complex situation, for the Menshevik delegates were in the majority and we had some difficult moments with them. Almost every evening, after the close of the day’s business, the Bolshevik delegates would gather at some quiet little restaurant. Lenin would come, there would be a keen exchange of opinions and the next day’s plan of campaign would be agreed. There was nothing official about those gatherings—the conversation was lively and relaxed. In the centre of it all was Lenin, giving every speaker his full attention, tossing off pertinent rejoinders, giving sound advice, clearing up the most involved questions.

p When our discussions were over Lenin would eagerly encourage Sergei Gusev, the Moscow delegate, to sing something. Gusev would begin, others would join in, and those irrepressible songs of Russia and the revolution would ring out for hours.

p One thing was patently obvious: Lenin, who was so unaffected and sensitive towards people he felt an affinity with, could be implacable and merciless in like measure towards the opportunists, the traitors to the revolution. He tore the effusive Menshevik phrasemongering to shreds; their leaders often seemed to be in complete desarray during their bitter engagements with him.

p As they held the majority of votes, the Mensheviks introduced motions on every important issue but we Bolsheviks had already decided to 25 ignore them; we would take our lead only from Lenin. I explained this to the committee on my return to Perm.

p Of course, Sverdlov and the others completely approved. They called a meeting, fairly broad-based for those days, where I reported on the Congress. I concentrated on explaining the resolutions that Lenin had put forward, showing that I thought they should be viewed as Party directives, and subjected the Menshevik motions to the sharpest possible critique.

p Sverdlov followed me on to the rostrum; he confined his talk exclusively to the practical conclusions to be drawn from Lenin’s line at the Conference, and the effect that it would necessarily have on our activities in the future.

The overwhelming majority of those present agreed with us and the Perm organisation, along with its committee, remained firmly Bolshevik and Leninist, despite the Menshevik stance of the Fourth RSDLP Congress.