p Even when first founding the Bolshevik Party, Lenin had put great emphasis on the training of professional revolutionaries—totally committed people, who would have a complete understanding of the Party’s needs, would be thoroughly grounded in theory and practice and would behave with discipline and courage. They would be informed and resourceful opponents and serve as an example to all, even gaining the respect of their enemies.

p Many young Bolsheviks, including Sverdlov, wanted to respond to Lenin’s call, to become the kind of revolutionary that he envisaged. All Sverdlov’s previous experiences in the Party had prepared him to become a professional revolutionary, totally committed and constantly vigilant.

p With no permanent home, he lived where he could, staying overnight with friends when he had to. Having no regular income, he often went hungry. There were occasions when he had to reach a friend’s flat late at night by way of a drain-pipe, only to leave at dawn so as not to arouse the neighbours’ suspicions. But he never complained.

p In 1904 the Northern RSDLP Committee, which had jurisdiction over the Bolshevik organisations in the Upper Volga area, transferred Sverdlov to Kostroma. He stayed briefly in Yaroslavl, established contact with the Party groups there, then continued to his destination.

p Kostroma was then one of the country’s major textile centres, with 12,000 factory workers out of a total population of 40,000 and appalling working conditions. In 1903 the factory workers, driven to desperation, had organised several strikes and demonstrations, which were violently suppressed by the police with army reinforcements. But the workers were too ground down by backbreaking labour, too accustomed to looking starvation in the face to be afraid. Demonstrations flared up again and again; the police began to arrest the leading workers and destroyed the local Socialist-Democrat organisation.

p At that point Sverdlov arrived in Kostroma. With his characteristic eagerness and determination he began by establishing revolutionary groups in the factories and furnishing the workers with political 37 literature. He brought the local Social-Democrat students together and trained them as political agitators. He gave them Lenin’s works to read and especially emphasised the value of The Development of Capitalism in Russia. His next aim was to establish an underground press and he also sent Bolshevik agitators to address the workers at every opportunity. By the end of 1904 the Kostroma Party organisation was manifestly more energetic and effective than before.

p The following year began with an event which outraged the world. On 9 January 1905, Bloody Sunday, thousands of peaceful demonstrators were shot down in St. Petersburg. This destroyed all the faith the workers still had in the tsar, and in Petersburg, Moscow, Baku and other large industrial centres strikes flared up and developed into armed clashes between the army and police and the workers. Lenin’s articles in the newspapers Vperyod! (Forward!) and Proletary (The Proletarian) offered a detailed plan of action, which encouraged the people to take up arms against the autocracy.

p Meanwhile the Kostroma committee was printing leaflets urging support for the Petersburg workers. Mass meetings were held on the outskirts of town, in caves, on the banks of the Kostroma; the bitterly cold weather seemed to deter no one from attending. Sverdlov spoke at almost every meeting.

p The police, however, had discovered his whereabouts through an intercepted letter. He noticed that he was being followed and towards the end of April 1905 moved to Yaroslavl, where he helped to prepare the May Day demonstration. He had to leave before it took place because the police were on his trail again. Returning to Nizhni Novgorod, he attended a number of meetings organised by the Sormovo RSDLP committee that were really unusual.

p The little river near Sormovo grew deep and rough in spring when the snow melted. On warm spring evenings workers of all ages would crowd into boats which rocked on the water. Some people brought balalaikas and accordions, and revolutionary songs, militant and triumphant, would resound across the river.

p On an agreed signal the boats would quickly come together, the oars would be raised, the songs cease and the fiery speeches begin, turning the occasion into a Bolshevik meeting. If danger threatened, the boats would instantly disperse, making the job of the police impossible.

p In early 1905 Sverdlov was pursuing two ends: to defend at every opportunity Lenin’s insistence on concerted action in the imminent revolution and to prepare for the Third RSDLP Congress, which was held that April in London.

p The Congress met in the face of Menshevik opposition; under 38 Lenin’s guidance it adopted the Bolshevik platform. The coming revolution was the major topic of discussion. It was decided that the Party and the working class should prepare an armed uprising, which the working class would lead.

p When the Congress proceedings and accounts of Lenin’s contributions to the discussions became available, Sverdlov went into immediate action. He did all he could to translate the decisions of the Congress into reality by bringing the local Bolsheviks closer together, conducting propaganda among the workers and fighting the Mensheviks tooth and nail throughout the Volga area. He travelled through Nizhni Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Saratov and Samara, before receiving orders from the Central Committee to station himself in Kazan.

p In those days Kazan had little in common with Nizhni Novgorod or Kostroma, having no large factories and a comparatively weak Bolshevik organisation. Previous to 1905 the workers had gone on strike only to make economic demands; indeed, there had been no significant working class demonstrations of strength there before Bloody Sunday. As the summer wore on, however, political demands arose more often at mass meetings held outside the town and at brief gatherings in the factories. A split had occurred within the Kazan committee between the Bolsheviks on the one hand and the Mensheviks and pro-bourgeois conciliators on the other.

p This was the situation that Sverdlov found when he arrived. He joined forces with S. A. Lozovsky, V. M. Likhachev and other reliable Party members to strengthen the organisation and eject the Menshevik element. He was soon made a member of the Kazan committee and took an active part in the local Bolshevik newspaper, Rabochy (The Worker), often writing editorials for it. Along with other Bolsheviks, he also contributed articles to the legal paper, Volzhsky Ustok (The Volga Broadsheet). His numerous leaflets, distributed among the workers by the Kazan committee, were very popular.

p Contact with the people was still one of his major priorities: he organised Marxist study circles in the factories and expanded the system of agitation and propaganda among the workers and the soldiers garrisoned in the town. He was himself, along with Lozovsky and Likhachev, a fine agitator. He began to call himself Andrei, a name that was to become esteemed among workers throughout the Urals; the Kazan workers respected him because he always had something new and relevant to say to them.

p The Third Party Congress had urged that preparations for an armed uprising be initiated; the Kazan Bolsheviks responded. Sverdlov concentrated his attention on the local garrison, forming Party 39 groups there, which met even more covertly than usual, under the supervision of the most reliable Party workers. Although he could not risk arrest by visiting the barracks himself, Sverdlov was in direct control of the relevant section of the committee, and wrote a number of leaflets addressed to the soldiers.

Lenin wanted the Urals to become a stronghold of Bolshevism; but for this the Social-Democrat groups, then in disarray, would have to merge into a viable organisation as soon as possible. The realisation of Lenin’s plan fell to the Ural Bolsheviks, whom Sverdlov was to unify and organise, and that is what brought Comrade Andrei to us in 1905. While he made an invaluable contribution to the local revolutionary movement, he also learnt a great deal from our militant Ural workers.