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p The days went by. There was never a dull moment; we were kept permanently busy, with duties great and small.

p In the autumn of 1918 representatives of the younger generation began to gather in Moscow and on 29 October the First All-Russia Congress of Young Workers’ and Peasants’ Unions opened. This historic Congress laid the foundations of the Russian Young Communist League, the famous Komsomol.

p The Congress sent a delegation to Lenin, who received them with warmth and affection, discussed the aims of the Komsomol with them in detail and then sent them to Sverdlov with a note asking him to give them lunch in the Sovnarkom canteen. Sverdlov was deeply impressed by them. ’What remarkable people those Komsomol organisers were,’ 131 he said later. They understood their duties, they had energy and enthusiasm, breadth of vision, and foresight.’

p One of the delegation members Alexander Bezymensky, later gave a full account of those meetings:

p ’After we had talked over our conversation with Lenin,’ he wrote, ’we went to Comrade Sverdlov. We had a long discussion about the Komsomol structure, its Central Committee and provincial and district committees. Sverdlov, an organisational expert, gave us a lot of advice and detailed instructions and helped us plan the development of Komsomol activity in various spheres. He shared our dreams, criticised some of our ideas.

p ’As our talk came to an end, our spokesman brought out Lenin’s note. Sverdlov gave a broad smile, called someone in and asked him to bring some meal tickets. He put the note in a drawer and gave us the tickets...

p ’Sverdlov noticed as he was saying goodbye that we were holding back, not wanting to leave.

p ’"Come on, comrades, you’ve not finished—out with it!" he said.

p ’One of us stepped forward: "Comrade Sverdlov, we have a great favour to ask... Give us Lenin’s note, please. That note will tell generations of Soviet youth more about Lenin than hundreds of articles.’"

p On 6 November 1918 the Sixth (Extraordinary) All-Russia Congress of Soviets opened in Moscow. It was special because it met exactly a year after the October Revolution, to review the Soviet state’s first year. In his inaugural address Sverdlov said:

p It is exactly a year since the Congress of Soviets which transferred power to the workers and peasants opened, as guns roared in the streets... While today we can confidently announce that throughout the length and breadth of Russia, Soviet power stands steadfast and invincible.’

p The Sixth Congress was also remarkable in that it was almost entirely Bolshevik, whereas at least a third of the delegates at all previous congresses, ever since the Second, had been Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and suchlike. There were some 1,300 delegates at the Sixth Congress: about 1,250 were Bolsheviks and the rest belonged to other parties or no party at all.

p There was a heightened atmosphere, a rare feeling of harmony. The motion to elect Lenin as Honorary Chairman was met with an ovation, but when Lenin took the stand to report on the international situation, the applause was enough to bring the house down. It was hard to believe that the Bolshoi Theatre could stand it!

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p But that was not all; at the height of the proceedings, news of the German Revolution came. When Sverdlov announced that Kaiser Wilhelm had been dethroned, that power had passed to the workers, sailors and soldiers in Hamburg, that mass meetings and demonstrations were taking place all over Germany, the thunderous ovations began afresh and the rafters of the Theatre rang with prolonged, deep- throated cheers. From far and near, workers, soldiers and peasants sent letters and telegrams with messages of support for the Sixth Congress and solidarity with the German Revolution, and sincere greetings to Lenin and Karl Liebknecht.

p The German Revolution ended the occupation of Soviet territory. On 13 November 1918 the CEC annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as the German army raced westward, and the peoples of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic began to cast off the German yoke. The CEC passed resolutions recognising the independent Soviet republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

p Peteris Stucka was beside himself with joy. A Bolshevik of the old school, a leading Latvian Communist, prominent in our Party and Government, Stucka was devoted to his long-suffering land, to the hard-working, courageous, wonderful people of Latvia, and ached to return to Riga, his country’s capital. Though German troops still had the upper hand there, the Latvian Bolsheviks, firm in their belief that liberation was coming, had decided to convene the First All-Latvia Congress of Soviets in Riga in January 1919.

p Stucka, beaming with delight, invited Sverdlov, on behalf of the Latvian Government and working people, to open the Congress. Sverdlov listened carefully, hesitated for a moment, and then said with a smile:

p ’ I am delighted to accept, but on one condition—I will go only if the workers of Latvia liberate their capital, and the Congress is held in a free city.’

p Riga was liberated on 3 January 1919 and the All-Latvia Congress began on schedule. Sverdlov left for Riga in an enthusiastic mood; no one could know then how short-lived Soviet power in Latvia would be or how long it would be after that before the Latvian people could be welcomed back into the Soviet family. No one could know, either, that Sverdlov would not live to see that reunion, that this was to be one of his last trips. In the joyful bustle at the station when we saw Sverdlov off nothing could have been further from our minds.

p Sverdlov was met in Riga by Stucka, President of the Soviet Government of Latvia, and others, and on 13 January he spoke to the Congress as he had promised.

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p He talked about the tremendous contribution that the workers of Latvia had made to the freedom and independence of Soviet Russia. He reminded them of the CEC decision to recognise Latvia’s independence; he was firmly convinced that this, rather than weakening the ties of friendship between the peoples of the two countries, would strengthen them.

p On the same evening he attended a meeting of the Government. F. V. Linde, who was then the Latvian People’s Commissar of Justice, remembered how Sverdlov ’went into the tiniest details of our work, and was especially interested in the structure of our highest republican Government body, which was different from that in the RSFSR. He jotted down an outline in pencil and had me explain in detail the functions of all the people’s commissariats and their inter- relationships, and how decisions were taken in the Government... At that time the Government met in the Knights’ House, where the Livonian nobility used to gather, and which is now used by the Presidium of the Latvian Supreme Soviet. The walls of the assembly hall were bright with enamelled coats of arms. Sverdlov was curious, and asked Stucka about the baronial families who had borne the crests. Neither Stucka nor anyone else present knew a thing about heraldry, so he jokingly promised Sverdlov that he would catch the barons and send them to Moscow with their crests to clarify the situation.’

p Sverdlov returned to Moscow, but did not stay long; at the end of January he went to Minsk to attend a meeting of the Central Bureau of the Byelorussian Communist Party.

p On 2 February 1919 Alexander Myasnikov opened the First Byelorussian Congress of Soviets in Minsk. Sverdlov, as Chairman of the CEC, was first to speak; he stepped to the rostrum amid prolonged applause.

p ’The Russian proletariat,’ he declared, ’will never forget that you bore the first onslaughts of the German imperialists, preventing them from penetrating further into our country.’

p Sverdlov went from Minsk to Vilno, then returned to Moscow. At the end of February he left for Kharkov, where the Third Congress of the Ukrainian Communist Party and the Third All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets were meeting. The Party Congress began on 1 March; Sverdlov welcomed the delegates on behalf of the Russian Communist Party Central Committee. He told them that a few months previously he had played a similar role at the Second Ukrainian Party Congress, which had been held in Moscow because the Ukrainian Communist Party was still an underground organisation. Now the Ukraine’s ruling party, it was holding a free and legal congress in the republican capital.

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p The Russian Communist Party, he said, would remain united no matter how many independent national republics sprang up within the former Russian Empire. ’There is no doubt in our minds,’ he went on, that our Party, the Russian Communist Party, will be forever indivisible.’

p He spoke four times in all, urging the Ukrainian Bolsheviks to unity and solidarity, for they were going through a difficult time with a bitter inner-Party feud, which often owed less to principle than to irrelevent personal conflicts. It was fanned by Pyatakov, one of the former Left Communist’ leaders, who led the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee.

p Sverdlov’s speech on the UCP Central Committee report was detailed, and highly critical of those who were trying to jeopardise the unity of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks.

p ’I simply cannot understand,’ he told them, how those who have spoken to this Congress are capable of hurling such grave and unconsidered accusations at each other... We should view each other above all as comrades who have long been in the service of the same Party.

p We have here two groups, locked in fierce combat... Neither has the right to forget that they are members of one Party, and that the Central Committee that will be elected by a majority decision today should unite all the Party workers in the Ukraine, should accept the general directives of the Russian Communist Party Central Committee and put them into practice here... Only with a strong Party organisation can you cope with the massive dislocation that we see on all sides.’

The Third All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets opened as the Party Congress closed. Sverdlov did not return to Moscow until it was over. He was never to leave Moscow again...