Vladimir Lenin, Letter to the Members of the Central Committee. November 6, 1917

Written on October 24, 1917, while still in hiding, Lenin pressed the Bolshevik Central Committee to move immediately and seize power before the moment passed. Often cited as proof of Lenin's direction of the uprising, the note has also been read skeptically: an attempt to force decisions from exile rather than evidence he controlled the insurrection.

Original Source: Ленин В. И. Письмо членам ЦК (написано 24 октября (6 ноября) 1917 г.) // Ленин В. И. Полное собрание сочинений. 5-е изд. М.: Политиздат, 1969. Т. 34. С. 435–436.

Comrades,

I am writing these lines on the evening of the 24th. The situation is critical in the extreme. It is absolutely clear that now, in truth, to delay the uprising would be fatal.

I exhort comrades with all my strength to realize that everything now hangs on a thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not solved by conferences or congresses (even congresses of Soviets), but exclusively by peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed masses.

The bourgeois onslaught of the Kornilovites and the removal of Verkhovskii show that we must not wait. We must at all costs, this very evening, this very night, arrest the government, first having disarmed the cadets (defeated them, if they resist), and so forth.

We must not wait!! We may lose everything!!

The value of the seizure of power immediately will be the defense of the people (not of the congress, but of the people, the army and the peasants in the first place) from the Kornilovite government, which has driven out Verkhovskii and has hatched a second Kornilov plot.

Who must take power?

That is not important at present. Let the Military-Revolutionary Committee take it, or "another institution" which will declare that it will relinquish the power only to the true representatives of the interests of the people, the interests of the army (the immediate proposal of peace), the interests of the peasants (the land to be taken immediately and private property abolished), the interests of the starving.

All districts, all regiments, all forces must mobilize themselves at once and immediately send their delegations to the Military-Revolutionary Committee and to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks with the insistent demand that under no circumstances should the power be left in the hands of Kerenskii and Co. until the 25th-not under any circumstances; the matter must be decided without fail this very evening, or this very night.

History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating when they could be victorious today (and will certainly be victorious today), while they risk losing much tomorrow, in fact, risk losing everything.

If we seize power today, we seize it not in opposition to the Soviets but on their behalf.

The seizure of power is the business of the uprising, its political purpose will become clear after the seizure.

It would be a disaster, or a sheer formality, to await the wavering vote of October 25. The people have the right and are in duty bound to decide such questions not by a vote, but by force; in critical moments of revolution, the people have the right and are in duty bound to direct their representatives, even their best representatives, and not to wait for them.

This is proved by the history of all revolutions; and it would be an infinite crime on the part of the revolutionaries were they to let the moment slip, knowing that upon them depends the salvation of the revolution, the proposal of peace, the salvation of Petrograd, salvation from famine, the transfer of the land to the peasants.

The government is tottering. It must be given the death-blow at all costs.

To delay action will be fatal.

Source: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works in Two Volumes (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1952), Vol. 2, part 1, pp. 196-8.