LENIN’S FATE

SHOT BY A WOMAN

REPORTED DEATH

On Saturday afternoon, the Admiralty issued, per Wireless Press, the following Russian official wireless message, sent at 10.10pm on Friday: “To all. A few hours ago, a criminal attempt was made on the life of M. Lenin at Moscow. Lenin has been wounded.” A further Russia wireless, dispatched on Friday, states: “The official bulletin issued at 11pm says: Lenin has been wounded in two places. A bullet penetrated a little above the shoulder blade, entering the chest and touching the upper part of the lung. It has caused effusion of blood in the pleura. The bullet has stopped at the right side of the neck over the shoulder bone. Another bullet penetrated into the left shoulder blade, split up the bone, and stopped under the skin. Here also an internal effusion of blood is suspected. The pulse is 104. The patient is perfectly conscious. The best surgeons have been called in to attend.” Another Russian wireless received last night gives the following official bulletin: “On Aug 31 at 9am, temperature 36, breathing 26, pulse 110. The night has been passed with disturbances. The patient now feels better. The blood effusion is not increasing: “Eleven am, pulse 112, temperature 37. The patient feels himself better. The effusion of blood in the pleura is not increasing,” In neither case is the place of origin given, but some further details sent by Reuters show that the attack on Lenin took place at Moscow. These telegrams are as follows: AMSTERDAM, SUNDAY. According to a Moscow telegram, Pravda says that the attack on Lenin was made on Friday evening at nine o’clock after a meeting of labourers at the Michelson works, at which Lenin spoke. When leaving the meeting, he was stopped by two women, who discussed with him recent decrees regarding the importation of foodstuffs. Three shots were fired, wounding Lenin in the arm and back. The shots were fired by a young girl belonging to the intellectual class, who was arrested. A Moscow telegram received via Vienna says the condition of Lenin is serious owing to internal haemorrhage. Eminent specialists have been summoned to the Kremlin. Two women belonging to the Social Revolutionary party fired thrice at Lenin and two bullets hit him in the chest and lungs. Another Moscow telegram says that the Pravda publishes a manifesto signed by Sverloff to the workmen requesting them to keep calm, and saying: “We have no doubt that the attacks will be traced to the Right Social Revolutionaries, as well as to agents of the English and French. The working-classes will reply to the attacks on their leaders with merciless mass terrorism against all.” The deputy chief of the extraordinary commission declared that measures would be taken to bring the guilty persons to justice. The examination of the arrested girl is reported to have established that she belonged to the Social Revolutionaries. It is alleged that material in the hands of the commission proved that the attack was connected with anti-bolshevik elements at Samara.

LENIN REPORTED DEAD

COPENHAGEN, SUNDAY.

A telegram which has reached here direct from Petrograd announces that Lenin has succumbed to his wounds. – Exchange Telegraph Company

BETRAYER OF RUSSIA

It is perhaps too much to hope that Bolshevism, which has very largely assisted in bringing Russia to disaster, will die with the death of its inventor: but, at any rate, the removal of Lenin from the political scene in Russia deprives the sinister movement of its guiding spirit. It is a curious fact, one of the ironies of history, that Bolshevism was actually born in England, and owed its origin to a conference of the Russian Social Democrats, held in London in 1903, when that party was split up into two groups, the larger and more advanced section being formed of the extremists, the smaller section comprising the moderate elements. The author of this split was a certain Vladimir Ilitch Oulianoff, more generally known by his revolutionary pseudonym of N. Lenin, and, as at the London conference the majority of the party leaders came over to his side, the group which he led became known as the “Bolsheviki,” or “Majorityites,” from the Russian word “bolshe,” meaning “more”. Similarly, the smaller group went by the name of “Mensheviki” or “Minorityites” (Russian, “menshe” = less, or fewer). Lenin had already been a prominent figure in revolutionary circles in Russia in connection with the Socialist propaganda dating back to the early nineties. Born at Simbirsk, on the Volga, 47 years ago, he absorbed early the teachings of Socialism, and in due course came into conflict with the authorities. He was only 17 when his brother, A. Oulianoff, was hanged at St Petersburg for plotting an attempt on the life of Alexander III, and Lenin himself, a law student at Kazan, was expelled from the university for preaching Socialism to his fellow students. The law as a career being thus closed to him, he devoted himself entirely to revolutionary propaganda, and, moving to the capital, he founded in 1895 the first big workmen’s organisation in Russia, the Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Artisan Class. At the end of 1895, he was arrested and exiled to Siberia. The union which he had founded was in the meantime transformed into the Russian Social Democratic Workmen’s Party, Lenin in his place of banishment retaining the intellectual leadership of the movement. When his period of exile came to an end, he left Russia and went abroad, finding that he could more effectively direct his party from a foreign country than if he were in Russia. About this time he wrote several books, in which he strongly advocated extremist views and opposed the parties which were in favour of compromises of one sort or another. The first Russian Revolution in 1905 brought Lenin back to his native land. He continued the active promotion of revolutionary movement, and became closely associated with Trotsky, whose real name is Braunstein. The latter was the first president of the St Petersburg Council of Workmen’s Delegates, the original model on which the Soviets were subsequently formed. In 1907 the severe measures of repression adopted by M. Stolypin made it dangerous for Lenin to remain in Russia. Once more he fled, but be maintained the leadership of the Bolsheviks, exercising an almost autocratic sway over the party and its press. When war broke out, Lenin was in Austria and was arrested. He is said to have been released through the direct intervention of Count Berchtold, and went to Switzerland, whence he subsequently returned to Russia through Germany. In Switzerland, he embarked on a violent “defeatist” campaign, in which he was assisted by German money. The Germans realised what a powerful dissolving agent Bolshevism might be if only it could be confined to Russia, and kept out of the Central Empires, and they used Lenin for their purposes, while he thought he was using them for his. To Lenin’s credit, it may be stated that he never denied taking German money. “Of course, we take their money,” he said, airily, “we take money from anyone or anywhere, but it will be the worse in the end for all who have money to give.” For to him nationality and patriotism are meaningless phrases, and there are in the world but two classes of people, the oppressors and the oppressed. On his return to Russia, Lenin shook himself free from all party and national traditions, and advocated a universal social revolution. Would not this experiment be dangerous for Russia, he was asked, and he replied: “Let Russia perish; but we will kindle the social revolution throughout the world, and we will, if necessary, hand over its banner to other countries and nations.” He became even more autocratic than the Tsars, overthrew the Kerensky government, and suppressed the Constituent Assembly. His crowning infamy was the Brest Litovsk peace, but soon after that his power began to wane, and it was apparent that the dissatisfaction aroused by his regime was increasing. How much longer he could have lasted it is impossible to say: but the problem, so far as he was concerned, has now been solved by the assassin’s bullet. Whether and for how long Bolshevism will survive him remains for history to disclose.