Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Nicolai Lenin, His Life and Work (1918).djvu/54

 of the enemies, the more assured Lenin is. Again, Lenin is fond of comparing our revolution with a rushing railway engine. Indeed, our railway engine rushes with a dizzy swiftness, but then our driver manages the engine, as no one else can. His eye is sharp, and his hand is firm and will not tremble for one second even at the most dangerous culverts.

At this moment our leader is lying wounded. For a few days he struggled with death, but he vanquished it, and he still lives, This is symbolical. At one time it looked as if our revolution had been mortally wounded. It is at present coming round again, as our leader Comrade Lenin is coming round; the clouds will scatter, and we shall vanquish all our enemies. (Storm of applause.)

In one of my telegrams to Lenin I expressed the wish that his first appearance before the public after his convalescence might take place at Petrograd in our midst, I am profoundly convinced that this was also desired by you, but I am afraid that it will not be so. Lenin will not be restrained. His first public appearance, indeed, already occurred to-day, He would not equiesce in a condition of an invalid. He rises from bed, asks for telegrams and papers, sits down to work, and cannot forget that he is the most responsible worker in the greatest revolution in the world. (Applause.) That is why I think we shall not have the desired happiness. But we shall have the happineshappiness [sic] of another kind. We know that no Soviet, no worker, enjoys so much the infinite love and respect of Lenin as the Petrograd Soviet and the Petrograd workers.

This, comrades, is no mere phrase; it is truth, Each time when the situation becomes difficult and calls for heroic measures, the first thing which occurs to Comrade Lenin is to appeal to the Petrograd proletariat. "Why are you idle? Don't you understand that you are the salt of the earth; that you must save not only yourselves, but the entire workers' revolution?" Such is the sense of the numerous message which Comrade Lenin has addressed to you many times from Moscow. Lenin is convinced that any single one of you, Petrograd workers, is worth a hundred others. Comrade Lenin, one could almost say, has a superstitious faith in the Petrograd worker. He is profoundly convinced that