Page:Nikolai Lenin - On the Road to Insurrection (1926).pdf/69

 There is no middle course. To wait is impossible. The revolution is in danger.

The question put thus, the whole of our fraction concentrated in the factories and barracks, we shall be able to judge the moment when insurrection should be begun.

And to treat the insurrection in the Marxist manner, in other words as an art, we must at the same time, without loss of a minute, organise a general staff for the insurrectionary cadres, distribute our forces, concentrate the trustworthy regiments on the most important points, invest the Alexandra Theatre, occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress, arrest the Grand General Staff and the Government, march against the officer-cadets and the "barbarian division." Our cadres must be ready to sacrifice themselves to the last man rather than allow the enemy to penetrate into the centres of the town; we must mobilise the armed workers, summon them to the greatest fight of all, occupy simultaneously the central telegraph office and telephone exchange, instal our insurrectionary staff at the central telephone exchange, get telephone connections with all the factories, all the regiments, all the points at which the attacking army displays itself, &c.

All this indeed is only approximate, but I have limited myself to proving that at the present moment, one cannot be faithful to Marxism, to the revolution, without treating insurrection as an art.