V. I. Lenin

A Comment “This Duma,” writes the Cadet newspaper Rech about the first sitting of the fourth session of the Black-Hundred Duma,
“has today divorced itself finally and irrevocably from popular feeling
and the national conscience.” This is said, of course, with reference to
the refusal of the Black-Hundred and Octobrist deputies to honour the
memory of Muromtsev, who presided over the First Duma.

Itwould be difficult to express more conspicuously than in the phrase
quoted above the utter falsity of that point of view which our liberals
take towards the struggle for freedom in general and the demonstration on
the death of Muromtsev in particular.

Thereis no doubt that a demonstration against the tsarist government,
against the autocracy, against the Black-Hundred Duma was called for on the
occasion of Muromtsev’s death, that a demonstration did take place, that
the most diverse and broadest sections of the population took part in it,
the most diverse parties extending from the Social-Democrats to the Cadets,
“progressists” and Polish Octobrists (the Polish

Kolo ). {1} Nor is there any doubt that the Cadets’ appraisal of
this demonstration shows for the hundredth and thousandth time how alien
they are to democracy, how ruinous to the cause of democracy in
Russia it is for our Cadets to have the conduct of this cause or even to
play a leading part in it.

Alldemocrats and all liberals took part and had necessarily to take
part in the demonstration on the death of Muromtsev, for in the darkness of
the regime of the Black-Hundred

Duma such a demonstration afforded an opportunity to express openly and on
a comparatively broad scale a protest against the autocracy. The
tsarist autocracy waged a desperate struggle against the introduction of
representative institutions in Russia. The autocracy gerrymandered and
distorted the convocation of the first parliament in Russia, when the
proletariat and revolutionary peasantry compelled it by mass struggle to
convoke this assembly. The autocracy cynically flouted and rode roughshod
over democracy and the people, insofar as the voice of the people,
the voice of democracy, resounded in the First Duma. Now the autocracy is
persecuting even the recollection of this feeble expression of the demands
of democracy in the First Duma (the expression of these demands was much
feebler, poorer, narrower, less lively during the First Duma and from the
rostrum of the First Duma than in the autumn of 1905 from the rostrums,
which were created by the wave of open mass struggle).

Thatis why democracy and liberalism could and had to come together in
a demonstration of protest against the autocracy on any occasion that put
the masses in mind of the revolution. But, coming together in a common
demonstration, they could not but express their attitude
both to the appraisal of the aims of democracy in general and to the his
tory of the First Duma in particular. And the first approach to such an
appraisal brought out the insufferable threadbareness, political impotence
and political ineptitude of our bourgeois liberalism.

Justthink: the Black-Hundred Duma has “today”, October 15, 1910,
“divorced itself finally and irrevocably” from the people! That is to
say, hitherto it was not divorced from them irrevocably. That is to say,
participation in honouring the memory of Muromtsev would have remedied,
could have remedied the “divorcement” from “popular feeling”, i.e., the
divorcement of various of our counter-revolutionaries from
democracy. Understand, gentlemen, you who lay claim to the lofty title of
democrats, that you yourselves, more than anyone else, are detracting from
the significance of the demonstration, making it cheap, when you put the
question in such a light. “Even putting the lowest moral and political
value on the Third Duma,” says Rech , “it seemed absurd to think that it would be capable of declining this elementary duty
of honouring from the tribune the name of the man who so worthily and
brilliantly inaugurated it [!!] and sanctified it.” A fine tribute,
indeed! Muromtsev inaugurated and sanctified “it”, the Third Duma!
Inadvertently the Cadets have blurted out the bitter truth that the
betrayal of the revolutionary struggle and of the insurrection at the end
of 1905 by Russian liberalism and the Russian bourgeoisie “inaugurated and
sanctified” the era of counter revolution in general and the Third Duma in
particular.

“It was believed,” says Rech , “that a handful of political
rowdies would not be able to stifle the voice of common decency and tact in
the Duma majority.” So! It was a matter-of “common decency and tact”,
not of protesting against the autocracy. The question is put in the aspect
not of democracy “ divorcing itself ” from the counter-revolution
hut of liberalism joining forces with the counter-revolution. Here
liberalism is seeking common ground with the counter revolution, inviting
its representatives, the Octobrists, to join them in honouring the memory
of Muromtsev not as an expression of protest against the autocracy, but for
the observance of “common decency and tact”. Muromtsev “inaugurated and
sanctified” (such vile words do exist!) the first pseudo-parliament
convened by the tsar; you Octobrist gentlemen have seats in the third
pseudo-parliament convened by the tsar—will it not be “indecent and
tactless” to refuse to fulfil “an elementary duty”? How excellently this
quite trivial instance, this one sentiment alone expressed by the Cadets’
official organ, reflects the ideological and political rottenness of
liberalism in our country. Its policy is to persuade the
autocracy, the Black-Hundred land lords and their allies, the Octobrists,
and not to develop the democratic consciousness of the masses. Therefore, its portion—the inevitable and unescapable portion of
such bourgeois liberalism in any bourgeois-democratic revolution—is to
remain for ever the slave of the monarchy and the feudal lords, for ever to
be the recipient of kicks from their jackboots.

Ifthe Cadet deputies had a particle of understanding of the aims of
democracy their concern in the Third Duma would have been not for the
performance of an “elementary duty” by the Octobrists but for a demonstration before the
people . What was required for this was not the presentation of a
statement to the Chairman (the reading of such a statement, according to
Clause 120 of the standing orders, is at the discretion of the Chairman),
but to have had the question brought up for discussion in one way or
another.

Ifthe Cadet writers had even a particle of understanding of the aims
of democracy they would not have reproached the Octobrists with lack of
tact but would have explained that it is the behaviour of the Third Duma
that underlines the significance of the demonstration on the death of
Muromtsev, and raises the question from conventional philistine
chatter about “decency and tact” to the higher plane of a
political appraisal of the present regime and the role of the
different parties.

Butthe demonstration on the death of Muromtsev could not fail to raise
another question, namely, the question the historical significance of the
First Duma. Needless to say, the Cadets, who had the majority in it and at
that time entertained high hopes of a Cadet Cabinet, of a “peaceful”
transition to freedom, and the consolidation of their hegemony in the
democratic camp, are praising Muromtsev to the skies as a “national
hero”. The Trudoviks, in the person of Mr. Zhilkin, sank so low that they
added their voices to this liberal chorus and openly honoured Muromtsev as
the political “educator” of the Left parties.

Suchan appraisal of the First Duma coming from the Cadets and the
Trudoviks is important as an indication of the extremely low political
level of Russian “society”. A “society” that is enraptured by the
political role of the Cadets in the First Duma has no right to complain of
Stolypin or the Third Duma: it has the very government that it
deserves. The hegemony of liberalism in the Russian movement for
emancipation inevitably implies the weakness of this movement and the
impregnability of the dominance of the die-hard landlords. Only the
brushing aside of the liberals by the proletariat and the hegemony of the
latter have afforded victories for the revolution and can
give more of them in the future.

Theperiod of the First Duma was a time when the proletariat was
mustering forces for a new offensive after its defeat in December. Revolutionary strike action, which had weakened after
December, again raised its head mightily; the peasants fell into line
behind the workers (in the spring of 1906 peasant unrest spread over 46
per cent of the uyezds of European Russia); soldiers’ “mutinies”
increased. The bourgeois liberals were faced with a dilemma: to assist the
new revolutionary offensive of the masses, and then victory over
tsarism would have been possible—or to turn away from the revolution and
thereby facilitate the victory of tsarism. A new upsurge of mass struggle,
new vacillations of the bourgeoisie, tsarism irresolute and playing a
waiting game—such was the essence of the First Duma period, such
was the class basis of this phase in Russian history.

The Cadets as the dominating party in the First Duma and Muromtsev, as
one of the leaders of this party, betrayed an utter incomprehension of the
political situation and committed a new betrayal of democracy. They turned
aside from the revolution, condemned mass struggle, put every possible
obstacle in its path and tried to take advantage of the irresolution of the
tsarist government, holding up the bogey of revolution and demanding a deal
(=a Cadet Cabinet) in the name of the revolution. It is clear that
such tactics were a betrayal as regards democracy, and as regards
tsarism they were impotent, pseudo-“constitutional” braggadocio. It is
clear that tsarism was only playing for time to concentrate its forces,
“ playing ” at negotiations with the Cadets while preparing to dissolve the Duma and stage a coup d’état. The
proletariat and a section of the peasantry launched a new struggle in the
spring of 1906—their fault or their misfortune was that they did not
fight resolutely enough or in sufficient numbers. In the spring of 1906 the
liberals were absorbed in playing at constitution-making and negotiating
with Trepov, decrying those, and obstructing the cause of those, who alone
could have smashed the Trepovs.

Thebourgeois pharisees are fond of the proverb: “ de mortuis aut bene aut nihil ” (say nothing but good of the dead). The proletariat
needs the truth about political leaders, whether living or dead,
for those who really deserve to be called political leaders do not become
dead as regards politics upon their physical demise. To repeat a
conventional lie about Muromtsev is to harm the cause of the proletariat and the cause of
democracy and to corrupt the minds, of the masses. To speak the bitter
truth about the Cadets and those who allowed themselves to be led (and
taken in) by the Cadets is to honour all that is great in the
first Russian revolution and to promote the success of the second.

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Notes:
{1}
The Polish Kolo —a group of Polish deputies in the Duma,
united by the demand for Polish autonomy. In the First and Second Dumas,
the leading part in this group was played by the Narodovtsi—Polish Black
Hundreds. On a the main questions of Duma tactics the Polish Kolo
supported the Octobrists and the Rights.