V. I.

Lenin

Interview Granted to a Special Correspondent of L’Humanité [2] on February 17 (March 2), 1907

The last Congress of Russian Social-Democracy, held in Stockholm in April 1906,
decided that the Social-Democrats should not conclude any election agreements
with bourgeois parties. This principle was immediately applied in the elections
to the First Duma in Siberia and the Caucasus. Would it be equally valid for
the Second Duma? The Bolsheviks said “Yes”, the Mensheviks said
“No”. The Bolsheviks demanded an extraordinary congress to decide
the question. At the beginning of November, only a conference was held, at
which all Party organisations were represented. The Mensheviks, jointly with the
Bund, supported a proposal on an agreement with the Cadets in the forthcoming
elections. The Bolsheviks, jointly with the Letts and Poles, condemned such an
agreement. The proposal of the former obtained 18 votes, that of the latter,
14 votes. The conference decided that local organisations must state
their own views on the question. “Let it be in St. Petersburg as
elsewhere”, the Bolsheviks deliberately told the Mensheviks.

Two things must be understood: on the one hand, the Mensheviks, notwithstanding
their name, have a majority in the Central Committee of the Party—in other
words they are the masters of its general policy; on the other hand, the
Bolsheviks have a majority in the St. Petersburg and Moscow Gubernia
Committees. To have the two metropolitan cities against it, is a difficult and
humiliating situation for the Central Committee. This explains the attempt on the part of the
Central Committee to put through a Menshevik policy in St. Petersburg and
Moscow at any cost. For the elections in St. Petersburg the Central
Committee took the risk of infringing local autonomy by provoking a split
as soon as an excuse was found.

The St. Petersburg organisation has not yet held the gubernia conference that
was envisaged by the All—Russian Conference in November. For a long time
the liberal news papers have been conducting a lively discussion of election
tactics. They were afraid that the socialists would act without them and muster
the masses, without them and against them, around the banner of the
revolution. They fulminated against the Bolsheviks, persistently qualifying them
as “sectarians, dogmatists, Blanquists, anarchists, etc.”, but they wanted
to conduct the election campaign jointly with the other revolutionary parties,
and put up a joint election list with them. They have the biggest St. Petersburg
newspapers, so it was easy for them to make themselves heard. The
Bolsheviks had only their illegal newspaper Proletary at their
disposal, which is published abroad and appears only twice monthly.

In secret and through their underground connections, the Menshevik Central
Committee informed the Cadets that the Social-Democrats’ tactics depended on
their committee alone, and not on the Bolshevik Gubernia Committee. This was
revealed at an informatory conference held early in January and attended by
representatives of the Cadets, the Popular Socialists, the Trudoviks, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Social-Democrats. All were in favour of a
joint election list. All—except the delegate from the Gubernia Committee
who announced, after the conference, that the committee would take a decision
only some days later. Then the delegate from the Central Committee
intervened. “It would be better,” he stated, “if the agreement
were not concluded by the organisation as a whole but by each election ward
separately [there are 12 such wards in St. Petersburg].”

“But this is the first I hear of such a proposal!” the delegate from
the Gubernia Committee replied. “Is this the plan of the Central
Committee?”

“No, it is my own idea,” answered the delegate from the Central
Committee.

To one who understands, half a word is enough. The Cadets
understood. Rech (official organ of the Cadet Party), Tovarishch (organ of the Left Cadets, something like the
Millerand-Socialists), and Strana (organ of the Party of
Democratic

Reform [3] ) all announced that the Mensheviks constitute the reasonable
part, the model part, the decent part of Social-Democracy. The Bolsheviks
represent barbarism. They prevent socialism from becoming civilised and
parliamentary! But it has been announced in the presence of Milyukov, the
leader of the Cadets, that the Bolsheviks would act separately.

The St. Petersburg Conference that was to decide the question of election
tactics was held on January 6. It was attended by 39 Bolsheviks and 31
Mensheviks. The latter at first challenged the correctness of the
credentials. Though they dared not claim a majority, this did, however, serve
them as a pretext for walking out of the Conference. Their second pretext: they
demanded, in accordance with the proposal of the Central Committee of January 4,
that the organisation divide into two parts for a decision on the question of
election tactics—that there should be separate conferences for
St. Petersburg City and St. Petersburg Gubernia. To anybody who knows the
St. Petersburg Social-Democratic organisation, based partly on place of
residence, partly on the national principle (the Lettish and the Estonian sections) or on the principle of employment (the military and the
railwaymen’s sections), this was not only a contravention of the
organisation’s autonomy, but even, in certain respects, contrary to common
sense. The Conference, therefore, declared itself against this proposal, which
did not in any way accord with its principles and, moreover, had been put to it
as imperative.

The thirty-one delegates walked out of the Conference, and the Central Committee
announced that the minority was relieved of the necessity of submitting to the
decision of the majority. This was not merely a challenge, but the Central
Committee’s announcement of a split.

The thirty-one organised their own separate committee and participated in the
negotiations that the Cadets were conducting with the Left bloc of Trudoviks, Popular Socialists and
Socialist-Revolutionaries. However, the appearance of a new actor on the
stage upset the deal. On January 4, Novoye Vremya published an
article by the Octobrist Stolypin, brother of the minister. “If the
Cadets had the courage to make a complete break with the revolutionary
groups and take a firm stand on constitutional ground, their party would be
legalised,” he wrote. A few days later (January 15), Milyukov called
on Minister Stolypin, and two days after his visit all Cadet newspapers
reported that the Cadets had broken off negotiations with the Left. But this
game brought the Cadets no advantage; they had only seriously but
unnecessarily compromised themselves. They were unable to accept
Stolypin’s conditions.

As for the Mensheviks, they compromised themselves at the same time, no less
seriously and just as unnecessarily. At first, despite Milyukov’s visit to
Stolypin, they continued their talks with the Cadets and with the Left
groups. It was only on January 18 that the Conference took place at which the
split occurred and at which they were unable to come to an agreement on the
distribution of seats for the deputies. Furthermore in that same period,
Rech wrote that in order to alienate the Bolsheviks the Cadets were
giving the Mensheviks the seat that had been promised the worker curia, and the
Mensheviks did nothing by way of protest against this extraordinary method of
trafficking in workers’ votes. Far from it! The Central Committee continued
bargaining with the Cadets, which meant consenting to their terms. It was this
fact that aroused the workers’ indignation! It was this selfsame fact that made
me write my pamphlet “The Hypocrisy of the Thirty-One

Mensheviks”, [1] for which the latter want to arraign me before a Party tribunal.

After the Conference of January 6, at which the split occurred, the Bolsheviks
declared: “If the Lefts, including the Mensheviks, conclude an alliance
with the Cadets, we shall wage the struggle alone. If the negotiations end in a
breakdown, we, in our turn, will propose the terms of an agreement, and the acceptance of these terms will mean for them the acceptance
of the principle of proletarian hegemony.”

The negotiations between the Lefts and the Cadets ended in a breakdown (the
Conference of January 18); this was our first victory. We proposed terms for a
Left bloc that would not enter into a deal with the Cadet Party; these terms
were accepted on January 25 by all except the Mensheviks. This was the second
victory. Of the six places in St. Petersburg, we proposed two for the worker
curia, two for the Social-Democrats, and two for the other parties. And it was
obvious that the worker curia would elect two Social-Democrats. Fifteen days
still remained to election day, but something happened then that the Cadets had
not expected—in addition to the Black-Hundred list, the Octobrist list,
and the Cadet list, there appeared the election list of a Left bloc including
neither Cadets nor Mensheviks.

At their previous conferences with the Left parties, the Cadets had offered t.he
Lefts two seats, while the Lefts had claimed three. When the Cadets saw that our
Left bloc had been formed against them, they took fright and entered in their
list only three candidates from their party. Of the other three places they
offered one to Professor Kovalevsky (Party of Democratic Reform), the second to
the priest Petrov (a very popular demagogue, a Christian Democrat) and the
third to the workers. They made this last concession, incidentally, in order to
prevent a storm of indignation among the people.

The Cadets won the elections, but it must be stressed that the Left bloc polled
25 per cent of the total number of votes in St. Petersburg and that they were
victorious in the Vyborg District. In mans’ districts the Cadets won by a very
small majority. In five districts it would have been enough to gain a further
1,600 votes to ensure a victory for the Left bloc; in Kolomna District the
Lefts were short of only 99 votes. The Mensheviks, therefore, prevent. ed a
victory of the Left parties in St. Petersburg; nevertheless, the revolutionary
Left is, in general, stronger in the Second Duma than it was in the First.

The experiment we have conducted has been highly instructive. First, we see
that the St. Petersburg workers persist in remaining Bolsheviks, stoutly determined to defend the autonomy of
their organisation against encroachment by the Central Committee. Then,
we now know what we ought to think of the Black-Hundred danger, an
argument that was dragged out into the open to justify an agreement with
the Cadets during the first stage of the elections. This is nothing but an
invention to deceive the socialist parties and protect the Cadets from the
Left danger. For, indeed, “the real danger to the Cadets is from the
Left”, as Rech was once forced to admit. “Whoever votes for the Left makes it possible for the Rights to break through,”
the Cadet newspapers hammered away at us for weeks. This slogan provided
them with a means of planting doubt among the wavering. By their bold
campaign they brought about a situation in which the Left bloc obtained
fewer votes (13 per cent) in Moscow than in St. Petersburg, be cause we had
no newspaper of our own in Moscow. But they could not prevent the revelation
of the incontestable truth— the Black-Hundred danger was a lie and a
pretext. There were four election lists in Moscow just as there were in
St. Petersburg; neither in St. Petersburg nor in Moscow did the alliance of
the Black Hundreds and the Octobrists bring the Rights victory. We are in
possession of figures that can be quoted in case of necessity.

The Mensheviks are thus at liberty to adhere to the Cadets and serve them. We
shall not follow them. Neither will the people follow them. The Cadets’
behaviour has been such that the masses are swinging more and more to the
Left. If Milyukov imagines that by speaking of our “adventurous
policy” and classifying our banner as a “red rag” he will
deprive us of followers, we can only invite him to continue talking such
nonsense, for it is to our advantage. The Cadet-like Mensheviks would be wise
to give thought to the fact that at those St. Petersburg factories where the
workers were formerly Bolsheviks, Bolsheviks were again elected, but that at
those factories where the workers were formerly Mensheviks and where propaganda
was conducted mainly by Mensheviks—the Socialist-Revolutionaries were victorious ! The Socialist-Revolutionaries themselves must have been
amazed at the number of votes they received. How grateful they should be for
Menshevik opportunism! As far as we are concerned, such results can only fortify our
conviction that today, more than ever, our duty and the guarantee of our success
lie in joint work, not with the liberal bourgeoisie, who want to put an end to
the revolution, but with the democratic peasantry, against the baseness and
treachery of the bourgeoisie, who are day by day becoming more and more
counter-revolutionary. The best policy is, once again and always, the frankly
revolutionary policy, the bitter, completely independent struggle under the
proletarian banner which by degrees is gathering around our party the countless
masses of democratic peasants together with worker proletarians.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 33-34 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
“The daily newspaper L’Humanité was founded by Jean
Jaurès in
1904 as the organ of the French Socialist Party. In 1903 the news paper welcomed
the beginning of the revolution in Russia and expressed the solidarity of the
French people with the “Russian nation that was creating its own
1789”. The editors of the newspaper organised collections for the benefit of
the Russian revolution. During the First World War (1914-18) the newspaper fell
into the hands of the extreme Right wing of the French Socialist Party, and
adopted a chauvinist position.

In 1918 the newspaper was taken over by Marcel Cachin, a prominent leader of the
French and international working-class movement, who became its, political
director. In the period 1918-20 L’Humanitè opposed the imperialist
policy of the French Government, which sent its armed forces against the Soviet
Republic. From December 1920, after the split in the French Socialist Party and
the formation of the French Communist Party, the newspaper became the Central
Organ of the Communists. At the beginning of the Second World War, in August
1939, the newspaper was banned by the French Government and went
underground. During the nazi occupation of France (1940-44) the newspaper was
published illegally and played a tremendous role in the struggle for the
liberation of France from the fascist invaders.

In the post-war period the newspaper has conducted a constant struggle to
strengthen the national independence of the country, for the unity of
working-class action, for the strengthening of peace and friendship between
peoples, for democracy and social progress.

[3]
The Party of Democratic Reform —a liberal-monarchist bourgeois party founded at the beginning of 1906 during the
elections to the First Duma, from elements who found the Cadet programme too
Left. The party had ceased to exist by the end of 1907.