V. I.

Lenin

Mr. Milyukov’s “Position”

The leader of the Cadet Party has lost his way in a wood of
three trees. He has been writing articles as long as Menshikov’s about
“three positions” and “one position”. The more he writes, the more
evident it becomes that he is trying to fool the reader with his
talk, to cover up the point at issue with his dull and empty
verbiage.

Poor learned historian! He has to pretend that he does not see
the difference between liberalism and democracy. For the whole point is
this difference, gentlemen! The Duma votes in general, the attitude towards
“reforms”, the votes on the budget, and the issue of “extra-parliamentary tactics” all bring out in different forms
one and the same point , the profound difference between the
liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie and the democrats.

For the thousand and first time, we shall briefly repeat what this
difference is, for the benefit of the Milyukovs who “don’t understand”.

The liberals are defending a number of feudal-absolutist privileges (an
upper chamber, etc.). The democrats are waging an uncompromising struggle
against all privileges.

The liberals are for agreement with the forces of the old in social
life: the democrats’ tactics are to eliminate these forces.

The liberals are afraid of the independent activity of the masses, they
do not trust it, they reject it; the democrats sympathise with it, believe
in it, support and encourage it.

That is enough for the moment.

Does Mr. Milyukov really “not understand” this difference, which is
familiar even from textbooks of history?

Does he really “not understand” that the very programme of
the Cadets is a programme of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie,
not of the democrats, and that only liberals (and bad ones at that) could
have voted for the budget in the Third Duma, could have declared themselves
a loyal opposition, etc.?

Mr. Milyukov understands this perfectly well, and he is trying to fool
people with his talk, pretending that he has forgotten the ABC of the
difference between liberalism and democracy.

To register in print this pitiful dodging of the Cadets, we shall
remark to Mr. Milyukov that in all the official Social-Democratic
press (except, of course, that of the liquidators, whom we will gladly give
up to Mr. Milyukov), in all the resolutions of the guiding
Social-Democratic bodies, and in the whole policy of the Social-Democrats
in the Third Duma, we always and invariably meet, in thousands of forms,
with the defence of the old tactics which Mr. Milyukov says the
Social-Democrats have abandoned.

It is an indisputable historical fact, esteemed learned historian!

We must register in print how low the Cadets must have fallen if they
try to deceive the public on questions which are so elementary and have
been made perfectly clear by the history of the political parties in
Russia.

In conclusion, a little question to Mr. Milyukov—to sum up and
recapitulate what we have said: when you Cadet gentlemen agreed to bar
Voiloshnikov from five sessions, [1] were you acting as liberals or as democrats?

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Notes:
[1]
This refers to the following fact:

A. A. Voiloshnikov, a member of the Social-Democratic group in the
Third Duma, speaking on December 2 (15), 1911, at the Thirty-Fifth Sitting
of the Duma in the debate on tile Bill to amend the Rules on Military
Service, described the tsarist army as a police force and called for the
standing army to be replaced by the arming of the whole people. On account
of this speech the Chair man of the Duma moved that Voiloshnikov be
excluded from the next five sittings. Following Voiloshnikov’s second
speech at the same sitting the period of exclusion was increased to fifteen
sittings. The Cadets voted for the original motion of the Chairman.