V. I.

Lenin

Theaccount of the Conference of Social-Democratic Parties and Organisations in
Russia published in our previous issue affords an opportunity of drawing certain
conclusions, at least preliminary, regarding the present-day political
alignment. The Conference of Social-Democratic Parties and Organisations (the
Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, the Bund, the
Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party, the Polish Social-Democratic Party, and
the revolutionary Ukrainian Party) unanimously accepted the tactic of an active
boycott of the State Duma. The necessity for increased agitation against the
State Duma in the direct sense of that word, the necessity to agitate against
all parties favouring participation in the State Duma, and, finally, the
imperativeness of preparing for armed uprising have now, it may be said without
exaggeration, been recognised by the entire revolutionary Social-Democratic
movement, irrespective of national distinctions. The principles underlying the
tactics adopted by the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. and advocated by us in
Proletary , beginning with No. 12 of our paper, i.e., for the last two
and a half months, now underlie the tactics of practically the entire
Social-Democratic movement in Russia, with one lamentable exception.

Thisexception, as the reader knows, is the Iskra and the
“Minority”, which has seceded from the R.S.D.L.P. The “Organising Committee”—its practical centre—was represented
at the Conference. We do not know how its delegate voted, but it is a fact that
the Organising Committee refused to endorse the Conference’s resolution. This
was to

be expected after the Southern “Constituent” Conference of
new-Iskrists adopted its extremely unwise and fundamentally opportunist
resolution on the State Duma, which we analysed in detail in Proletary ,
No.

21. [1]

Inthis way, the political alignment is quite clear. The question of the
attitude towards the State Duma has occasioned what is probably the first joint
discussion of political tactics by the opposition and the revolutionary parties,
by the legal and the illegal press. This is a giant stride forward in comparison
with the previous period in the movement. Formerly, a gulf separated the
opposition from the revolutionaries, legal work from illegal work. The movement
has made such tremendous progress during the last ten months or so that the gulf
has in considerable measure been removed. The revolutionary struggle has carried
the “legal” opposition on to the crest of the wave, almost to
recognising that a revolution is on. Hitherto, strictly speaking, we could not
even discuss tactics or the behaviour of political parties with representatives
of the legal opposition, for in fact there were no parties except the
revolutionary and illegal, and “political activities” coincided
fully with those of “political offenders”, if one disregards the
“activities” of the autocracy and its henchmen. Now, the State Duma
has naturally and inevitably become a subject of discussion for the mass of the
people—for people of all shades of opinion, all tendencies and
parties. The revolutionary struggle has cleared the road for revolutionary
discussion in the legal press, at Zemstvo meetings, student assemblies, and
workers’ mass meetings.

Practicallythe first to start the discussion on the attitude to the State Duma
were the Zemstvos and the radical intelligentsia, who are most directly
concerned with the sop thrown by the tsar, and who were best informed of
it—even prior to the publication of the Manifesto of August 6. The
discussion then spread to the whole political press in Russia, both the free
(i.e., illegal) press which gave frank and full expression to all its arguments
and slogans, and to the legal press, which wrote in Aesopian language for a
boycott, and openly against it.

Thepolitical alignment, that precursor of a demarcation between the political
parties and classes of all the peoples of Russia, began to take shape on
the boycott issue. Should the Duma be entered, or not? Should the Duma be
nipped in the bud, or accepted? Should the struggle be waged within the
Duma, on the basis of the Duma, or outside the Duma, apart from the Duma,
against the Duma? That was the inescapable issue both for the privileged
handful of the electorate and for the masses, “who had no
rights”. Today we have on this issue, which was of course tackled
from a thousand various points of view and with thousands of variations
and “dissenting opinions”, the returns supplied by a “canvass” of public opinion as
presented by the entire press and by the aggregate of the declarations made
by all the various political organisations, political meetings, assemblies,
etc.

Thesereturns are as follows:

Viewson the Duma fall into three clearly defined main categories, which fully
correspond to the three main and basic social forces involved in the present
revolution: the views of the Black Hundreds (the autocracy), of the
liberals (the bourgeoisie), and of the revolutionaries (the
proletariat). The Black Hundreds seized on the Duma as the best means, most
likely the only possible or even conceivable means, of saving the autocracy. The
liberals criticised the Duma adversely, but accepted it, being irresistibly
drawn to lawful paths and to compromise with the tsar. Headed by the
proletariat, the revolutionary people, denounced the Duma, proclaimed an active
boycott of it, and by their deeds have already shown that they are striving to
convert this active boycott into an armed uprising.

Itwould be worth our while to dwell on these three main categories in somewhat
greater detail.

Asregards the Black Hundreds, it might have been expected (and this expectation
was expressed by people inclined to take the Duma in all earnest, even, if we
are not mistaken, the Iskra group) that the supporters of the
autocracy would directly or indirectly sympathise with a boycott, or
absenteeism, as our servile press frequently puts it. These people might have been expected to
say in effect:

Let them boycott the Duma; so much the better for us, for in that case the Duma
will be composed more completely of

Black-Hundred elements. Since there are conservative organs in Russia capable of
denouncing tsarist ministers for excessive liberalism, and voicing discontent
with “an excessively weak” government, such a view could easily be
expressed just as clearly as many views held by constitutionalists, or even
more clearly. But it was here that a mistake made itself felt, a mistake made by
people who took the Duma seriously, and began to talk of a struggle on the basis
of the Duma, of supporting a struggle in the Duma, etc. It could be seen
immediately that the autocracy was terribly in need of a legal Duma opposition,
that it was terribly afraid of a boycott. Why? The answer is very simple:
because it had become absolutely clear that it was utterly impossible to govern
the country without coming to terms with at least a section of the bourgeoisie
as a class. It was impossible to govern the country, to obtain money, or to
continue existing without coming to terms with the Right wing of the
bourgeoisie. Irrespective of our autocracy’s Asiatic savagery, and the many
features of antediluvian barbarism it has retained in such an unusually pure
form throughout the centuries, the autocratic government is nevertheless the
government of a capitalist country, linked with Europe, with international
markets and international capital by thousands of inseverable ties. The
dependence of the autocracy on the bourgeoisie of All Russia is a supreme
material dependence, which may be concealed behind hundreds of medieval annexes,
or weakened by millions of bribes doled out to individuals or groups by the
Court (titles, sinecures, concessions, sops, favours, etc., etc., etc.), but
at every crisis in the people’s life it must manifest itself with decisive
force.

Itis not a matter of mere chance that we now see Mr. Witte currying favour with
the liberals, delivering liberal speeches, which are reported in the legal
press, conducting “informal negotiations with Mr. Gessen”, the
leader of the Constitutional-Democrats (the cable from the St. Petersburg
correspondent of The Times ), or that we see the foreign press teeming
with news about the tsar’s liberal plans. Of course, there is no end of lies and
intrigues in all this, but then the tsarist government, and for that matter any
bourgeois government, cannot make a single step in its policies without resorting to lies and intrigues. Of course, there is a great deal of the
most shabby chicanery, occasioned by the arrival in St. Petersburg of
representatives of French and German bankers to negotiate a new loan of
500,000,000 rubles of which the tsarist government stands in dire
need. But then the entire system of governmental dependence on the
bourgeoisie inevitably engenders cases of chicanery in connection with all
the various deals and trickery accompanying this dependence.

Itis imperative for the autocracy to “make peace” with the
bourgeoisie, and it is obliged to exert itself to this end; naturally, in this
connection it wants to dupe public opinion in Europe and Russia. And the State
Duma is a splendid means for achieving this end. A legal bourgeois opposition in
the Duma is just the facade for a state system recognised by the bourgeoisie, a
façade that might help the autocracy to extricate itself from its predicament.

Thisexplains why Moskovskiye Vedomosti , that organ of conservative
opposition to the government, speaks of the Duma boycott not with malicious joy
or derision, but with a gnashing of teeth and the rage of despair. This explains
why Novoye Vremya , organ of the Black Hundreds, attacks the
“absentees” and tries to enlist even Bebel for the struggle against
the idea of a boycott ( Proletary , No.

20 [2]

).

The Black Hundreds are afraid of a boycott , and only the blind or those out to justify the
liberals can now deny that the boycott would be fully successful if it were
endorsed by the leading figures of the Zemstvo and municipal congresses.

Butthe gist of the matter is that the liberal bourgeoisie’s fundamental
interests as a class incline it towards the monarchy, a two-chamber system, law
and order, and moderation, towards a struggle against the “horrors”
of an “uninterrupted revolution”, the “horrors” of a revolution after the French model.... The turn taken by the liberal bourgeoisie,
the Osvobozhdeniye adherents and the Constitutional-Democrats away from
radical phrases about a boycott towards a deter mined war against it, is the
first major political step by the Russian bourgeoisie as a class, a
step which reveals its treacherous nature, its “criminal intent”—to
perpetrate treachery against the revolution. This is no mere intent (for which alone no law
can hold one accountable, as some smart lawyer among the Osvobozhdeniye
gentry would probably object), but an actual attempt to commit this crime, and
even a consummation of the crime. We are living at a very rapid pace now. The
times have long gone when it was necessary for us to rouse the
bourgeoisie to political awareness in general (though such times are quite
recent according to ordinary chronology, which is inapplicable to
revolution). Gone, even, are the times when it was necessary for us to
help the bourgeoisie to organise itself into a political opposition. They are
now awakened, have organised themselves, and an entirely different task stands
on the order of the day, a great task which only the tremendous strides of the
revolution have made real and possible—that of reaching an agreement with
the tsar (the task of capital) and that of neutralising treacherous capital (the
task of labour).

Itis this task that the revolutionary proletariat, which is marching at t.he
head of the revolutionary people, has assumed, while remaining true to its duty
of awakening, encouraging and rousing its “mates” in the struggle
against medievalism and serfdom, and at the same time passing on from less
revolutionary to more revolutionary “mates”. It is not the Duma that
has been “taken in earnest” by the revolutionary proletariat under
the guidance of Social- Democracy, but those words, promises and slogans about a
Duma boycott which popped out of the mouths of the radical windbags of the
bourgeoisie by reason of their levity, extreme youthfulness and exuberance. The
proletariat has translated boycott talk into reality; it has done so by openly
and unequivocally raising the standard of armed uprising; it has done so by
inaugurating not only the broadest possible agitation, but open street fighting
as well (in Moscow); it has done so by fraternising with the radical youth, the
vanguard of the masses, the peasant masses in particular, whose class
characteristics have not yet fully taken shape, but which are infinitely
oppressed and exploited. Without entering into any agreements or concluding any
pacts, the socialist proletariat has united with the awakened sections of
revolutionary bourgeois democracy, for the accomplishment of a practical
militant task. During the great Moscow events (great as a portent, not in themselves), the proletariat and the
revolutionary democrats did the fighting, while the liberals, the
Osvobozhdeniye people and the Constitutional-Democrats conducted
negotiations with the autocracy.

Thepolitical alignment has become quite clear: for the Duma, to preserve the
autocracy; for the Duma, to limit the autocracy; against the Duma, to destroy
the autocracy. In other words: for the Duma, to suppress the revolution; for the
Duma, to halt the revolution; against the Duma, to bring the revolution to a
victorious conclusion.

Therewas an exception—a sad and regrettable exception—which marred the distinctness of the class alignment
(thereby, like all exceptions proving the general rule). This was the opportunist wing of the
Social-Democratic movement, as represented by the new Iskra . However,
this exception too—the narrow sphere of illegal organisations
abroad—stemmed from a very important and very instructive logical
development, which we predicted. The Conference which we mentioned above united
the revolutionary Social-Democrats. Iskra remained united—not by virtue of an agreement, but by virtue of the course
of events— with Osvobozhdeniye . In the illegal press, the
revolutionary Social-Democrats and the extreme Left wing of the revolutionary
bourgeois democrats came out for an active boycott. It was the opportunist
Social-Democrats and the extreme Right wing of the bourgeois democrats who
declared against the boycott.

Thuswe have confirmation of what was shown in the analysis of the most
important of the new- Iskra resolutions on tactics (see Lenin’s Two Tactics ), [3] namely, that Iskra is descending to the level of the
liberal landlords, whereas Proletary is raising the masses of the
peasants to its own level; Iskra is descending to the liberal
bourgeoisie, whereas Proletary is raising the revolutionary petty
bourgeoisie.

Anyonefamiliar with Social-Democratic literature knows the catch phrase long
ago launched by Iskra—the Bolsheviks and Proletary have
veered towards the Socialist-Revolutionaries, towards the extreme bourgeois democrats. There is a grain of
truth in this, as there is in all catch phrases. It does not express mere
chagrin on the part of the Iskrists; it reflects an actual phenomenon, but does
so as a concave mirror would reflect an object. This actual phenomenon is the
fact that the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks represent respectively the
opportunist and the revolutionary wings of the Russian Social-Democratic
movement. Since the Iskrists turned to opportunism, they were bound to arrive at
the conclusion that the Bolsheviks are “Jacobins” (to use a term of
eighteenth-century political divisions). These accusations merely
confirm our view on the Right and Left wings of the present-day
Social-Democratic movement. These accusations by the opportunists are just as flattering to us as was the accusation hurled at us by Rabochaya Mysl in 1900 to the effect that we were following in the footsteps of
Narodnaya Volya. The actual way in which political tendencies throughout Russia
are grouped politically on a major question of tactics has proved in practice
the correctness of our appraisal of Iskra’s stand ever since the Second
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

Thealignment of illegal parties effected at the Conference of all
Social-Democrats thus naturally supplements the alignment of all parties on the
Duma question. If the Iskrists have proved a regrettable exception, the fact
that they are only an exception gives us new faith in the validity of the rule,
in the victory of revolutionary Social-Democracy, in the realisation of the
consistent slogans of the Russian revolution. Although the liberals’ banality
and the vulgarisation of Marxism by some Marxists may at moments of gloom seem
an omen that our revolution too will turn out to be a banal, abortive, and
incomplete revolution like the German Revolution of 1848, nevertheless the
vitality of the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy inspires us with a
stimulating faith, and the actions of the heroic working class uphold that
faith. The revolution draws a splendid line of division between political
tendencies, serves as a splendid reductio ad absurdum of erroneous
opinions. So far the revolution in Russia has been progressing in such a way as
to justify the hopes for its complete victory inspired by the present situation
at home and abroad. And the sight of the autocracy’s consternation and the liberals’ confusion, the sight of
the bold revolutionary energy of the proletariat, which is taking the
peasantry in tow, lead us to believe that “our train will go as the
German never did” [4]

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 356-73 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
See p. 321 of this volume.— Ed .

[3]
See p. 47 of this volume.— Ed .

[4]
Lenin is quoting from the poem by N. Dobrolyubov In a Prussian Railway Carriage , signed “Konrad Lilienschwager” and
published in 1862 in No. 8 of Svistok ( The Whistle ), a supplement to
Sovremennik ( The Contemporary ) magazine.