V. I. Lenin

On March 17, 1910 Stolypin introduced a Bill to the State Duma “On the
Procedure of Promulgating Laws and General State Ordinances Concerning
Finland”. This official bureaucratic heading conceals a most brazen
campaign of the autocracy against the freedom and independence of Finland.

Stolypin’s Bill is concerned with placing under the jurisdiction of the
State Duma, the Council of State and Nicholas II all those Finnish affairs which
“relate not merely to the internal affairs of this territory”. The
Finnish Diet is only allowed to tender its “conclusions” on these
affairs, and these conclusions are not binding upon anyone whatsoever: in its
relation to The empire the Finnish Diet is to be reduced to the status of a
Bulygin Duma.

Whatis meant here by “laws and ordinances which relate not merely to the
internal affairs” of Finland? Without citing the whole list, which takes
up 17 clauses in Stolypin’s Bill, we may mention that it includes, the
customs relations between Finland and other parts of the empire, deletions from
the Finnish criminal code, the railways, the monetary system in Finland, rules
on public meetings, the press laws in Finland and other things.

Toput all such questions under the jurisdiction of the arch-reactionary
Octobrist Duma! The utter destruction of Finland’s freedom —that
is what is being undertaken by the autocracy, which is counting on
the support of the representatives of the landed proprietors and the top
section of the merchants, who are united by the constitution of the Third of
June.

Theplan is foolproof, of course, as far as it concerns only those whose
position is legal under this “constitution”: fifty extreme Rights, a hundred nationalists and “Right Octobrists”, a hundred
and twenty-five Octobrists—such is the black-hand gang which has already
mustered in the Duma and has been suitably prepared by the long continued
incitements of the government press to ensure the adoption of any measure
of violence against Finland.

Theold nationalism of the autocracy, which suppressed all
“non-Russian races”, has now been reinforced, firstly by the hatred of
all the counter-revolutionary elements towards a people which managed to
utilise the brief victory of the proletariat of Russia in October to create
under the very nose of the Black-Hundred tsar one of the roost democratic
constitutions in the world, and to create free conditions for the
organisation of the working masses of Finland, the staunch supporters of
Social-Democracy. Finland took advantage of the Russian revolution to
secure a few years of freedom and peaceful development. The
counter-revolution in Russia is making haste to utilise the complete lull
“at home” to take away as much as possible of Finland’s gains.

History,as it were, is demonstrating by the example of Finland that
the famous “peaceful” progress, so idolised by all philistines, is just
one of those brief, unstable, ephemeral exceptions which conclusively prove
the rule. And this rule is that only the revolutionary movement of the
masses and of the proletariat at their head, only a victorious revolution,
can make lasting changes in the life of peoples and seriously undermine
medieval rule and semi-Asiatic forms of capitalism.

Finlandcould only breathe freely when the working class of Russia rose
in a gigantic mass and gave a shock to the Russian autocracy. And it is
only by joining the revolutionary struggle of the masses in Russia that the
Finnish worker can now seek the way to deliverance from the onslaught of
the Black-Hundred bashi-bazouks.

Thebourgeoisie of Finland has shown its counter-revolutionary
qualities even in this peaceful country, which accomplished a revolution at
the expense of the October days in Russia, which upheld liberty
under the wing of the December struggle and the two oppositional
Dumas in Russia. Bourgeois Finland persecuted the Red Guard of the Finnish
workers and accused them of revolutionism; it did everything in its power to prevent the full freedom of the socialist organisations in
Finland; it thought to escape violence at the hands of tsarism by
compliance (such as the surrender of political offenders in 1907); it
accused the socialists of its own country of having been corrupted
by the Russian socialists, infected with their revolutionary spirit.

In Finland now the bourgeoisie too can see the fruits of the policy of
concessions, compliance and “flunkeyism”, the policy of directly or
indirectly betraying the socialists. Apart from the struggle of the masses,
schooled in a socialist way and organised by socialists, the Finnish people
will find no escape from their plight: apart from proletarian revolution
there is no way of repulsing Nicholas II.

Anotherthing that reinforces the old nationalism as the policy of our
autocracy is the growing class-consciousness and consciously
counter-revolutionary attitude of our Russian bourgeoisie. Chauvinism has
grown among them with their growing hatred of the proletariat as an
international force. Their chauvinism has grown stronger parallel with the
growth and intensification of the rivalry of international
capital. Chauvinism appeared as a thirst for revenge engendered by the
losing of the war with Japan and the powerlessness of the bourgeoisie
against the privileged landlords. Chauvinism has found support in the
appetites of the true Russian industrialists and merchants who are glad to
“conquer” Finland after failing to grab a slice of the pie in the
Balkans. Therefore, the representative assembly of the land lords and big
bourgeoisie gives tsarism true allies for settling with free
Finland.

Butif the basis of counter-revolutionary “operations” over the free
border province has become wider, so has the basis for repelling
these operations. If instead of the bureaucracy alone and a handful of
magnates we have the landed nobility and the wealthiest merchants organised
in the Third Duma on the side of the enemies of Finland, we have on the
side of her friends those millions of common people who created the
movement of 1905, who produced the revolutionary wing in both the First
Duma and the Second. And however profound the political lull at the
present moment these masses of people are alive and are growing in
spite of everything. So too is growing a new avenger of the new
defeat

of the Russian revolution, for the defeat of Finland’s freedom is a defeat
of the Russian revolution.

Our Russian liberal bourgeoisie is also being exposed now—over and
over again—in all its pusillanimity and spinelessness. The Cadets, of
course, are against the persecution of Finland. They will
certainly not vote with the Octobrists. But was it not they who did
most of all to under mine the sympathy of the “public” for that
direct revolutionary struggle, those “tactics” of October and December
which alone made possible the birth of Finland’s freedom?—enabled it to hold out for more than four years now? Was it not
the Cadets who rallied the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia to repudiate
this struggle and these tactics? Was it not the Cadets who did their utmost
to rouse nationalist feelings and sentiments throughout Russian educated
“society"?

Howright the Social-Democratic resolution (of December i908) was in
saying that the Cadets by their nationalist agitation were in fact
rendering a service to tsarism and no one else! {1} The “opposition” which the Cadets wanted to show the
autocracy over Russia’s diplomatic reverses in the Balkans proved—as was
only to be expected—a miserable, unprincipled, lackey-like opposition,
which flattered the Black Hundreds, whetted the appetites
of the Black Hundreds, and reproved the Black-Hundred tsar because
he, the Black-Hundred tsar, was not strong enough.

Sonow, most “humane” gentlemen of the Cadet Party, reap what you
have sown. You have convinced tsarism that it is weak in its stand for
“national” interests; now tsarism is showing you its strength in
nationalist persecution of a non-Russian race. Your nationalism,
neo-Slavism, etc., had a selfish bourgeois essence of a narrow class nature
wrapped in high-sounding liberal phrases. The phrases have remained
phrases, while the essence has furthered the misanthropic policy
of the autocracy.

Thusit has always been, and always will be, with liberal phrases. They
merely screen the narrow egotism and brutal violence of the
bourgeoisie; they are only artificial flowers festooning the peoples’
chains; they only stupefy the minds of the people, preventing them
from recognising their real enemy.

Buteach act of tsarist policy, each month of the existence of the
Third Duma is more and more mercilessly destroying the liberal illusions,
more and more exposing the impotence and rottenness of liberalism,
scattering ever wider and more abundantly the seeds of a new revolution of
the proletariat.

Atime will come—the Russian proletariat will rise for the freedom of
Finland, for a democratic republic in Russia.

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Notes:
{1}
See the resolution “The Present Moment and the Tasks of the Party”
adopted by the Fifth (All-Russian 1908) Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P. ( The C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee , 7th Russian
ed., Part 1, 1953, pp. 195–97).