V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v12; en:MT;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Written in the middle of July, 1906

Published according to the text of the pamphlet

The Dissolution of the Duma{119} confronts the working-class party with a number of most important questions. Let us note the principal ones: (1) a general appraisal of this political event in the course of our revolution; (2) a definition of the content of the further struggle and of the slogans under which it must be waged; (3) a definition of the form of this further struggle; (4) the choice of the moment for the struggle, or, rather, an estimation of the circumstances that might help in the correct choice of the moment.

Let us dwell briefly on these questions.

I

The dissolution of the Duma has most graphically and strikingly confirmed the views of those who warned against being carried away by the “constitutional” appearance of the Duma and the constitutional, so to speak, surface of Russian politics in the second quarter of 1906. The “big words” which our Cadets (and Cadet-lovers) uttered before the Duma, about the Duma and in connection with the Duma, have now been exposed by life in all their pettiness.

Note an interesting fact: the Duma was dissolved on a strictly constitutional basis. There was no “dispersal”. No violation of the laws. On the contrary, it was strictly in accordance with the law, as in any “constitutional monarchy”. The supreme authority dissolved the chamber on the basis of the “constitution”. On the basis of such-and-such an article the given “chamber” was dissolved, and by the same decree (rejoice, legalists!) new elections or the date for the convocation of a new Duma were appointed.

But it was precisely here that the illusory nature of the Russian constitution, the fictitiousness of our home-grown parliamentarism, which the Social-Democrats of the Left wing had so persistently pointed out throughout the first half of 1906, immediately became apparent. And now, not some “narrow and fanatical” “Bolsheviks”, but the most peaceful legalist liberals have admitted, by their behaviour have admitted, this peculiar character of the Russian constitution. The Cadets admitted it by responding to the dissolution of the Duma with a mass “flight abroad”, to Vyborg, by responding with an appeal that violated the laws{120}—they responded and are responding with articles in the most moderate *Rech*, which is forced to admit that it is actually a question of restoring the autocracy, that Suvorin inadvertently blurts out the truth when he writes that he is unlikely to live to see a new Duma. All the hopes of the Cadets immediately shifted from the “constitution” to the revolution—and this solely as a result of a strictly constitutional act of the supreme authority. And only yesterday the Cadets boasted in the Duma that they were the “shield of the dynasty” and supporters of strict constitutionality.

The logic of life is stronger than the logic of constitutional textbooks. The revolution is teaching.

Everything that was written by the “Bolshevik” Social-Democrats about the Cadet victories (compare the pamphlet: “The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’ Party”, by N. Lenin)[58] has been brilliantly confirmed. All the one-sidedness and short-sightedness of the Cadets have become obvious. Constitutional illusions—that scarecrow by which a hard-bitten Bolshevik was recognised—have stood before everyone’s eyes precisely as illusions, as a phantom, as a deceptive vision.

“There is no Duma!” shriek in wild ecstasy of delight the *Moskovskiye Vedomosti*{121} and *Grazhdanin*{122}. “There is no constitution!” echo dejectedly the subtle connoisseurs of our constitution, the Cadets, who so skilfully referred to it, so relished its paragraphs. The Social-Democrats will not exult (we got our own from the Duma as well), nor will they lose heart. The people have gained—they will say—the loss of one of their illusions.

Yes, in the person of the Cadet party the whole Russian people are learning, learning not from a book but from their own revolution, which they themselves are making. We once said that in the person of the Cadets the people are outliving their first bourgeois-liberation illusions, and in the person of the Trudoviks they will outlive their last bourgeois-liberation illusions[59]. The Cadets dreamed of liberation from serfdom, arbitrary rule, tyranny, Asiatic backwardness, and autocracy without overthrowing the old power. The Cadets have already suffered a crash in their limited dreams. The Trudoviks dream of liberation from the poverty of the masses, from the exploitation of man by man, without abolishing commodity economy: they will yet suffer a crash—and in the near future, if our revolution reaches the complete victory of our revolutionary peasantry.

The rapid flowering of the Cadets, their dizzying victories at the elections, their triumph in the Cadet Duma, their sudden crash at one stroke of the pen of the “beloved monarch” (who, so to speak, spat in the face of Rodichev, who had declared his love for him)—all these are events of serious political significance, all these are stages in the revolutionary development of the people. The people, i.e., the broad masses of the population, had not, in the mass, grown to conscious revolutionism by 1906. The consciousness of the intolerability of the autocracy had become universal, the consciousness of the worthlessness of the bureaucratic government had also become universal, the consciousness of the necessity of popular representation had also become universal. But the irreconcilability of the old power with a powerful popular representation the people had not yet been able to realise and feel. They still needed, as it turned out, a special experience for this, the experience of the Cadet Duma.

The Cadet Duma, during its brief life, clearly showed the people all the difference between powerless and powerful popular representation. Our slogan, a constituent assembly (i.e., a sovereign popular representation), proved to be a thousand times correct, but life, i.e., the revolution, led to it by a longer and more tortuous path than we were able to foresee.

Cast a general glance at the main stages of the great Russian revolution and you will see how the people, through experience, approached, step by step, the slogan of a constituent assembly. Here is the epoch of “confidence”, the end of 1904. The liberals are in ecstasy. They occupy the entire foreground. Not very steadfast Social-Democrats even speak of the two main forces of the given moment: the liberals and the government. But then the people become imbued with the idea of “confidence”; the people “trustingly” go on January 9 to the Winter Palace. The epoch of “confidence” brings forward a third force, the proletariat, and lays the foundation for the greatest distrust of the people towards the autocratic government. The epoch of “confidence” ends with the people’s refusal to believe in the government’s words about “confidence”.

The next stage. The Bulygin Duma is promised. Confidence is confirmed by deed. Popular representatives are summoned. The liberals are in ecstasy, calling for participation in the elections. Liberal professors, as befits these “ideological” hangers-on of the bourgeoisie, call on the students to study and not to engage in revolution. Not very steadfast Social-Democrats yield to the arguments of the liberals. The people come on the scene. The proletariat, by the October strike, sweeps away the Bulygin Duma and seizes freedom, wins the Manifesto, a Manifesto quite constitutional in form and content. The people learn from experience that it is not enough to receive a promise of freedom; one must also have the strength to seize freedom.

Further. The government takes away freedoms in December. The proletariat rises in revolt. The first uprising is crushed. But the stubborn and desperate armed struggle in the streets of Moscow makes the convocation of the Duma inevitable. The boycott by the proletariat fails. The proletariat did not have enough strength to overthrow the Witte Duma. The Cadets fill it. Popular representation is an accomplished fact. The Cadets are in ecstasy. Their cries of delight are beyond number and measure. The proletariat waits sceptically.

The Duma begins to work. The people make ten times more use of the small extension of freedoms than the Cadets. The Cadet Duma immediately finds itself behind the people in mood and determination. The epoch of the Cadet Duma (May and June 1906) proves to be the epoch of the greatest successes of the parties to the left of the Cadets: the Trudoviks outstrip the Cadets in the Duma, at popular meetings they condemn the Cadets for timidity, the Social-Democratic and Socialist-Revolutionary press grows, the revolutionary peasant movement intensifies, ferment in the troops, the proletariat, exhausted by December, revives. The epoch of Cadet constitutionalism proves to be an epoch not of Cadet and not of constitutional, but of revolutionary movement.

This movement forces the dissolution of the Duma. Experience confirms that the Cadets are only “foam”. Their strength is derivative from the strength of the revolution. And the government answers the revolution with a dissolution of the Duma which is revolutionary in essence (although constitutional in form).

The people learn from experience that popular representation is a cipher if it is not sovereign, if it was summoned by the old power, if the old power still remains intact alongside it. The objective course of events brings to the fore the question not of one or another wording of laws, of a constitution, but the question of power, of real power. Any laws whatsoever and any elected bodies whatsoever are a cipher if they have no power. That is what the Cadet Duma taught the people. Let us then sing eternal memory to the deceased and make good use of her lesson!

II

We have thus come close to the second question: about the objective content, dictated by history, of the impending struggle and about the slogans we must give it.

Not very steadfast Social-Democrats, the Mensheviks, have managed to show wavering here too. Their first slogan was: struggle for the resumption of the session of the Duma for the purpose of convening a constituent assembly. The St. Petersburg Committee protests. The absurdity of the slogan is too obvious. This is not even opportunism, but simply nonsense. The Central Committee takes a step forward. Slogan: struggle against the government in defence of the Duma for the purpose of convening a constituent assembly. This is better, of course. This is not far from the slogan: struggle for the overthrow of the autocratic government for the purpose of convening a constituent assembly by revolutionary means. The dissolution of the Duma serves, undoubtedly, as a pretext for a nation-wide struggle for a powerful popular representation: in this sense the slogan “in defence of the Duma” is not entirely unacceptable. But the point is that in this sense the slogan is already included in our recognition of the dissolution of the Duma as a pretext for struggle. The formulation: “in defence of the Duma” without a special interpretation of it in this (i.e., the indicated) sense remains unclear and capable of giving rise to perplexity, of returning to the old, to a certain extent outlived, to the Cadet Duma; in a word, this formulation gives rise to a number of incorrect and harmful, “retrograde” thoughts. What is correct in this formulation is fully and completely contained in the motives of our decision on the struggle, in the explanation of why the dissolution of the Duma is considered a sufficiently important pretext.

A Marxist must under no circumstances forget that the slogan of the immediately impending struggle cannot be derived simply and directly from the general slogan of a given programme. It is not enough to refer to our programme (see at the end: overthrow of the autocracy and constituent assembly, etc.) in order to determine the slogan of the immediately—now impending, summer or autumn 1906—struggle. For this we must take into account the concrete historical situation, trace the entire development and the entire successive course of the revolution, deduce our tasks not only from the principles of the programme, but from the preceding steps and stages of the movement. Only such an analysis will be a truly historical analysis, obligatory for a dialectical materialist.

And it is precisely such an analysis that shows us that the objective political situation has now brought forward the question not of whether there is popular representation, but of whether this popular representation is powerful.

The objective cause of the death of the Cadet Duma is not that it was unable to express the needs of the people, but that it did not master the revolutionary task of the struggle for power. The Cadet Duma imagined itself to be a constitutional organ, but in reality it was a revolutionary organ (the Cadets abused us for this view of the Duma as a stage or instrument of the revolution, but life has fully confirmed our view). The Cadet Duma imagined itself to be an organ of struggle against the ministry, but in reality it was an organ of struggle for the overthrow of the entire old power. That is how it turned out in practice, because the given economic situation demanded it. And for this struggle such an organ as the Cadet Duma proved “unfit”.

The thought, driven in like a hammer-blow, is now knocking at the consciousness of the most ignorant peasant: a Duma is useless, any Duma is useless, if the people have no power. And how to obtain power? Overthrow the old power and establish a new, popular, free, elected power. Either overthrow the old power, or recognise the tasks of the revolution as unrealisable to the extent that the peasantry and the proletariat set them.

Thus life itself posed the question. Thus the year 1906 posed the question. Thus the dissolution of the Cadet Duma posed the question.

We cannot, of course, guarantee that the revolution will solve this question at once, that the struggle will be easy, simple, victory fully and unconditionally assured. No one and nothing can guarantee anything of the kind before the start of a struggle. A slogan is not a guarantee of a simple and easy victory. A slogan is an indication of the goal which must be achieved for the realisation of given tasks. Formerly such immediately given tasks were the creation (or convocation) of popular representation in general. Now such a task is: to ensure power for popular representation. And this means: the removal, destruction, overthrow of the old power, the overthrow of the autocratic government.

If this task is not fully solved, then popular representation cannot be fully powerful—consequently, there cannot be sufficient guarantees against the fate of the Cadet Duma befalling this new popular representation.

The objective state of affairs now brings to the fore the struggle not for popular representation, but for the creation of conditions under which it would be impossible to disperse or dissolve popular representation, and also impossible to reduce it to a farce, as the Trepovs and Co. reduced the Cadet Duma to a farce.

III

The probable form of the coming struggle is determined partly by its content, partly by the preceding forms of the revolutionary struggle of the people and the counter-revolutionary struggle of the autocracy.

As regards the content of the struggle, we have already shown how over the two years of revolution it has by the present time become concentrated on the overthrow of the old power. The full realisation of this goal is possible only through a nation-wide armed uprising.

As regards the preceding forms of struggle, in this respect the “last word” of the mass and nation-wide movement in Russia is the general strike and the uprising. The last quarter of 1905 could not but leave indelible traces in the consciousness and mood of the proletariat, the peasantry, the conscious part of the army, and the democratic part of various professional-intellectual unions. It is therefore quite natural that the first thought that came into the heads of the broadest mass of elements capable of struggle after the dissolution of the Duma was: a general strike. No one seemed even to doubt that the answer to the dissolution of the Duma must inevitably be an all-Russian strike.

The universality of such an opinion has done some good. The revolutionary organisations have everywhere consciously and systematically restrained the workers from spontaneous and partial outbreaks. Information to this effect is received from the most diverse parts of Russia. The experience of October-December has undoubtedly helped to concentrate the attention of all, to a much greater extent than before, on a general and simultaneous action. In addition, one extremely characteristic circumstance should be noted: judging by data from some large centres of the workers’ movement, e.g., from St. Petersburg, the workers not only easily and quickly grasped the idea of the necessity of a general and simultaneous action, but, moreover, firmly stood for a militant and decisive action. The unsuccessful idea of a demonstrative (one-day or three-day) strike on the occasion of the dissolution of the Duma—an idea that arose among some St. Petersburg Mensheviks—this idea met with the most decisive opposition from the workers. The true class instinct and the experience of people who had more than once waged serious struggle immediately told them that now it was not at all a question of a demonstration. “We will not demonstrate,” said the workers. “We will go into a desperate, decisive struggle when the moment of a general action arrives.” Such, according to all reports, was the general opinion of the St. Petersburg workers. They understood that partial actions and especially demonstrations would be ridiculous after all that Russia had experienced since 1901 (the year of the beginning of the broad demonstration movement), that the sharpening of the political crisis excludes the possibility of again “starting from the beginning”, that peaceful demonstrations would be only extremely advantageous to a government that had “tasted blood” with pleasure in December. They would weaken the proletariat without any benefit, they would help the police and soldiers to practise on the unarmed, seizing and shooting them. They would only give some confirmation to Stolypin’s boast that he had won a victory over the revolution, because he had dissolved the Duma without thereby sharpening the anti-government movement. Now everyone regards this boast as an empty boast, knowing and feeling that the struggle is still ahead. Then a “demonstration” would be interpreted as a struggle, a (hopeless) struggle would be made of it, and the cessation of the demonstration would be proclaimed throughout the world as a new defeat.

The idea of a demonstrative strike was worthy only of our Ledru-Rollins of the Cadet party, who as short-sightedly overestimated parliamentarism as Ledru-Rollin did in 1849. The proletariat immediately rejected this idea, and did well to reject it. The workers, who always stood face to face with the revolutionary struggle, assessed the enemy’s combat readiness and the necessity of a decisive militant action more correctly than some intellectuals.

Unfortunately, in our party, owing to the predominance of the Right wing of the Social-Democrats at the given moment in its Russian section, the question of militant actions has remained neglected. The Unity Congress of Russian Social-Democracy was carried away by the victories of the Cadets, failed to appreciate the revolutionary significance of the moment we are living through, and shirked the task of drawing all the conclusions from the experience of October-December. And the necessity of making use of this experience confronted the party much sooner and much more acutely than many worshippers of parliamentarism thought. The confusion displayed by the central institutions of our party at a serious moment was an inevitable result of this state of affairs.

The combination of a mass political strike with an armed uprising is again dictated by the whole state of affairs. At the same time, the weak sides of the strike as an independent means of struggle appear especially clearly. Everyone has become convinced that an extremely important condition for the success of a political strike is its suddenness, the possibility of taking the government by surprise. Now this is impossible. The government learned in December how to fight a strike and has prepared itself very solidly for this struggle at the present moment. Everyone points to the extreme importance of the railways in a general strike. If the railways stop, the strike has every chance of becoming general. If a complete stoppage of the railways is not achieved, the strike will almost certainly not be general. And it is particularly difficult for the railwaymen to strike: punitive trains stand in full readiness; armed detachments of troops are scattered along the entire line, at stations, sometimes even on individual trains. Under such conditions, a strike may mean—more than that: it will inevitably mean in most cases—a direct and immediate clash with armed force. The engine-driver, the telegraphist, the pointsman will be immediately confronted with the dilemma: to be shot on the spot (Golutvino, Lyubertsy and other stations on the Russian railway network have not for nothing already acquired nation-wide revolutionary fame), or to go to work and undermine the strike.

Of course, we are entitled to expect the greatest heroism from many, many railway workers and employees who have proved by deed their devotion to freedom. Of course, we are far from thinking of denying the possibility of a railway strike and the chances of success. But we are not entitled to conceal from ourselves the real difficulty of the task: hushing up such difficulties would be the worst possible policy. And if we look reality straight in the face, if we do not hide our head under our wing, it will become clear that an armed uprising will inevitably and immediately grow out of the strike. A railway strike is an uprising, this is indisputable after December. And without a railway strike the railway telegraph will not stop, the transport of letters by rail will not be interrupted, consequently a postal and telegraph strike on a serious scale is also impossible.

The subordinate significance of the strike in relation to the uprising thus follows with inexorable inevitability from the given state of affairs, as it has developed after December 1905. Independently of our will, in defiance of any “directives” whatsoever, the sharpened revolutionary situation will turn a demonstration into a strike, a protest into a struggle, a strike into an uprising. Of course, an uprising, as an armed mass struggle, can flare up only with the active participation of the army in one or another of its parts. Therefore, a strike of the army, a refusal to fire on the people, can undoubtedly lead in certain cases to the victory of a peaceful strike alone. But there is hardly any need to prove that such cases would be only particular episodes of an exceptionally successful uprising and that for the multiplication of such cases, for the greatest possible approximation to them, there is only one means: successful preparation of the uprising, the energy and strength of the first insurgent actions, the demoralisation of the army by desperately bold attacks or defections of a large part of the army, etc.

In a word, under the given state of affairs, as it has developed now, at the moment of the dissolution of the Duma, it cannot be subject to any doubt that an active struggle leads directly and immediately to an uprising. Perhaps the state of affairs will change, and then this conclusion will have to be reconsidered, but at the present time it is completely indisputable. Therefore, to call for an all-Russian strike without calling for an uprising, without explaining its indissoluble connection with the uprising, would be sheer frivolity bordering on crime. Therefore, all efforts must be directed towards explaining in agitation the connection between the two forms of struggle, towards preparing the conditions that would help to merge into one stream the three streams of struggle: the workers’ explosion, the peasant uprising, and the military “mutiny”. Already long ago, since the summer of last year, since the time of the famous uprising of the *Potemkin*{123}, these three forms of a truly popular, i.e., mass, active movement, infinitely far from conspiracy, an uprising overthrowing the autocracy, have been quite definitely outlined. The success of the all-Russian uprising depends perhaps most of all on the merging of these three channels of the uprising. There is no doubt that such a pretext for struggle as the dissolution of the Duma greatly helps this merging, for the most backward part of the peasantry (and consequently, of our mainly peasant army) placed great hopes on the Duma.

Hence the conclusion: to make intensive use precisely of the dissolution of the Duma as a pretext for concentrated agitation with a call for a nation-wide uprising. To explain the connection between the political strike and the uprising. To direct all efforts towards achieving the unification and joint action of workers, peasants, sailors and soldiers in an active, armed struggle.

Finally, speaking of the form of the movement, we must make special mention of the peasant struggle. Here the connection between the strike and the uprising is especially clear. It is also clear that the aim of the uprising here must be not only the complete destruction or removal of all and sundry local authorities, with their replacement by new, popular authorities (the general aim of any uprising, whether in towns, villages, troops, etc.), but also the expulsion of the landlords and the seizure of the landlords’ lands. Pending the decision of a nation-wide constituent assembly, the peasants must undoubtedly strive for the actual abolition of landlord ownership of land. There is no need to say much about this, because no one would probably even imagine a peasant uprising without settling accounts with the landlords and seizing the land. It is understandable that the more conscious and organised this uprising is, the rarer will be cases of destruction of buildings, property, livestock, etc. From a military point of view, for the achievement of certain military aims, destruction—e.g., the burning of buildings, and sometimes of property—is a perfectly legitimate and obligatory measure in certain cases. Only pedants (or traitors to the people) can particularly lament the fact that peasants always resort to such means. But there is no need to conceal from ourselves that sometimes the destruction of property is merely the result of lack of organisation, inability to take and keep for oneself the enemy’s property instead of destroying it—or the result of weakness, when the belligerent takes revenge on the enemy, not having the strength to destroy, to crush the enemy. We must, of course, in our agitation explain to the peasants in every way, on the one hand, the full legitimacy and necessity of a merciless struggle against the enemy, up to the destruction of property, and on the other hand, show that the possibility of a much more rational and advantageous outcome depends on the degree of organisation: the destruction of the enemy (landlords and officials, especially the police) and the transfer of all and sundry property to the possession of the people or to the possession of the peasants without any damage (or with the least possible damage) to property.

IV

Closely connected with the question of the form of struggle is the question of organisation for the struggle.

And in this respect the great historical experience of October-December 1905 has left indelible traces on the contemporary revolutionary movement. Soviets of Workers’ Deputies and similar institutions (peasant committees, railway committees, Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies, etc.) enjoy enormous and fully deserved authority. At the present time it would not be easy to find a Social-Democrat or a revolutionary of other parties and trends who would not sympathise with such organisations in general and would not recommend their establishment in particular at the given moment.

On this score, it seems, there are no disagreements, or at least no serious disagreements. Therefore there is no need to dwell on this question itself.

But there is one side of the matter on which it is necessary to dwell particularly carefully, because it is particularly often ignored. The point is that the role of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies (let us speak of them for brevity as the type of all and sundry organisations of this kind) in the great October and December days has clothed these institutions with such an aura that they are sometimes treated almost with fetishism. It is imagined that these organs are always and under all conditions “necessary and sufficient” for a mass revolutionary movement. Hence an uncritical attitude towards the choice of the moment for creating such institutions, towards the question of what are the real conditions for the success of their activity.

The experience of October-December gave the most instructive indications on this score. The Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are organs of mass direct struggle. They arose as organs of strike struggle. They very quickly became, under the pressure of necessity, organs of the general revolutionary struggle against the government. They turned irresistibly, by virtue of the development of events and the transition from strike to uprising, into organs of the uprising. That a whole number of “soviets” and “committees” played precisely such a role in December is a completely indisputable fact. And events showed in the most graphic and convincing manner that the strength and significance of such organs in wartime depends entirely on the strength and success of the uprising.

It is not any theory, not anyone’s appeals, not a tactic invented by anyone, not a party doctrine, but the force of circumstances that led these non-party, mass organs to the necessity of an uprising and made them organs of the uprising.

And at the present time to establish such organs means to create organs of the uprising; to call for their establishment means to call for an uprising. To forget this or to gloss it over before the broad masses of the people would be the most unforgivable short-sightedness and the worst possible policy.

If this is so—and it is undoubtedly so—then the conclusion is also clear that for the organisation of the uprising “soviets” and similar mass institutions are still insufficient. They are necessary for uniting the masses, for combat unity, for transmitting the slogans of political leadership put forward by the party (or by agreement of parties), for interesting, awakening, and attracting the masses. But they are insufficient for the organisation of the immediate combat forces, for the organisation of the uprising in the strictest sense of the word.

A small illustration. The Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were often called parliaments of the working class. But no worker will agree to summon his parliament in order to hand it over to the police. Everyone recognises the necessity of the immediate organisation of force, of military organisation, for the defence of his “parliament”, organisation in the form of detachments of armed workers.

Now, when the government has thoroughly learned from experience what “soviets” lead to and what kind of institutions they are, when it is armed to the teeth and is waiting for the formation of such institutions in order to attack the enemy, not giving him time to recover and develop his activity—now we must especially explain in our agitation the necessity of a sober view of things, the necessity of a military organisation alongside the organisation of soviets for their defence, for carrying out that uprising without which all soviets and all elected bodies from the masses will be powerless.

These, if one may so express it, “military organisations” of which we speak must strive to embrace the mass not through the medium of elected representatives, but the mass of direct participants in street fighting and civil war. These organisations must have as their cell very small, free unions, tens, fives, even perhaps threes. It is necessary to preach in the most intensive manner that the battle is approaching, when every honest citizen is obliged to sacrifice himself and fight against the oppressors of the people. Fewer formalities, less red tape, more simplicity in organisation, which must possess a maximum of mobility and flexibility. Everyone and anyone who wants to stand on the side of freedom must immediately unite in combat “fives”—free unions of people of one trade, one factory, or people bound by comradeship, party ties, finally, simply by place of residence (one village, one house in town, or one apartment). These unions must be both party and non-party, bound by one immediate revolutionary task: the uprising against the government. These unions must be founded in the broadest manner and necessarily before obtaining arms, independently of the question of arms.

No party organisation will “arm” the masses. On the contrary, the organisation of the masses into easily mobile small combat unions will render a tremendous service in the matter of obtaining arms at the moment of the movement.

Free combat unions, unions of “druzhinniks”, to use the name which the great December days in Moscow made so honourable, will render gigantic benefit at the moment of the explosion. A druzhina of those who can shoot will disarm a policeman, will suddenly attack a patrol, will obtain arms for itself. A druzhina of those who cannot shoot or who have not obtained arms will help to build barricades, to reconnoitre, to organise communications, to set up an ambush for the enemy, to set fire to a building where the enemy is entrenched, to occupy apartments which may become a base for the insurgents—in a word, thousands of the most diverse functions will be performed by free unions of people who have decided to fight to the death, who know the locality excellently, who are most closely connected with the population.

Let the call for the organisation of such free combat druzhinas resound in every factory, in every trade union, in every village. People who know each other well will establish them in advance. People who do not know each other will form fives and tens on the day of the struggle or on the eve of the struggle, at the place of the struggle, if the idea of forming such unions spreads widely and is really assimilated by the mass.

At the present time, when the dissolution of the Duma has stirred up new and newer strata, you can often meet the most revolutionary responses and declarations from ordinary representatives of the least organised, most “Black-Hundred”, in its general appearance, urban common people. Let us take care, then, that they all know about the decision of the advanced workers and peasants to soon raise the struggle for land and liberty, that they all know about the necessity of preparing druzhinas of fighters, that they all become imbued with confidence in the inevitability of the uprising and its popular character. We shall then achieve—this is not at all utopian—that in every large city there will be not hundreds of druzhinniks, as in Moscow in December, but thousands and thousands. And then no machine-guns will hold out, as the public in Moscow said, pointing to the insufficiently mass, insufficiently close to the people character and composition of the combat druzhinas there.

Thus: the organisation of Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, peasant committees and similar institutions everywhere, alongside the broadest propaganda and agitation for the necessity of a simultaneous uprising, the immediate preparation of forces for it and the organisation of mass free detachments of “druzhinniks”.

P.S. This chapter was already written when we learned of a new “turn” in the slogans of our Central Committee: for the Duma as an organ for convening a constituent assembly.

The question of organisation is thus supplemented by the question of the organisation of a provisional revolutionary government, for such would be, in essence, an institution capable of really convening a constituent assembly. Only we must not forget, as our Cadet-lovers are fond of doing, that a provisional government is first of all an organ of the uprising. Does the deceased Duma want to be an organ of the uprising? Do the Cadets want to be an organ of the uprising? You are welcome, gentlemen! we are glad of any allies from bourgeois democracy in the struggle. Even if your alliance—excuse me—were for us the same as the alliance with France for Russia (i.e., a source of money), we would be very glad even then, we are realists in politics, gentlemen. But if your, the Cadet, participation in the uprising is a simple and empty Menshevik dream—then we will only say: what small and petty dreams you have, Comrade Mensheviks. Only you might perish from “hopeless love” for the Cadets, who will not be able to crown your passion…

The question of a provisional government has been clarified theoretically more than once. The possibility of the participation of Social-Democrats has been proved. But now another, practical formulation of this question, given by October-December, is more interesting. For the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, etc., were in fact the embryos of a provisional government; power would inevitably have fallen to them in the event of the victory of the uprising. The centre of gravity must be transferred precisely to the study of these, historically given, embryonic organs of the new power, to the study of the conditions of their work and their success. This is more urgent, this is more interesting at the given moment, than guessing “in general” about a provisional revolutionary government.

V

It remains for us to consider the question of the time of action. The tender love for the Cadet Duma evoked from the Social-Democrats of the Right wing a demand for immediate action. This idea suffered a solemn fiasco. The attitude of the masses of the working class and the urban population in general showed that the seriousness of the situation is realised or felt. The struggle is expected in reality, of course, not at all for the Duma, but for the overthrow of the old power. The postponement was the result of the general mood, the desire to prepare for a truly decisive and desperate struggle, to achieve coordination of actions.

It is possible, and perhaps most probable, that the new struggle will flare up as spontaneously and unexpectedly as the previous ones, as a result of the growth of mood and one of the inevitable explosions. If things go that way, if such a course of development becomes inevitable, then we will not have to decide the question of the time of action; then our task will be reduced to a tenfold intensification of agitation and organisational work in all the directions indicated above.

It may be, however, that events will require us, the leaders, to appoint the time of action. If this should prove to be the case, we would advise appointing an all-Russian action, a strike and an uprising, for the end of summer or the beginning of autumn, for the middle or end of August. It would be important to make use of the period of building work in the towns and the end of the summer field work. If it were possible to reach agreement among all the influential revolutionary organisations and unions on the time of action, then the possibility of carrying it out within the indicated period would not be excluded. The simultaneity of the beginning of the struggle throughout Russia would be a tremendous advantage. Even the informing of the government of the date of the strike would probably not have a fatal significance; after all, this is not a conspiracy or a military attack requiring suddenness. The troops throughout Russia would probably be most demoralised if for weeks and weeks they were troubled by the thought of the inevitability of the struggle, they were kept under arms, while agitation was carried on ever more unitedly by all and sundry organisations together