V. I.

Lenin

The Debate on the Extension of the Duma’s Budgetary Powers [2]

The question of extending the budgetary powers of the Duma was debated at three
sessions held on January 12, 15, and 17. The Cadet Party brought in a Bill for
that purpose signed by forty Duma members. Representatives of all the parties
spoke on the subject and the Minister of Finance made two long speeches on
behalf of the government. A representative of the Social-Democratic Labour Party
also spoke. Arid the debate concluded with the unanimous (so says

Stolichnaya Pochta [3] for January 18) adoption of the Octobrists ’ motion that the Bill
for the extension of the Duma’s budgetary powers be referred to
committee “ without going into the extent of these changes ”, i.e., the changes to the Rules of March 8, which
considerably restricted the budgetary powers of the Duma.

How could such a strange thing happen? How could the Third Duma, a parliament of
Black-Hundred die-hards, unanimously adopt a motion of the Octobrists,
which virtually falls in with the government’s wishes and was presented
after the first speech of the Minister of Finance, who anticipated just
such an outcome. In substance, the Cadets’ Bill is unacceptable; on particular
points—why not modify the law. So declared the Black-Hundred Minister. And
the Octobrists worded their proposal accordingly, stressing the fact that they
did not go into the extent of those changes in the law .

That the Octobrists saw eye to eye with the Black-Hundred Minister is not
surprising. Nor, to anyone familiar with the nature of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party, was it surprising that the Cadets withdrew their wording (in which, of course,
nothing was mentioned about their not going into the extent of the
changes which they themselves had outlined!). But that the Social-Democrats
could be a party to this kind of unanimity is incredible, and we should
like to believe that Stolichnaya Pochta did not tell the truth, and
that the Social-Democrats did not vote for the Octobrists’ motion.

However, there is a more important issue here than the question whether the
Social-Democrats voted for or against the Octobrists. And that is the question
of the mistake undoubtedly committed by the Social-Democratic deputy
Pokrovsky 2nd. It is to this mistake and to the real political significance of
the debate of January 12, 15, and 17, that we wish to draw the attention of our
readers.

The Russian Duma has no budgetary powers, for “ by law ” the
rejection of a budget does not prevent it from being put into execution. That
law, promulgated by the counter revolutionary government after the defeat of the
December uprising (February 20, 1906, the notorious “Fundamental
Laws”), makes a mockery of popular representation at the hands of
the Black Hundreds, the tsar, and the landlords. And the “Rules” of
March 8, 1906, further emphasise this mockery by imposing a multitude
of petty restraints on an examination of the budget in the Duma and by
even laying it down (Article 9) that “during the discussion of the draft
state budget, items of revenue and expenditure which have been inserted in the
draft on the basis of existing laws, civil, lists, and schedules, as well as
royal commands issued by way of supreme governance, cannot be excluded or modified ”. Is this not a mockery? Nothing that conforms to the laws,
to the civil lists, to schedules, or simply to the royal commands , can
be modified ! Is it not ridiculous, after this, to talk about
the budgetary powers of the Russian Duma?

The question now arises—what were the tasks of the bourgeois
democrats, if they are really fighting for freedom, in the face of such a
situation? What were the tasks of the workers’ party?—in this
article we are speaking only of the tasks of parliamentary struggle and of the
parliamentary representatives of the respective parties.

Obviously, the question of the Duma’s budgetary powers had to be raised in the Duma in order to make quite clear
to both the Russian people and to Europe the Black-Hundred contemptuous
attitude of tsarism and to show the complete powerlessness of the
Duma. The immediate practical object of such clarification (not to mention
the basic task of every democrat—that of revealing the truth
to the people, making them see the light) was further determined by the
question of the loan. The Black-Hundred government of the tsar could not
have held out after December 1905, and could not hold out even now, without
the help of world capital of the international bourgeoisie in the
shape of loans. And the world bourgeoisie is giving billions in loans to an
obviously bankrupt tsar, not only because it is lured, like all
moneylenders, by the prospect of big profits, but because it realises its
own vested interest in the victory of the old regime over the revolution in
Russia, for it is the proletariat that is marching at the head of this
revolution.

Thus, the only object of raising and debating this question in
the Duma could be that of exposing the whole truth. Practical reform
activity could not , at this time and in this situation, be the aim
of a democrat , because, first, the impossibility of reforms on the
basis of the existing Fundamental Laws of the Duma’s budgetary powers
is obvious, and secondly, it would be absurd, in a Duma composed of
Black-Hundred die-hards and Moscow merchants, to propose that its
powers, the powers of such a Duma, should be extended. The Russian Cadets
(whom only ignoramuses or simpletons can regard as democrats) did not grasp
this task, of course. In raising the issue, they forthwith placed
it on a false basis—that of a partial reform. We do not, of
course, deny the possibility and necessity of a democrat or a
Social-Democrat sometimes raising the question of a partial reform. But in
such a Duma as the Third Duma, at such a moment as the present, on such a
question as budgetary powers, already hopelessly crippled by
inviolable Fundamental Laws, this was absurd. The Cadets could
raise the question as a matter of partial reform—we are willing to
concede them even that—but democrats could not treat this question
in the way that the Cadets have done.

They stressed the so-called business aspect of the matter, the
inconvenience of the Rules of March 8, their disadvantage even to
the government, and the story of the way various idiotic laws against the
Duma were drafted in the idiotic government offices of Bulygin, Witte, and
others of that gang. The spirit of the Cadets’ presentation of the
issue is most saliently conveyed in the following words of Mr. Shingaryov:
“In the Bill we have introduced there are no encroachments [on the
prerogatives of the monarch], no ulterior motives [!!] whatever. All it
seeks to do is done for the sake of convenience of the Duma’s work , for the sake of its dignity, for the sake of completing the work
we have been called upon to do ” (our italics; p. 1263 of the
official Stenographic Record of the session of January 15, 1908).

Such a person befogs people’s minds instead of enlightening them, because what he says is nonsense and a bare faced
lie. We cannot alter this inescapable conclusion, even if this
Mr. Shingaryov and his whole fraternity of Cadet politicians sincerely
believed in the “value” of their “diplomacy”. A democrat should reveal to the people the gulf that lies between
the powers of parliament and the prerogatives of the monarch, and not
deaden the public mind, not distort the political struggle by
reducing it to an office-routine correction of the laws. In
thus presenting the issue, the Cadets show in fact that
they are rivals of the tsar’s bureaucrats and the Octobrists, and not
champions of freedom, not even freedom for the big bourgeoisie. Only
bureaucrats vulgarly flirting with liberalism, and not representatives of
a parliamentary opposition , can talk like that .

The speech by the representative of the Social-Democrats, Pokrovsky
2nd, we gladly acknowledge, reveals a quite different spirit,
presenting the issue in a fundamentally different way. The
Social-Democrat stated bluntly and clearly that he considered popular
representation in the Third Duma falsified (we are quoting
Stolichnaya Pochta for January 18, since the verbatim reports of
this session are not yet available). He stressed not minor points, not the
official derivation of the law, but the ruined and oppressed state of the
masses, of the vast millions of the people. He rightly declared that
“one cannot speak of the budgetary powers of the Duma without
irony”, that we were demanding not only the right to recast the whole budget (Kokovtsev, a government official
with a lucrative post, argued in the Duma mainly against Shingaryov and
Adzhemov, government officials without lucrative posts, over the question
whether “recasting " was permissible and to what extent ), but to “remodel the whole financial system”
and “reject the government’s budget”. He concluded with a
no less correct and, for a member of the workers’ party, obligatory demand
for “full power of the people”. On all these points Pokrovsky
conscientiously and correctly upheld the Social-Democratic point of view.

But in doing so, he committed an unfortunate mistake— judging by
newspaper reports, the whole Social-Democratic group committed
that mistake in giving such instructions to its spokesman. Pokrovsky
declared: “ We support the proposal of the 40 because it tends towards an extension of the budgetary powers of a popular representative assembly .”

What was the object of this declaration of support for a proposal that was
plainly lacking in principle, that was plainly inadequate, plainly signed by
unprincipled people who were incapable of showing the slightest firmness—a
proposal that was plainly and for all practical purposes worthless? This was not
support for the militant bourgeoisie (a formula which many people like to use
to justify their political spinelessness), but support for the wavering
liberal-Octobrist bourgeoisie. That this was so, was proved immediately by the
facts . The Cadets themselves proved it by withdrawing their
proposal and joining with the Octobrists in the motion to have the
Bill “referred to committee without going into the extent of the changes in the law” (I). For the hundredth and thousandth time
“support” given to the Cadets led to those who supported them being
deceived. For the hundredth and thousandth time the facts have
revealed how shoddy and impermissible are the tactics of supporting liberal,
Cadet proposals that follow the line , etc. [1]

If the Cadets, instead of joining with the Octobrists, had put to the vote a declaration stating clearly and precisely that the Duma was
powerless iii financial matters, that popular representation was falsified,
that the country had been ruined by the autocracy and a financial
débâcle was unavoidable, and that under such circumstances the
democratic representatives would not give their support to any
loans—that would have been an honest act on the part of the bourgeois
democrats, an act of struggle and not an act of dull-witted flunkeyism. It
would have been our duty to support such an act, while not forgetting. to
stipulate our own independent Social-Democratic objectives. Such an act
would have contributed to the enlightenment of the people and the exposure
of the autocracy.

The defeat of such a declaration in the Duma and the violent opposition
such a proposal would have raised among the Black Hundreds would have been
a historical service rendered by the democrats and probably a new phase in
the struggle for, freedom. But now the Cadets have once again proved bankrupt . Social-Democratic comrades in the Duma, protect the honour
of the socialist workers’ party! Do not allow yourselves to suffer failure
by giving support to such liberalism!

One violent member of the Right in the Duma departed from the
Octobrists’ tactics, which aimed at glossing over differences and coaxing
the Cadets into an agreement. The Black-Hundred Kovalenko bluntly declared
in the Duma on January 12 that he was against introducing the Cadets’ Bill
in the Committee (p. 1192 of Stenographic Record). But apparently he voted,
did this hero, with the Octobrists; he was brave only in words. He
admirably illustrated the real state of affairs by referring in his speech to the following example as proof of the need for
emergency measures: “Take, for instance, the insurrection in Moscow,
the dispatch of punitive detachments. Could the government have had time to follow the ordinary course?”... (p. 1193). It is a pity that
Social-Democrats do not catch these sparks of truth that come from
the Black Hundreds. You are right, deputy colleague—he should have
been told. There is no place here for the ordinary course. Let us drop
hypocrisy and admit that we are living through not “an ordinary
course”, but civil war ; that the government is not ruling,
but fighting, that the state of things in Russia is one of barely
restrained insurrection. That would be the truth, and it would do the
people good to be reminded of it more often!

---
Notes:
[1]
The

“Bezgolovy” [4] newspaper Stolichnaya Pochta , through the mouth of a Mr. Saturin,
announces that “the opposition, very sensibly [!] voted for it [for
the Octobrist motion]. As a result the amendment [that is, the motion to
abstain from determining the extent of the changes] was adopted
unanimously” (January 18, p. 4, “From the Assembly

Hall”). Long live the unanimity between the Russian “Bezgolovy” liberals
and the Octobrists and ministers of the Black-Hundred tsar! — Lenin

[2]
The Debate on the Extension of the Duma’s Budgetary Powers was
first published in Sotsial-Demokrat, the Central Organ of the

R.S.D.L.P., issue No. 1, February 1908. The article was reprinted in the
newspaper Proletary , No. 27, March 26 (April 8) of the same year
with a postscript by Lenin (see p. 439 of this volume).

Sotsial-Demokrat —Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P., an illegal newspaper, published from February 1908 to January 1917. Issue
No. 1 appeared in Russia, but thereafter the paper was published abroad,
first in Paris, then in Geneva. The Editorial Board, according to a
decision of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., was made up of
representatives of the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the Polish
Social-Democrats. Over eighty articles and other items of Lenin’s
were published in Sotsial-Demokrat . On the paper’s Editorial Board
Lenin fought for a consistent Bolshevik line. Some of the editors (Kamenev
and Zinovyev) took a conciliatory stand towards the liquidators and tried
to obstruct Lenin’s policy. The Menshevik editors Martov and Dan
sabotaged the work of the Editorial Board while at the same time openly
defending the liquidators in Golos Sotsial-Demokrata . Lenin’s uncompromising fight against the
liquidators led to Martov and Dan retiring from the Editorial Board in June
1911. From December 1911 onwards Sotsial-Demokrat was edited by
Lenin.

[3]
Stolichnaya Pochta ( Metropolitan Post )—a
Left-Cadet newspaper, published in St. Petersburg from October 1906 to
February 1908.

a

[4]
Bezgolovy ( Headless )—ironically applied by
Lenin to the Bezzaglavtsi , a group of bourgeois liberals
(S. N. Prokopovich, Y. D. Kuskova, etc..) formed around the journal Bes Zaglaviya (Without a Title). In 1908, the Bezzaglavtsi
published the newspapers Stolichnaya Pochta and Nasha Gazeta .