V. I.

Lenin

Onlya year has elapsed since

Bogolepov [1] was struck by Karpovich’s bullet, which cleared the way for a “new course” in the government’s policy
towards the universities. During this year we have observed successively
an unusual surge of social indignation, an unusually gentle note in
speeches by our rulers, a regretfully all-too-usual infatuation of society
with these new speeches, an infatuation which has extended to a certain
section of the students as well, and, lastly, following on the fulfilment
of Vannovsky’s florid promises, a new outburst of students’ protests. To
those who last spring expected a “new era” and seriously believed that the
tsarist drill sergeant would fulfil but a modicum of the hopes harboured
by students and society–in short, to the Russian liberals, it should now
be clear how mistaken they were in once again giving credence to the
government, how little justification there was for halting the movement
for reform which in the spring had begun to assume impressive forms, and
for allowing themselves to be lulled by the sweet strains coming from the
government sirens. After the promise to reinstate at the universities all
last year’s victims had been broken, after a series of new reactionary
measures had flung a challenge to all those who demanded a real reform of
the educational system, after a series of fresh and violent reprisals
against demonstrators who demanded that the fraudulent bankrupt should
make good his promises–after all this the government of “cordial concern”
has published “provisional regulations”, [2] for student organisations as means of “pacification”, and... instead of
"pacification is confronted with a general conllagration of “disorders”
again involving all educational institutions.

We,revolutionaries, have never for a moment believed that Vannovsky’s
promised reforms were meant in earnest. We kept on telling the liberals
that the circulars of this “cordial” general and the rescripts of Nicholas

Obmanov [3] were just another manifestation of the liberal policy the
autocracy has become so adept in during forty years of struggle against
the “internal enemy”, i.e., against all progressive elements in Russia. We
warned the liberals against the “pipe dreams” they began to indulge in
following the government’s very first steps in the spirit of the “new
course”. We exposed the deliberate falsity of the government’s promises,
and warned society: “If your opponent has been stunned by the first
serious assault, keep on showering fresh blows at him, redoubling their
strength and frequency....” That travesty of the right to organise which
the “provisional regulations” are now offering the students was predicted
by the revolutionaries from the very beginning of the talk about this new
gift from the government. We knew what could and should have been expected
of the autocracy and its miserable attempt at reform. We knew that
Vannovskv would “pacify” nobody and nothing, that he would not fulfil any
progressive hopes, and that the “disorders” would inevitably recur in one
form or another.

Ayear has passed, but society is still marking time. The higher
educational institutions that are supposed to exist in any well-ordered
state have again stopped functioning. Tens of thousands of young people
have again had the tenor of their life upset, and society is again faced
with the old question: “What next?”

Aconsiderable majority of the students have refused to recognise the
“provisional regulations” and the organisations allowed by them. With
greater determination than they usually show, the professors are
expressing obvious dissatisfaction with this gift of the government. And,
indeed, one does not have to be a revolutionary, one does not have to be a
radical, to recognise that this so-called “reform” not only fails to give
the students anything resembling freedom, but is also worthless as a means
of bringing any tranquility into university life. Is it not immediately
ohvious that these “provisional regulations” create in advance a series of
causes for conflict between the students and the authorities?

Is it not obvious that the introduction of these regulations threatens to
turn any students’ meeting, lawfully called for the most peaceful
purpose, into a starting-point for fresh “disorders”? Can it be doubted,
for example, that by presiding at such meetings the inspectors, who
exercise police functions, will constantly annoy some, evoke protest in
others, and intimidate and gag yet others? And is it not clear that
Russian students will not allow the character of the discussions at such
meetings to be forcibly determined at the “discretion” of the authorities?

Yetthe “right” of assembly and organisation granted by the government in
the absurd form established by the “provisional regulations” is the
maximum that the autocracy can give the students, if it is to
remain an autocracy. Any further step in this direction would amount to a
suicidal disturbance of the equilibrium on which the government’s
relations with its “subjects” rest. Reconciling themselves to this maximum
that the government can offer, or intensifying the political, revolutionary character of their protest–such is the dilemma the
students are facing. The majority are adopting the latter
alternative. More clearly than ever before, a revolutionary note rings in
the students’ appeals and resolutions. The policy of alternating brutal
repression with Judas kisses is doing its work and revolutionising the
mass of students.

Yes,in one way or another, the students have settled the question
confronting them and have declared that they are again prepared to take up
the weapon they laid aside (under the influence of the lullabies). But
what does society, which seems to have dozed off to these treacherous
lullabies, intend to do? Why does it persist in maintaining silence and in
“sympathising on the quiet”? Why is nothing heard of society’s protests,
its active support for the renewed unrest? Is it really prepared to wait
“calmly” for the inevitable tragic events by which every student movement
has been attended hitherto? Does it really intend to confine itself to the wretched role of teller of the number of victims in
the struggle and passive observer of its shocking scenes? Why do we not
hear the voice of the “fathers”, when the “children” have unequivocally
declared their intention to offer up new sacrifices on the altar of

Russian freedom? Why does our society not support the students at least in
the way the workers have already supported them? After all, the higher
educational institutions are attended not by the proletarians’ sons and
brothers, and yet the workers in Kiev, Kharkov, and Ekaterinoslav have
already openly declared their sympathy with the protesters, despite a
uumber of “precautionary measures” taken by the police authorities and
despite their threats to use armed force against demonstrators. Is it
possible that this manifestation of the revolutionary idealism of the
Russian proletariat will not influence the behaviour of society, which is
vitally and directly interested in the fate of the students, and will not
urge it to energetic protest?

Thestudent “disorders” this year are beginning under fairly favourable
portents. They are assured the sympathy of the “crowd”, “the street”. It
would be a criminal mistake on the part of liberal society not to make
every effort to completely demoralise the government by giving timely
support to the students, and to wrest real concessions from it.

Theimmediate future will show how far our liberal society is capable of
such a role. The outcome of the present student movement largely depends
on the answer to this question. But whatever that outcome may be, one
thing is certain: the recurrence of general student disorders after so
brief a lull is a sign of the political bankruptcy of the present
system. For three years the universities have been unable to settle down
to normal life, studies are conducted by fits and starts, one of the cogs
of the state machine is ceasing to function and, after turning uselessly
for a time, is again coming to a standstill for a long while. There can be
no doubt that under the present political regime there is no radical cure
for this disease. The late Bogolepov sought to save the fatherland by a
“heroic” method borrowed from the outmoded medicine prescribed by Nicholas
I. We know what that led to. It is obvious that there can be no furthur
progress in this direction. The policy of flirting with the students has
now suffered a fiasco. But there is no other way besides violence and
flirtation, and each new manifestation of this unquestionable bankruptcy
of the existing regime will undermine its foundations more and more, depriving the government of all prestige in the
eyes of the indifferent philistines, and increasing the number of people
who realise the need to struggle against it.

Yes,the bankruptcy of the autocracy is beyond doubt, and it is hurrying
to announce the fact to the world at large. Is it not a declaration of
bankruptcy that “a state of emergency” has been proclaimed in a good third
of the Empire, and local authorities in all parts of Russia have come out
simultaneously with “compulsory decrees” forbidding, under pain of severe
penalties, acts that Russian laws do not allow as it is? By their very
nature, all emergency regulations, which suspend the operation of ordinary
laws, are meant to operate for only a limited time and in a limited
area. The assumption is that extraordinary circumstances demand the
temporary application of emergency measures in definite localities for the
purpose of restoring the equilibrium necessary for the unimpeded operation
of ordinary laws. That is the argument used by representatives of the
existing regime. Twenty odd years have elapsed since the introduction of
the emergency law. Twenty years of its operation in the principal centres
of the Empire have not brought about the “pacification” of the country, or
restored public order. After this powerful remedy has been in use for
twenty years, it appears that the disease of “unreliability”, which it was
devised to combat, has become so widespread and struck such deep roots as
to make it necessary to extend it to all towns and factory centres of any
importance! Is this not bankruptcy, openly declared by the bankrupt
himself? Confirmed adherents of the present order (undoubtedly such do
exist) must be horrified by the fact that the population is gradually
becoming inured to this potent medicine, and is ceasing to react to fresh
injections of it.

Thebankruptcy of the government’s economic policy is also coming
to light, this time against its will. The autocracy’s repacious methods of
running the economy have rested on the monstrous explotation of the peasantry. These methods have
taken for granted, as an inevitable consequence, recurrent famines among
the peasants in one locality or another. At such times the predatory state
has attempted to parade before the population in the noble role of considerate provider
for the very people it has robbed. Beginning with 1891, famines have taken
an enormous toll of victims, and from 1897 they have followed one another
almost without interruption. In 1892 Tolstoi bitterly derided the fact
that “the parasite is preparing to feed the plant upon whose juices it thrives”. [4]

It was, indeed, an absurd idea. Times have changed, and with famine having
turned into a normal state of affairs in the countryside, our parasite is
not so much taken up with the utopian idea of feeding the plundered
peasantry, as with declaring that very same idea an offence against the
state. The aim has been achieved–the huge famine of today is taking place
in an atmosphere of dead silence that is unusual even in our country. The
groans of the starving peasants are not heard; there is no attempt on the
part of the public to take the initiative in combating the famine; the
newspapers say nothing about the situation in the villages. An enviable
silence, but do not Messrs. the Sipyagins feel that this quiet is highly
reminiscent of the calm before a storm?

Thestate system, which for ages has rested on the passive support of
millions of peasants, has reduced the latter to a state in which year in
year out they are unable to provide food for themselves. This social
bankruptcy of the monarchy of Messrs. the Obmanovs is no less instructive
than its political bankruptcy.

Whenwill the affairs of our fraudulent bankrupt be wound up? Will he
manage to carry on much longer, living from day to day, and patching up
the holes in his political and financial budget with skin taken from the
living body of the national organism? The greater or lesser period of
grace that history will allow our bankrupt will depend on many factors;
but one of the most important will be the degree of revolutionary activity
displayed by those who have become aware of the existing regime’s complete
bankruptcy. Its decay is in an advanced stage, and is far ahead of the
political mobilisation of the social elements destined to be its gravediggers. This political mobilisation will
be carried out most effectively by revolutionary Social-Democracy, which
alsone will be capable of dealing a a mortal blow al the autocracy. The
new clash between the students and the government enables and obliges us all to accelerate this
mobilisation of all social forces hostile to the autocracy. Months of
hostilities in political life are accounted by history as the equivalent
of years. The times we live in are indeed times of hostilities.