V. I.

Lenin

In war-time the diplomats stand idle, but when hostilities are over they are
very much in the picture, casting up the results, making out the bills, and
acting the honest broker.

Something of the kind is under way in the Russian revolution as well. During
the armed clashes between the people and the forces of autocracy, the liberal
bourgeois lie low; they are against violence either from above or from below,
and are opposed both to the authorities’ acts of despotism and to mob
anarchy. It is only when the fighting is over that they appear on the scene,
their political decisions clearly reflecting the change in the political
situation brought about by the fighting. After January 9 the liberal bourgeoisie
turned “pink”; it has now begun to go “red” following the
Odessa events, which (in connection with events in the Caucasus, Poland, etc.)
point to a steep rise in the people’s insurrection against the autocracy during
six months of revolution.

Highly instructive in this respect are three recent liberal congresses. The most
conservative of them was that of the merchants and manufacturers, who are most
trusted by the autocracy and are undisturbed by the police. They criticise and
condemn the Bulygin scheme and demand a constitution, but, as far as we can
judge from the incomplete information available, they do not even raise the
question of boycotting the Bulygin elections. The most radical of the three was
a delegate Congress of the Union of Unions [2] held in secret within a stone’s throw of St. Petersburg, but on non-Russian
soil—in Finland. Congress members are said to have taken the
precaution of concealing their papers, police searches at the border
yielding no results. By a majority vote (though there seems to have been a
sizable minority) this Congress approved a thorough and determined boycott
of the Bulygin elections and called for a widespread campaign for
universal suffrage.

In the middle stood the most “influential”, fanfared, and vociferous
of the three, the Zemstvo and Municipal Congress, which enjoyed almost legal
status. The police drew up a protocol just as a matter of form, their demand
that the Congress break up merely evoking smiles. But newspapers that began to
report the Congress were either suspended ( Slovo ) [3] or
cautioned ( Russkiye Vedomosti ). According to Mr. Pyotr Dolgorukov’s
concluding address as reported in The Times , the Congress was attended
by 216 delegates. Reports on its proceedings were cabled to all parts of the
world by foreign correspondents. No opinion whatever was expressed on the main
political issue—a boycott of the Bulygin “constitution”. According to British newspapers, the
majority stood for a boycott, but the Organising Committee was against it. A compromise was reached, leaving
the question open pending publication of the Bulygin scheme, after which a new
congress was to be convened by telegraph. Naturally, the Bulygin scheme was
strongly condemned by the Congress, which adopted the Osvobozhdeniye
draft constitution (providing for a monarchy and a two-chamber system),
rejected an appeal to the tsar, and decided to “appeal to the
people”.

We are not yet in possession of the latter appeal. According to the foreign
press, it amounts to a survey, couched in moderate terms, of events since the
November Zemstvo Congress, as well as a list of facts revealing the government’s
unconscionable procrastination, its broken promises, and cynical flouting of the
demands of public opinion. Besides an appeal to the people, an almost unanimous
resolution was passed calling for resistance to the government’s unjust and
arbitrary acts. “In view of the arbitrary acts of the Administration and
the constant violation of the rights of the public,” the resolution declares,
“the Congress deems it incumbent upon all to defend the natural rights of
man by

peaceful means, including resistance to the acts of the authorities violating
these rights, although such acts may be based on the letter of the law.” (We
quote from The Times .)

So our liberal bourgeoisie has beyond doubt taken a step to the left. The
revolution marches on—the bourgeois democrats hobble along in the
rear. The true nature of this democracy, as bourgeois democracy,
representing the propertied classes’ interests and inconsistently and
self-interestedly defending the cause of freedom, is being revealed
ever more clearly, even though bourgeois democracy is going “red” and
sometimes attempts to use “almost revolutionary” language.

Indeed, postponement of a decision on the boycott of the Bulygin constitution
can denote nothing but a desire to go on haggling with the autocracy, a lack of
self-confidence within the majority which seemed to emerge in favour of a
boycott, and a tacit admission that, while asking for nothing short of a
constitution, the landowners and the merchants would, probably, agree to
something less. Even if a congress of liberal bourgeois does not venture to
break at once with the autocracy and the Bulygin farce, what can be expected of
that congress of all and sundry bourgeois which is to be styled the Bulygin
“Duma” and will be elected (if ever elected it will be!) under every
kind of pressure from the autocratic government?

That is exactly how the autocratic government looks upon this act of the
liberals, which it considers merely an episode in the bourgeoisie’s
chaffering. On the one hand, the autocracy, in view of the liberals’ discontent,
is “adding to” its promises—the Bulygin scheme, according to
reports in the foreign press, is to include a number of new
“liberal” changes. On the other hand, the autocracy is replying to
Zemstvo discontent with a new threat: characteristic in this respect is a
Times report, which says that Bulygin and Goremykin propose, as a
measure against Zemstvo “radicalism”, to stir up the peasants
against “the quality” by promising them extra land in the name of
the tsar, and holding a “people’s” plebiscite (with the aid of the
Rural Superintendents [4] ), on the question of whether or not the elections
should be held on a social-estate basis. This report is, of course, just a
rumour set afloat, probably with a definite purpose, but there can be no doubt that the government is not afraid to resort to
the grossest, most brutal, and most unbridled demagogy; nor is it afraid of
an uprising by “masses on the rampage” and the dregs of society, while
the liberals are afraid of the people rising up against their oppressors,
against the- heroes of plunder, looting, and bashi-bazouk atrocities. The
government has long been shedding blood in a way and on a scale that have
no precedent, yet the liberals respond by saying they want to prevent
bloodshed! After a reply of this kind, is not any hired thug entitled to
despise them as bourgeois hagglers? After this, is it not ridiculous to
adopt a resolution calling for an appeal to the people and recognising
“peaceful resistance” to violence and arbitrary acts? The government is
distributing arms right and left, and bribing all comers to beat up and
massacre Jews, “democrats”, Armenians, Poles, and so on. But our
“democrats” still think that campaigning for “peaceful resistance” is a
revolutionary” step!

In No. 73 of Osvobozhdeniye , which we have just received, Mr. Struve is
ireful against Mr. Suvorin [5] for the latter’s condescendingly patting
Mr. Ivan Petrunkevich on the back and suggesting that such liberals should be
mollified with posts in ministries and government departments. Mr. Struve is
indignant, for it is precisely Mr. Petrunkevich and his Zemstvo supporters
(“who, before history and the nation, have committed themselves to a
programme”—What kind of programme? Where did they commit themselves?) that
he has designated for ministerial posts in some future Cabinet to be formed by
the Constitutional-Democratic Party. We, however, hold that the way in which the
Petrunkeviches behaved both at their reception by the tsar and at the Zemstvo
Congress of July 6 (19) has given even the Suvorins good reason to despise such
“democrats”. “Every sincere and thinking liberal in Russia
demands a revolution,” Mr. Struve writes. For our part we shall add that if in
July 1905 this “demand for a revolution” is voiced in a resolution
on peaceable methods of resistance then the Suvorins have every right to despise
and sneer at such a “demand” and at such “revolutionaries

Mr. Struve will, probably, retort that events which have until now swung our
liberals to the left will in due course carry them farther still. Here is what he has written in the selfsame No. 73:

“Conditions for the army’s physical intervention in the political struggle
will actually be provided only when the autocratic monarchy clashes with a
nation organised through popular representation. The army will then have to
choose between the government and the nation, and the choice will not be
difficult or mistaken.”

This peaceful idyll looks very much like putting revolution off until
the Greek calends. [6]

Who is to organise the nation in a popular representation?
The autocracy? But the latter consents to organise only the Bulygin Duma, which
you yourselves are protesting against and refuse to recognise as popular
representation! Or, perhaps, the “nation” will itself organise
representation of the people? If so, why is it that the liberals are dead set
against a provisional revolutionary government, which can rely only on a
revolutionary army? Why is it that, while at their congress they spoke in the
name of the people, the liberals are taking no step that would signify the
nation being organised in a popular representation? If, gentlemen, you really
represent the people and not the bourgeoisie which betrays the interests of the
people in the revolution, why don’t you appeal to the army? Why don’t you
announce a break with the autocratic monarchy? Why do you shut your eyes to the
inevitability of a decisive struggle between the army of revolution and the army
of tsarism?

The reason is that you are afraid of the revolutionary people; you address them
in trite words, while in actual fact you reckon and haggle with the
autocracy. Additional proof of that is provided by the talks held by
Mr. Golovin, Chair man of the Zemstvo Congress’s Organising Committee, with
Kozlov, Governor General of Moscow. Mr. Golovin assured Kozlov that rumours of
any intent to turn the Congress into a constituent assembly were absurd. What
does that mean? It means in effect that a representative of organised bourgeois
democracy gave his pledge to a representative of the autocracy that bourgeois
democracy has no intention of breaking with the autocracy! Only political tyros
will fail to realise that an undertaking not to declare the Congress a
constituent assembly was tantamount to promising to refrain from all genuinely revolutionary measures: Kozlov, of course, shied not at the
words “constituent assembly” but at acts that could exacerbate the conflict and lead to the people and the army beginning a
determined struggle against tsarism. Is it not political hypocrisy for you
to call your selves revolutionaries, talk of appealing to the people and
placing no more reliance in the tsar, while in actual fact you reassure the
tsar’s servants as to your intentions?

Oh, those florid liberal phrases! How many were uttered at the Congress by
Mr. Petrunkevich, leader of the “Constitutional-Democratic” Party!
Let us see what commitments to “history and the nation” he has
assumed. The source is The Times .

Mr. de Roberti spoke in favour of petitioning the tsar. This was opposed by
Petrunkevich, Novosiltsev, Shakhovskoi, and Rodichev. A ballot produced only six
votes for a petition. Mr. Petrunkevich had said that “when they went to
Peterhof on June 6(19), they still hoped the tsar would under stand the terrible
dangers of the situation and do something to avert them. All hope in that
direction must be abandoned. There remained only one issue. Till now they had
hoped for reform from above, but henceforth their only hope was in the
people. ( Loud applause .) They must tell them the truth in plain and
homely words. The inability and impotence of the government had promoted
revolution. That was a fact which they all had to recognise. Their duty was to
use every effort to prevent the accompaniment of bloodshed. Many of them had
devoted long years to the service of their countrymen; they must go boldly to
the people, no longer to the tsar.” On the following day Mr. Petrunkevich
continued:

"We must break out of the narrow confines of our activities and go to the
peasant. Till now we hoped for reforms from above, but, while we waited, time
was doing its work. Expedited by the government revolution has overtaken
us. Yesterday two of our members were so much frightened by the word revolution
that they left the Congress, but we must face the situation manfully. We cannot
wait with folded arms. The objection has been raised that any appeal to the
nation by the Zemstvos and Municipal Councils will amount to agitation that
stirs up unrest. But does calm reign in the villages? No, unrest already exists
there, and of the worst kind.

We cannot keep the storm in check, but we must at least try to avert too much
turmoil. We must tell the people that it is useless to destroy factories and
estates. We cannot regard such destruction as mere vandalism: it is the
peasants’ blind and ignorant way of remedying an evil which they instinctively
feel but are unable to understand. The authorities may reply with the knout. It
is nevertheless our duty to go to the people. We should have done that
earlier. The Zemstvos have been in existence for forty years without coming into
close and intimate contact with the peasants. Let us lose no time in rectifying
this error. We must tell the peasant that we stand with him.”

Excellent, Mr. Petrunkevich! You stand with the peas ants, with the people; you
recognise the revolution as a fact, and have abandoned all hope in the
tsar.... Good luck to you, gentlemen! Only... only, what exactly do you mean?
You say you are not with the tsar, but with the people, so therefore
you promise Governor General Kozlov that the Congress will not act as a
constituent assembly, i.e., as a body that is genuinely and actually
representative of the people. You recognise the revolution, so therefore you reply with peaceful methods of resistance to the atrocities,
killings, and pillage perpetrated by the government’s servants. You go to the
peasant and stand with the peasant, so therefore you confine yourselves
to a most vague programme, whose only promise is that the peasants may buy back land, given the landlords’ consent. You are not with the tsar, but
with the people, so therefore you accept a draft constitution which, in
the first place, provides for a monarchy and the tsar’s control of the army and
the bureaucracy, and, in the second place, guarantees in advance the political
supremacy of the landlords and the big bourgeoisie through an upper chamber. [1]

The liberal bourgeoisie is turning to the people. That is true. It has been
forced to do so, for without the people it is powerless to fight the
autocracy. But it is also afraid of the revolutionary people; it does not turn
to the latter as a representative of their interests, or as a new and ardent comrade-in-arms, but as a chafferer, a stockjobber, who dashes from one
belligerent to the other. Today it is with the tsar and implores him on
behalf of the “people” to grant a monarchist constitution, at
the same time cravenly renouncing the people, “unrest”,
“sedition”, and revolution. On the morrow it threatens the
tsar at its congress, threatens him with a monarchist constitution, and
with peaceable resistance to his bayonets. And yet, gentlemen, you are
surprised that the tsar’s servants have taken the measure of your craven,
petty, double-dealing souls. You are afraid to remain without a tsar, but
the tsar is not afraid to remain without you. You are afraid of a decisive
struggle; the tsar is not afraid of that, but wants it; he is himself
provoking and commencing the struggle; he wants a test of strength before
he yields. It is quite natural for the tsar to despise you. It is quite
natural for his contempt to be conveyed to you by his lackeys, the
Suvorins, who patronisingly pat your Mr. Petrunkevich on the back. You
deserve this contempt, for you are not fighting on the people’s side, but
are only stealing towards power behind the backs of the revolutionary
people.

On occasions foreign correspondents and bourgeois publicists grasp the gist of
the matter very aptly, although their rendering is somewhat peculiar. M. Gaston
Leroux has undertaken to present the Zemstvo views in
Matin [7] :

“There is disorder above and disorder below; we alone are people
of order,” he writes. That, indeed, is what the Zemstvos think. Translated into
plain Russian that means: Both above and below, there are people ready to do the
fighting, but as for us, we are honest brokers—we are stealing towards
power. We are waiting in the hope that our March 18 will also come round, that
the people will at least once defeat the government in street fighting, and
that, like the German liberal bourgeoisie, we shall get an opportunity to take
over power, following the first victory of the people. Then, after becoming a
force against the autocracy, we shall turn against the revolutionary people and
strike a deal with the tsar, against the people. Our draft constitution is a
ready-made programme of such a deal.

Quite a skilful calculation! One has sometimes to say of the revolutionary
people that which the Romans said of

Hannibal: “You know how to win victories, but you don’t know how to profit
by them.” A victorious rising will not yet be a victory of the people unless it
leads to a revolutionary upheaval, to the complete overthrow of the autocracy,
to the ousting of the inconsistent and selfish bourgeoisie, and to a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

Le Temps , organ of the French conservative bourgeoisie, has
straightforwardly advised the Zemstvos to put a speedy end to the conflict by
coming to terms with the tsar (editorial of July 24, New
Style). Reforms, it says, are impossible without a union of moral force and
material force. Only the government has material force. The Zemstvos are a moral
force.

This is an excellent rendering of bourgeois views—and excellent
confirmation of our analysis of Zemstvo policy. The bourgeois has forgotten a
petty detail, the people, the scores of millions of workers and peasants, whose
labour creates all the bourgeoisie’s wealth, and who are fighting for the
liberty they need as they do light or air. The bourgeois has been entitled to
forget them, inasmuch as they have not yet proved their “material
force” by defeating the government. No major historical issue has ever
been decided otherwise than by “material force”, and the tsarist
autocracy, we repeat, is itself starting the struggle by challenging the people
to a test of strength.

The French bourgeoisie is advising the Russian bourgeoisie to come speedily to
terms with the tsar. It is afraid, albeit vicariously, of a decisive
struggle. If the people are victorious it remains to be seen whether they will
allow the Petrunkeviches to take power, although the latter are stealing towards
it. It cannot be gauged in advance how decisive the victory will be and what
consequences it will have—and this fully accounts for the bourgeoisie’s
timidity.

All over Russia the proletariat is preparing for the decisive struggle. It is
marshalling its forces; it learns and gains strength after each new clash; past
encounters have all ended in failure, but have invariably led to fresh and
stronger attacks. The proletariat is marching to victory and rousing the
peasantry to follow its leadership. Relying on the peasantry it will paralyse
the instability and treachery of the bourgeoisie, brush aside bourgeois bidders for power, crush the
autocracy by force, and eradicate from Russian life all traces of the
accursed system of serf- ownership. When that time comes we shall win for
the people not a monarchist constitution, which secures
political privileges for the bourgeoisie—no, we shall win
for Russia a republic, with full liberty for all oppressed nationalities, for the peasants and
the workers. We shall then use all the revolutionary energy of the
proletariat for the boldest and most far-reaching struggle for socialism,
for the complete emancipation of all toilers from exploitation of any
kind.

---
Notes:
[1]
See the leaflet “Three Constitutions” published by our newspaper. (See present edition, Vol. 8, pp. 557-58.— Ed .)— Lenin

[2]
The Union of Unions —a political organisation of liberal bourgeois intellectuals, founded in May 1905 at the
first congress of representatives of 14 unions, such as lawyers, writers,
medical men, engineers, teachers, and the like. In 1905 the Union favoured a
boycott of the Bulygin Duma, but soon changed its stand, deciding to take part
in the Duma elections. It fell apart towards the close of 1906.

Regarding the attitude of Social-Democracy towards the liberal unions see
pp. 281-82 in this volume.

[3]
Slovo ( The Word )—a bourgeois daily published in St. Petersburg
from 1903 till 1909. Originally a Right-wing Zemstvo organ, it became the
mouthpiece of the Octobrist Party from November 1905 till July 1906, when it
ceased publication. Publication was resumed on November 19 (December 2), 1906,
when the paper became the organ of the constitutional monarchist party of
“Peaceful Renovation”, which in essence in no way differed from the
Octobrists.

[4]
Rural Superintendent ( Zemsky Nachalnik ) —an administrative post
instituted in 1889 by the tsarist government with the aim of strengthening the
landlords’ authority over the peasants. Rural Superintendents were selected from
among the local landed nobility, and were given very great powers not only of an
administrative character, but also judicial, which included the right to arrest
peasants and administer corporal punishment.

[5]
Suvorin, A. S. —editor of the reactionary newspaper Novoye Vremya from 1876 till 1912.

[6]
Until the Greek calends — a translation of the Latin ad calendas graecas . The calends was the name given in the Roman
calendar to the first day of each month. The Greek calendar had no calends, so
the expression means “never”.

[7]
Le Matin—the name of a French bourgeois daily paper that
was founded in 1884.