V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v26;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

NOTES DURING A LECTURE ABROAD
[October 26, 1905]

IX --------------- 26/X
9.10 a.m.

S[ocial]-D[emocrats] worked in the unions...*
Quotations from the press (“Proletary”) on the bourgeois character of the unions (partly a simple retelling without a connecting thread)
The l[iber]als’ evasions on the question of arming the workers
The l[iber]als’ internal work
1) refusal to give a direct answer to the w[ork]ers’ questions on the necessity of arming.
2) Distribution of money by the Red Cross bypassing rev[olution]ary organisations.¹
3) at first the S[ocial]-D[emocrats] worked in the unions, then they left all the unions.
4) “Falborck”: “kick them (the S[ocial-Democrats]) out”.
The S[ocial]-D[emocrats] left.
5) “unconscious” unions...
6) V[o]d[o]v[o]z[o]v: “our union” = “party” in the English sense.** 
“Iskra” in its leading article “Liberal Treacheries” (No. 111 of September 24, 1905) wrote: “The so-called All-Zemstvo organisation decided to conduct the relief of the starving peasants jointly with the tsarist ‘Red Cross’. Boycott—and a comprehensive boycott—of the Red Cross became one of the slogans of liberalism and democracy, as a protest against the constant striving of the autocracy to tie the hands and feet of all public initiative in the sphere of ‘philanthropy’. The abandonment of this boycott by the Zemstvo liberals signifies an important concession they have made to the autocracy.”

BETWEEN TWO BATTLES.*

The great battle which the proletariat gave tsarism is over. The all-Russian political strike has apparently ceased almost everywhere. The enemy retreated most on one flank (Finland), but he strengthened himself on the other (martial law in Poland). In the centre the enemy retreated very little, however, occupying a strong new position and preparing for an even bloodier and more decisive battle. Military skirmishes are taking place continuously along the entire line. Both sides are hastening to make good their losses, to close their ranks, to organise and arm themselves as well as possible for the next battle.
Such, approximately, is the state of affairs at the present moment on the theatre of the struggle for freedom. Civil war naturally differs from other wars in that the forms of battle are far more varied, the number and composition of the combatants on both sides are least subject to calculation and most fluctuating, and attempts to conclude peace or even an armistice come not from the combatants and are interwoven in the most bizarre manner with military operations.
Temporary suspensions of hostilities particularly encourage the enterprise of “peacemakers”. Witte is straining every nerve to pose, both directly and through the servile press, precisely as such a “peacemaker”, concealing as much as possible his role as a diplomatic servant of tsarism. The government communiqué admits—to the delight of naive liberals—the participation of the police in the Black-Hundred exploits. The press that fawns on the government (“Novoye Vremya”, for example) pretends to condemn the extremes of the reactionaries and, of course, the “extremes” of the revolutionaries. The extreme representatives of the reaction (Pobedonostsev, Vladimir, Trepov) are resigning, dissatisfied with the petty game. Partly, out of stupidity, they do not understand how advantageous this game is for preserving the greatest possible power for tsarism; partly they count—and rightly—that it would be more convenient for them to untie their hands completely and take part in the same game, but in a different role: as “independent” fighters for the power of the monarch, as “free” avengers for the “national feelings of the Russian people outraged (by the revolutionaries)”—to put it plainly, as Black-Hundred leaders.
Witte rubs his hands with pleasure, seeing the “great” successes of his amazingly cunning game. He preserves the innocence of liberalism, eagerly offers ministerial portfolios to the leaders of the Cadet party (even to Milyukov, according to a telegram from the correspondent of “Le Temps”), addresses a personal letter to Mr. Struve inviting him to return to his homeland, trying to portray himself as a “white” who is equally distant from the “reds” and the “blacks”. And at the same time, along with innocence, he acquires a little capital, for he remains the head of the tsarist government, which holds all power in its hands and is only waiting for the most convenient moment to launch a decisive offensive against the revolution.
The characterisation we gave of Witte in “Proletary” is fully confirmed. He is a minister-clown in his methods, “talents” and purpose. He is a minister of liberal bureaucracy in terms of the real forces at his disposal so far, for he has not yet succeeded in striking a bargain with the liberal bourgeoisie. True, this bargaining is nevertheless gradually moving forward. The bargainers are shouting out their last price, shaking hands on the deal, postponing the transaction until the decisions of the Zemstvo congress due in a few days. Witte is trying to bribe the bourgeois intelligentsia by extending the franchise for the Duma elections, giving an educational qualification, even throwing a miserable crumb to the workers (who are supposed to be satisfied with 21 seats under a system of indirect elections “from the workers”!!), swearing that if only the Duma meets, if only it, or even a minority in it, speaks out for universal suffrage, then his, Witte’s, support for this demand is fully, fully assured.
But the bargaining still leads to nothing so far. The bargainers are conducting their negotiations bypassing those who are actually fighting, and this cannot but paralyse the efforts of our “honest brokers”. The liberal bourgeoisie itself would willingly accept the State Duma—after all, it accepted it even in its “deliberative form”, after all, it rejected active boycott as early as September. But the point is that in the two months that have passed since then, the revolution has made a gigantic step forward, the proletariat has given a serious battle and for the first time won a major victory at once. The State Duma, that despicable and vile comedy of popular representation, turned out to be buried: it was smashed to smithereens by the first blow of the mighty proletarian onslaught. The revolution in a few weeks exposed the shortsightedness of those who were going to enter the Bulygin Duma or support those entering the Duma. The tactic of active boycott received the most brilliant confirmation that the tactics of political parties can receive in battle moments: confirmation by deed, verification by the course of events, recognition by an indisputable and undeniable fact of what yesterday seemed to shortsighted people and cowardly hucksters too bold a “leap into the unknown”.
The working class gave the “Duma” comedians a good fright—such a fright that they are now afraid to set foot on this fragile, broken bridge, afraid even to believe in the solidity of the “newest”, hastily made repair by state “artisans”. The roles have shifted a little. Yesterday comrades Parvus, Cherevanin and Martov wanted to take a revolutionary pledge from those who go onto this bridge, a pledge to demand in the Duma the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. Today this place of the Social-Democrats has been taken by the President of the Council of Ministers, Count Sergei Yulievich Witte, who is already giving a “revolutionary” pledge to support even a single Duma deputy who demands the convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
But the liberal bourgeois, the Cadets, were so disgraced the first time that they would not like a repetition of the sad experience. They had already quite set up the “election campaign”, our good parliamentarians from “Osvobozhdeniye” and “Russkiye Vedomosti”; they had already chosen a central committee to direct this campaign; they had even set up a legal bureau to give the population advice on whether the land captain has the right to directly disperse the peasant electors or must first ask the governor. In a word, they had already quite settled down to sleep on the sofa granted to all Russian Oblomovs, when suddenly—with an impolite movement of the shoulder, the proletariat threw off the Duma and the entire “Duma” campaign. It is not surprising that the liberal bourgeois are now not inclined to believe the “revolutionary pledges” of the affectionate Count. It is not surprising that they are now less inclined to shake the Count’s outstretched hand, that they more often look to the left, although their mouths water at the sight of the magnificent Duma pie adorned with new sugar curlicues.
Witte’s negotiations with the leaders of the liberal bourgeoisie undoubtedly have the most serious political significance, but only in the sense that they confirm once again the inner kinship of the liberalising bureaucracy with the defenders of the interests of capital—only in the sense that they show once again how exactly and who exactly is going to bury the Russian revolution. But these negotiations and agreements fail precisely because the revolution is still alive. The revolution is not only alive—it is stronger than ever, it is far, far from having said its last word, it has only begun to unfold to the full breadth of the forces of the proletariat and the revolutionary peasantry. That is why the negotiations and agreements of the minister-clown with the bourgeoisie bear such a lifeless character: they cannot acquire serious significance during a hot struggle, when hostile forces stand opposite each other between two decisive battles.
At such a time, the policy of the revolutionary proletariat, conscious of its world-historical aims, striving not only for the political but also for the economic emancipation of the working people, never forgetting for a minute its socialist tasks—its policy must be particularly firm, clear and definite. To the vile lies of the minister-clown, to the stupid constitutional illusions of the liberals and bourgeois democrats, it must oppose, more resolutely than ever, its slogan of overthrowing the tsarist power through a nationwide armed uprising. The revolutionary proletariat abhors all hypocrisy and fights mercilessly against all attempts to gloss over the real state of affairs. And in the current speeches about a constitutional regime in Russia, every word is hypocrisy, every phrase is an old, official lie serving the purpose of saving one or another remnant of autocratic-serf Russia.
They talk about freedom, they speak of popular representation, they orate about a Constituent Assembly, and they constantly, hourly and minutely forget that all these good things are empty phrases without serious guarantees. And the only serious guarantee can be a victorious popular uprising, only the complete domination of the armed proletariat and peasantry over all representatives of the tsarist power, who have retreated one step before the people, but are far from being subordinated to the people, far from being overthrown by the people. And until this goal is achieved, there can be no real freedom, no real representation of the people, no truly Constituent Assembly that would have the power to establish a new order in Russia.
What is a constitution? A piece of paper on which the rights of the people are written. What is the guarantee of the real recognition of these rights? The strength of those classes of the people who have realised these rights and have been able to achieve them. Let us not be deluded by words—that befits only the windbags of bourgeois democracy—let us not forget for a minute that strength proves itself only by victory in struggle, and that we are far from having achieved complete victory. Let us not believe fine phrases—we are living precisely in a time when open struggle is going on, when all phrases and all promises are immediately tested in practice, when the people are being fooled with words, manifestos, promises of a constitution, trying to weaken their strength, disunite their ranks, induce them to disarm. There is nothing more false than such promises and phrases, and we can proudly say that the proletariat of Russia has already matured for struggle both against crude violence and against liberal-constitutional falsehood. The proof is the appeal of the railway workers, which foreign newspapers recently reported (we unfortunately do not have the original). Gather arms, comrades, says this appeal, organise for struggle tirelessly, with tenfold energy. Only by arming and closing our ranks will we be able to defend what has been won and achieve the full fulfilment of our demands. The time will come—we will rise again, all as one man, for a new, even more stubborn struggle for complete freedom.
These are our only guarantees! This is the only non-illusory constitution of a free Russia! Look, indeed, at the manifesto of October 17 and at Russian reality: can there be anything more instructive than this recognition of the constitution by the tsar on paper and—the real “constitution”, the real application of tsarist power? After all, the tsar’s manifesto contains promises of an absolutely constitutional character. And there you have the value of these promises. The person is declared inviolable. But those who are displeasing to the autocracy remain in prisons, in exile, in banishment. Meetings are declared free. But the universities, which for the first time in Russia created real freedom of assembly, are closed, and their entrances are guarded by police and troops. The press is free—and therefore the organ of workers’ interests, the newspaper “Novaya Zhizn”, is confiscated for printing the Social-Democratic programme. The places of Black-Hundred ministers have been taken by ministers who have proclaimed a legal order. But the Black Hundreds are “working” even more strongly with the help of the police and troops in the streets, and citizens of free Russia who are displeasing to tsarism are freely and with impunity shot, beaten, and maimed.
One must be blind or blinded by class selfishness to attach, at such instructive lessons of life, any really serious significance at the present time to whether Witte promises universal suffrage, whether the tsar signs a manifesto on the convocation of a “Constituent” Assembly. Even if these “acts” were to take place, they would still not decide the outcome of the struggle, they would still not create real freedom of electoral agitation, they would still not ensure for the national assembly of representatives a truly constituent character. A Constituent Assembly must legally consolidate, parliamentarily formalise the system of life in a new Russia, but before consolidating the victory of the new over the old, in order to formalise this victory, one must really conquer, one must break the strength of the old institutions, sweep them away, raze the old building to the ground, destroy the possibility of any serious resistance from the police and their gangs.
Complete freedom of elections, complete power of the Constituent Assembly can be ensured only by the complete victory of the uprising, the overthrow of the tsarist power and its replacement by a provisional revolutionary government. All our efforts must be directed towards this, the organisation and preparation of the uprising must absolutely be in the foreground. Only to the extent that the uprising is victorious and its victory is the decisive destruction of the enemy—only to that extent will the assembly of people’s representatives be not only on paper nationwide and not only in words constituent.
Down with all hypocrisy, all falsehood and all equivocation! War has been declared, war is raging, we are living through a small interval between two battles. There can be no middle ground. The party of the “whites” is a sheer deception. Whoever is not for the revolution is a Black-Hundred man. This is not only our assertion. This is not a formulation invented by us. This is what the blood-stained cobblestones of the streets in Moscow and Odessa, in Kronstadt and the Caucasus, in Poland and Tomsk say to everyone.
Whoever is not for the revolution is a Black-Hundred man. Whoever does not want to suffer Russian freedom being the freedom of police debauchery, bribery, drunkenness, attacks from around the corner on the unarmed, must arm himself and prepare immediately for battle. We must win not a promise of freedom, not a piece of paper about freedom, but real freedom. We must achieve not the humiliation of the tsarist power, not its recognition of the rights of the people, but the destruction of this power, for the tsarist power is the power of the Black Hundreds over Russia. And this too is not at all our conclusion. It is the conclusion of life. It is the lesson of events. It is the voice of those who have hitherto been alien to all revolutionary teaching and who dare not take a single free step, say a single free word on the street, in a meeting, at home, without being subjected to the most immediate and terrible danger of being trampled, torn to pieces, ripped apart by a gang of tsarist supporters.
The revolution has finally forced this “popular” force, the force of the tsarist supporters, to come out into the open. It has forced them to show everyone clearly on whom the tsarist power really relies, who really supports this power. Here they are, this army of brutalised policemen, half-witted soldiers, savage priests, wild shopkeepers, drunken dregs of capitalist society. These are the ones who now reign in Russia, with the direct and indirect assistance of nine-tenths of all our government institutions. Here it is—the Russian Vendée, as similar to the French Vendée as the “legitimate” monarch Nicholas Romanov is similar to the adventurer Napoleon. And our Vendée, too, has not yet said its last word—do not be mistaken about this, citizens. It, too, is only just beginning to unfold properly. It, too, still has “fuel reserves” accumulated over centuries of darkness, lack of rights, serfdom, police omnipotence. It combines in itself all the savagery of Asiatic backwardness with all the disgusting aspects of the refined methods of exploitation and befuddlement of all those who are most crushed, tormented by urban capitalist civilisation, who are reduced to a state worse than that of a beast. This Vendée will not disappear from any tsar’s manifestos, from any synodal messages, from any changes in the higher and lower bureaucracy. It can be broken only by the force of the organised and enlightened proletariat, for only he, himself exploited, is capable of raising all those below him, awakening in them human beings and citizens, showing them the road to deliverance from all exploitation. Only he can create the core of a mighty revolutionary army, mighty in its ideals, its discipline, its organisation and its heroism in struggle, which no Vendée can withstand.
And the proletariat, led by Social-Democracy, has already everywhere begun to form this revolutionary army. Everyone who does not want to be in the army of the Black Hundreds must join its ranks. Civil war knows no neutrals. Whoever stands aloof from it supports the triumphant Black Hundreds by his passivity. The army, too, is splitting into a red and a black army. Only two weeks ago we pointed out how quickly it is being drawn into the struggle for freedom. The example of Kronstadt showed this clearly. Let the government of the scoundrel Witte have suppressed the uprising in Kronstadt, let it now shoot hundreds of sailors who once again raised the red flag—this flag will fly even higher, for this banner is the banner of all the working and exploited people throughout the world. Let the servile press, like “Novoye Vremya”, shout about the neutrality of the army—this vile and hypocritical lie vanishes like smoke before every new exploit of the Black Hundreds. The army cannot be, never has been, and never will be neutral. It is splitting with enormous rapidity precisely now into an army of freedom and an army of the Black Hundred. We will accelerate this split. We will put to shame all the irresolute and wavering, all those who shun the idea of the immediate formation of a people’s militia (the Moscow City Duma, according to the latest news from foreign newspapers, rejected the project of forming a people’s militia). We will redouble our agitation among the masses, our organisational activity for forming revolutionary detachments. The army of the conscious proletariat will then merge with the red detachments of the Russian army—and then we shall see whether the police Black Hundreds can overcome all the new, all the young, all the free Russia!

The article “Between Two Battles” from No. 20 of “Proletary” of November 25 (12), 1905 undoubtedly belongs to Lenin (the manuscript of the article has not been preserved). Lenin’s authorship is substantiated by the following data: below we print extracts from “Le Temps” of November 10, made by Lenin and used in the article. Then the article also uses extracts made by Lenin from the “Frankfurter Zeitung” (see Len. Misc. XVI, 232). Analysis of the text and comparison of a number of passages from the article with articles published in Volumes VII and VIII of the Works leave no room for doubt about the article’s belonging to Lenin. Thus, the article says: “The bargainers are shouting out their last price, shaking hands on the deal,” and in Volume VII of the Works, p. 393, we read: “A real bazaar, where the bourgeoisie is bargaining away the interests and rights of the Russian workers and Russian peasants. As in a bazaar, the buyer—the bourgeoisie and the seller—the tsar slap each other on the hands, shouting out for the hundredth time their ‘last word’.” The article contains a reference to Parvus, Cherevanin, Martov. Lenin repeatedly mentions this trio of Mensheviks together in polemics (see, e.g., Works, VIII, 212, 273, 299). Calling Witte a “minister-clown”, the author of the article literally repeats the title of one of Lenin’s articles: “Plans of the Minister-Clown” (Works, VIII, 345, see also ibid., 332). The article says: “This is not only our assertion. This is not a formulation invented by us. This is what the blood-stained cobblestones of the streets in Moscow and Odessa say to everyone...” Similarly, in the article “The Tsar-Father and the Barricades” Lenin wrote: “This is not what the priest Georgy Gapon says. This is what the thousands and tens of thousands, the millions and tens of millions of peasants say...” (Works, VII, 88). When in the article we read: “civil war... differs from other wars in that the forms of battle are far more varied, the number and composition of the combatants on both sides are least subject to calculation and most fluctuating, and attempts to conclude peace or even an armistice come not from the combatants and are interwoven in the most bizarre manner with military operations,”—this is merely a development of Lenin’s thought on “the difference between revolutionary war and other wars” on p. 356 of Volume VIII of the Works. Finally, the emphasis on the “world-historical aims of the movement”, the advocacy of the maximum sweep of the movement and simultaneously the sketching of the perspective of the bourgeois revolution growing into a socialist revolution—all these are elements of Lenin’s style in the work, all this undoubtedly confirms that the author of the article is Lenin.