Date: 1905
Source: ru:LS/v16

“ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL MANIFESTO OF NICHOLAS THE LAST” 235
Yet, in a certain sense, we may still rejoice!
Of course, not in the same way as the liberals—those prone to premature jubilation, who see in even the most dubious victory a reason to flee the battlefield. No, we can rejoice, fully aware of the true significance of this moment… The Tsar’s manifesto makes abundantly clear one gain that cannot be taken away. This manifesto is the funeral dirge for the Tsar’s previous manifesto; it is the death knell tolling for that infamous Duma, for the entire sham constitution! Before the “elections” to this monstrous “popular representation” have even begun, the entire Duma farce has been shattered, swept aside, trampled underfoot, utterly destroyed—and reduced to nothing by the unanimous uprising of the urban proletariat, which has risen across the entire country, from St. Petersburg to Odessa, from Kartavy and Łódź to Krasnoyarsk! The people are freed from the torment of endless stages, from the unbearable vicissitudes of liberal bickering and squabbling with autocracy. The path to genuine freedom has been shortened, purified, and opened—cleared entirely by the revolutionary road.
“And all of this is the work of the conscious vanguard of the Russian proletariat, the work of social democracy!” “And once again, events unfolded much as they had during that fateful January week. Back then, the St. Petersburg proletariat—and soon after, the entire Russian proletariat—rose up precisely at the moment when the liberal and democratic banquet campaign was beginning to run out of steam, to reveal its inner weakness and impotence. The liberals were already on the verge of completely sabotaging the cause of freedom when the proletariat intervened and, with a single mighty thrust, sent the entire cart hurtling forward. And now, too, Russian liberalism and democracy were once again poised to stumble over a mere straw, to trip over the Duma campaign and let the cause of revolution slip through their fingers for a considerable stretch of time. The landowners, along with various other so‑called ‘democratic’ heroes, had almost—despite all their threats—come to taste the apple offered them by Bulygin, to take part in the very ‘constitution’ they had just rejected with indignation, to gracefully embark upon ‘electoral’ agitation. The liberals were already preparing to deliver their great, thunderous liberal speeches in the Duma, in defense of a people who were supposed to remain on the sidelines, watching from afar… * Up to this point, the text has been printed according to the edition of Proletarii. Peri.

glancing toward the Duma. But the urban worker rose up—not this time under the vague or half‑hearted leadership of some liberal faction, but under the conscious and resolute guidance of social democracy—and declared: ‘No, Your Graces, I’d rather handle matters myself, with my own two hands!’ And it took only a single week of fervent agitation, just one week of majestic mass strikes, to reduce the entire charm of Bulygin’s Duma to dust!”
1 See Vorwärts, November 1, 1905. “The New Constitutional Manifesto of Nicholas the Last.”
*K TO AN UNFINISHED NOTE TITLED “VALUABLE ADMISSIONS”
NOVEMBER 1905, STOCKHOLM.
a. 1522
EXCERPTS FROM THE ARTICLE IN LE TEMPS, “CONSTITUTIONALISTS AND SOCIALISTS.”
Le Temps. November 11. A letter from the [special] correspondent in St. Petersburg, dated November 11, is highly instructive. Title: “Constitutionalists and Socialists.”
It is difficult to navigate the storm, the correspondent begins, but
“Only one point emerges with crystal clarity: the distinctly socialist character of the agitation that preceded the issuance of the manifesto—or that followed it. Red flags, chants of the Marseillaise, revolutionary speeches—nothing else was seen, nothing else was heard. To be sure, the people have just achieved a great constitutional victory, but it is precisely in the moment when socialist forces entered the fray and began to deploy their full strength that they secured this victory. The railway strike and the general shutdown of economic life accomplished more for the people in a single week than the Moscow constitutionalist party had managed to achieve in six months of relentless effort.”
“This sudden surge reveals the latent power hitherto concealed within a party whose organizational strength no one had yet fully recognized—and whose resolve to wield the means of pressure at its disposal remained untested… Above all, it underscores the urgent need for a sharp turn to the left, should those who govern wish to remain at the helm. The Russian authorities have understood this—and Count Witte understands it even more keenly when…”