Written on 24–28 March (6–10 April) 1906.

Published in April 1906 as a separate pamphlet by the publishing house “Nasha Mysl”

Printed according to the text of the pamphlet

I. What Objective Significance Did Our Participation in the Duma Elections Have?

The Cadet victories have turned the heads of our liberal press. The Cadets united all or nearly all liberals around themselves in the election campaign. Newspapers that had not previously belonged to the Cadet party effectively became organs of that party. The liberal press is exulting. From all sides come shouts of victory and threats directed at the government. A highly characteristic circumstance is that these shouts are constantly mingled with either gloating or condescending sallies aimed at the Social-Democrats.

— Look what a mistake you made by refusing to take part in the elections! Do you see now? Do you admit the mistake? Do you now appreciate the advice of the wise and far-sighted Plekhanov? — Such and similar speeches are heard from the pages of the liberal press, which is choking with rapture. Comrade Stepanov (in the collection: “The Current Moment”, article “From Afar”) said something remarkably true about Plekhanov: he suffered something similar to Bernstein. And just as the German liberals once carried Bernstein on their shoulders and all the “progressive” bourgeois newspapers praised him to the skies, so now there is not a single liberal newspaper in Russia, not even a single liberal newspaper article (right down to “Slovo” — yes, yes, right down to the Octobrist “Slovo”!) that does not embrace, kiss and caress the wise and far-sighted, sensible and sober Plekhanov, who had the courage to rise against the boycott.

Let us see, then, what the Cadet victories proved. Whose mistake did they reveal? What tactic did they expose as fruitless?

Plekhanov, Struve and Co. keep repeating to us that the boycott was a mistake. Why the Cadets think so is perfectly clear. Their proposal to get one worker elected to the Duma from Moscow (see “Nasha Zhizn” of 23 March) shows that the Cadets know how to appreciate the help of workers, that they seek a deal with the Social-Democrats in the interests of completing and consolidating their victory, that they are concluding such a deal with non-party workers just as they would have concluded one with the S.-D. party. That the Cadets hate the boycott as a refusal to support them, the Cadets, a refusal to make a deal of the “Left” with them, the Cadets — this is entirely natural.

But what does Plekhanov want, and the Mensheviks (partly consciously, partly unconsciously) who gravitate towards him, or our Russian S.-D. anti-boycottists? Alas, alas! Plekhanov is the boldest of them all, the most consistent, the freest and clearest in expounding his views — and with his fifth “Diary”[46] he shows once again and again that he himself does not know what he wants. We must participate in the elections, he cries. What for? In order to organise the revolutionary self-government that the Mensheviks preach? Or in order to go into the Duma?

Plekhanov twists, manoeuvres, dodges, and parries these simple, direct and obvious questions with sophisms. After remaining silent for months and months while the Mensheviks, still in the pages of Iskra, were preaching revolutionary self-government (and when he, without hesitation, declared his sympathy for the Menshevik tactic), Plekhanov suddenly now throws out a supremely contemptuous phrase against this “famous revolutionary self-government” of the Mensheviks. Famous why and for what, Comrade Plekhanov? Was it not those very Bolsheviks with whom Plekhanov now wants to wage war who contributed to its “fame” — those who had long been pointing out the inadequacy, vagueness and half-heartedness of this slogan?

There is no answer. Plekhanov explains nothing. He merely tosses out an oracle’s dictum and passes by. The difference between an oracle and Plekhanov, however, is that the oracle predicts events, while Plekhanov pronounces his verdicts after the events have passed, serving mustard after supper. When, before the October revolution and before the December uprising, the Mensheviks spoke of “revolutionary self-government” — before the onset of the revolutionary upsurge — Plekhanov remained silent, although he approved the Menshevik tactic in general; he kept silent as if biding his time, as if perplexed, not daring to form any definite opinion. When the revolutionary wave subsided, when the “days of freedom” and the days of uprising had passed, when the various Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Railwaymen’s and other Deputies had vanished from the scene (Soviets that appeared to the Mensheviks as organs of revolutionary self-government, and were regarded by the Bolsheviks as embryonic, scattered, elemental and therefore powerless organs of revolutionary power) — in a word, when the question had lost its edge, when the supper was eaten, then Plekhanov appears with the mustard, then he displays his wisdom and far-sightedness, so dear to Messrs. Struve and Co. ... regarding the day before yesterday.

Why Comrade Plekhanov is dissatisfied with revolutionary self-government remains unknown. Plekhanov now agrees with the Bolsheviks that revolutionary self-government “confuses many” (“Diary” No. 5), but it is evident from everything that to Plekhanov such a slogan seems too big, while to the Bolsheviks it seems too small. Plekhanov feels this slogan goes too far; we feel it does not go far enough. Plekhanov inclines towards calling the Mensheviks back from “revolutionary self-government” to sober and business-like work in the Duma. We incline — and not only incline, but consciously and clearly call — towards taking a step forward from revolutionary self-government, towards recognising the need for integral, planned, offensively acting organs of uprising, organs of revolutionary power. Plekhanov is practically removing the slogan of uprising from the agenda (though he does not dare say so directly and definitely); it is entirely natural that he also rejects the slogan of revolutionary self-government, which, without an uprising and outside the setting of an uprising, would be a ridiculous and harmful game. Plekhanov is a little more consistent than his like-minded Mensheviks.

So, for what purpose are we to participate in the elections and how are we to participate, Comrade Plekhanov? Not for revolutionary self-government, which only “confuses”. That means, for participation in the Duma? — But here Plekhanov is overcome by a double timidity. He does not want to answer, and since n + 1 comrades in Russia, who wish not only to “read” the diaries of an “author” who “writes”, but also to act in some definite way among the working masses — since these n + 1 importunate correspondents demand a precise answer from him, Plekhanov begins to grow angry. It is difficult to imagine anything more helpless and more curious than his angry declaration that it would be pedantry, schematism, etc., to demand that those doing the electing know whither and why they are electing. Have mercy, Comrade Plekhanov! Why, both your friends the Cadets and our workers will simply laugh at you if you seriously begin to defend, before the masses, this magnificent programme: take part in the elections, elect, but do not ask what you are electing to or why. Elect on the basis of the law on elections to the Duma, but do not dare think (that would be pedantry and schematism) that you are electing to the Duma.

Why has Comrade Plekhanov, who once knew how to write clearly and give precise answers, become so obviously entangled? Because, having incorrectly assessed the December uprising, he formed a fundamentally erroneous idea of the present political moment. He has fallen into a position that makes him afraid to think his thoughts through to the end, afraid to look reality straight in the face.

But now the unvarnished reality of the “Duma campaign” has already taken shape quite clearly. Now the facts themselves have answered the question what objective significance the elections and participation in them have, irrespective of the will, consciousness, speeches or promises of the participants themselves. The most resolute of the Mensheviks, Comrade Plekhanov, fears to declare himself openly for participation in the Duma precisely because this participation has already determined its character. To take part in the elections means either to support the Cadets and enter into a deal with them, or to play at elections. The correctness of this proposition has now been proved by life itself. In No. 5 of his “Diary” Plekhanov was forced to admit the correctness of the second half of this argument, to admit the muddle-headedness of the slogan: “revolutionary self-government”. In No. 6 of the “Diary”, if he does not avoid examining the matter on its merits, Plekhanov will be forced to admit the first half as well.

Political reality has completely wrecked the tactic of the Mensheviks — the tactic they defended in their “platform” (a hectographed leaflet mentioning the names of Martov and Dan, issued in St. Petersburg in late 1905 or early 1906) and in their printed statements (a leaflet of the Organising Committee expounding both tactics, Dan’s article in a well-known pamphlet). This was the tactic of participation in the elections, but not for election to the Duma. Let us repeat: not a single more or less prominent Menshevik has dared even murmur a word in print about participation in the Duma. And so it is precisely this “pure” Menshevik tactic that has been utterly wrecked by life. Participation in the elections for “revolutionary self-government”, for walking out of the gubernia electoral assemblies, etc., can hardly be spoken of seriously any longer. Events have demonstrated in the most graphic way that such playing at elections, playing at parliamentarism, can yield nothing for Social-Democracy except compromising it, nothing but disgrace and scandal.

If further confirmation of what has been said is needed, one of the most striking was provided by the Moscow District Committee of our party. It is a fused organisation, uniting the majority and minority fractions. The tactic adopted was likewise a “fused” one, i.e., at least half Menshevik: to participate in the election of authorised representatives in order to consolidate the S.-D. influence in the workers’ curia, and then to wreck the elections by refusing to elect electors. This was an attempt to repeat the tactic adopted in regard to the Shidlovsky Commission{127}. It was the “first step” exactly in the spirit of the measures recommended by Comrade Plekhanov: we shall take part, and then we shall work out the details in due time.

The Menshevik-Plekhanov tactic of the Moscow District Committee collapsed, as was to be expected, with a bang. The authorised representatives were elected. Social-Democrats and even some members of the organisation got through. A law against the boycott{128} arrived in time. The authorised representatives found themselves in a vice: either go to prison for agitating in favour of the boycott, or elect electors. The agitation of the District Committee, conducted underground — like the agitation of all our party organisations — proved powerless to cope with the forces it had set in motion. The authorised representatives broke the promise they had given, tore up their imperative mandates and... elected electors. Among the electors, too, there turned out to be some Social-Democrats and even members of the organisation.

The writer of these lines was present at an extremely painful scene at a meeting of the Moscow District Committee, when the leading S.-D. organisation was discussing the question: what was to be done and how to proceed now, with this (Plekhanov) tactic having collapsed. The failure of the tactic was so obvious that among the Menshevik members of the committee there was not one who spoke out for the electors’ participation in the gubernia electoral assembly, or for revolutionary self-government, or for anything of the kind. On the other hand, it was difficult to decide to take disciplinary measures against the worker-authors who had broken their imperative mandates. The Committee had to wash its hands and silently admit its mistake.

Such was the result of Plekhanov’s tactic: electing without having thought it over properly (without even wanting to think it over properly, without wanting to think at all: see “Diary” No. 5), without knowing for what and why. At the very first contact with reality, the Menshevik “tactic” was smashed to smithereens — and this is not surprising, for this “tactic” (of participation in the elections, not for elections) consisted solely of fine words and fine intentions. The intentions remained intentions, the words remained words, and what happened in fact was what was dictated by the inexorable logic of the objective political situation: either elect in support of the Cadets or play at elections. Events literally confirmed, therefore, what I wrote in my article: “The State Duma and Social-Democratic Tactics”: “We may declare the complete and utter independence of our Social-Democratic candidatures, the purest and most exclusive party character of our participation, but the political situation is stronger than all declarations. In reality, contrary to these declarations, what will result inevitably, despite our will, will not be a Social-Democratic and party working-class policy, given the present participation in the present Duma” (p. 5)[47].

Let the Mensheviks or Plekhanovites try to refute this conclusion — only not with words, but with deeds, with facts. Today, after all, each local organisation within our party is autonomous in its tactics. Why, then, did no sensible and sound Menshevik tactic appear anywhere in Russia? Why did the Moscow group of the R.S.D.L.P., the Menshevik group, not fused with the Bolshevik committee, not prepare a “Plekhanov” or its own election campaign for those elections that will take place in Moscow the day after tomorrow, on Sunday, 26 March? Certainly not from lack of desire. I am sure it was not from lack of ability either. It was because the objective political situation prescribed either a boycott or support for the Cadets. Now among the electors of Moscow Gubernia there are Social-Democrats. The elections have fully taken shape. The gubernia electoral assembly is still some time off. There is time, Comrade Plekhanov. There is time, Comrade Mensheviks! Advise those electors what to do[48]. Show, just once, not after the fact, that you have a tactic. Should these electors simply walk out of the gubernia electoral assembly? Or walk out and set up revolutionary self-government? Or cast blank ballots? Or, finally, elect to the Duma, and if so, whom? One of their own Social-Democrats for an empty and hopeless, behind-the-scenes demonstration? Lastly, the main question that you, Comrade Mensheviks and Comrade Plekhanov, must answer: what are these electors to do if their votes decide the choice between Cadets and Octobrists? If, for example, the Cadets have A – 1 votes, the Octobrists A votes, and there are two Social-Democratic electors? Abstention[49] would mean helping the Octobrists to beat the Cadets! The only thing left would be to vote for the Cadets and ask them, in return for the favour, for a seat in the Duma?

This is not a conclusion invented by us. It is not a polemical sally against the Mensheviks. This conclusion is reality itself. The participation of the workers in the elections, the participation of Social-Democracy in the elections, leads in practice to this, and to this alone. The Cadets correctly evaluated the St. Petersburg experience, when non-party working-class householders voted for them in order not to let the Octobrists win. Having taken stock of this experience, the Cadets came forward with a direct proposal to the Moscow workers: support us, and we will get one of your elected members into the Duma. The Cadets understood the real meaning of the Plekhanov tactic better than Plekhanov himself. By their proposal they anticipated the inevitable political outcome of the elections. If, instead of non-party working-class electors, there were party Social-Democratic workers, they would face the same dilemma: either step aside, thereby helping the Black Hundreds, or enter into a direct or indirect deal — tacit or formalised by agreement — with the Cadets.

Yes, yes, not for nothing, not for nothing at all, do the Cadets now kiss Plekhanov! The price of these kisses is obvious. Do ut des, as the Latin proverb says: I give you in order that you may give me. I give you kisses because you, with your advice, give me extra votes. True, you perhaps never wanted this; you were ashamed even to admit publicly that you were receiving our kisses. You wriggled by fair means and foul (especially foul!) to avoid answering questions that too unceremoniously, too directly, touched the very essence of our love deal. But the point is not at all your desires, not your designs, not your good (good from the Social-Democratic point of view) intentions. The point is the results, and these are profitable to us.

The Cadet understanding of Plekhanov’s tactic corresponds to reality. Hence they get the result they desire: the acquisition of workers’ votes, the conclusion of a deal with the workers, the drawing of the workers into joint (together with the Cadets) responsibility for the Cadet Duma, for Cadet policy.

Plekhanov’s understanding of the tactic he proposes does not correspond to reality. Hence Plekhanov’s good intentions merely serve to pave hell. The Social-Democratic agitation concerning the elections among the masses, the organisation of the masses, the mobilisation of the masses around Social-Democracy, and so on and so forth (see the declamation of Plekhanov’s like-minded Dan in his pamphlet), all this remains on paper. No matter how any of us might desire this, objective conditions hinder the realisation of our desires. It proves impossible to unfurl the Social-Democratic banner before the masses (recall the example of the Moscow District Committee); the illegal organisation has no opportunity to turn into a legal one; the sail is torn from the helpless helmsman who threw himself into a quasi-parliamentary[50] torrent without any serious equipment. In practice we get not a Social-Democratic and party working-class policy, but a Cadet working-class policy.

“But your boycott proved to be a completely useless and impotent thing!” the Cadets shout at us from all sides. “The workers who wanted to shame the Duma and us, the Cadets, by their boycott, the workers who elected a scarecrow to the Duma, were most patently mistaken! The Duma will not be a scarecrow but a Cadet Duma!”

Come now, gentlemen! You are naïve or you pretend to be naïve. If the Duma is Cadet, the situation will be different, but the Duma will still be a scarecrow. The workers were guided by a remarkably sensitive class instinct when, by their inimitable demonstration with the election of a scarecrow, they symbolised the future Duma, warned the gullible people, and absolved themselves of responsibility for playing with scarecrows.

You do not understand that? Allow me, we shall explain it to you.

II. The Socio-Political Significance of the First Elections

The first political elections in Russia have a very great political and social significance. But the Cadets, intoxicated with their victory and wholly mired in constitutional illusions, are quite incapable of understanding the real significance of these elections.

First of all, let us consider what class elements are grouping around the Cadets. The elections provide extremely instructive and valuable material on this question, though it is still far, far from complete. Something, however, is already taking shape and deserves special attention. Here are the totals of the data on electors as of 18 March (i.e., before the St. Petersburg elections), taken from Russkiye Vedomosti:

[Table omitted in translation request, but the text references it.]

* We classified as Left: S.-D. (2), Cadets (304), Party of Democratic Reforms (4), Progressive, e.g. (59), Moderate Liberals (17), Union for Equal Rights of Jews (3), Polish National (7). As Right: Octobrists (124), Commercial-Industrial Party (51), Constitutional-Monarchist (7), Party of Legal Order (5), Rights (49), Monarchists (54).

Scanty as these data still are, it is nevertheless clear from them (and the St. Petersburg elections only reinforce this conclusion) that the Russian liberation movement in general, and the Cadet party in particular, is undergoing a certain social shift. The centre of gravity of this movement is shifting more to the towns. The movement is becoming democratised. The urban petty-bourgeois, from among the “small fry”, is coming to the fore.

Among the landowners, the Rights predominate (if we assume that the non-party are split evenly between Left and Right — an assumption that errs more probably on the side of excessive pessimism than optimism). Among the urban electors there is an incomparably stronger predominance of the Left.

The landlord has left the Cadets for the October 17 Union and similar parties. In return, the petty bourgeoisie, at least the urban petty bourgeoisie (we have no data yet on the rural, and it will be harder to obtain such data before the Duma), is clearly entering the political arena, swinging clearly toward democratism. While the bourgeois-liberal (and “Osvobozhdeniye”) movement of the Zemstvo congresses was dominated by the landowners, now the peasant revolts and the October revolution have hurled most of them decisively to the side of counter-revolution. The Cadet party remains dual — we see in it both urban petty bourgeoisie and liberal landowners — but the latter, it seems, already constitute a minority in the party. Petty-bourgeois democracy predominates.

With a high degree of probability, almost with certainty, we can therefore draw the following two conclusions: first, the petty bourgeoisie is taking political shape and definitely opposing the government; second, the C.-D. party is becoming the “parliamentary” party of petty-bourgeois democracy.

These two conclusions do not coincide, as might appear at first glance. The second conclusion is much narrower than the first, for the C.-D. do not embrace all the petty-bourgeois democratic elements, and besides are only a “parliamentary” (i.e., of course, quasi-parliamentary, toy-parliamentary) party. As regards the significance of, for example, the St. Petersburg elections, all testimonies strikingly agree — from the lively and radical-posturing “Rus”, through Mr. Nabokov, member of the CC of the Cadets and candidate for the Duma, to Novoye Vremya — that these were, properly speaking, not so much voting for the Cadets as voting against the government. The victory fell to the Cadets to a considerable extent only because (thanks to Durnovo and Co.) they proved to be the most left-wing party. Really left-wing parties were eliminated by violence, arrests, massacres, the electoral law, etc. All the discontented, irritated, embittered, vaguely revolutionary elements were forced by the force of circumstances, by the logic of the electoral struggle, to rally around the Cadets[51]. The amalgamation of all progressive electors together with the Cadets, which we produced in the table above, actually took place. Essentially, two large forces were contending: for the government (the counter-revolutionary landlord, the capitalist and the brutalised official) and against the government (the liberal landlord, the petty bourgeoisie and all kinds of indefinite elements of revolutionary democracy). That the elements standing to the left of the Cadets gave them their votes is beyond doubt from the general picture of the St. Petersburg[52] elections, it is confirmed by the direct testimony of numerous witnesses (the “common folk” voting for “freedom”, etc.), it can also be seen indirectly from the wholesale shift into the Cadet camp of the democratic press that is a little more left-wing than the Cadet press. Consequently, while the core of the present Cadet party unquestionably consists of people who are certainly good for nothing sound except toy-parliamentary phrasemongering, the same can by no means be said of the entire mass of petty-bourgeois electors who voted for the Cadets. “Essentially, the same thing has happened to us as happens in Germany to the Social-Democrats at elections,” said one Cadet to a reporter of the Cadet (or semi-Cadet) Nasha Zhizn (No. 401, 23 March), “many vote for them because they are the most oppositional party in relation to the government.”

This is very truly said. Only a tiny, tiny addition is lacking: the German S.-D., as a militant and, in the full sense of the word, advanced socialist party, rally around themselves many relatively backward elements. The Russian Cadets, as a backward and non-militant democratic party in the full sense of the word, have carried away many advanced and combat-capable democratic elements, thanks to the forcible removal from the field of battle of genuinely democratic parties. In other words: the German S.-D. carry along those who go behind them; the Russian C.-D. themselves go behind the democratic revolution and carry along many advanced people only when those going ahead of them populate predominantly places of imprisonment and eternal repose...[53] This in passing, so that our Cadets do not get too conceited about themselves over the comparison with the German S.-D.

Thanks to the removal from the scene of the toy-parliamentary struggle of the advanced democratic elements, and for the duration of such removal, the Cadets naturally have chances of taking possession of that toy parliament which is called the Russian State Duma. If we take the above figures, take into account the St. Petersburg and other later Cadet victories, make an approximate estimate of the enormous predominance of rural electors over urban, add the peasant electors to the landowner electors, then on the whole we must recognise as quite possible, and even probable, the assumption that the Duma will be a Cadet Duma.

III. What Is the Party of People’s Freedom?

What role, then, can the Cadet Duma play, and what role must it play? To answer this question, we must first dwell on a more detailed characterisation of the Cadet party itself.

We have already noted the basic feature of the class structure of this party. Not tied to any one definite class of bourgeois society, but entirely bourgeois in composition, character and ideals, this party vacillates between the democratic petty bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary elements of the big bourgeoisie. The social basis of this party is, on the one hand, the mass urban petty bourgeois — the very same urban petty bourgeois who zealously built barricades in Moscow in those famous December days — and, on the other hand, the liberal landlord, who, through the liberalising official, gravitates toward a deal with the autocracy, toward a “harmless” division of power between the people and all sorts of oppressors of the people by the grace of God. This extraordinarily broad, indefinite and internally contradictory class basis of the party (noticeably manifesting itself, as already noted above, in the statistics of the Cadet electors) is reflected with remarkable clarity in the programme and tactics of the C.-D. Their programme is entirely bourgeois; the Cadets cannot even conceive of any social system other than the capitalist, beyond whose limits not even the boldest of their wishes go. In the sphere of politics, their programme unites democratism, “people’s freedom”, and counter-revolution, the freedom of the autocracy to oppress the people, unites with a purely petty-bourgeois and professorial-pedantic scrupulousness. Power in the state is to be divided approximately into three parts — that is the Cadet’s ideal. One part — to the autocracy. The monarchy remains. The monarch retains equal rights with the people’s representation, which “agrees” with him concerning the laws to be issued, which submits its legislative bills to him for confirmation. Another part of power — to the landlord and big capitalist. They receive an upper chamber, from which two-stage elections and a residency qualification are to keep the “common folk” away. Finally, a third part of power — to the people, who receive a lower chamber on the basis of universal, equal, direct and secret ballot. Why struggle, why civil strife? says the little Judas of a Cadet, raising his eyes to heaven and casting reproachful glances both at the revolutionary people and at the counter-revolutionary government. Brethren! Let us love one another! Let the wolves be sated and the sheep safe, let the monarchy and the upper chamber be inviolate and “people’s freedom” secured.

The hypocrisy of this Cadet principled position hits one in the eye; the falsity of the “scientific” (professorial-scientific) arguments by which it is defended is striking. But it would be fundamentally erroneous, of course, to explain this hypocrisy and this falsity by the personal qualities of the Cadet leaders or of individual Cadets. Such vulgar explanation, often imputed to us by our opponents, is completely alien to Marxism. No, among the Cadets there are undoubtedly perfectly sincere people who believe that their party is the party of “people’s freedom”. But the dual and vacillating class basis of their party inevitably engenders their two-faced policy, their falsity and their hypocrisy.

These charming traits are displayed even more clearly, perhaps, in Cadet tactics than in the Cadet programme. Polyarnaya Zvezda{129}, in which Mr. Struve so zealously and so successfully brought the Cadets close to Novoye Vremya-ism, gave an excellent, magnificent, inimitable delineation of Cadet tactics. At the very time when the shooting was dying down in Moscow, when the military-police dictatorship was celebrating its frenzied orgies, when punitive expeditions and mass torture were proceeding all over Russia — in Polyarnaya Zvezda speeches resounded against violence from the left, against the strike committees of the revolutionary parties. Trading in science at Dubasov’s expense, Cadet professors went so far (Mr. Kizevetter, member of the CC of the Cadets and candidate for the Duma) as to translate the word “dictatorship” with the words “reinforced protection”! “Men of science” even distorted their secondary-school Latin in order to belittle the revolutionary struggle. Dictatorship means — take this note of it once and for all, Messrs. Kizevetter, Struve, Izgoev and Co. — unlimited, power based on force, not on law. In time of civil war, every victorious power can only be a dictatorship. But the point is that there is dictatorship of a minority over the majority, of a police gang over the people, and there is dictatorship of the gigantic majority of the people over a gang of violent men, plunderers and usurpers of the people’s power. By their vulgar distortion of the scientific concept of dictatorship, by their cries against violence from the left, in an epoch of the rampant of the most lawless, most base violence from the right, Messrs. Cadets visibly demonstrated what the position of the “conciliator” is in an acute revolutionary struggle. The “conciliator” cravenly hides when the struggle flares up. When the revolutionary people won (17 October), the “conciliator” creeps out of his lair, boastfully preens himself, babbles away with all his might and shouts to the point of frenzy: that was a “glorious” political strike. When counter-revolution wins, the conciliator begins to shower the defeated with hypocritical admonitions and edifications. The victorious strike was “glorious”. The defeated strikes were criminal, savage, senseless, anarchic. The defeated uprising was madness, the rampage of the elements, barbarism, absurdity. In a word, the political conscience and political reason of the “conciliator” consists in grovelling before whoever is at present the stronger, in getting between the legs of the combatants, hindering now one side, now the other, blunting the struggle and stupefying the revolutionary consciousness of the people waging a desperate fight for freedom.

The peasants are fighting