Resolution (II) of the St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. on the Attitude Towards the State Duma [1]

The autocratic government is treating the representatives the people of Russia
have sent to the State Duma with coarse mockery and scorn. It rejects every
declaration of the Duma that in any way expresses the needs and demands of the
people, and persists in its policy of murder and violence.

The Duma is powerless. It is powerless not only because it lacks the bayonets
and machine-guns that the government has at its command, but also because, as a
whole, it is not revolutionary, and is incapable of waging a resolute
struggle. The liberal parties in the Duma only inadequately and timidly back the
strivings of the people; they are more concerned to allay and weaken the
revolutionary struggle now proceeding than to destroy the people’s enemy. Apart
from the workers’ deputies, the Trudovik Group is the only group that shows any
inclination openly and boldly to proclaim the demands of the people; but it too
is still being handicapped by the influence of the liberal parties and by its
lack of independence in relation to them.

We call upon the Trudovik Group to pursue a more resolute and consistent
policy. We call upon it to demand that the Duma shall make a direct and public
appeal to the people; and if the majority in the Duma refuses to make such an
appeal independently, the Trudovik Group should tell the people the whole truth that the Duma is powerless, that land and freedom cannot be expected
from it, that obviously the people must take these themselves, and that
events are marching towards a decisive struggle outside the Duma.

The Trudovik Group should declare that the old authorities can be overthrown
only by joint militant actions of the workers and peasants, that they
must prepare and organise for these actions pending the arrival of the decisive
moment for a revolutionary uprising. Until that moment comes, the people must
collect and husband their forces and not fritter them away in fruitless minor
struggles; they must not allow the government to provoke them to untimely
action.

If the Trudovik Group does all this, it will perform its duty to the people; and
then only will it be able, side by side with the revolutionary organisation of
the proletariat, to take its place at the head of the great people’s movement
which will smash the old chains that are fettering the development of society.

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Notes:
[1]
The “Resolution (II) of the St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. ” and the article “The Slogan of a Duma Ministry ”, which is printed next to it and which Lenin wrote as
an afterword on be half of the editorial board of Vperyod , were
expressive of the struggle between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks over the Duma,
a struggle which took the form of a conflict between the Central Committee and
the St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.

On May 13 (26), 1906, the government rejected the demands of the Cadet Duma
stated in its Address. In reply the Duma passed a resolution expressing
“no confidence” in the Ministry and insisting on its resignation. The Menshevik C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. circulated to the Party
organisations a resolution proposing to support the Cadet Duma’s demand for a
Duma—that is a Cadet—Ministry. The resolution was opposed by the
St. Petersburg Committee led by Lenin. At its meeting on May 23-24 (June 5-6),
1906, the Committee rejected the Menshevik resolution of the C.C. and carried
the resolution proposed by Lenin. Nine Menshevik members of the Committee
demanded that the Bolshevik resolution be suspended until the matter was dealt
with by the C. C. or an inter-district city conference. This demand of the
Mensheviks was likewise rejected by the St. Petersburg Committee. At the same
time the Committee resolved to call an inter-district conference, acquaint the
districts with the minutes and other records of the conference, and publish in
the press Lenin’s resolution, which had been carried, and the
statement of the nine Menshevik members of the Committee as material to be
discussed prior to the forthcoming conference.