V. I.

Lenin

The newspapers have already commented on the brief communication
published by Pravitelstvenny Vestnik [1] to the effect that it is proposed to adjourn the State Duma on June 15 for the summer recess!
Now the news agencies are denying this, but as Rech quite rightly says,
they are denying it in an ambiguous and unconvincing way.

Nevertheless, the possibility that in a few weeks’ time the Duma will be
adjourned “for the summer” is real. Hence the question asked by
Kuryer—whether the Duma will disperse —is a very interesting
one. Kuryer quotes Mr. Rodichev as saying in the Duma: “We will
not disperse until we have done what we were sent here to do.” And it also
quotes another Cadet, Mr. Gredeskul, as saying: “In its struggle [against
the government] the Duma still has another very important resource—its
legislative power; and only when it has exhausted this will it have the right to
disperse, and to announce to the people that it is powerless.”

“ Kuryer ” hopes that Mr. Rodichev was “in earnest” when he proposed that the Duma should not disperse if the govern
ment dissolves it. And so Kuryer emphatically supports Rodichev against
Gredeskul, and in this connection speaks with legitimate contempt of the
prospect of “piling up a heap of laws” (and we will add—some
of them positively Draconian, and some timid and irresolute) “only to
certify their impotence to the people, and step aside”.

We are very glad that our comrades of Kuryer have admitted that the
Duma will play a ludicrous and sordid role if it merely “piles up a heap
of laws” and “displays its impotence”. And we are also very
glad that our comrades of

Kuryer can speak of the Duma as “the rallying-centre of the forces of the people, the core around which the
organisation of these forces is being built up, and the movement is
uniting” only in connection with the prospect of the Duma
refusing to disperse. We are ready to admit that the Duma, by
refusing to confine itself to the present legal limits, could serve the
movement better than it is serving it now. The only fight we have seen the
Cadet Duma wage so far, however, is that against the timid attempts of the
Trudoviks to take this line. We have no “hopes” that Mr. Rodichev spoke
“in earnest”. Moreover, we think that if the Rodichevs are at all
capable of going beyond the legal limits and of taking a step like that of
refusing to disperse, then the choice of the moment for such a step should not be left to the government . Refusing to disperse means timing a
decisive collision to a moment that will be determined by the government, for
it is the government which will decree the dissolution of the Duma. Those who
want to choose the best moment for the collision (we mean the Trudoviks, for we
have no right to trust the Cadets) must proceed in such a way as to
choose the moment themselves , and not leave it to the government to do so. After all, the government may do nothing to prevent the
Cadets from “piling up a heap of laws”, as Kuryer puts it
so aptly and venomously.

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Notes:
[1]
Pravitelstvenny Vestnik ( Government Herald )—a daily newspaper, official organ of the tsarist
government; it appeared in St. Petersburg from 1869 to 1917.