V. I.

Lenin

Cadets, Trudoviks and the Workers’ Party

However distorted popular representation in the State Duma may be by virtue of
the election law and the conditions under which the elections were held, it
nevertheless provides a fair amount of material for a study of the policies of
the various classes in Russia. And it also helps to correct erroneous or narrow
views on this question.

The correctness of the division of the bourgeois parties into three main types
that the Bolsheviks insisted on in their draft resolution for the Unity Congress
is becoming ever more evident. [1]

The Octobrists, the Cadets, and the revolutionary, or peasant, democrats—such are these three main types. We
cannot, of course, expect the full and final consolidation of the parties of
each type: the open entry of the various classes in Russian society into
anything like a free political arena is too recent for that.

The Octobrists are a real class organisation of the land lords and the big
capitalists. The counter-revolutionary (anti-revolutionary) character of this
section of the bourgeoisie is perfectly obvious. It stands on the side of the
government, although still haggling with it over the division of power. The
Heydens and Co. sometimes even merge with the Cadets in opposition to the old
authorities, but this does not make even the most credulous people, who are
taken in by all sorts of “opposition”, forget the real nature of the
Octobrist Party.

The Cadets are the chief party of the second type. This party is not exclusively
connected with any particular class in bourgeois society, but it is thoroughly
bourgeois none the less. Its ideal is a well-ordered bourgeois society, purged of feudal
survivals and protected from the encroachments of the proletariat by
institutions such as an Upper Chamber, a standing army, a non-elected
bureaucracy, Draconian press laws, etc. The Cadets are a semi-landlord
party. They want to ransom themselves from revolution. They long for a
deal with the old authorities. They are afraid of independent
revolutionary activity by the people. The more this party develops its
public political activities, particularly in the Duma, the more marked
become its inconsistency and instability. That is why the voices of
short-sighted people, who are dazzled by momentary successes, in favour of
supporting the Cadets, will never find wide support among the working
class.

The third type of bourgeois party is the Trudoviks, i.e., the peasant deputies
to the Duma, who issued their programme the other day. Revolutionary
Social-Democrats have long been watching the rise of this type of political
party’ in Russia. The Peasant Union was a nucleus of such a J)arty. The radical
unions of propertiless intellectuals gravitated towards it to some extent. The
Socialist-Revolutionaries developed in the same direction, growing out of the
narrow shell that encased them as a group of intellectuals. The variety of
types and shades of this trend fully corresponds to the variety of types and
vast numbers of the “toiling” petty bourgeoisie in Russia. The main
bulwark of this trend, of these parties, is the peasantry. Objective conditions
compel the peasantry to wage a determined struggle against landlordism, against
the power of the landlords an(l the whole of the old political system that
is closely connected with it. These bourgeois democrats are
compelled to become revolutionary, whereas the liberals, the Cadets and
so forth, represent the bourgeoisie, whose conditions of existence
compel it to seek a deal with the old authorities. It is natural also
that the peasantry should clothe its aspirations in the mantle of utopias, i.e.,
unrealisable hopes, such as equalised land tenure under capitalism.

Being aware that its class interests differ from the interests of the
revolutionary democrats, the proletariat is compelled to organise in a strictly
independent class party. But its duty to criticise idle dreams never
causes the socialist proletariat to forget its positive duty to do all it can to support the
revolutionary democrats in their struggle against the old authorities and the
old order, warning the people against the instability of the liberal
bourgeoisie, and counteracting the harmful effects of this instability by its
fighting agreement with the revolutionary peasantry.

Such should be the basis of all the tactics, of the whole political
conduct of the Social-Democratic proletariat at the present time. To be able to
act in common with the peasantry, it must strive to enlighten, rouse, and draw
the peasantry into the struggle, while at the same time steadily weaning it from
its faith in “petitions” and “resolutions”, and in the
Duma, that all-Russian institution for petitioners. “To make the broad
masses of the people realise the utter uselessness of the Duma”
(resolutions of the Unity Congress)—such is the proletariat’s task. And
for the sake of joint actions with the peasantry, it must strictly refrain from
isolated and untimely outbreaks. But bearing in mind this very same
object—ensuring success in the inevitably coming struggle—it must
most ruthlessly expose the instability of the Cadets, emphasise as clearly as
possible “the utter uselessness of the Duma”, and most resolutely
counteract every attempt to obscure the distinctions between the Cadets and the
Trudoviks.

This is the light in which the socialist proletariat should appraise the
relations between the Cadets and the Trudoviks. Take the land reform
question. The Cadets advocate compensation . The Trudoviks declare only
for some reward — perhaps in the shape of pensions, or free places
in an alms house. Volna has already explained the vast difference
between compensation and a free place in an alms-house. The workers’ party demands
the confiscation of the land, i.e., alienation without compensation or
reward, although, of course, it does not reject the idea of sheltering indigent
landlords in alms-houses. Obviously, the workers’ party must support the
Trudoviks against the Cadets. Compensation for the land has already once before
had a most harmful effect in Russia, ruining the peasants, enriching the
landlords and strengthening the old state power. Compensation can be advocated
in Russia today only by those who are half-supporters of the government.

Take the political programme. The Cadets want an Upper Chamber and incomplete
people’s rule. The Trudoviks emphatically declare that over a parliament
elected by universal. etc., suffrage, there must be “no
superstructure or barriers in the shape of a Council of State, House of
Lords, Second Chamber. and so forth”. The Trudovik Group accepts
almost in its entirety the workers’ minimum programme, including an
eight-hour day, etc. Obviously, here, too, the workers’ party must support
the Trudoviks in opposition to the Cadets.

Let us take the question of what to do with the land. The Cadets want to leave
part of the land in the possession of the peasants and the landlords, and to
transfer part of it to the state. The Trudoviks want to transfer all the land to
the state, although not all at once, and to introduce equalised
tenure. Obviously the Trudoviks go further than the Cadets in the
struggle against landlordism, and against the private ownership of land in
general. The workers’ party would be committing a gross error if, in this
question as well, it did not support the Trudoviks in opposition to the
Cadets. The fact that both parties are mistaken should not serve the workers’
party as an excuse for refusing t o support the genuinely revolutionary
bourgeois democrats. Both the Cadets and the Trudoviks are mistaken in thinking
that even part of the land can be transferred to a state that is far from
democratic. Division of the land would be far better than transferring it to
such a state. Unfortunately, the Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. also made this
mistake by allowing for the transfer of part of the land to a
“democratic” state, without specifying the degree and fulness of the democracy of that state. This comparison between the Cadet
and Trudovik programmes shows up with particular clearness the mistake committed
by the Social-Democratic Congress.

The Trudoviks are also mistaken in believing that “equalised” land
tenure is possible in a commodity economy. The workers’ party must emphatically
expose and refute this petty-bourgeois utopia.

But it would be unwise to allow this fight against the trivial dreams
of the small proprietors, to obscure the genuinely revolutionary action
of this class in the present revolution. A Marxist cannot do that. This mistake is committed, for example,
by Kuryer when it say& (No. 5): “In its main features, the
Bill proposed by the Trudovik Group is far from satisfactory [this is true!]
and does not deserve the support of the working class [this is not true!].”

In this, too, the workers’ party must support the Trudoviks in opposition to
the Cadets, while preserving its complete independence. In exposing the
mistakes of the Cadets and the Trudoviks, we must not forget that the latter go
further than the former, that the Trudoviks’ mistakes will be of practical
importance at a higher stage of the revolution than are those of the
Cadets. With the help of the Cadets, the people are casting off
illusions about the possibility of combining people’s freedom with the old
authorities. With the help of the Trudoviks, the people will cast off illusions about the possibility of combining
“equalisation” with capitalism. With the help of the
Cadets, the people are casting off their first bourgeois illusions; with the help of the Trudoviks, the
people will cast off their last bourgeois illusions. The Cadet illusions are an
obstacle to the victory of the bourgeois revolution. The Trudoviks’ mistakes
will be an obstacle to the immediate victory of socialism (but the workers are
not uselessly dreaming about an immediate victory for socialism). Hence the vast
difference between the Cadets and the Trudoviks:

and the workers’ party must take this difference strictly into account.

If we did not do this, we would convert the socialist proletariat from the
vanguard of the revolution, the more class-conscious adviser of the peasantry,
into an unwitting accomplice of the liberal bourgeoisie.

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Notes:
[1]
See pp. 157-59 of this volume.— Ed .