V. I.

Lenin

The political situation is clearing up at a rate that is truly gratifying. It is
good to be alive at a time when the masses begin to stir with political
life. All the main social groups in Russia today have already, in one way or
another, taken the path of open and mass political action. Open action
relentlessly reveals the basic differences of the interests involved. The
parties are seen in their true colours. Events, with an iron band, sort out the
adherents of the various classes and make them decide who is on one side and who
is on the other.

In the Duma, these fundamental differences of class interests which are
bringing about political realignment show themselves much more dimly and
obscurely than they do among the masses of the people. In the Duma there is for
this purpose the Constitutional-Democratic Party, whose particular function is,
by fair means or foul, to rub off the sharp edges, blunt acute antagonisms,
subdue the flashes of struggle that break out here and there. But among the
“masses” the ferment is rising. Again the proletarians, the
peasants, the soldiers, the railwaymen are stirring in all their mass
strength. The strike movement is growing and assuming new forms (“striking
by turn”, one industry after the other—we shall deal with this form
of strike another time). The direct struggle of the peasants for land is be
coming more intense. Reports of the awakening of the down trodden soldiers and
sailors are coming in more often. The railwaymen are beginning to
“recover”. Something fresh and new is moving, rumbling, fermenting
and heaving every where. New shoots are forcing their way up out of the heaps of
ruins.

And although the Cadets are trying to close the shutters of the Taurida Palace
as tightly as they possibly can, they cannot keep out the fresh breeze of
life th&t is blowing. Even there the process of class differentiation
and political clarification is going on. The Cadets still dominate the
Trudoviks. They are still celebrating their recent victory in blocking the
Trudovik motion for the immediate enact ment of a law abolishing capital
punishment, and in compelling them to withdraw their motion for the
immediate establishment of land committees, local, freely elected
committees for settling the land question.

But the very fact that the Cadets are compelled to fight more and more
frequently to maintain their supremacy in the Duma clearly shows that there is
some profound difference between them and the Trudoviks. The more frequent and
sharp these collisions become, the more definitely the masses of the people see
the difference between the liberal landlords, factory owners, lawyers and
professors— and the peasants. The peasants are striving heart and soul for
freedom for the people, and that is why they cannot live in harmony with the
party of “people’s freedom”. The peasants are striving to obtain
land and freedom, and this striving of theirs alone is enough to burst at the
seams the vaunted love for the people of the vaunted party of “people’s
freedom”.

The Cadets are still defeating the Trudoviks, but their victories either result
in real trouble for their party, or expose their true “nature” with
a thoroughness that gladdens the heart of the proletariat.

The first incident occurred over the Cadets’ Draconian Freedom of the Press
Bill. They wriggle and twist to justify themselves, but their miserable efforts
only worsen the tangle in which they are caught. They have admitted that they
made a “mistake” in publishing a “rough draft”, but to this day they have been unable publicly to rectify the mistake or produce a
finished draft.

The second incident was in connection with the local land
committees. [2]

The open political struggle immediately united all the “Lefts”, i.e., the Trudoviks and the Social-Democratic
proletariat, against the Cadets. The Mensheviks agreed with the Bolsheviks in
their appraisal of the Cadets’ true intentions: to betray the revolution, extinguish the revolution with the
aid of “bureaucratic” schemes, by uniting the bureaucrats and the liberals against the peasants . The issue became clear: should the
bureaucrats and the liberal landlords submit to the tens of millions of
peasants, or should these tens of millions submit to a handful of bureaucrats
and liberals? The whole working class, all the Social-Democratic representatives
of the proletariat, to a man took the side of the peasants against the
bureaucrats and the liberals. The Cadets discredited themselves splendidly. We
compelled them to admit in public that they do not want to give the peasants complete freedom and all the land , and that they seek the aid of the bureaucrats against the peasants . One side said: the peasants must
certainly predominate in the local land committees; the peasants number tens of
millions while the bureaucrats and the land lords number hundreds of
thousands. The other side replied:

the landlords and the peasants must be equally represented, while the
bureaucrats will participate and “supervise”.

The proletariat and the politically-conscious peasants on one side and the
bureaucrats and the Cadets on the other—this is the alignment that
experience is dictating in the present, immediately impending, struggle.

All praise to you, Cadet statesmen! All praise to you, writers for Rech
and Duma ! You are helping us revolutionary Social-Democrats immensely
to explain unvarnished political reality to the people! You are helping us both
with your theories and with your deeds.

In your theories, you have to go further and further. You state the
issue very well today: it is all a matter “of a fundamental difference of
opinion” ( Rech , No. 84). “Some say the Duma is only a
’stage in the revolution’, [1] while others say the Duma is a means of
consolidating the constitutional system on a broad democratic basis.”

Excellent, admirable, gentlemen who write for Rech! Quite true: we have
before us two fundamentally different opinions. Either the Duma is a
stage in the revolution, or it is an instrument for securing an agreement
between the bureaucrats and the Cadets against the proletariat and the revolutionary
peasantry. What, you don’t like this para phrase? You protest? You are
joking! Have you not completely shown your hand on the question of the local land committees? Is there anybody so foolish as not to
under stand that “a broad democratic basis” is a screen for
as equal a representation of peasants and liberals as possible , with the Goremykins or other bureaucrats participating and having the right to supervise ?

And whoever remains deaf to all the Cadets’ phrases, speeches, declarations and
theories will be enlightened tomorrow by their deeds . Nor is that a
long way off. We can only say to the party of “people’s freedom”:
“That thou doest, do quickly!”

As for what it is doing, this is evident from what follows.

Our government’s change of policy is being zealously discussed in the newspapers. The French
bankers are not lending any more money: they refuse to pay the next
instalments. Le Temps , the most influential French capitalist newspaper, is
strongly advising the Russian Government to make concessions to the
Cadets. Witte and Durnovo have gone abroad to try to talk over the French
bankers. But it doesn’t come off. The bankers won’t believe them. Trepov is
busily discussing the question of the composition of a new Ministry. Kokovtsov,
or some other bureaucrat, is contemplated as Prime Minister. Certain Right
Cadets are contemplated as Ministers.

We shall probably be told that this is all newspaper gossip. Perhaps it is, but
it may well contain a particle of truth. There is no smoke without
fire. Novoye Vremya has long been known as a weathercock. Its ability
to keep its nose to the wind and to obey orders from above has been proved for
decades. And this newspaper has been obviously changing front during the past
few days. Instead of a continuous torrent of abuse of the Cadets, we now read
in its columns the most fervent appeals to the government to make concessions to
the Cadets and to form a Cadet Ministry . But perhaps the Cadets are
indignant about the lies Novoye Vremya is telling? Not in the
least. Rech has already quoted “Novoye Vremya” twice on this question (in Nos. 82 and 84) without a word of protest, with
obvious

satisfaction, merely regretting now and again the echoes of the past that one
still finds in that same Novoye Vremya .

And so, it is possible that we are on the eve of a Cadet Ministry headed by
someone like Kokovtsov. The evening papers today even report that the Goremykin
Ministry re signed yesterday. Again we shall say to the party of
“people’s freedom”: “That thou doest, do quickly!”
Nothing would serve to clear up the present political situation as fully and finally as the
appointment of a Cadet Ministry by the supreme authority. This will help to
dispel the last short-sighted hopes pinned on the Cadets; then all the
“Lefts” will finally unite for real political action; then all the
arguments about supporting the Duma and a Duma Ministry will cease; and the
political alignment that is now taking shape will become an actual fact, and the
basis of a new “stage”.

Incidentally, this “stage” will come even if a Cadet Ministry is not
appointed. We are “well shod on all four hoofs”, gentlemen of the
Cadet Party!

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Notes:
[1]
The resolution of the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. says:
“instrument of the revolution”.— Lenin

[2]
At the fourteenth sitting of the Duma, on May 24 (June 6), 1906, the Trudoviks
tabled a motion, signed by 35 deputies, for the immediate establishment of local
land committees to be elected by universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret
ballot. The land committees were to carry out work preparatory to an agrarian
reform and participate in the discussion of the draft laws on the agrarian
question submitted to the Duma. The issue of local committees and redemption
payments was “the very pivot of the agrarian question”, as Lenin
phrased it, for it was an issue of who was to effect the reform, whether the
peasants or the landlords.

The Cadets sharply criticised the Trudovik motion, both in the Duma and in the
press. On the very next day after the statement of the thirty-five was
made public Rech , the Cadet central organ, attacked the Trudovik
draft, saying that the contemplated commit tees might shift the solution of
the problem to the “left”.

The Bolsheviks supported the idea of setting up local committees, which they
regarded as one form of organising the masses for a further revolutionary
struggle. Lenin wrote: “Workers’ governments in the towns, peasant
committees in the villages (which at a certain moment will be transformed into
bodies elected by universal, etc., suffrage)—such is the only possible
form of organisation of the victorious revolution, i.e., the dictatorship of
the proletariat and peasantry. It is not surprising that the liberals hate
these forms of organisation of the classes that are fighting for
freedom!” (See present edition, Vol. 13, “The Agrarian Programme of
Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution 1905–1907”.)