V. I.

Lenin

The Declaration of Our Group in the Duma [2]

No Social-Democrat can have any doubt now that in the present situation the
pronouncements of our Party members in the Duma could be of great value to the
cause of the proletariat and of the whole people.

Wewelcomed the election victories of our Caucasian comrades. [1]

We regard it as our duty to note their successes in the Duma and to criticise—in a
business-like way—their mistakes.

Asone of their successes we consider Comrade Ramishvili’s speech on the
“danger” and “peacefulness” of the Duma. Another success
was his resolution on the Belostok pogrom [3] ; yet another his
excellent criticism of the Cadets’ Public Meetings Bill and the correct
formulation of the question of Cadet project-mongering in general. We hope to
discuss these successes with our readers in greater detail another time.

Asone of the mistakes we consider the silence of our Social-Democrats in the
Duma when Aladyin “swallowed” Nabokov’s mutilation of the resolution
on the food question. [4]

The Social-Democrats ought to have protested and moved their own resolution. Another mistake was Comrade Gomarteli’s speech
in reply to the hypocrite Fedorovsky in which he, a Social-Democrat, admitted
that it was undesirable for the army to be involved in politics. This is a big
mistake, but it can still be remedied. Lastly, we also consider as a mistake
the declaration recently adopted by the Group in the Duma. This cannot be
remedied. We must now examine this mistake, not in a carping spirit—our comrades’ task in the
Duma is a difficult one, and mistakes are inevitable at first—but in the
interests of the political education of the whole Party and of the whole
proletariat.

Themembers of our Social-Democratic Group in the Duma had received another
draft declaration from the camp of the former Bolsheviks. The following is this
draft, slightly... abbreviated (in our country, newspapers do not enjoy the same
freedom of speech as deputies in the Duma):

“Throughthe medium of our Group, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party, the party of the class-conscious proletariat of all the nations
inhabiting our state, addresses the whole people from the platform of the State
Duma.

“Our Party is one of the contingents of the international army of the
Social-Democratic proletariat. All over the world, the organised proletariat
that is conscious of its class interests has risen for the struggle. It is
fighting to throw off the yoke of capital. It is striving to secure the complete
emancipation of all toilers from the yoke of tyranny, poverty, oppression and
unemployment. Its object is to attain the socialist system of society, which
will abolish all division of the people into exploiters and exploited. The
Social-Democrats call upon all the toilers and the exploited to join their
ranks, not only the wage-workers, but also small proprietors, if they are
conscious of their common interests with the proletariat, if they are seeking
salvation, not by consolidating individual small production, but by fighting
jointly with the working class for the complete over throw of bourgeois
rule. And by its united and steadfast struggle the international socialist
proletariat will achieve its goal.

“In Russia, however, the struggle now going on is not for socialism, but
for political freedom. The great Russian revolution is in full swing. The yoke
of autocracy is preventing the development of the country. The tyranny of
irresponsible officials and the barbarous exploitation of the mass of the
peasantry by the landlords has roused the anger of the whole people. The
proletariat has been in the vanguard of the people’s fight. By its heroic
strike in October it compelled the enemy to recognise freedom. By its heroic
insurrection in December it prevented all further procrastination in convening the assembly of the representatives of the people. In spite of the autocracy’s
gerrymandering electoral law, its massacre, torture and imprisonment of
the finest fighters for freedom, the State Duma, after all, turned out to
be hostile to the autocracy.

“Thepeople are now on the eve of another great struggle. The autocracy
jeers at the assembly of the people’s representatives and scoffs at its
demands. The anger of the workers, peasants and soldiers is steadily rising. The
outcome of the great Russian revolution will be determined by the conduct of the
various classes in society.

“Inthe democratic revolution that Russia is now passing through, the
Liberal bourgeoisie, represented in the State Duma by the very influential
Constitutional-Democratic Party, is inevitably endeavouring to restrict as far
as possible the rights of the propertyless classes, and of the proletariat in
particular, in order to hinder them in their struggle for complete, and not
only political, emancipation. This aim of the liberal bourgeoisie, just as
inevitably, results in its inconsistency and irresoluteness in the struggle for
freedom, its wavering between the desire to lean on the people and its fear of
the people’s revolutionary initiative. In the interests of freedom, and of
socialism, we shall most relentlessly combat these waverings. We shall most
strongly resist every attempt, no matter by whom, to obscure the irreconcilable
antagonism between the interests of the people and the old order, and between
the interests of the proletariat and those of the bourgeoisie. And we shall
exert all our efforts to combat attempts to retard the popular movement by
means of fraudulent paper concessions and the lie of conciliation between the
reactionary robbers and the revolutionary, i. e., the only true and consistent,
democrats. In particular, the touchstone of this consistency for us will be the
desire and readiness to organise a free, really popular, mass movement,
unhindered by police barriers, for an ex tensive struggle outside the Duma to
effect political and economic emancipation.

“Weregard the peasantry as the chief of the potential allies of the
proletariat in the work of consummating the struggle for freedom. We
whole-heartedly support to the very end the peasants’ struggle against
semi-feudal landlordism and against the Asiatic political system in Russia. While rejecting the
utopian idea that equal land tenure is possible under capitalism, and not
permitting any attempt to obscure the difference in the interests of the
proletarians and small proprietors, we shall advocate the confiscation of all
crown, church, monastery and all landed estates. We shall strenuously
oppose the redemption payments —the noose that the liberal
bourgeoisie wants to put round the necks of the poor peasants. We shall warn the
peasants against surrendering the land to the police-bourgeois authorities,
local or central, until the victory of the revolution is achieved, and until a
really democratic state has been fully attained. When a democratic state has
been fully established, we shall advocate the transfer of all the land to the
local self-governing bodies. We shall very strongly warn the peasants against
allowing the land question to be settled by undemocratic local committees, such
as the bureaucratic and landlord committees proposed by the
Constitutional-Democratic Party.

“Throughoutthe course of the revolution we shall steadfastly support the
struggle of the workers for an eight-hour day, higher wages, abolition of fines,
in short, for all the demands of our Party’s minimum programme. We regard the
alliance between the proletariat and the broad masses of the urban and rural
poor as a guarantee of the further victory of the revolution. The State Duma is
useless for achieving and consolidating this victory. Only a national
constituent assembly—convened by revolutionary means and elected by a
universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot of all citizens,
irrespective of sex, creed or nationality, and endowed with complete state
power—only such an assembly can bring about complete freedom. It alone can
establish in Russia ... substitute the armed nation for the standing army,
abolish the bureaucracy that is neither elected by or responsible to the people,
and introduce complete and unrestricted political freedom.

“Thatis the aim that we shall steadily pursue in the present
revolution. That is the aim that the State Duma too must serve. It must help the
people to organise and fully and thoroughly to understand the necessity for over
throwing the ... regime. It must explain to the people how powerless is the present ’assembly of the people’s representatives’ and what a
miserable role it is playing as a new screen for the old autocracy. The
Duma must not engage in political project-mongering, or in drafting
stillborn ’Bills’, but must appeal to the people, ruthlessly tell it the
whole truth, ruthlessly expose before it all the crimes that are committed
by the gang ... government of Russia, and call upon it to wage a
consistent, steadfast, persistent and co-ordinated struggle. And if the
State Duma as a whole is unable or hesitates to undertake this duty, we
will perform it in alliance with the genuinely revolutionary groups or
individual members of the Duma.

“Thevictory of the people is not far distant. The cause of freedom is in
reliable hands. The proletariat is at its post, mustering its forces, proudly
spurning the efforts of wretched provocateurs to provoke it to fight
single-handed, and uniting and rallying around itself the millions and tens of
millions of the oppressed and exploited living in eternal toil and eternal poverty .

“Andhowever weak and small our Group in the State Duma may be, we know
that behind it and with it are fighting millions of proletarians, the vanguard
of all the toiling and exploited masses. In this fight the proletariat will be
victorious. It will raze to the ground the monstrous edifice built by the
autocracy that is torturing Russia.”

Wereour comrades in the Duma right in rejecting this draft?

Fromthe formal point of view, they were. According to the Rules, they must be
guided by the Central Committee, not by “outsiders

Theywere also right from the factional point of view, for this draft emanated
from the “other” camp (if we reckon according to the former
factions).

Butwhat about the Party point of view? Were they right in rejecting the
suggestion that it was desirable to formulate more clearly the socialist aims
and the international character of the Party; that it was desirable to point to
the movement outside the Duma; that it was necessary to make clear to the
people the differences between the parties in the Duma; that it was necessary to
draw a sharp distinction between proletarian and petty-bourgeois doctrines; that
it

was important for the workers’ party to protect .the peasants from the
Cadets; and that our immediate demands should be more clearly and fully
formulated?

Wereour comrades, or our Central Committee, right in saying in their
declaration: “make the Duma an organ of the popular movement”
instead of using the formula endorsed by the Congress: make the Duma an
instrument of the revolution ?

Werethey right in taking on all the points enumerated above an obvious step to the Right of the resolutions and decisions of the Unity Congress of our
Party?

Letall the organisations, and all the members, of our Party carefully consider
these questions.

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 423-25.— Ed .

[2]
This article was written in connection with the declaration of the Social-Democratic Group in the Duma made by S. Djaparidze on
June 16(29), 1906,during the debate on the Public Meetings Bill. In drawing up
the declaration the Social-Democratic Group in the Duma rejected the Bolshevik
draft written by Lenin (this draft with some abbreviations is quoted by Lenin in
this article) and adopted the draft declaration approved by the Menshevik
Central
Committee.

[3]
This refers to the speech of I. I. Ramishvili putting forward the
resolution of the Social-Democratic Group in the debate at the 24th session of
the Duma on June 9 (22) on the anti-Jewish pogroms and police excesses in
Vologda, Kalyazin, Tsaritsyn and other places in Russia. Dealing particularly
with the pogrom in Belostok, Ramishvili said in his speech that this butchery
was engineered by the Ministry of the Interior and the government
generally. The resolution put forward by the Social-Democratic Duma Group demanded
that the entire personnel of the higher administration should be put on trial
for the crimes committed, Later,on June29 (July 12), 1906, at the 35th Duma session, the
Social-Democratic Group put forward a resolution specially devoted to the
Belostok pogrom (the draft resolution was moved by S. Djaparidze).

[4]
At the Duma session on June 12 (25), the Minister of the
Interior Stolypin made a statement in reply to the interrogation of the Duma
concerning the measures adopted by the government for combating famine. Speaking
in the debate, the Trudovik Aladyin insisted that the government “should
not be given a kopek”. The Cadet Nabokov, however, in his own name and in
the name of Aladyin, succeeded in securing the adoption of a Cadet formula for
passing to the next business. The Social-Democratic deputies did not protest and
did not move their resolution. Lenin deals in detail with this question in the
articles: “Famine Relief and the Tactics of the Duma”, “The
Cadet Duma Grants Money to the Pogrom-Mongers’ Government” (see pp. 43-47
and pp. 60-63 of this volume).