V. I.

Lenin

Amonth has passed since the State Duma was dissolved. The first wave of armed
uprisings and of strikes in an at tempt to support the insurgents, has
passed. In some places the zeal of the authorities, who have been employing
“emergency” and “special emergency” measures for the defence of the government against the people, is beginning to subside. The
significance of the past stage of the revolution is be coming more and more
apparent. A new wave is drawing nearer and nearer.

The Russian revolution is proceeding along a hard and difficult road. Every
upsurge, every partial success is followed by defeat, bloodshed and outrage
committed by the autocracy against the champions of freedom. But after every
“defeat” the movement spreads, the struggle becomes more intense,
ever larger masses of people are drawn into the fight, more classes and groups
of people participate in it. Every onslaught of the revolution, every step
forward in organising the militant democrats is followed by a positively frantic
attack by the reaction, by another step taken in organising the Black-Hundred
elements of the people, and by the increased arrogance of the
counter-revolution, desperately fighting for its very existence. But in spite
of all these efforts, the forces of reaction are steadily declining. More and
more workers, peasants and soldiers, who only yesterday were indifferent, or
even sided with the Black Hundreds, are now passing over to the side of the
revolution. One by one, the illusions and prejudices which made the Russian
people confiding, patient, simple-minded, obedient, all-enduring and
all-forgiving, are being destroyed.

Manywounds have been inflicted on the autocracy, but it has yet not been
killed. The autocracy is swathed in band ages, but it is still holding
out, it is still creaking along, and is even becoming more ferocious as
its life-blood oozes away. The revolutionary classes of the people, headed
by the proletariat, take advantage of every lull to gather new forces, to
strike fresh blows at the enemy, so as to root out at last the accursed
canker of Asiatic tyranny and serfdom which is poisoning Russia.

Thereis no surer means of overcoming faint-heartedness and of refuting all
narrow, one-sided, petty and cowardly views on the future of our revolution than
by casting a general glance at its past. The history of the Russian revolution
is still a short one, but it has sufficiently demonstrated and proved to us
that the strength of the revolutionary classes and the wealth of their
historical, creative power are far greater than they seem to be in times of
calm. Every rising wave of the revolution has revealed an unobtrusive and
relatively silent accumulation of forces for the fulfilment of the new and
loftier task, and every time the short sighted and timid appraisals of political
slogans have been refuted by an outburst of these accumulated forces.

Threemain stages of our revolution have become clearly discernible. The first
stage was the period of “confidence”, the period of mass pleadings,
petitions and declarations about the need for a constitution. The second stage
was the period of constitutional manifestoes, acts and laws. The third stage was
the beginning of the realisation of constitutionalism, the period of the State
Duma. At first the tsar was begged to grant a constitution. Later on the solemn
recognition of a constitution was forcibly wrested from the tsar.

Now... now, after the dissolution of the Duma, experience teaches us that a constitution
bestowed by the tsar, acknowledged by the laws of the tsar, and carried out by
the tsarist officials, is not worth a brass farthing.

Ineach of these periods we see the forefront at first occupied by the liberal
bourgeoisie, noisy, bragging, full of narrow, petty-bourgeois prejudices and
conceit, cocksure of its “right of inheritance”, patronisingly
teaching its “younger brother” the ways of peaceful struggle, of
loyal opposition, of harmonising the freedom of the people with the tsarist regime. And on every occasion this liberal bourgeoisie succeeded
in confusing some Social-Democrats (of the Right wing), in securing their
acceptance of its political slogans and subjecting them to its political
leadership. But in reality, obscured by the hullabaloo of the liberals’
political game, the revolutionary forces among the masses grew and matured. In
reality, the solution of the political problem which history had
brought to the forefront was undertaken each time by the proletarians, who
attracted the advanced peasants to their side and came out into the streets,
cast aside all old laws and conventions and gave the world new forms and methods
of direct revolutionary struggle, and combined means of waging it.

Recall January 9. To everyone’s surprise the heroic action of the workers put an
end to the period of the tsar’s “confidence” in the people and the
people’s “confidence” in the tsar! At one stroke they raised the
whole movement to a new and higher plane! And yet, on the surface, January 9 was
a complete defeat. Thousands of proletarians killed and wounded, an orgy of
repression, the dark cloud of the Trepov regime hanging over Russia.

Theliberals again came to the fore. They organised brilliant congresses,
spectacular deputations to the tsar. They clutched with both hands at the sop
that was thrown to them, the Bulygin Duma. They already began to growl at the
revolution like dogs who have spied a choice titbit, and appealed to the
students to go on with their studies and not to meddle in politics. And the
faint-hearted among the adherents of the revolution began to say: Let us go
into the Duma; after the Potemkin affair an armed uprising is hope
less; now that peace has been concluded, militant, mass action is improbable.

Thereal solution of the next historical problem was again supplied only by the
revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. The Manifesto granting a
constitution was wrung from the tsar by the all-Russian strike in October. The
spirit of the peasants and the soldiers revived, and they turned to wards
liberty and light in the wake of the workers. Short weeks of liberty followed,
succeeded by weeks of pogroms, Black-Hundred brutality, a terrible sharpening of
the struggle, unprecedentedly bloody reprisals against all who had taken up arms in defence of the liberties wrested from the tsar.

Themovement was once again raised to a higher stage and yet, on the surface,
the proletariat again seemed to have suffered utter defeat. Frantic repression,
overcrowded prisons, endless executions, the despicable howling of the liberals
dissociating themselves from the uprising and the revolution.

Theloyal liberal philistines are again in the forefront. They make capital out
of the last remaining prejudices of the peasants, who trust the tsar. They
assert that the victory of democracy at the elections will cause the walls of
Jericho to fall. They are predominant in the Duma and again begin to behave like
well-fed watchdogs towards “beggars”—the proletariat and the
revolutionary peasantry.

Thedissolution of the Duma marks the end of the hegemony of the liberals,
which was holding back and degrading the revolution. The peasants have learned
more from the Duma than anyone. Their gain is that they are now losing their
most baneful illusions. And the whole people is emerging from the experience of
the Duma different from what it was before. As a result of the suffering caused
by the failure of the representative body on which so many had placed all their
hopes, the people now more definitely appreciate the task ahead. The Duma has
enabled them to gauge the forces more precisely; it has concentrated at least
some of the elements of the popular movement, it has shown in reality how the
different parties act, it has revealed much more vividly to ever wider masses of
the people the political character of the liberal bourgeoisie and of the
peasantry.

The Cadets were unmasked, the Trudoviks were consolidated—such are some
of the most important gains of the Duma period. The pseudo-democracy of the
Cadets was branded in the Duma itself scores of times, and that by men who were
prepared to trust them. The Russian muzhik has ceased to be a political
sphinx. In spite of all distortions of the freedom of election, he has managed
to assert himself and has created a new political type, the Trudovik. Hence
forth, in addition to the signatures of organisations and parties which were
built up in the course of decades, revolutionary manifestoes [1] will bear the signature of the Trudovik

Group, which was formed in the course of. a few weeks. The ranks of
revolutionary democracy have been reinforced by a new organisation, which, of
course, shares a good many of the illusions that are characteristic of the small
producer, but which in the present revolution undoubtedly expresses the trend
toward a ruthless mass struggle against Asiatic despotism and feudal
landlordism.

Therevolutionary classes are emerging from the experience of the Duma more
united, more closely bound to one another, more capable of undertaking a general
onslaught. Another wound has been inflicted on the autocracy. It has become
still more isolated. It is still more helpless in the face of the problems which
it is quite incapable of solving. And starvation and unemployment are becoming
more acute. Peasant revolts are breaking out more and more frequently.

Sveaborgand Kronstadt [2] have revealed the spirit of the army and navy. The
uprisings have been suppressed, but the uprising lives, is spreading and gaining
strength. Many Black-Hundred elements joined the strike that was called in
support of the insurgents. The advanced workers stopped this strike, and they
were right to do so, because the strike began to develop into a demonstration,
whereas the task was to organise a great and decisive struggle.

Theadvanced workers were right in their estimate of the situation. They quickly
rectified the false strategical move and husbanded their forces for the coming
battle. They instinctively understood the inevitability of a strike as part of
an uprising and the harmfulness of a strike as a demonstration.

Allevidence goes to show that temper is rising. An explosion is inevitable and
may be near at hand. The executions in Sveaborg and Kronstadt, the reprisals
against the peasants, the persecution of the Trudovik members of the Duma—
all this serves only to intensify hatred, to spread determination and
concentrated readiness for battle. More audacity, comrades! More confidence in
the strength of the revolutionary classes, especially the proletariat, enriched
as they now are by new experience; more independent initiative! All the signs
indicate that we are on the eve of a great struggle. All efforts must be
directed towards making it simultaneous, concentrated, full of that heroism of
the masses which has marked all the great stages of the great Russian revolution. Let
the liberals cravenly hint at this coming struggle solely for the purpose
of threatening the government, let these narrow-minded philistines
concentrate the whole force of their “mind and sentiments” on the
expectation of a new election—the proletariat is preparing for the
struggle; it is unitedly and boldly marching to meet the storm, eager to
plunge into the thick of the fight. We have had enough of the hegemony of
the cowardly Cadets, those “stupid penguins” who “timidly hide their fat
bodies behind the rocks”.

“Letthe storm rage louder!” [3]

---
Notes:
[1]
Lenin is referring to the manifestoes printed in July 1906 after the
dissolution of the First Duma: “To the Army and Navy”, “Manifesto to All the Russian Peasants”, “To the Whole
People”. These manifestoes stressed the need for an armed uprising.

[2]
This refers to the uprisings in Sveaborg (see Note 54) and
Kronstadt.

Theuprising of sailors and soldiers in Kronstadt began on July 19
(August 1), 1906, after news had been received of the up rising in Sveaborg. In
the spring and summer of 1906, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks,
preparations had gone forward for an armed uprising of workers, soldiers and
sailors in Kronstadt. These preparations, however, were considerably complicated
by the arrest on July 9 (22) of the large part of the military and workers’
organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. Nevertheless, with the sup port of the
St. Petersburg Committee and its representative, D. Z. Manuilsky, the Bolsheviks
continued to make preparations for an armed uprising, at the same time rebuffing
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had provoked a premature uprising. When the
spontaneous Sveaborg uprising broke out the preparations for an armed uprising
in Kronstadt had not been completed, but in view of the events in Sveaborg the
uprising in Kronstadt had to be begun prematurely. It was headed by the
Bolsheviks who tried to make the action as organised as possible. At a signal
agreed upon, the struggle was started almost simultaneously by mine layers,
sappers and soldiers of the electric-mine company and sailors of the First and
Second Naval Divisions; they were joined by part of the armed workers. The
government, however, had received information from provocateurs of the time
fixed for the uprising and had prepared in advance for the fight. The
disorganising activity of the Socialist-Revolutionaries also prevented the
uprising from taking a successful course. Towards the morning of July 20 (August
2) the uprising was quelled.

On July 20 (August 2) the St. Petersburg Committee took the decision to carry
out a political general strike in support of the Kronstadt and Sveaborg risings, but on the following day news of the
suppression of the uprising was received and the decision was rescinded.

Thetsarist government savagely punished the insurgents. More than 2,500 of the
participants in the Kronstadt uprising were arrested. Courts-martial sentenced
36 men to death; 130 were sent to penal servitude, 316 were imprisoned and 935
transferred to corrective battalions.

[3]
Lenin quotes words from Maxim Gorky’s Song of the Stormy Petrel .