The delegates of the Bund brought before the conference a resolution that repeated almost entirely the resolution of the VII Congress of the Bund and expressed a historical evaluation of the boycott of the Duma{64}. The undersigned delegates of the conference abstained in voting on this resolution for the following reasons. It is incorrect and impossible to separate the question of why we are going into the Duma from the question of how we are going into it. Recognition of the correctness of the boycott means that the fundamental character of our entire tactic remains precisely the same under present participation in elections as it was during the boycott of the first Duma. To recognize the Cadet majority in the first Duma as obstructing the activity of revolutionary elements and at the same time to approve agreements between Cadets and Social-Democrats at the first stage of elections means contradicting one's general premises with one's practical politics. To recognize and support Cadet hegemony in agitation before the masses by displaying common lists and then to condemn this hegemony in a separate supplementary resolution—this means compromising in the strongest possible way the entire tactic and all the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy. On these grounds we submit before the entire RSDLP the following separate opinion.

"The tactic of boycotting the State Duma, which contributed to a correct evaluation by the popular masses of the powerlessness and dependent role of this institution, found its full justification in the comedy of the legislative activity of the State Duma and in its dissolution.

But the counter-revolutionary behavior of the bourgeoisie and the conciliatory tactic of Russian liberalism prevented the immediate success of the boycott and forced the proletariat to take up the struggle against landowner and bourgeois counter-revolution also on the terrain of the Duma campaign.

This struggle outside the Duma and within the Duma itself, Social-Democracy must conduct in the interests of developing the class consciousness of the proletariat, further exposing constitutional illusions before all the people, and advancing the revolution.

In view of this state of affairs and with the stated goal, the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party must take the most energetic participation in the present Duma campaign.

The basic tasks of the Social-Democratic electoral and Duma campaign are, first, to clarify to the people the complete inadequacy of the Duma as a means to realize the demands of the proletariat and the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie, especially the peasantry. Second, to clarify to the people the impossibility of achieving political freedom by parliamentary means, while real power remains in the hands of the tsarist government; to clarify the necessity of armed uprising, a provisional revolutionary government, and a constituent assembly based on universal, direct, equal, and secret suffrage. Third, to criticize the first Duma and to clarify the bankruptcy of Russian liberalism, and in particular to clarify how dangerous and ruinous for the cause of the revolution would be the predominant and guiding role in the liberation movement of the liberal-monarchist Constitutional-Democratic party.

As the class party of the proletariat, Social-Democracy must remain absolutely independent throughout the entire electoral and Duma campaign, in no case merging either its slogans or its tactics with any other opposition or revolutionary party.

Therefore, at the first stage of the electoral campaign, that is, before the masses, it must as a general rule come forward in absolute independence and present only party candidates.

Exceptions to this rule are permissible only in cases of extreme necessity and only with parties that fully accept the basic slogans of our immediate political struggle, that is, those that recognize the necessity of armed uprising and struggle for a democratic republic. Moreover, such agreements may extend only to the presentation of a common list of candidates, in no way limiting the independence of Social-Democratic political agitation.

In the workers' curia, the Social-Democratic party comes forward in absolute independence, entering into no agreements with any other party.

At higher stages of elections, that is, in the assemblies of electors in cities, delegates and electors in the countryside, private agreements are permissible exclusively for the proportional distribution of seats according to the number of votes of the parties concluding the agreement. In this regard, Social-Democracy distinguishes, with respect to democratic consistency and decisiveness, the following basic types of bourgeois parties:

a) Socialist-Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists, and similar republican parties[22];

b) Radical Constitutionalists and Trudoviks of similar type[23];

c) Constitutional-Democrats."