It has long been known that reactionaries are bold people, while liberals are cowards.

A new confirmation of this old truth is provided by the Cadet project for an address from the State Duma to the people on the land question. Unfortunately, the Trudovik project is no better than the Cadet one: this time, the Trudoviks are following helplessly in the wake of the liberal bourgeoisie. Will the Social-Democrats in the Duma come to the rescue?

Recall how the whole question of this address from the State Duma to the people arose. In the reply address, the State Duma expressed support for the compulsory expropriation of privately owned lands in favor of the peasantry. The Goremykin Ministry responded briefly, clearly, with magnificent firmness and decisiveness: "unacceptable."

However, the Ministry did not limit itself to this crude, police-style refusal. No, the revolution has taught the ministers a thing or two. The ministers do not want to confine their duties to a formal response to the Duma's formal questions. Reactionaries are not formalists; they are people of action. They know that the real power lies not in the Duma but in the people. They want to agitate among the people. Without delay, without wasting any precious time, they composed an address to the people. This government statement (on June 20) gave rise to the idea of a Duma address to the people. The government showed the way. The Duma dragged behind the government, unable to take the path worthy of genuine popular representation.

How was the government statement composed? As a true battle manifesto of the reactionary monarchical party. Oh, the reactionaries do not hold back! They know how to write in a fighting language. They speak directly on behalf of the government in their "statement." What need for ceremony here, really? These liberal professors claim we live in a constitutional system, that the Duma is also part of the government. Let the professors prattle on! Let them lull the people with constitutional amusements! We, the reactionaries, are people of action. We know that in reality, the government is us. We say it straight out, and we spit on the legalistic formalism of these liberal pedants. We speak directly and openly: peasants, you do not understand your own interests. Compulsory expropriation is not to your advantage, and we, the government, will not allow it. All peasant talk about the land is a lie, a deception. The government cares most for the peasantry. It even now wants to give handouts. And let the peasants know that they should not expect improvement from "turmoil and violence," but from "peaceful labor" (labor for the landowners, one might add) and from the constant care of our autocratic government for the peasantry.

This was the government statement. It is a true declaration of war on the revolution. It is a true manifesto of the reactionary autocracy to the people: I will not tolerate! I will crush!

Now, the Cadets and the Trudoviks, who have been completely captured by them this time, have gathered to respond to the government's challenge. Today, the Cadet and Trudovik projects were published. What a wretched, truly pitiful impression both these projects make!

The reactionary camarilla does not hesitate to tear up the law and declare the formal part of the government as the real whole of the government. The Cadets and Trudoviks, like Saltykov-Shchedrin's wise little fish, hide under the leaves of the law: we are being beaten by lawlessness, whine these, excuse the expression, "people's" representatives, and we defend ourselves with the law! The Duma acts according to the law and speaks out for compulsory expropriation. According to the law, without the Duma's consent, "no government proposal can come into force." We have a commission, according to the law, a large one, of 99 people…{116} It is working on a "carefully considered and properly drafted law"… The population should "calmly and peacefully await the completion of work on such a law" (the Trudoviks omitted this, utterly indecently servile ending! Conscience pricked. But instead, they inserted a reference to the organization of "local land institutions," treacherously omitting that the Duma, i.e., its Cadet majority, deliberately wants a landowner-bureaucratic organization of these institutions).

Shame and disgrace, gentlemen, people's representatives! It is shameful to feign ignorance of what even the most remote Russian peasant now understands, namely: that the written law and the living truth have fundamentally diverged in Russia, that it is impossible to achieve the actual transfer of all the land to the peasants and full freedom for the entire people through the so-called peaceful, strictly lawful, constitutional path. You should not have taken up the response to the ministry if you did not and do not have the resolve to write just as firmly, to speak just as openly, your revolutionary truth in response to the reactionary truth of the camarilla. An address to the people is not provided for in the laws on the Duma: sit, great sages of the law, with your "requests" and do not venture into a field where you lack the courage, the straightforwardness, and the ability to compete with the reactionaries, people of action, people of struggle!

And if you are to write an address to the people, you must write the truth, the whole truth, the bitterest and unvarnished truth. You must tell the people:

Peasants! The ministry has issued its address to you. The ministers do not want to give you either land or freedom. The ministers, without hesitation, speak on behalf of the entire government, speaking against the Duma, although on paper, the Duma is considered part of the government.

Peasants! The ministers are, in fact, the autocratic government of Russia. They hold your people's representatives in the Duma in contempt, they mock them, dragging things out with police-legalistic red tape. They scoff at the people's demands, continuing, as if nothing had happened, the old policy of murder, violence, robbery, and pogroms.

Peasants! Know that the Duma is powerless to give you land and freedom. The Duma is shackled hand and foot by the laws of the police state. It is necessary to achieve a situation where the people's representatives have full power, all state power in their hands. Do you want land and freedom? Strive for a constituent assembly elected by the entire people, strive for the complete removal of the old authority everywhere, for full freedom of elections!

Peasants! Know that no one will liberate you if you do not liberate yourselves. The workers have understood this, and through their struggle, they have wrested concessions on October 17. Understand this as well. Only then will you become a revolutionary people, that is, a people who know what to fight for, a people who know how to fight, a people who know how to defeat the oppressors. Make use of your deputies in the Duma, your envoys to the Duma, unite more closely and amicably throughout Russia, and prepare for the great struggle. Without struggle, there will be neither land nor freedom. Without struggle, a ruinous redemption will be imposed upon you by force, and you will be subjected to land committees of nobles and officials, who will entangle and rob you just as they did in 1861.

Peasants! We are doing everything we can for you in the Duma. Finish your own business if you truly want the order in Russia to be different from what remains even now, after the Duma.

But such an address would be ridiculous to propose in the Duma.

Is that so? Is it not, on the contrary, ridiculous to write "addresses to the people" in the wooden language of a hardened Russian solicitor, as the Cadets and (to their shame, it must be said) the Trudoviks do? Is the people for the Duma, or the Duma for the people? Freedom for the Duma, or the Duma for freedom?

Let them read at any peasant assembly the address of the Cadets, the address of the Trudoviks, and our address! Let us see what the peasants will say in response to the question, where is the truth?

*Echo*, No. 12, July 5, 1906

Printed from the text of the *Echo* newspaper