I

The dissolution of the Duma undoubtedly marked a major political crisis in the course of the Russian revolution. Like every crisis, it immediately sharpened all political contradictions in the most acute manner, laid bare the underlying nature of many phenomena, and placed before the people in their full magnitude tasks which until then had only been outlined and had not penetrated the consciousness of the broad masses. Like every crisis which sums up an entire period of previous development, the dissolution of the Duma was inevitably bound to serve as a touchstone for testing and verifying one or another direction of tactical views. On the one hand, the crisis concludes a known cycle of development and thus makes it possible to clearly determine the correctness or incorrectness of the general assessment of this development. On the other hand, the crisis forces immediate answers to a whole series of acutely pressing questions, and these answers are frequently verified, so to speak, on the spot as a result of the rapid course of events.

The dissolution of the Duma proved to be precisely such a "touchstone" for the long-standing "two tactics" in Russian social-democracy. During the "Duma period" we debated these two tactics in relative calm, since the political situation did not demand immediate major political steps. The dissolution of the Duma suddenly created such a demand. The "two tactics" were put to the test in the face of a political crisis. It is necessary to examine with full attention the results of this test.

II

The Central Committee of our party is in the hands of the right-wing social-democrats. Quick, precise, and clear answers to new tactical questions were now required of them. What were these answers?

On the fundamental question about the general character of the impending struggle, the Central Committee responded with such slogans: first "for the resumption of the Duma's sessions." The Kadets seized upon this slogan (see "Rech'" and the interview with Mr. Kedrin in the newspaper "Oko"{132}). The social-democratic party rejects it. The Bolshevik members of the Central Committee protest, the St. Petersburg committee of the party protests. The Central Committee drops the first slogan and puts forward the second: "in defense of the Duma against the camarilla for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly." Finally, from this second slogan emerges the last, third one: "for the Duma as an organ of power which will convoke the Constituent Assembly." Despite protests from the left wing of social-democracy, the Central Committee adheres to this slogan. With respect to slogans – complete confusion.

Another question: what form of struggle should be recommended? The Central Committee leans first and foremost toward a strike-demonstration. It would have liked to call for an immediate general strike, but it stands alone among all revolutionary parties and organizations. It then signs appeals calling for an uprising (the appeals "To the Army and Navy" and "To All the Russian Peasantry"). But, having taken a step forward from a strike-demonstration to a strike-uprising, it hurries to take a step backward and calls for "partial mass manifestations of protest."

The third fundamental question: with whom to go into struggle? What strata of bourgeois democracy can be counted on or dealt with primarily? What parties or organizations should be sought for rapprochement? The Central Committee, as we have seen, adapts both its slogans and the forms of struggle it recommends to the level of the "Duma as a whole," to the level of the Kadets. But—"you can drive nature out with a fork, but she will come running back through the window"! The Central Committee is forced to sign appeals both to the army and to the peasantry, and "To All the People" exclusively together with revolutionary organizations, exclusively together with the Trudoviks (from the fragments of the Duma). In its reasoning about tactics, the Central Committee, like all Mensheviks, draws a dividing line between Kadets and Octobrists: on the right—"they," on the left—"we" ("we" with the Kadets). In its tactical calls to action, in its fighting appeals, the Central Committee draws a dividing line between Kadets and Trudoviks: the Kadets either move toward the right or remain neutral in the struggle. "We"—it turns out—are "we" with the Trudoviks without the Kadets. "We"—it turns out—are an information-coordination bureau of all revolutionary organizations including the "committee of the Labor Group," but without the Kadets. The result is: "hunting to the death, but a bitter lot." The right social-democrats have a death-wish to go together and side-by-side with the Kadets, but a bitter lot indeed, since the Kadets pull away from fighting agreements dictated by the course of events.

Such, in its main features, is the actual history of Menshevik tactics after the dissolution of the Duma. This history is recorded in a few documents. Read the "letters" (No. 4 and No. 5) of the Central Committee to party organizations and the appeals "To the Army and Navy" (social-democratic faction and committee of the Labor Group). "To All the Russian Peasantry" (committee of the Labor Group, social-democratic faction, the All-Russian Peasants' Union, Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary party, the same social-democrats, the All-Russian Railway Workers' Union, the All-Russian Teachers' Union), "To All the People" (the same organizations without three unions, but plus the Polish Socialist Party—PPS{133}—and the Bund), read, finally, the protest of three members of the Central Committee (published "only for party members"){134}, and you will become acquainted with all the material on the opportunist tactics of social-democracy after the dissolution of the Duma.

What is the general result of this factual, external history of Menshevik tactical directives? This result is clear: vacillation between liberal-monarchical bourgeoisie and revolutionary bourgeois democracy. Indeed, to what do the Central Committee's vacillations on the question of slogans amount? To vacillation between the legal-constitutional path, as the exclusive, sole path (slogan: "resumption of the Duma's sessions") and between recognition or admission of the revolutionary path (slogan: "Constituent Assembly," weakened by the mandatory attachment of the Duma). This is vacillation between the Kadets (who fully accept and have accepted "resumption of sessions") and revolutionary peasantry (Trudoviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, peasants', railway workers', and teachers' unions, who signed together with the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party the call for an uprising for a Constituent Assembly). Our Central Committee, or our opportunist social-democrats, are slightly to the left of the Kadets and significantly to the right of revolutionary bourgeois democracy. Such is the general result flowing from the Central Committee's vacillations both on the question of slogans and on the question of forms of struggle and on the question of groupings of political parties.

Throughout the entire Duma period the tactical disagreements between the right and left wings of social-democracy became ever clearer and were ever more narrowly reduced to the fundamental question of the dividing line within bourgeois democracy, or the question of with whom to go. The right-wing social-democrats directed all their efforts toward going together with the Kadets (support of the Duma as a whole, support of the demand for the appointment of a Duma ministry). Revolutionary social-democrats, on the contrary, directed their tactics toward breaking off revolutionary bourgeois democracy from the Kadets, freeing its elements from under the yoke of the Kadets, and rallying them for fighting purposes with the proletariat. The dissolution of the Duma concluded the Duma period. And what turned out? It turned out that the right-wing social-democrats were forced to move away from the Kadets and attach themselves to revolutionary democracy. Only known appendages to their slogans remained Kadet. Life forced the dividing line to be drawn precisely where the left-wing social-democrats had always indicated it. The inconsistency of the Central Committee's slogans and the "worthlessness" of their utterances stood out with particular relief.

III

Let us now analyze the Central Committee's reasoning. It is most fully expounded in the 4th "letter to party organizations" (this letter without date and without number, but the letter following it is designated as the fifth). This letter is truly a remarkable example of opportunist thought: it would be worth republishing and republishing, including it in anthologies, in textbooks of socialism, to explain by vivid example how social-democrats should not reason about tactics.

The crux of the letter consists of an analysis of the question which the authors themselves formulate thus: "into whose hands can power now pass?"

"Who is," the letter further says, "or can be at the present moment in the eyes of a 140-million people the natural successor to state power, torn from the hands of the tsarist government?.. For when a nation-wide movement begins for the conquest of state power, there must exist in the nation-wide consciousness also a notion of who will take the place of the overthrown government… In each given period of a movement, some collective or organization must play such a role in the nation-wide consciousness."

We have emphasized those parts of the quoted reasoning which at once show their complete unsoundness. On the question of the conquest of power, the Central Committee at once takes a petty-bourgeois idealist point of view, not a proletarian-materialist one. It deduces the "natural succession" of power from the most widely diffused "consciousness" ("in the eyes of" the people)—and not from the real conditions of struggle. It does not understand that the "natural successor" will be not the one who "plays such a role" in anyone's "consciousness," but the one who in reality overthrows the government, the one who in reality conquers power, the one who triumphs in the struggle. Not "nation-wide consciousness" will determine the outcome of the struggle, but the force of those or those classes and elements of society.

Thus the Central Committee at once wanders completely off the subject. Instead of looking at the conditions of actual struggle, as it has been and is being conducted, it begins to speculate in the worst, idealistic manner about the "consciousness" and "conception" of who will "take the place of the overthrown," rather than about who overthrows and will overthrow. To arrive at opportunist conclusions it was necessary to cast aside entirely the Marxist method, which requires the study of what interests of what classes demand the overthrow, and what interests demand the limitation of power; what material conditions engender revolutionary struggle ("overthrow") and what conditions engendered constitutional cohabitation between the overthrown and the overthrowers. If the Central Committee had not forgotten the ABC of Marxism, it would have looked, at least on the basis of experience of the Russian revolution, at what classes are forced by the very course of events, often independently of their "consciousness" (and even contrary to their monarchical consciousness), to overthrow organs of power standing in their way. The history of the worker and peasant movement in twentieth-century Russia would have given our Central Committee sufficient examples of partial and local overthrow of organs of power to judge about the general and complete overthrow of central power in a Marxist manner, not in a Ledrü-Rollin manner.

In its further reasoning on this subject, the Central Committee, having gone down the false path, becomes entangled more and more. It begins to enumerate possible and probable combinations of the composition of a "temporary revolutionary government."

Councils of Workers' Deputies, as well as an executive committee made up of the Labor Group and the social-democratic faction, the Central Committee declares unfit. The "hundred-million peasantry" will not follow the first, and the first will not be followed by "a significant part of urban petty bourgeoisie, middle bourgeoisie, soldiers, Cossacks, officers and so on. And yet, it would be the most dangerous delusion to think that a new state power can be established against the will of all these elements."

We invite the reader to compare the first part of this reasoning with the project of the Bolshevik resolution on a temporary government (see No. 2 "Party News," March 20, 1906, reprinted in Lenin's "Report on the Congress," p. 92){135}. In this project are directly enumerated the organizations which in reality played the role of organs of revolutionary power in the December uprising. In addition to Councils of Workers' Deputies, it naturally names soldiers', railway workers', and peasants' committees, and elected rural organs in the Caucasus and in the Baltic region. History, consequently, had already answered the question which the Central Committee now attempts so helplessly to solve. History has already shown what classes and what elements of the population participate in the uprising and create organs of uprising. But the opportunists of social-democracy not only forget (or are unable to understand) yesterday's past of the revolution, but do not understand in general what a temporary revolutionary government is. It takes only a small amount of reflection to convince oneself that such a government is an organ of uprising (and not merely a result of an uprising, as erroneously supposed in the project of the Menshevik resolution on a temporary government—see the same "Report," p. 91 or No. 2 "Party News").

Furthermore, the second part of the quoted reasoning is even more incorrect. It is constructed by the usual method of opportunists: to prove the greater reasonableness of the most moderate slogan by the fact that a greater quantity of social elements can be united around it. Bernstein said: behind social revolution only part of the proletariat, but behind social reform many social-liberal elements. Do not be deceived that you can establish socialism against their will! Rather become a party of democratically-socialist reforms! The Mensheviks say: behind the actual victory of our revolution stands only the proletariat and the revolutionary part of the petty bourgeoisie (first and foremost the peasantry). But behind the liberal limitation of the old monarchy—"and the middle bourgeoisie and officers and so forth." Let us therefore call the victory of the revolution a deal between liberals and the tsar, let us substitute for a genuinely revolutionary government, as an organ of uprising, the Duma!

No, comrades. Political arithmetic knows methods somewhat more complex than the simple counting of all "opposition" elements. The addition of vacillating and treacherous opposition to genuinely fighting revolutionary elements does not always give a plus, more often a minus. Those whose interests compel them to strive for the limitation of monarchy and to fear the overthrow of monarchy are in no way capable of creating an energetic and bold organ of uprising. To attempt to cut out in advance the future organ of uprising according to the measure of these Kadet elements is the same as to cut out the social revolution in Europe according to the measure of some Naumann or Clemenceau.

And into what comical contradiction our opportunists have driven themselves! They want an alliance with the middle bourgeoisie and officers, in a word, with elements of the Kadet party. But then you must cast aside entirely the slogan of a Constituent Assembly, for it is cast aside by the Kadets! To put forward the slogan of a Constituent Assembly unacceptable to the middle bourgeoisie and officers and at the same time attempt to attract them by imposing on a moderate and loyal Duma the most revolutionary role (to overthrow the government and become a temporary revolutionary government!)—here is the absurdity to which our Central Committee has descended.

Incidentally, the Central Committee's letter gives even greater absurdities than this. Listen: "If it were indeed impossible at the present moment to put forward as bearer of power anything other than Councils of Workers' Deputies, then one could say in advance that victory over the government in the struggle for power (and this victory necessarily presupposes the participation of the army in this struggle) would lead to nothing other than a military dictatorship of the army, which had gone over 'to the side of the people.'" (Italics in the original.)

Only think over this monstrous tirade: if the Councils of Workers' Deputies, with the help of part of the army, defeated the government, then such a transition "to the side of the people" of the army would lead to its military dictatorship!! I do not know whether even in Kadet literature one can find examples of such intimidation by the victorious outcome of struggle? I do not know whether even Mr. Struve went so far when in "Osvobozhdeniye" in the summer of 1905 and in "Polar Star"{136} in the spring of 1906 he denounced the idea of armed uprising for its supposed proximity to the idea of military dictatorship? If the Central Committee had even familiarized itself with the ordinary demands of soldiers and sailors during their countless "revolts" over the past year, it would have seen that these demands amounted in fact to the transformation of the caste army into an army of the people, i.e., a militia. Soldiers and sailors were not always able and for the most part were unable to formulate the results of their demands, but can it be unclear to anyone that military service in one's homeland with freedom of meetings and so forth is equivalent precisely to the institution of a militia? Has the Central Committee so lost its elementary revolutionary instinct that it is unclear to it what is the difference between the noble revolutionism of the Decembrists, the raznochinets-intellectual revolutionism of the People's Will officers, and the deeply democratic, proletarian and peasant revolutionism of soldiers and sailors in twentieth-century Russia? Has it never struck it how fundamental is the difference between the revolutionism of officers in the epoch of the People's Will with the almost complete indifference of the soldier masses, and the present reactionism of officers with the mighty movement of precisely the gray military masses? To think that the transition of a contemporary Russian soldier or sailor to the side of the Councils of Workers' Deputies in struggle with the government might be a transition to military dictatorship—to see the means against this in the attraction of officers by the moderate slogan "for the Duma"—for this one must either have lost all sense of reality, or have moved further to the right than Mr. Struve and Company! The Central Committee of the social-democratic party wants to struggle against the aspirations of the Russian soldier toward military dictatorship by means of attracting officers to its side: this is what the opportunists have brought us to.

The Central Committee further attempts to defend its hopeless position by saying that there is no need to artificially seek out a new government, for the Duma or its remnants are at hand, they "can declare themselves the State Duma," and "popular thought, not distinguishing the subtleties of the written constitution, considered and considers the State Duma an organ of power… If troops which refused obedience to the tsar's government can place themselves in the service of a new one, then this new government is the State Duma."

Splendid! If "popular thought" tomorrow considers some other sub-legal institution "authority," should we obligate ourselves to disseminate such a prejudice?—nothing to say, a fine understanding of the tasks of a revolutionary party. Understand finally, dear comrades, that power must be taken by force, by struggle, by uprising. Are the Kadets ready for this? If yes, then welcome, we will not reject any ally in struggle. But if no, if they fear even to call directly for an uprising (such a call, when sincere, is nonetheless the first assault on the deed, and this assault was made from the entire Duma by only the social-democrats and Trudoviks), then all talk of the Duma as an "organ of power which will convoke the Constituent Assembly" is nothing but harmful Manilova-ism, nothing but deception of the people.

In a different atmosphere, the remnants of the Duma would act differently, says the Central Committee, defending the Kadets who were frightened even by the Vyborg appeal.—Yes, this is true, they would act differently. What follows from this? That we must strive to create this different atmosphere. How must we strive for this? By raising elements capable of struggle to revolutionary consciousness, by raising their consciousness above the Kadet level, above Kadet slogans. And you defend Kadet timidity by a non-revolutionary atmosphere and at the same time lower this atmosphere by replacing revolutionary slogans with Kadet ones!

IV

The practical conclusion of the Central Committee from its famous 4th letter reads: "It is now necessary to organize everywhere local mass manifestations of protest." Their aim is defined literally thus: "To create an atmosphere of preparation for an imminent decisive struggle...." Not to prepare for an imminent decisive struggle, but to create an atmosphere of preparation!..

Our party with rare unanimity has already condemned and rejected this slogan of the Central Committee. Its campaign with "partial mass manifestations of protest" has already been lost. The absurdity of demonstrations, of organizing protests in the conditions of civil war heightened to unprecedented dimensions, is too obvious. The resolutions of a whole series of party committees and conferences which we are publishing in this issue{137} clearly show what indignation was met by this slogan of the Central Committee and its entire policy after the dissolution of the Duma. We will not therefore waste unnecessary words in refuting a slogan already refuted by life and rejected by the party. It is necessary only to note the principled significance of its error, firstly, and secondly, the awkward attempts of the Central Committee in letter No. 5 to extricate itself from the impossible position into which it has fallen.

From the principled side, the Central Committee's error amounts to a complete failure to understand the difference between a strike-demonstration and a strike-uprising. After December such a misunderstanding is completely unforgivable. It can be explained only by taking into account the fact that the Central Committee in none of its letters said anything directly about armed uprising. To evade direct posing of the question of uprising—such is the long-standing and constant striving of our opportunists, flowing with inevitability from their entire position. This striving explains to us why the Central Committee persistently speaks only of a strike-demonstration and remains silent on the strike-uprising.

Having taken such a position, the Central Committee could not fail to end up in the rear of all other revolutionary parties and organizations. One can say that everyone except the opportunist social-democrats were conscious of the inevitability of posing the question of uprising. The All-Russian Railway Workers' Union turned its intensified attention to this, as was to be expected (see its resolution and report of its bureau published in this issue){138}. This emerges with full clarity from a whole series of appeals signed by several revolutionary organizations (the above-mentioned appeals: "To the Army and Navy," "To All the Russian Peasantry" and others). Our Central Committee signed these appeals, as it were, against its will, as it were contrary to its conviction!

Indeed: to sign these appeals and not notice the difference between a strike-demonstration and a strike-uprising is simply impossible. The contradictoriness of the Central Committee's behavior, its weathervane-like quality, strikes the eye: in its own productions (letters No. 4 and No. 5) it says not a word about uprising. Appearing jointly with other revolutionary organizations, it signs calls to uprising! Left alone with itself, our Central Committee inevitably lapses into a Kadet position, spends all its energy inventing slogans acceptable, or seeming to be acceptable, to the Kadets. Going in the ranks and file with other revolutionary organizations, the Central Committee "straightens up," becomes ashamed of its Kadet slogans, and conducts itself properly.

For the first time the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party has found itself in such an unworthy position. For the first time it is led, in full view of everyone, on a leash. For the first time it is in the rear guard. Our duty, the duty of all members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party is to achieve by all means and as soon as possible that this be the first and last time.

The inability to understand the causes of the failure of the July (last) strike is entirely due to the above-indicated principled error. It is possible for anyone to make a mistake about the timing of struggle. We have no intention of blaming the Central Committee for this. But to make a mistake about the character of the action, to make a mistake despite warnings from a number of organizations with which the Central Committee jointly signed calls to uprising—is unforgivable.

In letter No. 5 the Central Committee engages in some petty and niggling polemic against the Socialist-Revolutionaries (proving only that a representative of the Trudoviks reasoned more consistently than they did—but why is all this interesting and to whom?) and wonders why precisely the advanced, conscious workers did not respond to the call for the July strike. Backward workers responded; but the advanced did not! And the Central Committee is indignant, outraged, almost abusive.

And yet, if the Central Committee had not taken a fundamentally erroneous position, had not broken off in principle with the vanguard of the proletariat, it would easily have understood what was the matter. Backward workers might not have known the difference between a strike-demonstration and a strike-uprising, but the advanced workers knew this difference perfectly well. When there was hope for the possibility of supporting Sveaborg and Kronstadt in their uprising—and such a moment existed—then the announcement of an all-national strike was natural. But of course it would have been (and it was) a strike not for the purpose of protest against the dissolution of the Duma (as the Central Committee figured), but for the purpose of supporting those who had risen up, for the purpose of expanding the uprising.

But then a day or two later it became finally clear that the uprising in Sveaborg and Kronstadt this time was suppressed. A strike to support those who had risen up became inopportune, and strike-protests, strikes-demonstrations, the advanced workers did not want at all. All the time they said in the clearest and most decisive manner (and only our Central Committee succeeded in not knowing about this or not understanding it) that they would go into general, decisive battle, but absolutely would not go into a strike for demonstration.

Thus the failure of the July strike drove, so to speak, an aspen stake into the tactics of the opportunist social-democrats. The idea of a strike-demonstration definitively and finally collapsed. The slogan of "partial mass manifestations of protest" definitely and finally failed.

But for anyone at all familiar with the mood of workers in the major centers of Russia, who observes what is now taking place among the peasantry, it is completely clear that the idea of a strike-uprising, the slogan of preparation for uprising, have not only not lost significance, not only not become tarnished, but, on the contrary, are ripening and strengthening everywhere.

V

Let us sum up our brief analysis of Menshevik tactics in the critical days after the dissolution of the Duma.

Throughout the entire Duma period the Mensheviks preached support of the Duma as a whole, support of the Kadets (under the guise of support for the demand for the appointment of a Duma ministry). The Bolsheviks intensively broke off the Trudoviks from the Kadets and supported the idea of forming an "executive committee of the left groups of the Duma."

Which tactics then proved correct after the dissolution of the Duma? Jointly with the Kadets it was possible to issue only a timid Vyborg appeal. The Kadets, as a party, did not support it, took no part either in party agitation for it or in the continuation of such work. The insufficiency of this appeal was recognized at once even by our Mensheviks. After the timid Vyborg appeal there followed others, more definite and bolder. After the uniting of some former Duma members individually came the uniting of "committees" of two Duma groups, which signed a series of appeals and participated in a series of revolutionary meetings, which took part in the military council of the revolution.

What were these two groups which, as groups, as collectives, survived the ruin of the Duma, which did not become lost upon losing the "constitutional" ground beneath their feet?

These were the social-democrats and the Trudoviks. The "executive committee of the left groups" which the Bolsheviks preached, supporting the idea of forming such a committee—was realized. The Labor Group gave birth to a new revolutionary organization, having new connections in the peasantry, while the Kadets died politically—precisely as the Bolsheviks had predicted, emphasizing that "worms breed around corpses, not around living bodies."

A fighting agreement of social-democrats with Trudoviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and so on became a fact, documented by the above-mentioned leaflets. We lost only—and of course lost much—by beginning this work late, without having thought it through beforehand, without having prepared the ground gradually, as the Bolsheviks had recommended even in the project of resolutions for the Unity Congress.

Fate leads the willing and drags along the unwilling—in Russian this means, roughly: a conscious politician goes ahead of events; events drag along the unconscious one. The Bolsheviks for months, if not a year already, had insisted on the inevitability of fighting agreements precisely with revolutionary democracy and on the importance of fighting rapprochement of the proletariat precisely with advanced peasantry. The dissolution of the Duma forced [the Mensheviks] to take this path, with the result that the Mensheviks, as we have already shown in analyzing all episodes of the Central Committee's tactics, proved unprepared, "dragged," against their will and contrary to their consciousness, by the "unexpected" turn of events.

Take the question of uprising. The Mensheviks "talked themselves out of" it with all their might. They even adopted at the Unity Congress a resolution against armed uprising. They are silent about uprising now in No. 4 and No. 5 of the "letters" which the Central Committee writes itself, without instruction from other revolutionary organizations. But then, when it writes something jointly with them, on their instructions, then we read direct and decisive calls to uprising. Then the slogans already appear revolutionary. Then not a single word is spoken not only about the resumption of sessions of the Duma, but even about the convocation of the Constituent Assembly through the Duma. On the contrary, then we read (in the appeal "To All the People"): "Not a powerless Duma, but an all-powerful Constituent Assembly on the basis of, etc., voting—such is the goal the people must set for themselves. And not tsarist ministers, but power relying on the revolutionary people should convoke this assembly" (italics ours). This is the energetic language in which our Central Committee speaks when it is in the company of petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, like the committee of the Labor Group and the Polish Socialist party!

Take, finally, the question of a temporary revolutionary government. For a year and a half our Mensheviks, with Plekhanov at their head, proved that the participation of social-democrats in it together with bourgeois revolutionaries was inadmissible and that to put forward the slogan of the establishment of a temporary revolutionary government was Blanquism, Jacobinism and all other mortal sins.

And what happened? The Duma was dissolved, and the Central Committee was forced to raise precisely the question of a temporary revolutionary government, of who should form it. Complete unpreparedness for the question at once becomes apparent: there is not even an understanding that a temporary revolutionary government is an organ of uprising. As a temporary revolutionary government the Central Committee proposes to declare the remnants of the Duma: social-democrats, Trudoviks, and part of the Kadets. But what is coming out of this, look here, comrades: you are proposing that socialists participate in a temporary revolutionary government together with bourgeois revolutionaries! And you are doing this despite the fact that social-democrats are in a tiny minority among the Trudoviks and left Kadets! Alas, alas! The doctrinaire prattle about the inadmissibility of social-democratic participation together with bourgeois revolutionaries in a temporary government turns to dust at the first touch of reality. All the strained explanations by which they attempted to justify this false decision by incorrect references to Marx disappear like smoke. What is more: in addition to bourgeois revolutionaries (Trudoviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Polish Socialist party, members of peasants', railway workers', and teachers' unions) our supposedly "strict" Marxists drag into the future temporary government by all possible means also bourgeois accommodators (Kadets)!

Yes, it is hard to imagine a more complete collapse of opportunist tactics than that experienced by our Central Committee after the dissolution of the Duma. Before it is too late, we must pull our party out of this swamp.

"Proletariat" No. 1, August 21, 1906

Printed according to the text of the newspaper "Proletariat"