V. I.

Lenin

Apropos of Stolypin’s Declaration [1]

Draft Manifesto

The deputies to the State Duma who are members of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party, announce the following to the people and propose that the Duma do
likewise:

Through its prime minister, Mr. Stolypin, the government has announced to the
people’s representatives that it intends to continue the policy pursued
since the dissolution of the First Duma. The government does not wish
to consider the will of the people’s representatives. It demands
that the people’s representatives should reconcile themselves to this policy, help
develop and perfect this government policy, and apply it more precisely and
fully.

What does this government policy consist in?

It consists in protecting the interests of a handful of big landowners,
courtiers and dignitaries, protecting their right to exploit and oppress the
people. Neither land nor freedom! —this is what the government has
announced to the people through its mouthpiece Stolypin.

The peasantry can expect nothing from the government but the defence of the
landowners and a ruthlessly savage struggle against the peasants’ striving for
enlightenment, liberty and improved conditions, for the transfer of the land to
the peasants, and for liberation from irksome bondage, a life of hardship and
gradual extinction from famine. From the government the peasants must expect the
continuation of that same violence that has taken thousands and tens of
thousands of the best people away from the peasantry, people who have been
incarcerated in prisons, banished, or killed in the valiant struggle against the
lawlessness of government officials and oppression by the land owners. To bribe a
tiny minority of village bloodsuckers and kulaks with petty hand-outs, to
help them plunder the ruined countryside of whatever is left, as a reward
for their aid to the autocratic government—such is the policy
Stolypin and his ministry intend to pursue.

The workers can expect nothing of this government but violence and
oppression. As before, the workers will have their hands bound in their struggle
to improve their condition. As before, the workers’ unions will be banned; as
before, workers’ newspapers will be persecuted. As before, the big manufacturers
will obtain help and support from the government in every step they take to keep
the workers down. The workers must not expect aid from the government in the
dire want caused by unemployment, but must expect that want to grow and become
more acute. Government help to the working class consists in laws drawn up at
conferences of manufacturers and police officials. The workers of Russia long
ago discovered the true value of this governmental “solicitude” for
the working class.

The soldiers and sailors who spilled their blood in the war with Japan, a war
undertaken by the government in the predatory interests of a handful of
courtiers, the soldiers and sailors who spilled their blood at home in the
struggle to make life easier, to rid themselves of the penal servitude of
barrack life that the soldier might feel himself a human being, not a
beast—the soldiers and sailors can expect nothing of the government but a
continuation of the former violence and oppression and the same rough treatment,
and a crust of stale bread as a reward for pacifying and subduing their
brothers, the workers and peasants who are fighting for their freedom, fighting
for land for the peasants.

The government announcement has shown clearly that the government wants war, not
peace, with the people. There is one thing this announcement does not say and
which must be said to the people by those deputies they sent to the Duma and who
remain faithful to the people’s interests— the government does not
say that its announcement signifies an irrevocable and inevitable decision to
dissolve the Second Duma without even giving it an opportunity to express the will of the people, to express the needs of the peasants, workers
and soldiers, of all working people, and to express anything the people included
in the mandates they gave the deputies when they sent them to the Duma.

The Social-Democratic Labour Party has always told the people that the Duma is
powerless to give them freedom and land. Those deputies to the Duma who defend
the interests of the working class and the peasantry are prepared to devote all
their efforts to further those interests, to help the people by announcing the
truth in the Duma, by explaining to the many millions of people scattered
throughout Russia how harmful is the anti-popular policy pursued by the
government, what evil plans against the people the government is elaborating,
and which laws and measures it refuses to grant the people.

But Duma deputies and an entire Duma capable of helping the people are
meaningless without the people. If Russia has obtained even tiny liberties for a
short period, if Russia has been granted popular representation even if only for
a brief period, this is only because it has been won by the struggle of
the. people, the selfless struggle for liberty by the working class, the
peasantry, the soldiers and the sailors.

The government has once again declared war on the people. It has taken a road
leading to the dissolution of the Second Duma, to the annulment of the present
franchise, to the reversion to the old order of the old Russian autocracy.

The deputies of the working class proclaim this to the entire people.

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Notes:
[1]
“ Apropos of Stolypin’s Declaration ” was the draft of a manifesto
by the Social-Democratic group in the Second State Duma, in reply to the
government declaration made by P. A. Stolypin, President of the Council of
Ministers, on March 6 (19), 1907.

The Social-Democratic group decided to reply at its tenth session to the
statement of the government. The following announcement of this was made in the
Bolshevik newspaper Novy Luch , No. 7, on February 27, 1907: “At a
meeting held on February 26, the question of the action to be taken by the
Social-Democratic group on Stolypin’s declaration was discussed. After
Stolypin’s declaration it was decided to take separate action, its form not
being decided in advance. In the event of the group’s proposal not being
accepted, it was decided to support the proposals of revolutionary and
oppositional parties”.

Tue

draft manifesto, drawn up by Lenin, came up for a preliminary discussion at
a meeting of the Social-Democratic Duma group on February 28 (March 13), 1907,
and was rejected by the Mensheviks, who were in the majority. In reply to the
statement read in the Duma by Stolypin, I. G. Tsereteli, leader of the
Social— Democratic Duma group, read the declaration adopted by the
Menshevik majority of the group. This declaration was couched in semi-liberal
tones, and was a step backward even in comparison with the statement made by the
Social-Democratic group in the First Duma. Nothing at all was said of the
socialist aims of the proletariat, nor was the demand for a constituent assembly
included; the demand for the confiscation of all land was toned down to a
formula accept able even to the feudal landowners—“solution of the land
question”.