V. I.

Lenin

Thenewspaper Tovarishch of February 21 carries excerpts from the
decisions adopted at the recent extraordinary congress of the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party. These decisions are devoted to the tactics to be
adopted in the Duma.

Alot might and should be said about these decisions. We cannot deal here with
the fundamental error of these and all other decisions of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries— their failure to analyse the different parties
from the class point of view. No tactics worthy of the name can be elaborated
without such an analysis. We shall frequently have occasion to return to this
subject when we compare the decisions of the Socialist-Revolutionaries with the
platform of the revolutionary Social-Democrats (the resolutions adopted at a
conference of representatives from several Bolshevik organisations, which met
from February 15 to February

18 [1]

;

they are to be published within the next few days. [2]

Norshall we go into the somewhat excessive emphasis which the
Socialist-Revolutionaries place on the elementary truth that the
revolutionaries have no desire at all to “create extraneous [?],
unessential conflicts”, to “hasten the dissolution of the
Duma”, and the like. That is a mere detail.

Fromthe point of view of the immediate tasks of the day, the following decision
is the kernel of the Socialist-Revolutionary tactics:

“4. The Congress is of the opinion that strict party alignments
within the Duma, ’with each group acting on its own in isolated fashion, and
bitter strife among the groups, might completely paralyse the activity of the
opposition majority, and thus discredit, in the minds of the working classes,
the very idea of popular representation. The Congress therefore considers it
essential that the party deputies exert every effort to organise the most
constant and co-ordinated action on the part of all the socialist and extreme
Left party groups; particularly in questions of the fight against the Rights in
the Duma and against the government, for liberties and political rights for the
people, it is essential to strive in each individual case for the most
co-ordinated actions on the part of the revolutionary and socialist section of
the Duma in conjunction with the opposition. Moreover, all these co-ordinated
actions, both long-term and partial, must be conducted along lines which do not
conflict in any way with the fundamental principles of the party programme and
tactics.”

Whata splendid exposition of the fundamental principles of petty-bourgeois
tactics! What a splendid demonstration of their flimsiness!

“Long-term[!] and partial co-ordinated actions”, “the most
constant [!] and co-ordinated”.... How empty these words are in the
absence of any attempt to explain just what community of interests of
just what classes lie at the root of all this “co-ordination”! We
revolutionary Social-Democrats favour joint actions by the party of the
proletariat and the parties of the democratic petty bourgeoisie against the
Black
Hundreds and against the Cadets, as the party of treacherous liberalism. The
Socialist-Revolutionaries are so far from understanding this class foundation
of the Russian revolution that, on the one hand, they talk about co-ordination
of the socialist and extreme Left groups in general , i.e., about
concealing the contradictions between the proletarian and the small producer;
and, on the other hand, they talk about co-ordinated action by the revolutionary
and socialist section of the Duma with the opposition , against the
Black Hundreds.

No,gentlemen, we shall not even discuss permanent agreements, or co-ordinated
action in general. You must first agree with us on the policy of fighting both
the Black-Hundreds and the Cadets—agree in deed . That is our ultimatum. That is our
line of policy in the democratic revolution. We shall declare in regard to any question arising in the present revolution, as
we declared during the St. Petersburg elections—the proletariat goes
unhesitatingly into battle both against the Black Hundreds and against the
Cadets. As long as the petty bourgeois vacillate, as long as they follow the
Cadets—unrelenting war against the petty bourgeois. You have abandoned
your Cadets? You agree to oppose the Cadets? If that is actually so, if that is
not a mere paper declaration but something you prove in action, then, and only
then, will the Social-Democrats fight together with you in democratic
action.

Butthe most remarkable thing, I should say, is the beginning of the resolution
just quoted. Just think of it:

“strict party alignments within the Duma”, “bitter strife among
the

groups” [3] may “discredit, in the minds of the working classes, the very
idea of popular representation”. Veritable Socialist-Revolutionary
“Plekhanovs”, in the Vasilyev sense of the word! [4]

No,gentlemen. The principle of class struggle is the very foundation of all
Social-Democratic teachings and of all Social-Democratic policy. The
proletarians, the peasants, and the townspeople are not such babes in arms that
the idea of representation can be dimmed in their minds by bitter disputes, or
by the acute struggle between the classes. Our job is not to be sugary to them,
but, on the contrary, to teach them, from the Duma platform ,
to distinguish clearly between the parties and to understand their
class roots, which the sly bourgeoisie keep buried deep underground.

Thatis just what is so criminal about the Menshevik policy in the
Duma—they will not, or cannot, tell the people from the Duma platform
the whole truth about the class nature of the various parties, about the
Milyukovs’ secret haggling with the Stolypins, about the fundamental
difference between the democratic aims of the peasant and those of the
liberal, between the socialist aims of the peasant and those of the
proletarian.

Butthe world holds other things besides this policy of the Mensheviks,
inaugurated by their silent voting at the dictates of the Cadets.

Thiscomplete failure to understand the class roots of the
“oppositional” liberalism that is secretly trading away freedom and
democracy to the Stolypin gang, underlies the opportunist tactics pursued by the
petty bourgeois (the Trudoviks, the Popular Socialists, and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries) and the petty-bourgeois wing of the workers
party—the Mensheviks.

Thefight against the Black Hundreds is just a blind, a specious pretext. In actual fact these petty-bourgeois tactics are applied on occasions when
there is no possibility whatsoever of a Black-Hundred victory. Such was
the case, for example, in the St. Petersburg elections and in the election of
the chairman of the Duma. The real essence of petty-bourgeois tactics is this:
both the Trudoviks (the Socialist-Revolutionaries are fictitiously independent;
in actual fact they are bound up with the Trudoviks, are simply the Left wing of
that group. This was proved by the St. Petersburg elections; it is being proved
once more by the present party alignments inside the Second Duma)—both the
Trudoviks and the Mensheviks give support to the leadership of the Cadets. Not
only in Russia, but all over Europe as well, the liberals have long kept the
democratic petty bourgeoisie in tow, for it is too disunited, too undeveloped,
too irresolute to act independently—and too much of the proprietor in
inclination to follow the proletariat. That is the Achilles heel of
petty-bourgeois policy— its inability and incapacity to cast off the
ideological and political hegemony of the liberal bourgeois. It is no mere
chance that the petty bourgeois tag along behind the Cadets; it is a result of
the basic economic features in any capitalist society. The Social-Democrats’ fundamental task—one that is
absolutely alien to the Menshevik mind— lies, therefore, in an unflagging
effort to break down the hegemony of the liberals over the democrats, an
unflagging effort to Liberate the petty-bourgeois masses from Cadet tutelage and
bring them under the influence and leadership of Social-Democracy.

The Trudovik proposes “constant and co-ordinated actions”. No,
thank you! We refuse to have dealings with people who yearn for the Cadets as
the drunkard yearns for his glass, with people who for months begged for
admittance into a bloc with the Cadets in the St. Petersburg elections, flocked
like sheep to the Cadet meeting on February 19, and gave their votes to a
Cadet, to a trader in democracy? [5]

No, thank you!

---
Notes:
[1]
Today’s Sovremennaya Rech [6] (February 22), on page 3, correctly reports the composition
of this conference, and prints an excerpt of one of the
six resolutions it adopted. Readers should bear in mind that there
are several inaccuracies even in this excerpt.— Lenin

[2]
See pp. 133-44 of this volume.— Ed .

[3]
Rech of February 22 carried a special article, immediately
following its editorial, on the resolutions of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries. Citing precisely this passage on the
harmfulness of “strict party alignments”, the organ of the liberal
bourgeoisie declares: “Thus we have an absolutely correct
definition of the point of departure of the new tactics .”
Precisely! The tactics of the Socialist-Revolutionaries are
correct from the point of view of the interests of the liberal
bourgeoisie in general, and of its deal with the reactionaries in
particular!— Lenin

[4]
See present edition, Vol. 11, p. 424.— Ed .

[5]
See pp. 161-64 of this volume.— Ed .

[6]
Sovremennaya Rech ( The Modern Word )—a liberal bourgeois daily newspaper published in St. Petersburg from January to
May 1907; it supported the Cadets.