V. I.

Lenin

Banality Triumphant, or S.R.’s Ape the Cadets

Yesterdaywe said that the Narodniks seemed to have come to their senses after
the Duma had been in existence for a month and had begun—I would not say
to “understand”, but at least to sense, the ignominy of the
notorious Cadet slogan, “Save the Duma!” We showed in that article
that the Cadet slogan is no accident but the expression of a policy determined
by the profound class interests of the bourgeoisie and the landlords. [1]

Todaythe leading Cadet newspaper Rech (April 3) devotes its editorial
to that problem. “The sharp protests made during the past few days by the
Left newspapers against the tactics of ’saving the Duma’ are a rather alarming
symptom,” says the Cadet leading article.

Thatis how matters stand. We are glad the Cadets have also noticed that the
Narodniks repent the “saving of the Duma”. That means that the
observations we made yesterday were not wrong, that there really is a movement among the petty bourgeoisie from the liberal landlords towards the
working class. Good luck to them!

The“save the Duma” tactics are praised by the Cadet Rech
in terms that deserve to be preserved in perpetuity as a gem of banality. Just
listen to this: “If the Duma lives on, is it not the consciously produced
fruit of your [the opposition’s] efforts? It is the first tangible
result of the intervention of your will in events. This absence of
facts is in itself a fact of tremendous importance; it is your implementation of a plan you
have prepared and put into force.”

Itis a pity Shchedrin did not live until the. “great” Russian
revolution. He would no doubt have added a fresh chapter to The Golovlyov Family in which he would have depicted Judas Golovlyov comforting the
flogged, humiliated, hungry and enslaved muzhik in the following words:
“You expect improvement? You are, disappointed at the lack of change in a
way of life based on hunger, the birch, the knout, and shooting down of the
people? You complain of the ’absence of facts’? You ingrate! Is not the absence
of facts in itself a fact of the utmost importance? Is it not the conscious
result of the intervention of your will that the Lidvals still rule as before,
that the muzhiks submit calmly to being flogged, instead of harbouring harmful
dreams of the ’poetry of struggle’?”

Itis hard to hate the Black Hundreds; feelings have died in the same way as
they die, it is said, in war-time after a long series of battles, after the long
experience of shooting at people and spending a long time among bursting shells
and whistling bullets. War is war—and an open, universal and
customary war is going on against the Black Hundreds.

This Judas Golovlyov of a Cadet, however, is capable of inspiring the most
burning feeling of hatred and contempt. The “liberal” landlord and
bourgeois advocate is listened to; even the peasants listen to him. He really
does throw dust in the eyes of the people and stupefy them!...

You cannot fight against the Krushevans with words, with the pen. You
have to fight against them in another way. To fight against counter-revolution
with the pen, with words, would mean, first and foremost, to expose those
disgusting hypocrites who, in the name of “people’s freedom”,
in
the name of’ “democracy”, laud political stagnation, the silence of
the people, the humiliation of the citizen turned philistine, and “the
absence of facts”. You must fight against those liberal landlords and
bourgeois advocates, who are fully satisfied that the people are silent and they
themselves are able, fearlessly and with impunity, to play at
“statesmen” and to apply the balm of appeasement to those who
“tactlessly” express indignation at the rule of counter-revolution.

Canone possibly fail to reply in the most scathing terms to speeches such as
the following?

"Theday when debates in the Taurida Palace will seem as much an
inevitable item of the day’s proceedings as lunch in the afternoon and
theatre in the evening, when the day’s programme will not interest all
collectively, but will have special interest for different groups [!!], when
debates on general policy will become an exception and exercises in abstract
rhetoric will actually he impossible on account of the absence of an
audience—that day may he welcomed as the day of the final triumph of
representative rule in Russia.”

There’sa Judas Golovlyov for you! The day when those who have been
flogged lose consciousness and are silent instead of engaging in
“debates”, when the landlords will be as certain of their old power
( strengthened by “liberal” reforms) as the liberal Judases
are of their lunch in the afternoon and their theatre in the evening, that day
will be the day of the final triumph of “people’s freedom”. The day when reaction is finally triumphant will be the day of
the final triumph of the constitution....

Thatis the way it was with all betrayals by the bourgeoisie in
Europe. That is the way it will be ... but will it be like that in
Russia, gentlemen?

The Judases try to clear themselves by showing that even among the parties of
the Left there have been, and still are, supporters of “salvation”. Fortunately, this time it is not the Social-Democrat
who is among those misled by the Judases, but the Socialist-Revolutionary. The
Cadets quote passages from the Tammerfors speech of some
Socialist-Revolutionary, who called for “collaboration” with the
Cadets, and disputed the timeliness or need to fight against them.

Wedo not know of that speech, or whether Rech is quoting accurately.

Butwe do know the resolution of the last congress of
Socialist-Revolutionaries not some individual speech—and that resolution
really does express the stultification of the petty bourgeois who has
been stupefied by the liberal Judas.

Thisresolution was printed in the official organ of the
Socialist-

Revolutionaries [3] (issue No. 6, March 8, 1907), and it turns out that
the old passages from it, those dating back to February, are correctly
quoted by the newspapers.

There it actually says in black and white: “The Congress [of the S.R.’s]
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”. At that time (February 22) Rech
praised that banality. At that time, too (February 23), we threw some light
on it, and showed the petty-bourgeois origin and treacherous liberal
significance of such a congress resolution. [2]

Whethersome Socialist-Revolutionary leader will be killed politically by the
Judas kiss is of no interest to us. But the Cadet resolution of the
S.R. congress must be a thousand times exposed to the workers so as to warn
wavering Social-Democrats and to break any connection between the proletariat
and the supposedly revolutionary S.R.’s.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 337-40 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
See pp. 165-69 of this volume.— Ed .

[3]
The official organ of the Socialist-Revolutionaries was Partiiniye Izvestia ( Party News ) published from October 1900 to May 1907.