Our commission did not reach agreement. Six voted for the Bolshevik draft and six against. Five voted for the Menshevik draft and five against. One abstained. It falls to me to briefly defend before you our Bolshevik draft, on which both the Polish Social-Democrats and the Latvians have agreed.

We proceeded from the premise that everything already stated in the resolution on bourgeois parties should be removed from the resolution on the State Duma, inasmuch as the struggle within the Duma is only one part, and not the main part, of our entire struggle against bourgeois parties and autocracy.

In the present resolution we speak only of what our policy in the Duma should be. As regards the evaluation of how we entered the Duma, we removed that section of the resolution — the point on the boycott — for the following reasons. It seems to me personally, as it does to all Bolsheviks, that in view of the position taken by the entire liberal press, we ought to give an evaluation of how we entered the Duma. Against all liberal bourgeoisie the workers' party is obliged to declare that precisely bourgeois betrayal is guilty of the fact that for the time being we must reckon with such a monstrous institution. But the Latvian comrades were against this point, and, in order not to hinder the speedy completion of work (and we must hurry to close the congress tomorrow, as decided), we removed this point. The will of the congress is clear in any case, and the lack of time does not permit us to conduct principled debates.

Let me dwell on the fundamental ideas of our resolution. In essence, all of this is a repetition of what was said in our draft resolution at the Stockholm Congress. In the first point emphasis is placed on the complete unsuitability of the Duma as such. This is a necessary idea, because very broad strata of the peasantry and generally of the petty bourgeoisie still harbor the most naive hopes in the Duma. To expose these naive illusions, supported by liberals for their selfish class purposes, is our direct duty.

The second part of the first point speaks of the inadequacy of the parliamentary path in general and of clarifying the inevitability of open mass struggle. Here our positive views on the means of emerging from the present situation are clarified. We must emphasize this and clearly reiterate our revolutionary slogans, because waverings and vacillations, even among Social-Democrats, on such questions are not rare. Let everyone know that Social-Democracy remains on its old, revolutionary path.

The second point is devoted to clarifying the relationship between the directly "legislative" work in the Duma and agitation, criticism, propaganda, and organization. The workers' party views the connection between work in the Duma and work outside the Duma in a completely different way than the liberal bourgeoisie does. This fundamental distinction in viewpoints must be emphasized. On one side — bourgeois politicians intoxicated by parliamentary games behind the people's back. On the other side — one of the detachments of organized proletariat, sent into the enemy camp and conducting unified work in connection with the entire struggle of the proletariat. For us there is only one, united and indivisible workers' movement, the class struggle of the proletariat. We must subordinate entirely all particular forms of this struggle, including the parliamentary form, to this struggle. For us, the extra-parliamentary struggle of the proletariat is the determining factor. It would be insufficient to say that we take account of the economic interests and needs of the masses, and so forth. Such phrases (in the spirit of the old Menshevik resolution) are nebulous and could be signed by any liberal. Any liberal is ready to talk about the economic needs of the people in general. But no liberal will subordinate Duma activity to class struggle, and it is precisely this view that we Social-Democrats must express with full clarity. Only by this principle do we in fact differ from all and every bourgeois democracy.

Sometimes it is pointed out (especially by Bundists — supposedly conciliators) that we ought also to note the reverse: the connection of extra-parliamentary Social-Democratic struggle with the work of the Social-Democratic Duma faction. I assert that this is false and could only sow the most harmful parliamentary illusions. The part must conform to the whole, not vice versa. The Duma may be temporarily one of the arenas of class struggle in its entirety, but only if this whole is not lost sight of, if the revolutionary tasks of class struggle are not obscured.

The following point of our resolution is devoted to liberal policy in the Duma. The slogan of this policy — "preserve the Duma" — merely conceals the union of liberals with the Black Hundreds. We must say this directly and explain it to the people. The liberal slogan systematically corrupts the political and class consciousness of the masses. Merciless struggle against this liberal fog is our duty. To tear off the mask of liberalism, to show that behind the phrase about democracy hides hand-in-hand voting with the Black Hundreds — means to tear the remnants of democracy away from bourgeois traitors to freedom.

By what should we be guided in determining our Duma policy? Our resolution, rejecting any thought of provoking conflicts for their own sake, gives a positive definition of "timeliness" in the Social-Democratic sense of the word: one must reckon with the revolutionary crisis developing outside the Duma, in consequence of objective conditions.

The last point is devoted to the notorious "responsible ministry." This slogan was advanced not accidentally but inevitably by the liberal bourgeoisie in order to use moments of lull for their own purposes and to weaken the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. This slogan was supported by the Mensheviks in both the first and second Dumas, and Plekhanov directly wrote in the Menshevik newspaper during the second Duma that Social-Democrats should "make their own" this demand. Thus this slogan played a quite definite role in the history of our revolution. The workers' party must determine its relationship to this slogan. We cannot be guided by the fact that liberals are not now raising it: they have temporarily dropped it for opportunistic considerations, but in essence they strive even more for a deal with tsarism. And the slogan of a "Duma ministry" most clearly expresses these immanent tendencies of liberalism toward a deal.

We do not deny, and cannot deny, either that a Duma ministry might prove to be a stage in the revolution, or that circumstances might compel us to use it. The matter is not in this. Social-Democracy uses reforms as a byproduct of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat, but it is not our task to call the people to half-measures, reforms which are unachievable without revolutionary struggle. Social-Democracy must expose the entire inconsistency of such slogans even from a purely democratic point of view. Social-Democracy must clarify to the proletariat the conditions of its victory, and not bind its policy in advance to the possibility of incomplete victory, to the possibility of partial defeat — and such are precisely the conditions of the problematical realization of a "Duma ministry."

Let the liberals exchange democracy for pennies and throw away the whole for vulgar and impotent, paltry dreams of a wretched pittance. Social-Democracy must revive in the people consciousness of integral democratic tasks and lead the proletariat toward clearly understood revolutionary goals. We must enlighten the consciousness of the working masses and develop their readiness for struggle, rather than obscure consciousness by dulling contradictions, by dulling the tasks of struggle. (Applause.)