Comrade Lenin proceeded from the premise that the objective tasks of the Russian revolution have not been resolved, that the period of reaction that has set in imposes upon the proletariat the task of defending, with special firmness and in opposition to universal wavering, both the cause of democracy and the cause of revolution. From this flows the view that the Duma ought to be utilized for the purposes of revolution, utilized primarily in the direction of broad dissemination of the party's political and socialist views, rather than in the direction of legislative "reforms," which in any case will represent support for counterrevolution and every kind of curtailment of democracy.

According to Comrade Lenin, the "crux" of the question about the Duma should be the clarification of three following propositions: a) what is the class composition of the Duma, b) what ought to be and will be the attitude of the Duma centers toward revolution and democracy, and c) what is the significance of Duma activity in the course of the development of the Russian revolution.

On the first question — on the basis of an analysis of the composition of the Duma (according to data on the party affiliation of deputies), Comrade Lenin emphasized that the implementation of the views of the so-called notorious "opposition" is possible in the III Duma only on one condition: only with the joint cooperation of at least 87 Octobrists with the Cadets and the Left. The Cadets and the Left lack 87 votes to obtain the necessary majority when voting on bills. Consequently, in fact, legislative activity in the Duma is feasible only with the indispensable participation of an overwhelming majority of Octobrists. It is clear what such legislative activity can lead to and to what disgraceful pillar the joint march with the Octobrists will nail Social Democracy. The matter here is not one of abstract principle. Speaking abstractly, one can, and sometimes even ought to, support representatives of the large bourgeoisie. But in the given case one must reckon with the concrete conditions of the development of the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution. The Russian bourgeoisie long ago entered upon the path of struggle against the revolution and compromises with autocracy. The last Cadet congress finally tore away all the fig leaves with which the gentlemen Milyukovs covered themselves, and is a major political event, because the Cadets with cynical frankness declared that they are entering an Octobrist-Black Hundred Duma in order to legislate, and will struggle against the "enemies on the left." Thus, the two possible majorities in the Duma — the Octobrist-Black Hundred and the Cadet-Octobrist — will both, by different means, strive to tighten the noose of reaction: the first — by striving to restore autocracy, the second — by deals with the government and phantom reforms that cloak the counterrevolutionary aspirations of the bourgeoisie. Thus, Social Democracy cannot adopt the standpoint of supporting legislative reforms, which is equivalent to supporting the governmental, Octobrist party. The path of "reforms" on this political ground and with this correlation of forces means not an improvement in the condition of the masses, not an expansion of freedom, but bureaucratic regulation of unfreedom and the enslavement of the masses. Such are, for example, Stolypin's agrarian reforms under Article 87{72}. They are progressive because they clear the road for capitalism, but no Social Democrat dared to support such progress. The Mensheviks have drilled into one formula: the class interests of the bourgeoisie must collide with autocracy! But in this vulgar pseudo-Marxism there is not a grain of historical truth. Did not Napoleon III and Bismarck manage to satisfy, for a time, the appetites of the large bourgeoisie? Did not their "reforms" tighten for long years the noose around the neck of the toiling masses? What grounds then have we to think that the Russian government in its deal with the bourgeoisie is capable of agreeing to reforms of a different kind?